The B.A. or B.S. degree in Multidisciplinary Studies (MDS) is an individualized degree which allows students flexibility in designing degree programs that relate to their personal, educational and career goals. This degree program will provide a path to achieve baccalaureate degrees for those students whose career goals require skills from multiple fields, or who wish to integrate several fields of particular interest into a coherent program. In addition to coursework in two distinct disciplines, students also explore the relationships between the disciplines through a senior Capstone project, which is designed and created by the student in collaboration with a faculty mentor.
Who Might Be Interested?
Multidisciplinary Studies enables both traditional and nontraditional students to customize a major to meet their career goals. Who might pursue this degree?
- Students with clear interests, learning objectives and career goals that cannot reasonably be met through existing majors, minors and electives.
- Students returning to college after several years to complete a degree who find their earlier earned college credits are no longer well matched to the requirements in more conventional baccalaureate majors.
- Students seeking to integrate previously completed coursework with another field of study to gain knowledge and skills in both disciplines.
Student Learning Outcomes
Students completing a Multidisciplinary Studies Major will:
- Demonstrate a significant depth of knowledge in two different cognate areas
- Identify the issues, problems or goals addressed by each cognate area
- Demonstrate familiarity with the terminology commonly used in each cognate area
- Identify and explain key texts or significant works in each cognate area
- Explain the mode of inquiry or creative process that characterizes each cognate area
- Describe how the two cognate areas contrast with each other, or complement one another, in ways that create a greater understanding than either would provide alone
- Explain how the concepts, skills and values of the chosen cognate areas will help the student to reach identified educational/career goals and/or contribute to the student's personal, social or spiritual life.
Faculty Spotlight
Dr. Cindy Moseman joined the Family and Consumer Sciences Department in 1988 to teach courses in Child and Family Studies. She served as department chair...Read more
Contact Info
Cindy Moseman
419.289.5293
cmoseman@ashland.edu
210 C Center for the Arts
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What Can I Do With This Degree?
The Multidisciplinary Studies Major exists so that you may design a course of study to best prepare you for your academic and professional goals. It is possible to include a relevant internship for credit toward your degree.
Multidisciplinary Studies
A Multidisciplinary Studies Major enables an undergraduate student to pursue a cohesive set of courses from two different disciplinary areas in substitution for the traditional major. In addition to gaining a solid foundation in the content of two different disciplines, the student will also learn how to integrate knowledge from each of the chosen disciplines.
Students, in consultation with two faculty advisors, will develop a written proposal for what courses will be included in their required curriculum and receive approval from individuals listed on the Proposal Form. The proposal will need to total at least 120 hours to graduate and include:
- Major Classes (60 hours) including courses from two cognate areas consisting of at least 24 semester hours each. Of those 24 hours, at least 9 credit hours must be 300/400 level courses.
- The Multidisciplinary Capstone course (3 hours)
- University Core (44-60 hours)