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Alberto Pepe edited interdisciplinary.tex
about 9 years ago
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Inter-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary research is much lauded and encouraged in academia. The reason is clear: cross-fertilization of ideas is undeniably a good thing. Interdisciplinary research allows for disciplines and cultures to borrow research methods, practices, approaches, and results from one another. After all, scholars do not do research in a vacuum \cite{Pepe}. And as the boundaries separating departments and disciplines fade, collaboration among them naturally increases. While interdisciplinary research is indeed a \textit{good} thing for academia, I would like to argue that it is a \textit{bad} choice to jumpstart an academic career.
Here's my story. Ever since my undergraduate degree and all the way through my graduate studies and my postdoc, I was pushed to take classes in other departments. My undergraduate degree was in \textbf{Astrophysics} and I took two or three classes in Computer Science. This is rather normal. A lot of physicists are (and need to be) good at computers. I liked these classes enough to apply for a Masters in \textbf{Computer Science} which I completed right after my Bachelor. I then worked two research jobs. The first at \href{http://www.cineca.it/en}{CINECA}, Italy, where I did Astronomical Data Visualization (a great way to blend Astrophysics and Computer Science). The second one at \href{http://home.web.cern.ch/}{CERN}, Switzerland, where I worked with data repositories, digital libraries, natural language processing, Open Access. In my years at CERN, I started getting more and more interested in data and information science. I applied and got into a Ph.D. program in \textbf{Information Studies} at
UCLA. Anything that falls under the umbrella of Data Science and Information Science is intrinsically interdisciplinary and the classes I took at UCLA where
as interdisciplinary as it gets. During my first two years as a Ph.D. I
took classes such as
\begin{itemize}
\item Methods for social network analysis (Sociology)
\item Critical studies worked with \href{http://christineborgman.info/}{Christine Borgman} - easily one of
architecture (Architecture)
\item Geographic thought and the
concept of belonging (Geography)
\item Thinking about thinking (Cognitive Science)
\item Formal Modeling and Simulations top Information Scientists in
Social Sciences (Complex Systems)
\item Data and Media Arts (Design School)
\end{itemize}
A pretty mixed bag, huh? (\href{http://albertopepe.com/phdclasses}{Full list here}). While it all sounds a bit eccentric, these were the
most formative, nurturing years of my life (I will discuss this in detail in a separate blog post). world.