Interdisciplinary Innovation

Why Choose an Interdisciplinary Master’s Program?

You may wonder “How do I choose a master’s program?” when there are so many similar-sounding programs, especially in fields like business or sustainability. One solution could be to choose a master’s program that is interdisciplinary in scope. While interdisciplinary may seem like a frustratingly vague buzzwood; it simply amounts to a holistic consideration of multiple academic fields at once.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, where everything is on the table, promotes transformative opportunities to pursue visionary research and to nourish yourself intellectually. In addition, choosing a master’s program with an interdisciplinary focus can empower your career by integrating new skills and inspiring new viewpoints. Consider these 5 reasons to unlock your potential with an interdisciplinary master’s degree.

The World is Complicated

Interdisciplinary master’s degrees provide an exceptional opportunity to embrace the systemic forces behind our complicated world. The world as we know it is not neatly sectioned off into research topics and academic disciplines. It is a whirl of social, political and environmental forces connected through seemingly unrelated threads. An interdisciplinary master’s degree accommodates this complex reality, through coursework that uplifts multiple viewpoints and provides the opportunity to illuminate new knowledge through applied research. 

For example, a student interested in business through an interdisciplinary approach would likely prefer a graduate business degree that considers the global, digital economy from a variety of different angles. This future-minded viewpoint emphasizing critical thinking would serve this student better than a more traditional business curriculum. In the long-term, valuing the experience to build data-driven analytical skills through industry research will empower this student’s career. A prominent benefit of an interdisciplinary-minded master’s degree is its masterful approach to real-world complications through applied research.

Pursue the Research YOU Want

Assessing how you value research opportunities is another consideration when choosing a master’s program. Many programs, especially Master of Science degrees, provide you with the opportunity to write a master’s thesis and conduct research. Research work is an unexpected opportunity to advance your career, even if you don’t intend to become an academic researcher. An interdisciplinary master’s degree asserts the intellectual flexibility to connect concepts from disparate places, trace the implications of complex social problems and integrate multiple professional interests—all valuable and sought after skills in the workforce. 

Enterprising graduate students welcome the time and space to consider problems that frustrate their industry and envision ways to solve them. For example, a student fascinated by the intersections of sustainable development and risk management is probably better served in an interdisciplinary program encouraging thoughtful research, rather than a more regimented program. This freedom to confront research topics outside of traditional academic programs assists ambitious students who thrive on innovative opportunities. Through interdisciplinary research, students can guide their graduate studies to foster the needs of their current industry or establish their expertise to make a career change. 

Shape your Analytical Skills

Deliberately by design, an interdisciplinary master’s degree invites you to consider your industry deeply and revolutionize how you perceive the world. Choosing a master’s program structured around interdisciplinary research is the perfect professional challenge that will transform your critical thinking skills and engineer the next steps of your career. By working on your own research and becoming an independent creator of knowledge, you become fully prepared for leadership positions requiring thoughtful decision making. You would even be empowered with the skills to pursue doctoral study, if that interested you. With exceptional research abilities, analytical skills and dexterity in synthesizing information, you can fully appreciate the new perspectives that interdisciplinary research can create.

Build an Intellectual Neighborhood

When choosing a master’s program, consider how much you appreciate cross-team collaboration. If you are deeply passionate about your industry, experiencing the fresh perspectives of an interdisciplinary cohort could illuminate the next step in your career. In an interdisciplinary master’s degree program, each student is typically concentrating on their own research, but they also have the support of their cohort, whose caring solidarity can be crucial especially for graduate students pursuing degrees alongside a full-time career. 

From class discussions to projects, collaborating with your peers can be transformative to your professional development. For example, when you fully understand how your industry intersects with another, you could be inspired to network with different people in a related sector, develop new initiatives in your current career or decide to pursue a different role. This thoughtful immersion into a supportive interdisciplinary community is an invitation to uplift others’ ideas, nurture your own intellectual curiosity and connect with other innovative people in your industry.

Promote Synergy

A powerful synergy often emerges from choosing a master’s program that allows you to explore your professional interests through unbounded academic study. When you aren’t constrained by academic boundaries, your research and class discussions are enriched by data and terminology from different fields. One of the best ways to produce visionary research is to consider a topic through a new light. Even better, applied research focusing on practical applications often benefits from interdisciplinary research because the real world is…complicated. Embrace the decisive confidence that an interdisciplinary research experience can offer your career aspiration.

Interdisciplinary MS Degrees at GCNYC

If you are grappling with how to choose a master’s program, it may be because you find many academic disciplines too limiting. Continue to search for that impressive interdisciplinary master’s degree that fits your academic and career interests. Ideally, you would have generous opportunities to conduct research that is interdisciplinary in scope and to nurture your future career goals. 

At Glasgow Caledonian New York College (GCNYC), our sustainability-focused Master of Science degrees uplift forward-thinking aspects of business, making them interdisciplinary from the get-go. 

GCNYC offers a leading-edge degree in Sustainable Fashion exploring the implications of the social and environmental impact of the fashion industry from the perspective of fostering systemic change in that sector. Over the course of this brazenly interdisciplinary program, your professors and peers will envision a more sustainable fashion future by incorporating multiple fields, including business, ethics and philosophy, fashion merchandising, marketing, global economics, anthropology and statistics. Studying Sustainable Fashion effectively requires synthesis of a variety of interdisciplinary points of contact—the synergy we just discussed. 

Our Business for Social Impact and Sustainability degree masterfully integrates the fields of business and sustainability. However, the program also establishes connections to economics, anthropology, statistics and ethics to ultimately assert the interdisciplinary question— “What makes an effective business that also honors social responsibility?”. If you want to choose a master’s in business that goes beyond the basics of management, to lead you to new intellectual territory, this exceptional program would likely fit your needs well. 

Finally, our unconventional Risk, Resilience and Integrity Management program was prominently interdisciplinary from its very conception. Traditional academic programs on risk management view the field as a primarily quantitative endeavor that is solidly focused on statistics and finance. Our holistic program also incorporates elements from the fields of ethics, sustainability and broader business concepts to lead risk management to a decisively world-changing place. In addition, these interdisciplinary elements add a sense of realism to the study of risk management which should be shaped by real world solutions.

Choosing an Interdisciplinary Master’s Degree

Ultimately, choosing a master’s degree that is interdisciplinary encourages you to fully embrace your educational experience as a graduate student. Students emerge prepared for real-world implications in their industry in addition to receiving research opportunities, analytical skills and overall intellectual synergy. 

To learn more about choosing to enroll in the master’s programs at GCNYC, request information today.