Topic 4: Interdisciplinarity in the Real World 2/27/12-3/4/12

Welcome to week 4 of our blog! This week we will be discussing how we use interdisciplinarity in our daily lives and some examples that I believe demonstrate interdisciplinary work.

Interdisciplinarity is used in many daily situations. It is a natural process. When a problem arises, such as someone gets sick, there are many things to consider before a course of action takes place. You may consider how sick is the person, so you look at it from a medical standpoint, are they vomiting, do they have a fever, are they conscious? Then you may consider the cost of going to the doctor, so there is an economic perspective, do they have health insurance, do they have the money to pay for the visit? Have you had this type of cold before, a historical perspective, so you know what to expect from the disease process. There may be some cultural impacts that come into play, so we have a sociological or anthropological perspective, do they believe a doctor can help them; do they trust in the medical system? After considering the alternatives a decision is made, now it may be to take some over the counter medicine or go to the emergency room, but it is a combination of all, some, or additional factors that brings a person to a decision. The point is that when you go through most types of decision making processes you are using an integration of knowledge to come to a solution. How might your ability to solve problems from an interdisciplinary perspective be valuable to a future employer or current employer?

Interdisciplinarity is not multidisciplinarity, and I know we have already talked about the fruit salad versus the smoothie, but the difference is integration. The blending of knowledge to create a new product or solution is integration. Another example is a group project. Say there are four people in the project and they each take one paragraph to write on a different aspect of the topic, and the paper is turned in. If there is no other input from the group members on each others’ input there is a lack of integration. If on the other hand, each person submits there paragraph for review by the group and everyone critically examines each others’ work, adding knowledge that they may have found to contribute to that idea, you have a better paper because everyone’s knowledge base is a little different, and it is a more integrated outcome. Which specific skills are used when completing a research project by yourself or in a group? How do we use research in our everyday lives? in school? at work?

An example of an interdisciplinary profession is a nurse. You may ask how, are they not just a branch of the medical field? In addition to having medical knowledge, they also have to have some basis in teaching as they have to teach the patient and family about the patient’s illness and possibly how to carry out prescribed care at home. They have to have some psychological knowledge to consider when the best time will be to teach the patient. They also have to consider what resources the patient will have at home and does the nurse need to bring in other resources to help meet the patient’s needs. They need to have some communication skills to be able to communicate effectively with the patient.

Some opportunities that can increase our interdisciplinarity would be to volunteer with a nonprofit organization. They have to find integrative ways to meet the needs of the population of people that they are trying to help. They also have to fund raise and try to win grant money to have the financial means to meet these needs. Reading interdisciplinary magazines is another way to build interdisciplinary skills. There is the University of Central Florida Undergraduate Research Journal, any journal on woman’s studies or public health, journals on culture, and the list goes on. You can also try to goggle search interdisciplinary journals and listings will come up. How might the skills you learn be translated towards future employment?

I have given a few examples that I believe illustrates an interdisciplinarity, now it’s your turn. Create a potential (fictitious but believable) work scenario where your research and problem solving skills as an interdisciplinary thinker might come into play.

As always remember to sign your post with your first and last name! Have a great week!

-The Mentors

Topic 3: The Virtual Philosopher & Critical Thinking 2/19/2012 - 2/26/2012

Hi there mentees!  First, let me say on behalf of all the mentors that we are sorry for the tardiness of this blog post.  As we are sure you have experienced in the past, miscommunications can and do happen, and we all apologize for any inconvenience this particular miscommunication may have caused you!

This week we will initially be asking you to complete a unique interactive exercise to determine where you stand with regards to critical thinking.  Using a common thought experiment, we will help you identify how you critically reason through a website called “The Virtual Philosopher.”  Then, taking what you learned about your personal processes of critical thinking, we will ask you to evaluate your interdisciplinary degree and areas of focus in light of this information.

So first, click the link below which will take you to this interactive exercise called Virtual Philosopher developed by Dr. Wade Maki from the Philosophy department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Virtual Philosopher Link (must have updated FLASH to play correctly): http://web.uncg.edu/dcl/courses/vicecrime/vp/vp.html

Once you have completed this activity, please include comments on your critical thinking reasoning that led to your decisions for all three scenarios: the friend's problem, the lifeboat problem, the liver problem in your response post.  Elaborate on where your critical thinking gave way to your values, ethics, and beliefs. Your post should also include comments on the differences you perceive between "ethical" and "critical" reasoning and what kinds of problems the differences caused in doing or reflecting on this exercise and even in your academic experiences.  You should also give further consideration and comments about how the Virtual Philosopher scored your response.  Based on the scoring and comments you received, what insight have you gained about your own critical thinking and reasoning?

