Hello Cornerstone Students! My name is Julissa, and my areas of concentrations are Mass Communications, Letters & Languages and a minor in Psychology. I chose these areas because these three compliment each other in every way. The minor assists me with understanding the way people think and why they make choices. Letters & Languages gives me the understanding of how to get my message across in writing, since mass communications consists of a ton of writing. And lastly, I love relationship building through communication, which is why this area fits me like a glove!
This week we will complete an exercise that will give each of you the ability to exchange ideas on how we can apply our areas of development.
Activity: Please read this quote as it helped me a lot in being able to define my degree to everyone that asked, ‘What is your degree good for?”
"When I try to explain Interdisciplinarity to prospective students and their parents I usually use [this] analogy. A building is made up of bricks and mortar. But most of us think of the bricks as being the real building and, in fact, you could pile up bricks without mortar and make something that looks like a building but which wouldn't function as well. The mortar by itself would also not make a very useful building - although you probably could pile it up in such a way as to make some thing that looked like an igloo or something.
The success of the building is the bricks and the mortar; the bricks are the bones, the structure, of the building - the mortar is the connection between the bricks that holds the building together. I [compare] the disciplinary programs to the bricks - they're something solid and with which people are familiar - they look like a building. The disciplines, Art, German, Biology, Music, Mathematics, Economics, etc look like a University - they're the familiar areas of study that people associate with higher education. The Interdisciplinary programs are more like the mortar - they're the intellectual and academic areas between the disciplines that link them together, that give them solidity and function, and give them a context."
Exercise #1 (please answer the following questions in a 200 word response):
How do you apply your interdisciplinarity in daily situations?
What is interdisciplinarity not? Is it just focus in one direct area?
Who do you know who has an interdisciplinary profession? What do they do, and is their profession what convinced you to go the interdisciplinary direction?
4.How are you integrating your disciplines or are you? If you are not, how could you integrate them more in your coursework or career?
What are some opportunities (personal, professional or educational) that can increase our interdisciplinarity?
Exercise #2:
After you have completed the reading and exercise #1, please comment to the student that posted before you..:: If you are the first to respond please comment to the last student and vice versa.::
I apply my interdisciplinarity in daily situations by constantly trying to figure out what works and what I can do to make it work better. I think it is important to be able to use multiple ideas and see how they can mesh together to become something stronger and better. Interdisciplinarity does not focus in one direct area. To me, it is being able to combine multiple disciplines in order to better understand them. I believe that my mother has an interdisciplinary profession. She works in a bank. She did not get an IDS degree; however, I feel like her work is very interdisciplinary. I did not choose to become interdisciplinary because of her career choice. I actually feel like the majority of careers could be considered interdisciplinary. I feel like I am integrating my disciplines by figuring out ways that I can incorporate education, business, and sociology into one, much stronger, field. I think that in our previous blog, the Venn diagram allowed me to see how my disciplines relate and work with one another. I think that it is important for us to expand our thoughts and feelings and try to think outside of the box in order to increase our interdisciplinarity. We need to be able to look at things and situations from different view points and to really focus on how we can intertwine these ideas to create a much more powerful scenario.
ReplyDelete--Lisa West
Lisa,
DeleteI think your description of how to use interdisciplinarity in daily situations is accurate and empowering as to how we can use our knowledge, regardless of areas of concentration, to make the task at hand more efficient. In addition, I found your personal influence interesting and enlightening as to why you chose to pursue a IDS degree. It is great that a previous post gave you a helpful visual as to how you can apply all of your areas of concentration in your professional career. We can go a long way with this type of degree as long as we put our minds to it and apply some higher level thinking. Great job Lisa, and best of luck to you!
-Melissa
Lisa, I think that is a great way to approach your IDS degree by trying to figure out new ways to make things work in your daily life. Having multiple ideas about any given situation only makes it better for the person dealing with it. I wish you luck in your future with your IDS degree.
DeleteLisa, judging by the way things are going in the education field, it will be a lot easier to start combining your education and business disciplines. Recently there has been a lot of talk about schools becoming sponsored by more big corporations so that schools can afford more supplies. The big issue on that is if corporations are sponsoring schools in this way, they may influence the curriculum too much. Maybe you can be the one to solve that issue.
DeleteDavid Chicas
Thank you Melissa, Kiticha, and David for your replies to my post. I really appreciate your insights on my post and positive feedback.
DeleteLisa West
Hello Lisa, you are right, being able to switch and apply different disciplines to one situation and make the outcome an even better conclusion is what interdisciplinarity is about. Our daily routines require us to be able to alternate behaviors on demand, and with the well rounded training that IDS offers we are able to face our demands.
