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Alicia Edgar

A Semester in Reflection: IDS Intro

Going into this course, I really had no idea what to expect.  All I was aware of was using the class to build my major.  I honestly thought that I would be going in and then my final was just getting my major- yay!  But I found out that it is so much more and I learned about interdisciplinary learning and how to build a PLN and the entirety of the course is applicable to my future.

I had always thought that interdisciplinary was just taking classes from the separate disciplines but it turns out its more mixed; everything comes together and creates something different and unusual and we use that to make our major.  In class we used the example of a bowl of fruit and a smoothie.  Multidisciplinary is a bowl of fruit, together but separate which is what I originally thought interdisciplinary was.  However interdisciplinary is more like a smoothie, all combined to create something new.  

Photo by Steve Davis (CC BY 2.0)

The class started us in this topic of whether a domain for a student was good for their education.  As someone who had previously never created and used their own domain, and the closest thing she had growing up would be tumblr where she just scrolled through funny photos... this idea was very foreign to me and I was intrigued but also didn't really see how it would help.  We had three articles at the beginning- "The Web We Need to Give Students," "A Personal Cyberinfrastructure," and "Do I Own My Domain if You Grade It?" and they all discussed the pros and cons of using domains in a classroom setting and having students do blog-type assignments (hello to this post) and having them be graded or otherwise a part of the class.  Taking that information and my experience through this class I have decided that it definitely depends on the type of class whether this method works.  I wouldn't necessarily introduce it into my math classes however I also only take a lower level math class.  If this were an upper level math class where they were researching and exploring new things to discover in math then it would be a useful tool for the students to display their work and discoveries.  But I don't need a blog post about 2*2= 4.  Overall I think it works best for classes that are exploring new content and then it gives the students a platform to display their knowledge and then other professors or experts in their field can also review what they've done and learned.  This is how new breakthroughs come about.  But in my standard gen ed, I don't think it would be as useful.  I also like its use in a class like this where we are really learning how to build a PLN and market ourselves through the internet and learning how to use social media in better ways than we do on a day to day basis.  And while some may leave this knowledge after this class I know I will keep using it and keep updating my site as I can use it for marketing myself in my career field.  In addition it gives me an outlet to talk about issues like I previously did when it came to gun laws.  I wrote my post and posted it about on both Twitter and Facebook and had a lot of feedback and had it shared several times.

Leo Silverfang CC BY-SA 2.0

As I mentioned before we also discussed the idea of a PLN which is a Personal Learning Network.  A PLN is a way to connect me, a student, to professionals and others in my field so I can learn from them and be kept up to date on new events or breakthroughs in my field of study.  I talk more about my PLN in my article "Learning! Personalized for you!" posted previous to this one.  It really opened my eyes to the practical uses of social media sites like Twitter.  Sure the president can tweet about "fake news" but I can use it to stay connected with my field and reach out with questions and have professionals see what I have written and what I have to say.  And that's really interesting and exciting to someone who's grown up around this technology that we've all used to tag our friends and write little life updates or send a photo of my lunch.  Social media has a larger potential than is visible on the surface to the everyday university student and I think that if more schools taught that and didn't make social media so taboo and opposite of the classroom and learning environment we'd have less "dumb twitter" videos and more real learning and connections being built to further our education.

Interdisciplinarity is such an interesting concept that not enough universities understand.  It connects ideas from business, education, psychology and even theatre.  And it gives students this amazing ability to think outside the box, connect ideas and solve problems that they would't have been able to solve, or would have had a much more difficult time solving were it not for learning from so many different areas of their campus.  Disciplines are wonderful and without them our program would not exist.  However each one has their own learning style and their own ways to tackle problems and overall view the world.  But the world itself is an interdisciplinary jungle.  And with the help of interdisciplinary studies, I can go into classes from different disciplines and create this system that allows me to look at a problem that I can't solve when looking at it through one singular lens.  But when I overlay the lens of theatre and business and psychology for example suddenly I have an understanding that is totally different from everyone else's and that is the key to solving the issue.  Interdisciplinary students are the next big thinkers of our generation because we understand how to look at a problem and be able to pull from all of our knowledge to tackle it and create something new.  And that ability is what employers look for and how innovators are created.  That is why interdisciplinarity matters so much to the world let alone just universities.

Plymouth State University Logo

I hope that our school promotes this program more when it promotes itself.  IDS is such a creative and unique experience that gives me the education I want to be able to do what I want and I know there are plenty of students like me who know what they want to do without having a degree program that will suit their needs.  I also hope that more schools make this type of program available for the same reasons.  Interdisciplinary studies has changed my life and my degree and I am excited to be on a path that no one else is taking.  I am my own person and I can do what I need to do to make myself successful.

Okay, backing out of this scope of interdisciplinarity in general and back to one student in a class.  I hope that I can take my shiny new IDS contract and run with it.  I plan to learn how to work in all different areas of the theatre and with my understanding of them be able to expand and share my knowledge.  Then I can take my skills from business to be able to market and finance my own theatre or studio, or work in various theatres or companies around the country.  I want to always continue learning and performing.

In conclusion, anyone who knows what they want to do should reach out and do it.  Grab life by the horns and charge into battle.  I knew what I wanted, IDS got me to where I am now.  Now I have two years to finish the degree I want.  Then off into the field of study I want to do exactly what I want to do with my life.  And I couldn't have done it without IDS.

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