A Framework for Embracing Interdisciplinarity in the Context of Job-Readiness Imperatives in College Curricula

Abstract

When I was earning a BA in English literature in the late 1990s/early 2000s, I was among the first in my family who were fortunate enough to attend a four-year degree program. The sentiment in my social circles, therefore, was that I was extremely lucky to be able to go to college at all, and I should simply major in a subject in which I had some strengths. I began teaching in an inner-city Philadelphia elementary school in 2002 and taught my first college course in the fall of 2004 as a graduate teaching assistant. Since my teaching assignments were mainly in first-year writing, I had the pleasure of working with students from across campus and across the disciplines. In those early days of teaching, some students talked about majoring in things that were tied to specific careers, such as engineering or computer science. And while the cliché of the overqualified and underemployed barista was already a part of the popular imagination, and the Avenue Q “What do you do with a BA in English/It Sucks to be me” (Lopez & Marx 2003) song had come out the year before, there was still a sense that many people would major in things that they were passionate about—things they were good at—with the idea that having a degree at all would be the leg up they’d need to get a good job, or, at least, to set them on a path toward a fulfilling future career.