Most degree programs are aligned to disciplines – you get a bachelor or a masters in some discipline like computer science, electrical engineering, economics, mathematics, etc. As discussed in the previous post, the overall curriculum of a UG program will generally ensure some amount of breadth and general foundations for development of general attributes, while the bulk of the program focuses around building competencies and knowledge in the discipline of study. So, a mathematics program will have many Maths courses, but also general courses on communication, writing, sciences, computing, etc., an electrical engineering program will have many courses in the various sub-areas of the discipline, and also general courses in Maths, computing, sciences, communication, etc.

This focus on discipline has emerged as response to the increase in the breadth and complexity of knowledge. It simply is not possible for a student to acquire a decent understanding and knowledge of multiple disciplines. However, over the years, the expertise has tended to become too narrow, and understanding and appreciation of related disciplines, which is needed for effectively working in multi-disciplinary teams, has declined. And while research and development problems in each discipline remain, the big problems that face societies, nations, and the world clearly do not align with discipline boundaries and whose addressing need expertise from multiple disciplines. To develop manpower which can help address these problems and in general have capability to work on innovations and complex problems which rarely fall within discipline boundaries, there is a need for developing manpower that has multi-disciplinary capabilities. (Though the terms multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary have different technical meanings, we use these terms interchangeably, as they often are.)

Some Approaches for Interdisciplinary Education

One approach for providing interdisciplinary education is the T model of education – a broad and thick foundation program which builds general capabilities (like critical thinking, communication, team work, etc.) but which also builds decent knowledge and vocabulary in disciplines that are also horizontal, i.e. which are applicable to multiple disciplines in practice today. These include computing capabilities, math capabilities, data science capabilities, use of common technologies like mobile, sensors, etc. To build a thick foundation of the T model, a good portion of the program then is used to develop these skills, vocabulary, and capabilities in many key disciplines. The rest of the program in T model is used to support disciplinary depth. In such a program less than half of the credits in a UG program may be disciplinary courses.

This model has been used widely, particularly in US universities, and in some institutions in India as well – where in a program for a degree in some discipline, still a majority of the credits may be used for courses outside the discipline.

While this approach helps develop capabilities and vocabulary for graduates of different disciplines to potentially be able to communicate and interact and work together in teams, it is not sufficient to develop graduates where a graduate of one discipline can meaningfully engage with issues and knowledge of another discipline.

It is clearly not possible for someone to have expertise in many areas. However, it is possible to develop a limited expertise in another field, while developing expertise in one field. This leads to the pi model – a broad based foundations with depth in two fields. This leads interdisciplinary programs and degrees – where expertise in two fields is developed.

Even with two disciplines, given that each discipline is vast and intricate in itself, there is a challenge that such a program may end up developing shallow capabilities in both disciplines. This is undesirable in the world where deep knowledge and expertise is valued and needed. To avoid this problem, the goal of an interdisciplinary program should be not to develop equal strengths in two disciplines, but follow the 80-20 rule, i.e. have strong depth (say 80% of what a graduate with only that discipline will have) in one discipline, and 20% in the other. This provides depth in one discipline, and foundations and knowledge of the second discipline which can allow a person to meanifully engage with experts of the other discipline and also develop depth later, if desired.

One standard approach to allow students to develop pi type capabilities is to allow the student option of doing a minor in another discipline. A minor requires the student to do a small number of courses in the minor discipline, which the students can often do using their open elective credits for them. A minor provides a decent understanding and capabilities in the minor discipline, as well as a basic vocabulary of the discipline. It is a common way to allow the student to develop some capabilities in another discipline, without having to spend extra time in the education program. Most universities provide for Minors.

Another standard approach is to allow students the option for a second major. Generally, requirements for both the majors will have to be satisfied. Usually, credits for a course can be counted towards requirements for both majors, if the course is permitted in both the majors. As there may be many common requirements, or courses that can be included in both majors, the additional credits required to complete the second major may not be too large, particularly if the two majors have many courses in common. So, generally second major will require the student to do only some additional credits to complete the requirements for the second major, particularly if the two majors are such that there are commonalities leading to cross-listed courses.

These two are flexible approaches which leave it entirely to the student to decide what type of interdisciplinarity he / she wishes. But each program is designed independently of other – and hence has at best follows the T model with focus on the discipline. In such an approach, while a student does courses from different disciplines, most courses remain discipline oriented, thereby requiring the student to connect the knowledge from two disciplines herself. In other words, in these approaches, there may not be any genuine interdisciplinary course, i.e. a course that will be considered as a valid disciplinary course in multiple disciplines.

Truly Interdisciplinary Programs – CS+X Programs

Another way to approach interdisciplinary education can be to provide actual interdisciplinary programs, which are designed as such. In this, the programs are designed and curated properly and a student may choose to enroll in them – so philosophically they are quite different in approach than the concept of double major or minor. Interdisciplinary programs have been increasing in the recent past.

The big challenge in having multi-disciplinary programs is, of course, that the size and duration of such a program may become too large if a simplistic view is taken that such a program should be a combination of two majors. If the design of this interdisciplinary program has to fit in the overall credit requirements of programs (as discussed above), then the key challenge is how to balance the need to complete the program in the defined time (or credits), and provide multi-disciplinary capability, without diluting the capabilities of the disciplines. There are many different types of interdisciplinary programs possible depending on how the curriculum is structured and taught. Here we discuss the approach taken at IIIT-Delhi.

