Applications are open for September 2026! 🚀
Applications are open for September 2026! 🚀
We set up our school systems based on the assumption that all young people need to decide their path of higher education by the time they are 16.
In many schools, the “subjects” students study when they start 11th grade are determined by their higher education goals, which also determine the prerequisites they must have completed in grades 9 and 10. In other words, young minds need to start choosing which subjects to study by the time they are 14.
This forced specialization into specific disciplines is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, in a world of accelerating change where new industries are being born and old ones are being disrupted, this is a false sense of choice. Add to that the AI-led disruptions in the workforce and the fact that the , and we are confronted with an inevitable uncertainty about the future. In such a world of flux, young people and their families can’t possibly predict the roles and jobs they will be doing in the future. The only real choice here is focusing on transferable skills across disciplines and careers.
That aside, many young people are not ready to specialize, nor will they ever want to. At APP, our community is filled with young people who love pursuing more than one discipline, whether it be combining the arts with politics, pursuing activism, bringing together engineering and literature in Science Fiction, or applying economics to design space habitats. Many traditional counsellors may treat this as an illusion of confusion, or not “knowing what you want to be when you grow up”. But for us, this interdisciplinary lens is a natural way of understanding the world.
After all, “subjects” or “disciplines” exist in our imagination as a helpful way of structuring the growing knowledge of our world. But making sense of reality and tackling pressing challenges often requires an interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary lens. The most pressing challenges facing our world, whether it be Climate Change or AI governance, require leaders who can think across the humanities, sciences, and the arts. By forcing young people into narrow academic boxes at 14, we’re not preparing them for the world they’ll actually inherit; we’re handicapping them for it.
So whenever a young person expresses concern, confusion, or fear around not knowing what to study, I always encourage them to consider Interdisciplinary universities. I remind them that their feeling of uncertainty isn’t a problem to be solved; it’s a sign of a different intellectual set of interdisciplinary interests.
Interdisciplinary universities validate this way of thinking and learning, rather than trying to pathologize it. These are pioneering accredited colleges and institutions globally, where instead of choosing one major or degree, learners develop transdisciplinary knowledge, skills, and capabilities across different disciplines.
Here are 7 interdisciplinary universities learners may consider.
Located in London, (LIS) operates on a radically simple principle: education should be organized around problems, not disciplines. Rather than declaring a major, students shape their own degree by selecting from interconnected “challenges”, real-world problems that demand input from multiple fields.
A challenge on urban housing, for instance, naturally pulls in architecture, economics, social policy, and community engagement. Another on pandemic response weaves together epidemiology, public health communication, ethics, and behavioral science. This approach forces students to ask “which disciplines do I actually need?” instead of memorizing a predetermined curriculum.
The model works because it mirrors how professionals actually solve problems in the real world, no epidemiologist works in isolation from economists and communicators. LIS’s first graduates are already making waves: graduates have gone on to roles in social impact organizations, tech companies, policy think tanks, and creative industries, many reporting that their interdisciplinary training gave them a distinctive edge in synthesizing complex challenges.
Located in the Netherlands and operating as an honors college within the University of Utrecht’s degree-awarding framework, (UCR) organizes its curriculum around seminars rather than lectures, with small discussion-based groups where students grapple with fundamental questions across disciplines.
Instead of siloed courses, UCR uses “themes” that pull together history, philosophy, literature, science, and social inquiry, so a single semester might explore “Power and Resistance” or “Knowledge and Truth,” naturally drawing connections across what traditional universities keep separate.
This model works because it treats interdisciplinary learning not as a special offering but as the default way humans make sense of the world.
Based in San Francisco and fully accredited by WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges), represents a global take on interdisciplinary education.
Rather than organizing around traditional departments or even broad themes, Minerva structures its entire curriculum around the development of cognitive skills, critical thinking, creative thinking, effective communication, and complex problem-solving. Every student takes the same rigorous core, which means a computer science student sits alongside a future social entrepreneur in seminars on economics, ethics, psychology, and history, all designed to build transferable intellectual tools.
What makes Minerva unique is its global model: students spend their first year in San Francisco, then rotate through different cities, San Francisco, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Mumbai, Seoul, studying how the same challenges play out in different cultural and economic contexts.
This works because it forces students to see that interdisciplinary thinking is inseparable from a global perspective; the problems worth solving rarely fit neatly into one discipline or one country.
Located in Berlin and accredited through Germany’s education system, (TUAS) takes “applied” seriously; its interdisciplinary degrees aren’t theoretical exercises but direct preparations for solving real problems.
Students can pursue degrees such as “Technology with Focus on Impact,” combining engineering with systems thinking and social responsibility; “AI & Sustainability,” which merges artificial intelligence development with climate and environmental management; or “Sustainability Management,” blending environmental science, policy, economics, and organizational strategy.
This approach works because many of today’s most pressing challenges, especially climate change, categorically refuse to be solved within a single discipline. Climate breakdown isn’t purely a physics problem; it’s entangled with economics, psychology, policy, justice, infrastructure, agriculture, and culture.
Located in Providence, Rhode Island, and accredited as one of America’s premier Ivy League institutions, stands out among top-tier research universities for its radical commitment to student agency through the Open Curriculum.
Unlike peer institutions that impose general education requirements, Brown trusts students to design their own interdisciplinary paths with minimal institutional constraints.
A student might combine neuroscience with philosophy, or blend computer science with art history and music composition; the only requirement is intellectual coherence and serious engagement. This model works because it treats undergraduates as capable designers of their own education rather than passive recipients of a prescribed path.
Located in Leiden, the Netherlands, and operating as an honors college within Leiden University’s degree-awarding structure, (LUC) takes a problem-based learning approach to liberal arts education.
Rather than organizing around a single major, students design their own interdisciplinary pathways while engaging with core seminars that span philosophy, history, literature, science, and social inquiry, ensuring breadth alongside depth.
The college structures its curriculum around “colloquia,” small discussion-based seminars where students encounter foundational texts and questions across disciplines, training them to think critically across domains from the outset.
Based in the UAE and accredited through the UAE’s higher education system, ‘s College of Interdisciplinary Studies explicitly names itself around the principle that today’s leaders must think across boundaries.
The college offers degrees in “Business Transformation” (combining innovation, organizational change, and strategic thinking), “Computational Systems” (merging computer science with systems design and human-centered problem-solving), “Social Innovation” (blending social entrepreneurship, community development, and policy), and “Sustainability” (integrating environmental science, economics, and organizational strategy).
This model works because Zayed’s mission is deliberately focused on preparing students for “professional leadership in the rapidly changing global environment,” emphasizing “seminal skills that can be transferred across contexts and applied in novel ways.”
The illusion of the singular path, that you must choose one thing, one discipline, one career to pursue, dies hard in our education systems.
But it’s an illusion nonetheless.
Interdisciplinary universities exist precisely because the world has moved on from this way of thinking: the most interesting problems, the most meaningful work, the most innovative solutions emerge at the intersections of fields, not within them.
If you love both design and social justice, you don’t have to choose. If you’re drawn to technology and philosophy, or sustainability and the arts, or business and activism, those aren’t contradictions; they’re the raw material of an interdisciplinary way of viewing the world. And the universities that recognize this are the ones truly preparing learners for the future.
