The Interdisciplinary Imagination

Abstract

From their first day of class, college students are indoctrinated into understanding academic endeavor in terms of opposing schools establishing the eventual separation of students into groups largely shaped by their course of study. As students advance they are segregated from others who are studying fields differing from their own culminating in courses populated only by students in a specific major. Upon graduation these students are awarded degrees in their fields--- they are now viewed as authorities of their discipline. Educational achievement through the attainment of a degree is an honorable and worthy goal. However, it may be argued that the education system has inadvertently created authorities who are only qualified to remain in the buildings apportioned for them at the university and speak to others who are similarly degreed rather than utilize their specializations effectively in the real world. Reality rarely presents humanity with problems that are easily answered by the knowledge and theories of just one discipline. Therefore these disciplinarians must be able to bring the expertise they possess into synthesis with knowledge from opposing disciplines if they wish to be useful. Interdisciplinarity must be an oft reached for tool wielded to solve issues that may arise. This tool should be kept well-oiled by nurturing an interdisciplinary imagination versed in theories and epistemologies from opposing disciplines that calls upon a canon of interdisciplinary learning and methods creating a holistic approach to problem solving.