Having completed the thought experiment, in what ways does your critical thinking apply and relate to your interdisciplinarity in general?  How do your critical reasoning strengths and weaknesses relate and affect your interdisciplinary degree?  Just be thorough in your post about your personal experience with this thought experiment, and don’t be shy about engaging your fellow mentees about the subject.  Critical thinking is such a vital component of life and the better understanding we have about how we each reason individual as well as collectively, the better our society will function.

As always, be sure to sign your post with your full name!  Thanks and have a great week!

~ The Mentors!:)

Topic 2: Interdisciplinarity and Integration 2/12/2012 - 2/19/2012

Hello Cornerstone mentees and welcome to the second week of this blog. Last week we spent some time introducing ourselves and learning about what everyone was studying. This week we are going to work on the integration of those areas. Throughout the week a lot of you mentioned that you were not sure how your study areas could be integrated into a coherent whole and how it can be difficult to explain your degree to people. In order to figure this out we need to first understand what integration is. Think about how you would define integration and how it makes interdisciplinary studies different from being multidisciplinary. If you can, provide examples of how you have already integrated your major and/or minor areas. If you are still working on that, try to brainstorm a little. Think about what your ideal future career would be and then try to relate your current studies to those goals. How will your areas integrate and help in your future career? How important is it in your future career to be able to explain interdisciplinarity? How do you think it could give you an advantage over those with traditional degrees?

Another way to help start to look at things from an interdisciplinary perspective is to look at a current news story and think about the problem at hand from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. If an interdisciplinary solution has already been reached describe how it is interdisciplinary or, on the other hand, describe a theoretical interdisciplinary solution that could exist.

In the comments, post your thoughts about integration and how you can integrate your subject areas while trying to give examples. Also, post as a link to a news story and write about the actual or theoretical interdisciplinary solution associated with it.

As always, please sign your post with your full name.

~The Mentors

Topic 1: Introductions 2/5/2012- 2/12/2012

Topic 1: Introductions: Getting to Know You & Explaining the IDS degree
Dear Cornerstone students, welcome to Spring 2012’s Mentoring Blog. In this first blog post, we’ll start off by introducing ourselves and learning a little about each other’s degree programs. You’ll have until next Sunday to reply to this blog although we recommend doing so sooner in the week rather than later. We’ve included some questions that you can use as jumping off points below. To reply to the topic, use the “comment” feature instead of creating a new post and be sure to sign your name at the end of your reply.

Icebreakers:

• Who are you? What do you like to do for fun? What don’t you understand about your major?
• How do you explain IDS to others?
• What are the advantages/disadvantages of an interdisciplinary education?
• What made you become an IDS major?

Meet the Mentors:

Hi, my name is Melissa Castorino.  My areas of study are communications and health and I have two minors which are psychology and sociology.  I started my degree at Daytona State College in the nursing program.  I decided to change majors and the nursing classes and prep courses counted toward the health component of my degree.  I declared two minors because I could not decide between psychology and sociology.  I have a passion for both disciplines.  I choose communications because I had to choose something for my other area of study and it has worked out perfectly.  I explain IDS to others by explaining the reason why I choose it for my major.  I could not decide on just one area of study, it felt too limited to me.  My degree allows me to explore and learn about all of the areas that I have a passion for.  The advantage of an IDS degree is options.  The disadvantage is that few people know what an IDS degree is so you end up explaining it to people more often than saying you are a business major.  This mentoring blog is a project that I really enjoyed as a cornerstone student so I am looking forward to our weekly conversations and I hope you guys are also.  Feel free to ask us any questions that you have even if it seems unrelated to what we are discussing for the week. We are here to help you guys with anything that we can!

Melissa Castorino

Hi everybody!  My name is Manika Chuon.  My two areas of study are Life/Biomedical Sciences and Physical Sciences and my minor is Business.  I started at UCF back in 2004 as a Business major.  One year later I decided to switch to Biology.  And last summer I changed my major for the final time to Interdisciplinary Studies.  It has taken me a lot longer to graduate than I’d like to admit, but I’m happy I did not give up and I cannot wait to get that diploma in the mail after this semester!  After graduating I will pursue a career either working with a non-profit organization or teaching high school biology.

Outside of school, I work full-time as a pre-kindergarten teacher.  I love children!  My boyfriend and I sponsor a little girl in Sierra Leone through the non-profit organization Children of the Nations.  Anything I can do to help a child makes me happy.  I also enjoy running, reading InStyle magazine, eating good food, going to the beach, and traveling to name a few things.  Please feel free to ask me anything, I am pretty much an open book!  I took Cornerstone last semester and I know it is a time-consuming course, but I truly enjoyed participating in the blogs and learned some interesting things along the way.  I hope y’all enjoy it too and hopefully we will all come away from this with something new.

