I spent some time this afternoon in a very interesting discussion with the head of a department about the pros and cons of introducing a genuinely inter-disciplinary degree.  Indeed, the possibility we were talking about would in some way not be disciplinary at all, but would seek to encompass a broad range of approaches to knowledge, to the world around us, and to how to explore aspects of it and operate within it.

The catalyst for our discussion was knowledge of the introduction in 2012 by a world-leading London college of what they are now calling a BABSc in Arts and Sciences.  I find the idea very interesting.  The college see this as their top product, that will attract the very brightest students (including a significant number of international students) and that will produce graduates who enter the top-most careers.

It is the last of these expectations that probably causes many people to pause.  If students don't have a secure grounding in a single (or two) disciplines, why will employers be interested in them? This is where the disciplinary thinking that gives strength to many aspects of a university's work comes up against the reality of the post-graduation labour market. For the truth is that the majority of our students go into employment where the actual discipline they have studied is of little significance - it is the skills and competences they have picked up along the way that are more important. (There are, of course, key exceptions in areas such as Medicine and Architecture - but even in subjects such as Engineering significant numbers of students do not enter employment as engineers.)

Colleagues at the London college have stood disciplinary thinking on its head and have said to themselves 'what is it that would enable our students to be successful in competing for places on the Civil Service fast track entry scheme, or in the competitions for places in the European Union civil service, or in the graduate entry schemes for the biggest international corporations?'  The answers they have come up with include the ability to analyse an argument, the competence to handle statistical data, an understanding of the language and methods of science, an appreciation of ethics and of ethical behaviour, competence in a second langauge and the ability to operate in culturally different environments, experience in investigation and in teamwork, self-confidence and accuracy in self-presentation on paper and in person.  It is difficult to see how this range of attributes could be delivered within a Single or even a Dual Honours programme. And that is why the college has decided to create a completely new degree, with a new structure, to deliver this vision.

But exciting though I find this vision to be, my anxiety lies in whether students would be attracted to it - or perhaps I should say UK students.  School and college education in the UK narrows the horizons of young people by forcing them to 'drop' so many areas of study at too early an age. By the age of 16 almost all young adults have been forced by our system to drop languages, or Maths, or science, or the humanities, (or several of these) in order to focus on a tightly-bound set of subjects for their school-leaving examinations.  Growth in interest in the International Baccalaureate is certainly chipping away at such specialisation, and that is a good thing but so far on a relatively small scale.  The London college is requiring all entrants to its new degree to have A levels (or equivalents) involving both a science and an arts subject. Although I am keen on their new degree I would therefore not have been eligible for it on the basis of my own A levels of Geography, History, and Economics with the British Constitution (those were the days before there was a separate Politics A level, but aspects of political study were incorporated as a paper within Economics). I suspect that most of my scientific or engineering colleagues - with the common Maths, Physics, Chemistry combination, or Physics, Chemistry, Biology - would be equally barred from the programme.

So there are questions over the UK candidate market for such degrees - in terms of eligibility.  They go alongside doubts over the willingness to eschew disciplinarity to move to a much broader intellectual training.  But the college is imagining that its new degree will be its premier product, attracting international students.  I can foresee the success of that recruitment - of students from countries (such as Germany, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian states) where much more broadly-based school education maintains the study of up to 10 subjects (including sciences, arts, creative subjects, and languages) up to the age of 18 or 19. It would be ironic if the premier degree programme at one of the UK's leading universities ultimately becomes the springboard for international students to gain the attributes to enable them to out-compete UK graduates for the elite jobs in the UK and the wider labour market.

I will watch developments on this new programme with interest - and will also encourage colleagues in Sheffield to think about how we might respond to the thinking that has been going on at the other end of the East Midlands Trains route.

There will be again be only four blog posts next month as I'm having a few days' leave to attend a niece's wedding in Italy.  Blogging dates selected by random numbers will be: 6th, 23rd, 25th, and 27th.