ReplyDelete-Julissa
Really everyone has an interdisciplinary profession depending on how you dissect their degree and how they use it. Since Dr. Hitt is celebrating 20 years as UCF’s president, let us use him as the example. As the head of the University, Dr. Hitt is essentially a CEO, politician, a public relations representative, and administrator. I’m sure that a young Dr. Hitt would have never imagined that he would one day he would become a university president after receiving a M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physiological psychology.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment the only time that I’m integrating my disciplines is when I have my “nerd” conversations with my friends. Every so often we get into little debates of current events by either having a real discussion or a pseudo discussion by simply making fun of an event as we use different historical examples to get a silly point across, and rarely there is a point to our pseudo conversations. By having these kinds of conversations is a great way to increase our interdisciplinarity, at least with the disciplines of History and Political Science, because our minds are constantly being challenged to connect dots to various things. Aside from this, we increase our interdisciplinarity by trying different careers and not sticking only to one.
David Chicas
David, I thought that your post this week was really interesting. How was your experience using the president of the University? I can only imagine what type of information you gained from that experience. I also find myself integrating conversations in my daily routine without even thinking about it. With my degree in Education and minor in Psychology I feel like I am challenged everyday incorporating both into the field I work in.
DeleteHi David!
DeleteThis is a great point! My friends and I will talk about current trends in the world (such as the Iranian nuclear problem) and "duke it out" so to speak. It's very informative and also helps everyone conceptualize their points. I think that's awesome how you and your "nerd" friends discuss daily occurrences. Sweet! Thanks for the post,
Justiss Wilder
Nicole, I know what you mean about trying to incorporate the Education degree to everyday events. That's why I left that portion out to answer the question. Unless I'm in the classroom substitute teaching or doing Junior Achievement, I'm not really use those skills daily. It would be slightly demeaning to my friends if I were reward them with gold star for helping me move or for giving me a lift to Buffalo Wild Wings.
DeleteDavid Chicas
Hello David,
ReplyDeleteI understand the example you used of Dr. Hitt integrating all of those disciplines in his profession. I also agree that we all apply interdisciplinarity into our everyday lives, but how do you apply, or plan to apply, the training you are gaining in your areas in your career? Do you have a career or a position in mind?
I'm sure your debates with your friends are pretty intense, I can only imagine! :-)
-Julissa
I plan to be a middle school Social Studies teacher. My other focus is in education. I could not think of way that I use the education focus on a regular basis aside from substituting and Junior Achievement, so I left it out of my answer. The Political Science and History focuses are my content knowledge areas.
DeleteDavid Chicas
Interdisciplinarity is involved in every task, I believe, everyone encounters. Whether or not people are aware of it is what makes it different for some. For example, I didn't realize that I was applying my interdisciplinarity when I talk to a friend about his/her problems. I am using skills I have learned in psychology, the humanities, and English!
ReplyDeleteInterdisciplinarity is definitely not only focusing on one subject. In order to synthesize different areas of study and life, one must apply more than just a simple one-sided discipline view.
I honestly don't know anyone who has an interdisciplinary degree that is used in a professional way as I am the only one of my family/friends that are in school! My boss, however, is a restaurant General Manger, and I know he has to incorporate daily the skills he learned in college, whether they were specific to business or not.
I am integrating my disciplines by trying to apply them wherever there is a problem or an issue I can address. The more I practice using my areas of discipline, the better I will get at understanding them and helping others with issues. I also read a lot of extracurricular pieces that are suggested in my classes because it helps me better understand (and be competent at) my areas of study.
One area that can increase our interdisciplinarity is getting others involved in projects that only one discipline cannot answer. This way, the non-interdiscipinarian will see how integration of disciplines is effective and useful. Perhaps this will inspire others to become interdisciplinary.
Justiss,
DeleteI think you have brought up an important point when mentioning the idea that everyone uses interdisciplinarity in every task, whether they realize it or not. I feel the same way, and I believe that Interdisciplinary Studies is not given enough credit, or is not understood by many other students. This could possibly be why you have not met another interdisciplinary student yet. However, if you were interested in getting together with other interdisciplinary students, there are groups at UCF specifically for IDS students. If you contact the IDS office, they will be able to give you more information on these groups. What projects would you consider to be interdisciplinary? I believe you are on the right track and i enjoyed your post!
