Edge-crafters, Global Talents

Two years ago, when I was finishing high school, I faced one of the most important  decisions of my life: should I follow my passion and study art history, or should I go to business  school. I was born in Mexico, and I lived there all my life. Mexican universities are different than  the ones in the United States. They are much more specialized in specific fields, and while that  prepares you a lot to be very good at one thing, it lacks the holistic approach of the liberal arts.  High schoolers pick their major before applying to university and they need to stick with it for the  rest of their college path. There is some leeway for combining similar fields like international  business and international relations, for example, but it is unthinkable to mix fields that are  “unrelated”.

To me that is precisely the problem with the Mexican educational system: it lacks  interdisciplinarity. I hate to use the word ‘unrelated’ because it fails to admit the bigger picture.  There is immense potential in combining different fields. In fact, innovation is rooted in disruption and disruption’s core value is to think outside the box and to look in other places. By this logic,  innovation exists thanks to interdisciplinarity.  

I couldn’t conform with only art history or only business school, so I moved to the United  States where I could do both. When I arrived, however, I realized that while the opportunity to  pursue joint ventures is here, it is not easy to find the connections needed to succeed in them. The  purpose of this text is to first present a case for the advantages of an interdisciplinary education,  then, I will show how to apply this type of joint venture into the real world. I intend to help anybody 

who is currently trying to find their path in the world and feels that there is no single box that they  fit into.  

Why Interdisciplinarity? 

The literature around the benefits and importance of interdisciplinary instruction is vast  and comprehensive. It has been proven time and time again that a holistic education is much better  than a specialized one. According to Jones: “Students will advance in critical thinking,  communication, creativity, pedagogy, and essential academia with the use of interdisciplinary  techniques” (Jones, 2009). But interdisciplinarity does not stop at methodology. While the word  is most commonly known for groundbreaking teaching techniques, interdisciplinarity is all about  finding connections between different fields and thinking outside the box. This is evident when  we look at the world today. 

Every economic activity today requires a business manager to administer it. Said manager needs a software engineer to connect the business to the world. The engineer needs a designer to  develop an appealing online presence, and so on. As John Donne said, “No man is an island”. In  this case, no discipline can work alone. The business manager needs mathematics and statistics for  his work, the engineer needs knowledge of basic psychology to understand the user interface production, and the designer needs digital tools to work. With our increasingly globalized world,  interconnectivity between the disciplines is not only more frequent, but it is present 100% of the  time. Today it is not enough to know a lot about one thing. Professionals need to know a lot about  one thing and a lot about many others.  

Today, the best engineers know about arts and culture and apply that knowledge into their  work. The best lawyers know about biology and ethics. Successful people apply different fields  into their work. The best investment that young adults can make in themselves is to seek to expand  their fields of knowledge. The question now inevitably rises of how to know what disciplines work 

best for me.  

How to find the matches? 

When we talk about finding matches, we are essentially looking for a disruptive path to  innovation. We are trying to find new and more efficient ways to approach activities and career  paths. Through my experience I have identified 4 steps to finding the best matches for you: 

1. Choose a field, preferably something that you are passionate about. It is important to focus  on something fulfilling that you enjoy, but also that you are good at. This step is basically  what everybody does when they choose a major.  
2. Reduce the scope of your goals. Many times, we try to do everything at once, but we only  have so much time. For the sake of efficiency, one must reduce the scope of our goals to a  narrow path that you will invest in. 
3. Identify a problem. What is here for you? What is not working properly? What could  improve? It also works to find something that you specifically enjoy.  
4. Find an additional discipline or disciplines that can resolve those problems. 

In my case, I knew I wanted to work in the art world (1). I was interested in many fields, but I  found that the one that I was the most passionate about was the democratization of art (2). The problem in  the art world is that institutions are built around the elitist class that can pay for artworks. It is  necessary to rebuild those structures from the ground up to resolve this issue (3). These structures  are economic entities that function as businesses, so the best way to improve and evolve them is  with a business approach. Therefore, I am pursuing a business education on par with art history.  

Conclusions 

In an increasingly competitive world with scarce resources and inequality, it is up to  individuals to find innovative solutions and approaches to impending issues. It is also worth  mentioning that interdisciplinarity is not only accessible through traditional education. You can  find ways to mix disciplines through experiential learning too.  

It is important to note that interdisciplinarity must be accompanied by other tools to function. The most important one that I can think of is having a strong psychological capital.  Combining different fields is no easy task and it requires creativity and a wide worldview. This is  best achieved by having a diverse cultural perspective. Understanding how different people in  different parts of the world approach certain issues can go a long way in providing relevant insight to entrepreneurs. Because that is what any person that seeks to combine separate fields is: an  entrepreneur.  

References 

Jones, Casey (2009) “Interdisciplinary Approach – Advantages, Disadvantages, and the Future  Benefits of Interdisciplinary Studies,” ESSAI: Vol. 7, Article 26. Available at:  http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol7/iss1/26 

About the author: 

Pablo Beltrán was born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico. He is in his second year at the  D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in  Business administration with a concentration in Finance, and a minor in art history and one in art  at the College of Media and Design also at Northeastern.