American Education and Interdisciplinarity

Though it might not be completely responded to one of our last readings, Interdisciplinarity, this is what I felt during reading it.

I am often asked by people, “Why are you studying in the United States, rather than studying in your home country?” This is a-piece-of-cake question; I decided to study abroad to the United States because American education uniquely varies from other countries’ educations.

Most countries’ college educations work as this: a student studies merely about the matters within his major for his whole college years. Obviously, this is beneficial to specifically study about the matters of his major; nevertheless, it makes students not only isolate from ones in discrete majors, but they miss opportunities to study with students from different majors, communicate with professors from different departments, and absorb the ideas and knowledge. For instance, my friend, currently studying abroad to New Zealand, told me that all classes that he has to take each term are already arranged by school, and he follows the arranged schedules. Of course, those classes are all related to his major Business. Another example is that a student, studying in Japan, only sits down and be quiet during lectures, and learn only materials that professors describe.

However, American education allows to study subjects outside of their majors, which is why American education is unique.

In the Interdisciplinarity, Moran mentions, “The value of the term, ‘interdisciplinary’, lies in its flexibility and indeterminacy, and that there are potentially as many forms of interdisciplinarity as there are disciplines” (15). If interdisciplinarity exists as many as disciplines existing today, what educations should look like is teaching matters and knowledge within students’ interests and outside of their majors. Integrating one discipline with another completely different discipline invents different and creative perspectives. American education assists students to gain opportunities to meet people, ideas, and thoughts from different angles, although many do not notice it.

The ways that American education does definitely give students opportunities to learn and find ideas and thoughts from different aspects. As my personal comment, this learning environment is astonishing.

2 Replies to “American Education and Interdisciplinarity”

  1. As Abby pointed out in a comment on my post, our two individual posts connect really well, which I find interesting. People question my studies and are kind of confused by a biology and English minor, but I never thought about how vastly different education systems around the world can vary. I focused more on my own experience and how people quickly judge what I study without even considering how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to study multiple disciplines. Even if it was unintentional, thank you for providing a different perspective on the same topic that I wrote about!

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