Justiss,
DeleteVery well said. Learning and getting involved with others in the same field, and spread the knowledge of what IDS en tales, is a wonderful way to not only network but share ideas on how to incorporate knowledge in different ways. We learn everyday because we are curious by nature, however, the handling of each situation is what makes the difference, and where interdisciplinarity shows it's need to remain a degree.
-Julissa
I apply Interdisciplinary in daily situations, by addressing each situation differently. I understand that every situation can or needs to be addressed differently, for example the activity on critical thinking e did last week. You cannot solve every problem with only one discipline. If you chose to do so, you are taking the risk deterring the outcome. I find it helpful to use more than one disciplinary study to conclude a more rounded solution.
ReplyDeleteInterdisciplinary is not objective, as a degree such as accounting may be. It is subjective, making it more personal and not focused in one direct area. The student has a variety of areas to chose from enabling them to create their own major under interdisciplinary studies.
My roommate has an interdisciplinary profession in Social Justice Lobbying and Advocacy. He was the first fellow interdisciplinary student that I had met when entering UCF, following with my other roommate who is also and interdisciplinary student. I was not convinced to become interdisciplinary by him, but it did increase my confidence. Before when someone would ask me, “what is your major?” I would tell them interdisciplinary studies. Their reply would be, “oh, so you don’t know”. Many people would tell me to change my major, but after seeing someone successfully graduate with an interdisciplinary degree, I have become more motivated.
An opportunity that is personal, professional, and educational that can increase my interdisciplinary is my trip to China. My teacher is writing me a letter of recommendation to get me a job teaching English in Beijing. This will be personal because it is one of my passions to be able to influence a child’s life in another country and I will be staying with a very close friend of mine while I’m there. It is professional because it will help my resume for getting a teaching job for ESOL students in the future. This trip will be highly educational from all the experiences I will gain from observing another culture.
Rebekah,
DeleteI really hope you get the job teaching English in Beijing. I think that would be a wonderful opportunity for you and you will learn and grow so much while you are there. When are you planning to go on this trip? I'd love to see some pictures and hear about your experiences.
Lisa West
Rebekah,
DeleteHaving honeymooned in China by staying and flying in and out of wonderful Beijing I wish you all the luck in the world. I’m enrolled in my first ESOL class this semester and it has really opened my eyes to all that is needed. Good luck on your endeavor and I admire you passion!
tiffany Patton
WOW Rebekah! I really hope everything works out for you and you get to experience going to China. I believe that would be a great opportunity for you to put your interdisciplinarity to great use.
ReplyDeleteFor you to be able to see first hand the rewards, and successes an IDS degress will provide is a wonderful motivation to have. For instance, it took me a while to finally make the decision because of the fears of 'what would the people say when I tell them?' made me hold off on what would be one of the best decisions I've made. The one thought that made me make the change was when I wrote down my pros and cons. My con being able to say, I have an X Degree which will give me the WOW factor amongst my family, but would I really be happy?. My pro is being able to apply 'myself' into my degree because I tailored it to my liking and ultimately be happy at what I do!. I agree that our degree isn't given enough credit as it should have.
-Julissa
How do you apply your interdisciplinarity in daily situations?
ReplyDeleteI apply my interdisciplinarity in daily situations by using the appropriate area for certain things. For example when dealing with customers or fellow workers, I use what I have learned in my behavioral science classes. These classes have taught me how to treat people without hurting there feelings. They also have made me understand how to help people when they have certain life problems. When have to figure out recipes at work and certain amount that deal with measurements, I use my knowledge of mathematics. Mathematics has also given me great problem solving techniques so i can solve most problem I have at work. I use my education are of study, whenever I teach somebody something new. It can be anything from things at work, or a friend who doesn't know how to do something. I hardly every use all three together but sociology and education can go hand and hand. I can make sure I'm respecting the person that I am teaching. That way they won't be upset.
What is interdisciplinarity not? Is it just focus in one direct area?
Interdisciplinarity is not a focus on one area. It focuses on many areas. For me these areas are Mathematics, education, and sociology. Though I focus on all of these areas, I don't use them all at the same time. Sometimes I will use my knowledge that I gained from one area, and other times I will use the knowledge from more than one area. Interdisciplinarity isn't easy either. While you focus on one area, sometimes you tend to forget other areas. This happened when I was taking education and mathematics classes at the same time. But with practice you can understand both, and be more knowledgeable.
Who do you know who has an interdisciplinary profession? What do they do, and is their profession what convinced you to go the interdisciplinary direction? I don't know anyone that has an interdisciplinary profession. I guess the all of the teachers I have done volunteer work with count, but none of them have gotten interdisciplinary degrees. Most of them have a major in the subject they teach or in education.
