INTERDISCIPLINARY DEGREES AT UCL
Interdisciplinary degrees You no longer have to choose between sciences and humanities at university
A growing number of university degrees are now combining humanities and science subjects. These ‘interdisciplinary’ degrees bring together expertise from very different subject areas to help students look differently at the world’s problems. Interdisciplinary degrees are not new within business or the sciences. Engineers have long looked to biologists for inspiration to improve designs. This ‘biomimicry’ has led to improved swimwear fabric inspired by sharkskin. Google’s Deepmind project is now hiring people to join their “interdisciplinary group of policy experts, philosophers and researchers”. The humanities too have degrees that span multiple disciplines, the most famous being Oxford’s century-old ‘PPE’ – Philosophy, Politics and Economics. That degree is a favourite of wouldbe future leaders looking to make good, financially sound decisions (with varied results, if you’ve seen the news). Degrees bridging the humanities and sciences are newer, but on the rise. On some programmes, history students are learning to create digital maps of lost worlds. Literature students are learning computational linguistics to analyse texts in new ways. Art students are working with artificial 80 | EDUCATION CHOICES MAGAZINE | AU T U M N 2 02 3
intelligence to push the boundaries of beauty. Some universities are making big strides into these new options. I’m fortunate to work at the new UCL East campus, home to several interdisciplinary degrees, including my own Information in Society BSc (launching September 2024), which brings humanities issues, skills and approaches together with principles of data and computer science. Our course is designed for students who want to harness information to improve our society. It will give you the technical skills to create, manage and disseminate information. You will also learn the humanities and communication skills needed to develop and deploy effective solutions to the issues facing society. Our students will learn to ask not just if we can do something, but if we should. Degrees like ours often expose students to a wide range of teaching environments. Teaching staff bring the best of their own disciplines to the classroom. Students will split their time between the computer lab and in humanities-style seminars where they will learn to debate with their peers. When they graduate, they will have benefitted from what the humanities and the sciences have had to offer. Those who may not have had the option of an
