Interdisciplinary hell: the Dalyell weekly challenge

Lucy Bailey opines.

I had thought the days of institutional education in the form of posters, book reports and ‘funny videos’ were long behind me, a distant memory in the rearview mirror. But my USyd inbox tells me that such a pedagogical model is making a rather loud comeback. Every week this semester I’ve received emails instructing me to ‘Create one A4-sized poster with a 100-word explanation showcasing what you think an awesome campus should be!’ or solve a riddle straight out of a Year 5 probability test.

These challenges are emailed to members of the Dalyell program each week, prompting participants to send in their answers, entering the draw to win a movie voucher. On the surface it’s just harmless fun, but the weekly challenges are emblematic of the ways in which the pursuit of ‘interdisciplinary competence’ across the university is dumbing down our degrees. Whilst the university can use the initiative to boast of our ‘graduate qualities’ on their website, I would argue that at best these units showcase skills or knowledge available from a Linkedin Learning course. I ask simply, what can be gained from a ‘practical’ course that eschews industry standards, or a ‘theoricial’ one completely devoid of nuance.

Now, I’m not a wet blanket, and I can appreciate the value of novelty and a certain degree of whimsy in our university experience - but it has come to a point where the sheer volume of these required interdisciplinary units begins to displace the time we need to master the disciplines we actually signed up to study. This is particularly a problem for students completing Advanced Studies degrees, or who are part of the Dalyell program, who are also required to complete 12 credit points worth of OLE units. For students like myself, this amounts to a total of 36 credit points spent in the grey area between disciplines. The whole thing makes me wonder: if it is so important to the university that graduates have a breadth of knowledge outside of their discipline - hardly any of which, mind you, would have been actually acquired through these units - then what on earth is wrong with a bog standard elective? More focused than an OLE, more choice than the FASS and Dalyell units, and yet, it doesn’t sound nearly as good to the marketing team.

So, if I’m original enough of a thinker to pose a riddle: John is required to do 12cp of OLEs, Jane is part of the Dalyell program, Jean is double majoring in FASS, and Joe does all three. How much time is there left within a four year degree?