Argument for Interdisciplinary Studies

1. Interdisciplinary studies rest upon serious conceptual confusion (Benson).

While Benson’s argument of interdisciplinary studies (IS) is vague and unclear is true, he believes that IS merely borrows insights and methods from one or more disciplines to show flaws in other discipline. However, Benson does not fully understand the purpose of IS. Interdisciplinarians are meant to confront problem, events, or even objects. These confrontations create questions which transcend any single discipline. A single disciplines answer to these problems would only be part of the answer. It is the job of an interdisciplinarian to take these pieces (answers) of multiple disciplines and put them together. However, this is easier said than done. Most of the time, the many pieces are conflicting and will not fit nicely together like a puzzle. IS connects disciplinary insights, not disciplines together to form an answer that is understandable by the worlds view. The principles used to formulate these answer are and will always be vague as it will always depend on the question or problem needing to be solved.

2. Interdisciplinary studies students lack a mature base in any discipline (Benson).

Many students start off with very little maturity in their base of discipline when learning to become interdisplinarians, this actually allow the students to gain an appreciation and help them become better IS students. Students who have a mature understanding of a discipline can have a difficult time trying to become interdisciplinary. Because of their deep roots in a discipline, they may reject other disciplines interpretation of a question, or the solution given for a question. If you train students who have not matured yet, it allows them to gain knowledge of a given discipline, while also learning how these different disciplines can perceive a problem and solve them all differently.

3. The commitment to undergraduate interdisciplinary studies programs impedes students’ development of disciplinary competence (Benson). Interdisciplinary studies is a dumping ground for the less than disciplinary competent (Petrie).

There are students who should major in a specific discipline, however this does not mean that IS programs are impeding on disciplinary competence. IS students are better prepared for more jobs than a disciplinary student who needs to get a job in a single targeted field. IS students are also generally self motivated so that if they are lacking competence in a specific discipline they need to know about, they will take the initiative to look up the information. It is not a dumping ground for the less than disciplinary competent, but a place for those who want to have a more flexible broader knowledge and application of that knowledge.

Benson also states that IS courses are not as rigorous as disciplinary. IS however has not been around as long as many disciplines. IS is still growing and has room to become more rigorous. Being able to learn how to properly synthesize a solution properly in IS is very rigorous task in comparison to disciplines.

4. Interdisciplinary studies courses are shallow and lack intellectual rigor (Benson).

Benson mentions three main criticisms. The first being that IS courses are big picture counterpart of trendy mass media. While IS courses focus on today culture and media instead of a more academic information and historical context, IS students are being trained to solve TODAYS world problems, not the problems of the past. By discussing issues which are relevant to the student’s current culture, the faculty is helping student get a better understanding on how to critique issues which they are facing and will most likely will attempt to solve in the near future.

The second criticism Benson makes is that IS classes are taught in a very sloppy manner which do not help develop critical skills or systematic grasp of an issue. IS classes normally designed by faculty to develop these skills, however because of the nature of IS there is no clear cut way in teaching students on how to become interdisciplinary. Teachers do no have any guidelines or examples of a IS class which teaches their students these skill well. Until IS can set a standard like other disciplines, it will have to continue to try new methods in teaching their students.

The final criticism Benson makes is that the anticipated synthesis which IS aim for fails to often in IS courses. While this is often true for many IS courses, it does not mean that the students did not grow at all. The focus for many IS class is the synthesis at the end, but it is hard to teach students how to do a synthesis properly in a semester time. There are not many example out there of proper synthesis that student can see and help compare their synthesis against. IS may need to set their goal into getting student into thinking and doing synthesis properly instead of end result of it.

5. The level of scholarship seldom exceeds that of a “glorified bull session” (Petrie).

Petrie states that while IS groups seem like a great idea, most of the time they tend to fail before they even start. While IS groups are hard to maintain successfully, if properly done, IS groups can be very successful. If an IS group can get people who are very knowledge in their pertinent field, it is possible to gain many information from all the different views to solve this solution. An IS project done properly will show off the tacit knowledge of each discipline and help the solution to the problem.