Clearly for such programs, the disciplines being combined have to be chosen carefully. When considering which two disciplines to combine for such a program (more than two is clearly not feasible), the disciplines should be such that they develop complimentary skill sets which collectively will be more valuable and sought after than only skills of one discipline for a range of jobs and careers. Further, the disciplines should also be such that each is not so “vast” that combining them into one program is simply not feasible. At least one discipline should be such that even with a small set of courses, reasonable skills and knowledge can be developed and which can help in improving the capabilities of other discipline also. Few disciplines will satisfy this – computing is one of them.

Computer Science (CS) is a young discipline. However, with easy and cheap availability computing power, its use has become ubiquitous – there is hardly any discipline or any sphere of life which is not directly affected by IT. That is why computing is sometimes considered as the “new physics” – it is useful in all disciplines and its basic knowledge is essential. Today, in every discipline, knowledge of computing is an asset, and there is a demand for professionals in various disciplines who also have decent knowledge of computing.

CS is in some ways a simpler discipline. It is fundamentally about algorithms, software, and systems. Hence, education programs in CS focus on these – for software, there are courses like programming, data structures, software engineering, etc; for algorithms there are courses on data structures, algorithm design, theory of these, etc; and for systems, there are courses like architecture, operating systems, networks, etc. Generally, a subset of these topics forms the core (or compulsory) part of an undergraduate program, allowing for a relatively small CS core. And these core courses, along with a few specialized courses, can provide a strong knowledge and skills to students to apply computational techniques.

This ability to have a small core to teach decent amount of computing to a student which he/she can apply, renders CS for interdisciplinary programs which combine CS basics with knowledge of other disciplines. And given the need for knowledge of computing in many disciplines, having an interdisciplinary program with computing makes a lot of sense, particularly since further progress in many disciplines is highly dependent on application of computing. A good example is biology – earlier it was considered an experimental discipline. But now, without the use of computing, many aspects can simply not be done (e.g. anything to do with genomics requires huge amounts of computing.)

In fact, many senior computing academics have argued that while computing as a discipline must evolve, computing must get more tightly integrated with some disciplines to have more impact of computing for society and other sciences. This is another reason for having interdisciplinary programs with CS. So, there are interdisciplinary programs being launched with CS and other disciplines – these are sometimes called “CS+X Programs”. IIIT-Delhi has launched a series of such programs. UIUC and Stanford have their own such programs. The discussion here is based on the thinking and experience of IIIT-Delhi.

One such program is CS and Applied Maths. The basic motivation behind this program is that for solving problems for complex systems as well as for big data, both mathematics and computing tools and techniques need to be applied. Hence, an engineer with training in both will be better prepared to handle such problems. Another program is CS and Design, which aims to develop graduates that are not only well versed with computing approaches, tools, and technologies, but are also experienced with design approaches and new media technologies and uses and prepare students to work in the IT industry as well as digital media industry like gaming, animation, virtual/augmented reality, etc. CS and Social Sciences is another program which aims to develop IT engineers with strong understanding of relevant social science disciplines as well as their methodologies. There is also the program in CS and Biosciences – need for this is easier to establish, as there are many masters and PhD programs already in the field of computational biology and the need for knowledge of the two disciplines for solving problems in biosciences is well established.

There are some guiding principles while designing such programs. First, the set of core courses for the disciplines chosen for the interdisciplinary program should be minimal, i.e. have the core as small as possible. Interestingly, it is possible to do so – as what constitutes a core is subjective and when the program is not for one discipline but tied to another, the core can be reduced considerably. Second, for electives for this program – courses from both the disciplines should be permitted, and a balance should be achieved. Third, some of the courses taught in the program should be interdisciplinary in nature.

Typically, in IIIT-Delhi, in any such an interdisciplinary program, a student will do the basic foundation courses in first year, most of which are common for all programs. These include courses on communication, critical thinking, programming, mathematics, systems, etc. Then in the next few semesters, the student will do a small set of (about 6) core or compulsory courses in each of the two disciplines, which will provide the grounding in the two disciplines. In the last few semesters, the student will choose a few electives (4 to 6) from each of the disciplines. Broadly, such an interdisciplinary program can satisfy the requirements of a BTech in CS, as well as requirements of a 3-year BA/BSc program in the second discipline.

Such programs allow a student to pursue an exciting career in the intersection of the two disciplines, but also prepares the student to pursue higher studies and career in one of the two disciplines, as decent knowledge of both disciplines is provided in these programs. Many thinkers believe that interdisciplinary approaches for problem solving is where the future lies, as siloed approaches of individual disciplines are limiting and often unable to take a broader view of the problem and its context. Such interdisciplinary programs should help develop manpower which has the capabilities of at least two disciplines for problem solving. The NEP also encourages interdisciplinary programs, and explicitly allows programs to have a common core for general attributes, and have one or two areas of specialisation – thereby allowing disciplinary programs as well as interdisciplinary programs.