It almost seems like interdisciplinary research is no longer a choice, but a necessity. Our understanding of the world around us is becoming too large to remained stuck in one discipline focus. Graduate students are no longer going to be able to remain in their ‘comfort zone’ and this interdisciplinary requirement may drastically change the profile of researchers and their skill sets.

I agree with you that guns do not belong on campuses. However, is making campuses “gun free zones” going to decrease the amount of school shootings? I don’t think people looking to cause harm and death are those who would care about following a rule like this…

I think that VT focused on undergraduate students more than enough. You can see that there is no balance between the number of undergraduate and graduate students at VT. But, there is a logical balance as MIT. For this reason, MIT could attract more fund and opportunities.

Collaboration is the key to interdisciplinary research. Though I often get worried which discipline I should fit in after years of work on interdisciplinary topics.

Nice article! I think that this is a very important point to discuss. However, many times it feels like the best work is interdisciplinary. I think this is for many reasons. Many times, students need to research and read a bunch of literature in other fields, based on some clues they received from an expert they’re collaborating with. So the other department’s expert gives them a capsule overview, and they can follow up with literature searches, and more questions. I believe this would be super fruitful, if pursued with serious desire for a successful outcome. Sometimes, different engineerings, as an example, think differently. I realized this in a multi-disciplinary course, that required students to be from other majors in each student group… This was a very fruitful course, least said!

You do a good job conveying your tone in your writing (ha). All kidding aside, I appreciate your disgust with grading on the bell curve. I’m taking a class right now in which the average test grade (over the past 3 tests) is hovering right at 50%. Nearly a third of the class has withdrawn from the course because the professor isn’t curving grades until after the final exam. The tests are so difficult, even a “C” seems un-achievable. This discourages students from wanting to study the subject matter because the professor refuses to change his testing style. The result: the students don’t learn the subject matter yet will get a passing grade (due to the curve). Worse yet, students’ grades won’t reflect the professor’s poor teaching, and since the students receive a decent grade, they feel less compelled to give the poor SPOT evaluation the professor deserves.

So, I guess I decided to rant with you.

I really enjoyed your post! I’ve had several experiences with service learning requirements in courses; however, this semester I have a class in which our entire grade is based on a service learning experience (primarily field experience) and the quality of the final measurable outcomes. While I am not in engineering, I thought it was really interesting to learn about how other disciplines execute this concept in their curricula.

Thanks for sharing,
Cassie

I new about this talk and did not go, and I regret it soo much. It is interesting that my roomate when to the talk and when I asked him what was the best advice he got by the speaker he told me exactly what you describe related with right and left brained. So great to be reminded that our imagination has no limits and that we could use that for been creative.

Jake’s thoughts about having a “research ideas” box is great.

I love this speaker’s advice to get out and be active! I agree, being outside and exercising does tend to lead to some good ideas coming to me!

Great post! I completely agree that new ideas spark when you can let your sub-conscious mind roam. When I first started grad school, I feared that I wasn’t creative enough to come up with original ideas. What I later noticed though is that I was trying too hard. New research ideas come to me when I’m hunting, fishing or doing some other activity that doesn’t require complete focus. So, I began a “notes” entry on my phone labeled “research ideas” and will pull out my phone as soon as an idea comes to me, regardless of where I am. A notebook would work too, but I can never remember to keep it with me (and I always have my phone).

Thanks for sharing!