{"id":74602,"date":"2025-04-21T07:59:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T14:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=74602"},"modified":"2025-04-21T10:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T17:42:11","slug":"interdisciplinary-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/interdisciplinary-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"Interdisciplinary studies: A pathway for nontraditional students"},"content":{"rendered":"

For <\/span>Rachael Lopez<\/span><\/b>, going back to school after \u201clife happened\u201d was not easy. After becoming a mother at a young age and facing various challenges, she decided to return to school in her late 30s and get her degree.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI started with sustainable development and project management with the vision of becoming a construction consultant or something to do with the construction business and sustainable solutions,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cBut I decided to follow my heart and go for social work and sociology. Now, in my early 40s, my bachelor\u2019s degree is within reach.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is possible, in part, due to the flexibility offered by NAU\u2019s bachelor of interdisciplinary studies (BIS) program, previously known as the bachelor of university studies. This program offers students who are returning to school, are undecided or have unique career goals the opportunity to design their own degree programs with classes in a wide variety of subjects, only two required courses and few prerequisites.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe best thing about this program is that it can be individualized to students\u2019 own interests,\u201d said<\/span> Jessie K. Finch<\/span><\/b>, chair of the Department of Sociology. \u201cIf a student is interested in, for example, criminal psychology, they can combine the minor in criminology and criminal justice with the minor in psychology and then do their BIS capstone on criminal profiling. The program offers students the flexibility to pick any two minors they might be interested in and combine them.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That is precisely what <\/span>Alison Graham<\/span><\/b> did, choosing a combination of three minors to prepare for her ideal career as a statistician.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy statistics minor is at the forefront of my statistics education and provides me with the theory and skills I need to be a statistician,\u201d Graham said. \u201cMy mathematics minor works with this to ensure that I have a strong mathematical foundation to rely on. My business minor teaches me to apply my statistical knowledge\u202fto real-world applications that are relevant to my future career. Together, my minors work to create a unique applied statistics degree that I have customized to prepare me for my future.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The program is also useful for students who change their major midway through their college career, since it allows them to overlap with any existing minors to finish their studies and get their degree. That was the case for <\/span>Colton Denetsosie,<\/span><\/b> who was almost done with his English degree but was unable to complete the requirements before the last disbursement of his Lumberjack Scholarship.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe BIS degree was suggested to me at a rather tumultuous moment,\u201d Denetsosie said. \u201cIt was not my original gameplan, but I had to pass 14 credit hours in a foreign language as a requirement for my English major. I had some trouble with the class, and this program saved me from dropping my academic career altogether.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To declare interdisciplinary studies as a major, students need to have completed 60 college credits. After doing this, they are assigned an academic advisoir to help them figure out what academic plan fits them best and get the rest of the credits they need to graduate.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy academic advisor helped me a lot throughout my major decision journey,\u201d Graham said. \u201cShe was the one who initially informed me about the BIS program and assisted me as I weighed possible minor combinations.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finch said this degree is an avenue toward honing a diversity of real-world skills, creating graduates who will be competitive in the labor market.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about disciplinary content: What are you learning about sociology that links to studio art, for example?\u201d Finch said.\u00a0 \u201cWe need students to translate that into career-ready skills. When you speak clearly, when you write persuasively, when you apply analytic skills, you are synthesizing between disciplines. The world is very interdisciplinary.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For Graham, the interdisciplinarity of the program was what appealed to her. For Lopez, it was the support, freedom and ability to mix and match what fit within her plan, rather than fitting inside the strictures of one discipline. For Denetsosie, who was about to abandon his studies, the program gave him a path toward a finished degree.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis program is also a great option for many students who had to put their education on pause,\u201d Finch said. \u201cIn Arizona, we have about 30% of people who have some college education but have not finished their bachelor\u2019s degree. We want them to come back, get started and graduate. We want them to know that the ship has not yet sailed and they can still get back on board!\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a>Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Rachael Lopez, going back to school after \u201clife happened\u201d was not easy. After becoming a mother at a young age and facing various challenges, she decided to return to school in her late 30s and get her degree.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI started with sustainable development and project management with the vision of becoming a construction consultant…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":74625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}