Manika Chuon

Hello!  My name is Julia Elrod, and my areas of concentration are Public Administration and International & Global Studies with a minor in Leadership Studies. I completed my A.A. degree from Indian River State College about 11 years after I graduated high school, and I found that the IDS program here at UCF was my best option to a degree I felt would be the most useful to me.  I currently work in the Quality Management department at the Orlando VA Medical Center, and I have recently applied to graduate school programs in Washington, D.C. for International Development.  My favorite past time these days is hanging out with my husband and cats in my limited free time.

In discussing my degree program with others, I tend to keep my explanation of the IDS program simple almost always emphasizing my specific areas of focus and how I see them integrating into a career.  While I see interdisciplinarity as a huge benefit in the workplace providing a specific yet diverse education, I feel that I haven’t been able to as comprehensively study each of my focuses as much as a single focus or double major would provide.  Nevertheless, I decided on the IDS program because it provided me the best opportunity to study my passions and still allow me to graduate with my B.A. in a reasonable amount of time.

Julia Elrod

Hi Everybody!
My name is Sarah Hill. My areas of concentration are Health Science and Life/Biomedical Science and my minor is sociology. I am a non traditional student finally completing my senior year after taking my first college course in 1989! (ouch!!!). I, like my fellow mentor, Melissa am a former nursing major but after much consideration have determined that I am called to serve elsewhere. Upon completion of my BS here at UCF, I plan to apply to the the Social Work MSW program and the Masters in Sociology with a focus on Domestic Violence.

I believe that my IDS education here at UCF has uniquely prepared me for social services in the public sector. I have received a very well-rounded education and I am well aware of the conditions facing  survivors of domestic violence. This field of study is a passion for me and I know my IDS degree will help me get my foot in the door and take me to the next level in serving survivors in need.

It is a bit of a challenge explaining the IDS degree to people. I even have a friend at Penn State that is taking a similar major and he doesn’t understand what we’re doing here. I like to describe it as a “big picture” education. I tell people that we get to learn things from more than one discipline and then view issues from a broader perspective.  

Sarah Hill

Hello, my name is Chanel Mosby. I love to travel and photograph landscapes and cityscapes in the new areas that I visit. When I am at home and not studying, my favorite past time is playing video games. As an Interdisciplinary Studies major, my areas of concentration are the Life and Physical Sciences with a minor in Digital Media. This is actually the 3rd (and final) major that I have switched to during my university career as I started out as Digital Media in 2007 and then switched to Biotechnology a year later. Since then I have even transferred to an entirely different university in Germany before returning to UCF last semester and becoming an Interdisciplinary Studies major. For me, I feel that one of the major benefits of this program is the degree of flexibility it offers for you to look into what you want to do later on. The disadvantage is that due to that flexibility, you will have to put some thought into how to explain your degree to others, but that is what the corner and capstone courses are here to help you with. I hope that you benefit from this blog as it runs its course and remember that we are here to try to help you with any questions you might have.

Chanel Mosby

My name is Michelle Puikis. My areas of study are Behavioral/Social Science and Life/Biomedical Science and my minor is Health Science. I currently have a nonprofit organization that seeks to reform the way society treats medicine. Too many things go to waste when others are suffering. My future plans are to go to pharmacy school and become a pharmacist in order to advocate generosity to eliminate that suffering.

It’s really important to understand the IDS major. Did you know that it is the second largest major on campus, behind psychology? That being said, it’s important for us to network together and encourage one another in the way we all plan to use our degree. One of the advantages of being an IDS major is that we don’t have many limits in our education. We can choose what we are passionate about and what works best to prepare us for our future goals. If you chose this major because you don’t know what you want to do, don’t get discouraged. See this as an opportunity to listen to other people’s stories and get inspired to dream big.

Michelle Puikis

Hi My name is Leanne Sless.  My areas of study are Communications and Business with a minor in Women’s Studies.  I am also a Fashion Major from IADT Tampa that loves to be a complete tomboy.  Saving our planet and the people of this world from disease touches my heart deeply.  I am creating a completely organic product line that should be launched sometime this year!  My areas of study give me the well roundness to become a successful entrepreneur.  I don’t see that I could have all of the knowledge to create and lift this company off the ground with one specific degree.  Thank goodness for IDS! I hope you all find this blog as fun and useful as I did when I was a cornerstone student.  Please don’t stress it, answer from your heart and absorb as much as possible.

Leanne Sless