Inter-Disciplinary Interests

Some people prefer to focus their undergraduate work along the lines of an area of interest, rather than along the lines of a discipline. In order to do this at Brandon University, they have two options:
  1. use one of the "studies" programs which are outlined in the calendar, which have been developed from within the institution,

  2. use the generic structure, "The Bachelor of General Studies"' and design their own on a mix and match basis, pretty well needing only to watch the prerequisites.

I have seen some people put together some pretty strong degrees using the general studies framework, especially if they know exactly what it is they are after in their academic search.

When searching out material along the lines of a theme, a student crosses the disciplinary lines in order to follow course offering which relate to the theme and within the courses, selects projects and sub areas which relate to their area of interest. Frequently, their selections are guided by the course recommendations of the major-minor system within the disciplines, but these structures do allow for a wider variety of concentrations than the disciplinary based degrees.

One of the good things about the proliferation of "studies" programs is that there is a residue of assembled resources which accumulates and is usually accessible on the web. These assemblages of information form a large resource for people doing research from within formal disciplines on specific subjects covered by such resources.

It is interesting that in Britain, where there has been an increase of pressure from ">funding agencies to upgrade the training in research component in Graduate work over the past few years, the research training program at University of Bradford took the form of a Masters in Research Methods, and emerged out of a coalition of interdisciplinary studies, with support from a number of Social Science and Humanities Disciplines. Two thirds of the work is done in generic form, then the last two courses are done within a discipline which is close in nature to the student's field of interest for the Thesis. Students from formal disciplines can enroll in this masters as well.

Common Areas of Study

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Further Information

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