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Get­ting a Bach­e­lor’s degree in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies is a great way to broad­en your edu­ca­tion­al and prac­ti­cal skills. Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies are high­ly ver­sa­tile pro­grams that lend stu­dents in them far greater util­i­ty over what class­es they take than the aver­age Bach­e­lor’s pro­gram. Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies com­bine com­mu­ni­ca­tion, his­to­ry busi­ness, psy­chol­o­gy, sci­ence, and social sci­ence cours­es, among oth­er edu­ca­tion­al dis­ci­plines. If you’ve ever found your­self trapped in an edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram full of require­ments that you weren’t inter­est­ed in, an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­gram might be a good fit.

In order to enter a Bach­e­lor’s pro­gram in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies, you may need to do a lit­tle more work than you would in enter­ing a more tra­di­tion­al, stan­dard bac­calau­re­ate pro­gram. Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­grams are often designed hand in hand with school advi­sors. When you’re apply­ing for an IS pro­gram, you’ll often be asked to work with a school advi­sor (or an advis­ing com­mit­tee) and present a pro­pos­al detail­ing what you’d like to study in your inter­dis­ci­pli­nary degree. While this is com­mon, it’s not the only way inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­grams are designed. Some pro­grams let you:

  • Cre­ate your own major from a school’s cur­ricu­lum offerings.
  • Choose from a lim­it­ed selec­tion of dis­ci­plines that the school selects to include in their inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­gram options.
  • Take a gen­er­al B.A. or B.S. core, then choose a num­ber of minors to fill out the rest of your degree.

Some inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­grams are hard­er than oth­ers. Here at Bach­e­lor’s Degree Cen­ter, we’ve ranked 30 of the best inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­grams to give you a wide vari­ety of options. When you find a school that you feel is a good fit, you can always request more infor­ma­tion from them. It’s also a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to get in touch with advis­ing staff that you’ll know what needs to go into build­ing an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies program.

We’ve ranked the schools on our list by the fol­low­ing metrics:

  • Cost per cred­it hour
  • Stu­dent to fac­ul­ty ratio
  • Rep­u­ta­tion
  • Aver­age ear­ly career salary of graduates

Get­ting an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies degree can be dif­fi­cult, but so are most things worth doing. Also, for some, the nature of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­grams lends itself to suc­cess. When you have more con­trol over what you study, it’s eas­i­er to avoid sub­jects you know you’re not inter­est­ed in, and you can keep your­self stim­u­lat­ed with a vari­ety of sub­jects that fas­ci­nate you.

You’ve like­ly noticed that when you’re intel­lec­tu­al­ly engaged and pas­sion­ate about what you’re study­ing, it’s much eas­i­er to put forth your best effort. In fact, an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­gram that you’ve designed, that focus­es on top­ics you want to take to improve your­self and was cus­tom-designed for you is a great way to avoid the rigid­i­ty and stan­dard­iza­tion that often turns peo­ple off to high­er edu­ca­tion. The more you enjoy your indi­vid­ual inter­dis­ci­pli­nary stud­ies pro­gram, the eas­i­er it’ll be for you.

There’s a lot more to learn about IS pro­grams, and we’ve done sig­nif­i­cant leg­work sort­ing through dif­fer­ent schools’ offer­ings on our rank­ing of the Top 30 Best Bachelor’s in Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Stud­ies. If you like a school, fol­low up with it to request more infor­ma­tion through the links we’ve pro­vid­ed. Best of luck in your search for a Bach­e­lor’s degree in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary studies.

Relat­ed:

Top 30 Best Bachelor’s in Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Studies

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