4.How are you integrating your disciplines or are you? If you are not, how could you integrate them more in your coursework or career?
I am not really integrating my disciplines because I don't really get the opportunity. With school and work I don't really have the time to do all three disciplines. If I was out of school and had the career such as a teacher or guidance counselor, I could integrate all of my disciplines. For instance as a math teacher, I can use my knowledge of math and education to teach mathematics. I can also use my knowledge of sociology to help students understand math better and not be bored learning mathematics.
What are some opportunities (personal, professional or educational) that can increase our interdisciplinarity?
I feel opportunities such as internships or volunteer work really help increase our interdisciplinarity. That way we can receive first hand experience on how to use all three areas of studies. For me volunteering with teachers helps out a lot. I can learn to make lesson plans, figure out the do's and don't's, and know more about how students react to certain activities. These kind of experiences really use all three of my areas. Some personal activities can be with your friends or at work. You can try and use all three of them but it might be more difficult then actually getting first hand experience.
Nick,
DeleteI'm with you on feeling like I rarely get the opportunity to hone in a situation where I can utilize all three of my disciplines. Work and school really get in the way of me integrating my degree. I also agree with you that volunteer work and internships along with shadowing can be an invaluable resource. Volunteering also allows us to work outside of our normal discipline areas, to become even more interdisciplinary.
Brian
Rebekah I am jealous of your trip to China. I have always wanted to go but never found the time. I'm hoping to get in a similar type of situation you are in, but instead of China my goal is Hawaii. I have been there once, and it was amazing. My brother is a teacher out there and says he can get me a job teaching mathematics at the high school he works with. Hopefully the job doesn't fill up, because that would be the perfect place to be a teacher.
ReplyDeleteJustiss, I too believe many people use interdisciplinarity in everyday use. If people did not use there interdisciplinarity then we all would only be good at only one particular thing. But everyone is good a multiple things. A scientist has to be good at math and also be a writer when writing reports. Same with engineers. Another example is reporters. They have to be good at timing, flexibility, writing, people skills, and truthful. Mostly every profession using multiple disciplines just some of us go the extra length to study them.
ReplyDeleteI don’t feel like I apply my IDS areas in my daily life, advertising/PR, EDU and marketing. However daily I feel like I am an interdisciplinarian at my job, at Zale’s jewelers from selling, to handling jewelry repairs, displays, inventory, events etc. Along with working full time I’m in two classes, selling and maintain a house, pets, long distance husband…
ReplyDeleteI think Interdisciplinarity is not just a focus in one direct area but having a combination of different areas and using them in an interweaving way.
I think almost any profession when broken down can become interdisciplinary. Judges, Relators, Teachers, Management etc. all use different approaches to situations. The profession of my father being a business owner is what convinced me to go the interdisciplinary route while growing up I saw the many “hats” he wore and feel like that’s what I’d excel at. I feel like marketing and advertising go hand in hand and being completed with those areas until I have a career change I don’t feel as though I can expand on them.
Any educational opportunity would increase one’s Interdisciplinarity. Volunteering or interning for professional. Personal I’m thrown for a loop on, journaling? Expanding faith? New experiences
tiffany patton
Tiffany,
DeleteYou may not think you apply your areas in your daily life but I bet you do and dont even realize it. You picked those areas for a reason, because they interest you. So Im sure you do. For example, you work at a jewelry store so your advertising and marketing come in handy here.
As many have said before me, almost everything we do is interdisciplinary. Even as I sit here typing on the computer, I’m brought to thinking how we use our knowledge of English and computer science simply to complete online education. Almost every situation that we are faced with in the real world, besides trivia questions or classwork, requires interdisciplinarity.
ReplyDeleteInterdisciplinarity is not simply put two ideas next to each other with no interaction. As a crude example: if someone understands that pressing buttons on a keyboard creates characters on the screen, that is a single discipline. This knowledge by itself is essentially useless, when you apply the knowledge garnered from that discipline with an understanding of the English language, paired with whatever topic one is writing about that it truly becomes interdisciplinary.
The attorney I work for has a master’s degree in psychology along with his J.D. He uses the discipline of psychology on a daily basis to better read both his client’s (which are always the defendant’s) along with the stories and techniques of the plaintiff and their attorneys.
I do not know if I’m truly integrating my disciplines and I’m not really sure how to start integrating them.
In the future I hope to sponsor some non-profits that step outside the realm of law in order to do good in an interdisciplinary fashion.