We’ve all heard Duke Kunshan University’s favorite buzzword, interdisciplinarity, hundreds of times, from promotional brochures to common core class readings. Although, as much as Duke Kunshan University is institutionally committed to supporting interdisciplinary endeavors, the Natural and Applied Sciences are sufficiently single-discipline focused that interdisciplinary engagement often feels shoehorned instead of the collaborative and exploratory experience associated with the term.
As I have focused on completing my graduation and distributional requirements, I have experienced this conflict numerous times with almost all my future coursework geared towards my major. These experiences are the most significant contributors to my opinion.
The inherently more rigorous nature of coursework in the Natural and Applied Sciences is arguably the source of this conflict. After all, the considerable quantity of objective knowledge and the microscopic details in these courses demand a significant amount of time and attention. Even interdisciplinary courses that are part of major requirements are more often than not cross-disciplinary or multidisciplinary, primarily focusing on major-related disciplinary content— leaving little room for actual synthesis across disciplines within the scope of a time-restricted seven-week class.
As a result, in deciding its Natural and Applied Sciences curricula, Duke Kunshan University must focus on disciplinary expertise to ensure that students will graduate as competitive applicants for graduate schools and gainful employment. These applicant pools’ over-competitive nature maximizes disciplinary preparation— often at the expense of non-essential interdisciplinary engagement. In some cases, exceptionally demanding course loads even intrude on students’ sleep and health.
For example, A Duke Kunshan University student who wishes to graduate with a Data Science Major can afford to take a maximum of only twenty-eight credits to explore other disciplines, and after accounting for the credits spent on fulfilling graduation and distribution requirements, this would really only provide surface-level or introductory insights in other academic subjects.
While most universities struggle with this conflict, Duke Kunshan University’s “selling point” of interdisciplinarity puts significant pressure on the administration to provide enough interdisciplinary options while maintaining high academic standards. The incongruity between a multidisciplinary curriculum and competitive graduate school and employment placements often results in the offload of pressure onto the students, who must carefully navigate their requirements and interests. Duke Kunshan University deserves recognition for its ambitious undertaking, but it still needs much refinement before reaching an optimal form.
Section Editor: Samantha Tsang
Section: Science & Technology
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