4 Advantages of Having a Multidisciplinary Education
Introduction
Multidisciplinary education can be defined as a unique approach that helps students in learning and exploring distinct subjects or curricula from different disciplines. An example of a multidisciplinary education would be BA LLB. Here the student will be learning arts as well as law which are two completely different disciplines. It is a method of curriculum integration that helps bring together the diverse perspectives of different disciplines to bring out or emphasize a subject, issue or theme. In such a curriculum multiple disciplines can be studied under the same topic. The importance of multidisciplinary education has been steadily increasing in the 21st century because of the hyper-competitive world that we live in today.
Why Multidisciplinary Education is The Need of the Hour
The world is changing rapidly along different lines. A whole lot of subjects are being born out of necessity and it is only going to increase over time. If a person was required to specialize in something today unless they are able to sustain themselves in today's competitive environment with the help of a job, they would not only go bankrupt but would also hinder their progress in education. In such a situation, the best way out would be to have a multidisciplinary education where people would study different subjects, allowing them to get a job easier as a result of dipping their tools into very different streams.
Another important reason why multidisciplinary education should be promoted is that there is a greater emphasis on employability. There are a lot of students who graduate from college with fairly decent CGPA but do not have the skills necessary to be employable by a company. Employability is directly linked to the knowledge that a student possesses about a particular subject. Increasing a person's knowledge in one particular subject will not cut it because the job descriptions of most companies today are multifaceted. This is where multidisciplinary education comes in.
Advantages
Giving Students Academic Autonomy
What today's world lacks is a creative environment where students can learn at their own pace. This gap is being filled by online education, but it can be further complemented with the help of student autonomy. Giving students the freedom to study what they are interested in is extremely important to foster creativity among students and help them bring out creative ideas that can shape the future. With a multidisciplinary education, students can choose their favorite subjects hence making them extremely learned on those topics, which will in turn help them become better learners.
Develop a Generation of Continuous Learners
Continuing education is a concept by which students even after graduation keep updating themselves about the things that they have learned, even though they are not compelled to do so by a curriculum. Continuous learning is a product of students continuing to have an interest in the subject that they learned which can only happen if they are really invested in the same. A multidisciplinary curriculum will make sure that students only have to study what they love which will make them want to learn more and more about it even after they have graduated college. It can potentially lead to a group of people becoming lifelong learners which are extremely important in the 21st century.
Helps in Developing a Pragmatic Mindset
Multidisciplinary education is unique in the sense that it can help students in understanding the power of new ideas. It can help in developing a pragmatic attitude towards learning since they are given the freedom to choose what subjects they want to opt for and what their possible benefits are. It will give them time to make a decision on the basis of the calculation of risk and the advantages that it provides. Hence, it enables students to carve out their own path and utilize their mental strengths to the fullest.
Helps Develop Important Soft Skills
Some of the most important soft skills required in the 21st century are time management, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. All these can be fostered in a multidisciplinary curriculum easily because when you give a student the autonomy to choose what they want to study they are essentially becoming better problem solvers and decision-makers just with that act because they will have to make a decision that fundamentally changes their life at such a young age that they know the weight of responsibility that it entails. Every decision made after that point will be well thought out by that student and hence will be much more rational.
Conclusion
To push society forward in a direction that is both inclusive and progressive, multidisciplinary education is vital. Nothing in nature and nothing about human behavior or human beings is black and white - so why should education be so? The current education system was created for training people to become factory workers so that they could work in coal mines and follow orders. The industrial revolution started at the beginning of the 20th century, and it is high time that we update ourselves not just in the case of curricula, but also in the realm of education. It is high time to let students decide what is best for them because they have all the resources that they need to figure it out on their own right at their fingertips. All we need to do is give them the space to think freely and miracles will happen for sure.
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