Hello, everyone! Samantha Epstein, here. This week we are focusing on Interdisciplinarity and Integration. Integration is the uniting or blending of disciplines or academic areas to form a new, functioning whole. Integration is the main focus and goal of Interdisciplinary Studies, and without it no advancements or new understandings would be possible. When we integrate our areas of study, we are critically evaluating and combining perspectives, methods and knowledge of these areas to form a new degree, all-together. A great way of explaining IDS and integration is the smoothie metaphor. The areas of study/disciplines are the fruits that are blended together. The actual smoothie itself, is the interdisciplinary outcome because each fruit was blended, or integrated to make it into this new delicious product. No longer can the distinct taste of each fruit be detected, instead the focus is now on the new taste of the smoothie, as a whole.
The integrative process can get messy. In fact, you should expect it to. This simply means that sometimes the attempt at integration will succeed only partially, or not even at all. The best interdisciplinary projects result from a research process that works through tensions and contradictions between disciplinary systems of knowledge with the goal of interdisciplinary understanding. With this being said, don't be discouraged if the pieces of the integrative process do not fit at first. Especially, because integration is not like putting a regular puzzle together. Instead, it is like working with pieces from many different puzzles, mixed together, with no picture for guidance.
So, integration can kind of seem a little confusing at first, right? Don't worry, you are not alone. When I was starting the cornerstone class I was bewildered by all of this IDS terminology. Now that I have reached the capstone course and have had some time to reflect on these concepts, I can honestly say that I feel comfortable with interdisciplinarity and the idea of integration. In fact, I think that explaining integration in a job interview may have the possible employer fascinated and interested with how I could apply this knowledge at their company. Now just imagine all of the amazing career opportunities available for the IDS student. There are no other majors out there that can offer such a wide range of career opportunities. Employers will be eager to see what IDS graduates can offer their companies, especially because these graduates have experience creating exciting projects and ideas that incorporate the very different skills and talents available across disciplines.
My areas of studies are Public Affairs and Social/Behavioral Science, with a minor in Technical Education and Industry Training. I hope to find a career that will enable me to integrate many of the concepts and ideas from my areas of study. I believe that a career with a public agency, such as the Department of Children and Families would be a great opportunity to integrate my areas. DCF is a public agency, so I would be able to apply what I learned in public affairs, especially with public policy and leadership. Social/Behavioral Science would also be a major part of a career with DCF because I would be working with and around people from diverse backgrounds. There would also be many psychological concepts and theories applied everyday. Incorporating your areas of study into one career would the ultimate integrative experience for the IDS grad.
Currently, I am a teacher in early childhood education. My favorite part of this job is creating art with my preschoolers. I start an art project by taking out supplies like, paint, construction paper, and scissors. Then, my students and I use and integrate each art supply into the “new whole”, which is the finished art project.
By using integration in my daily activities, I feel that the possibilities are endless in my future. As I said above, I plan to present my knowledge of integration to prospective employers, to show them that I can blend an abundant amount of concepts, ideas, and methods, from multiple areas to develop the most original work project, or solution to a problem. I believe that integration gives IDS graduates a competitive edge in their college education, over other graduates who just focused on a single discipline. This plain to see because:
*Majoring in a single discipline can blind the graduate to the broader context
*Specialization tends to produce tunnel vision
*Single disciplinarians sometimes to fail to appreciate other disciplinary prospectives
*Unique topics worth studying can sometimes fall in the gaps that are between disciplines
*A single discipline is unlikely to address a complex problem comprehensively
Now that you are more familiar with integration, reply to the following questions:
How have or haven't you integrated your areas and minor?
Why is integration important in terms of professional, academic, and personal development?
Can you have interdisciplinarity without integration?
Works cited:
Repko, Allen. (2008). Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publications.
