The lines dividing departments and curricula are blurred and intersecting. Faculty, students, and even the programs themselves integrate and cooperate. In today’s world, computer science graduates need to know about business. Engineers need the ability to communicate effectively. Architects must master new tools of information technology.
Interdisciplinary Programs
At Rensselaer, students can focus on a preferred major while exploring other interests and acquiring complementary knowledge and skills.
The Master of Science degree traditionally has been in a single subject matter, e.g. chemistry, physics, or mathematics. However, the working environment that college graduates face today and will face in the future is one in which their jobs increasingly bridge more than one area of specialization. The M.S. in Applied Science program is based upon Rensselaer’s belief that science graduates of the past few decades and most current graduates are not educated adequately for today’s interdisciplinary world. Options exist in many areas of science.
Biochemical and biophysical research is advancing the frontiers of research in the basic life sciences and making possible advances in more applied fields such as medicine and agriculture. Rensselaer’s B.S. in Biochemistry and Biophysics provides exceptional preparation for graduate school and/or employment in various sectors of the rapidly developing biotechnology industry. An M.S. degree is also available in this interdisciplinary field and is ideal preparation for jobs in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and other related industry sectors.
The challenge of keeping the Earth safely inhabitable while still providing for an ever increasing population and its expanding needs ensures an ongoing demand for environmental scientists. Meeting this challenge requires broader perspective than any single discipline affords. In fact, expertise is necessary beyond just the sciences. Rensselaer’s B.S. in Environmental Science addresses these challenges with a multifaceted program.
Rensselaer’s unique cross-disciplinary degrees in Information Technology and Web Science allow our students to explore the World Wide Web and other IT technologies from the algorithmic, engineering and social perspective. Students in the program learn about the physical science underlying the Web and the social science of its impact, as well as the skills involved in running large-scale information systems, developing Web applications, or dealing with the social and policy implications of IT and Web deployments.
Always encouraging of students’ interests outside the traditional disciplines and career paths, Rensselaer offers this B.S. program that allows for the combination of sciences in innovative ways. In addition it provides the opportunity to combine science with more humanistic studies such as management, law, education, communication, public service, economics, policymaking, or community affairs.
Students who successfully complete this program will be able to demonstrate:
- an advanced level of expertise in one science discipline.
- a breadth of scientific knowledge across multiple science disciplines.
- an ability to identify, formulate, and solve problems across multiple science disciplines.
Increasingly, college graduates with traditional discipline-oriented backgrounds are discovering that their jobs are bridging more than one area of specialization. Rensselaer’s M.S. and Ph.D programs in multidisciplinary science are designed to help such individuals function more effectively in such multidisciplinary environments. Through these programs, students interact with faculty representing a variety of disciplines and participate in interdisciplinary research programs that bridge not only science disciplines but also science and engineering.
