New undergraduate admissions to the Interdisciplinary Studies Program (ISP) have been suspended as the University organizes to meet mounting financial challenges. While the program has served students well over the years, its numbers have decreased as the university implemented an ever larger array of new majors, minors and certificate programs. Students currently majoring in ISP will be allowed to complete their individualized majors.
The Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies Program (ISP) offers students the opportunity to develop individualized, coherent, intellectually challenging, cross disciplinary academic plans, utilizing courses from selected departments at California State University, Long Beach. Successful ISP students excel in their academic studies; navigate a complex intellectual environment; integrate the theoretical and methodological elements in interdisciplinary work; and clearly communicate their program of study to multiple audiences. Students, with the help of a faculty advisor, must select courses and focus their program on the basis of a unifying issue, theme or topic-called an area of concentration. The area of concentration must meet three criteria:
The area of concentration must be truly interdisciplinary. It must integrate and focus approaches and knowledge from at least two fields or disciplines. The principle of integration can be historical, regional, thematic or problem-focused. The program also provides an opportunity for groups of faculty to develop new majors. The bachelor's degrees in Engineering Technology and Women's Studies originated in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program.
Students have created such cross-disciplinary programs as: Neuroscience, Sport Psychology, Ecological Studies, Biomedical Ethics, Feminism in Philosophy and Literature, and Marine Toxicology.
(These are merely titles that students created to identify their program of study. The ISP does not have actual programs for you to use as a framework to follow. Students who are interested in the ISP need to research and develop their own proposed program of study.)
The area of concentration must not replicate any existing major. The purpose of the Interdisciplinary Studies major is to link students with clusters of courses and faculty where no formal program exists. Please review the complete list of degree programs available at CSULB.
The area of concentration must be feasible. Each student's proposed program must be discussed with a faculty advisor to ensure that the range and number of courses required will be available. The student's role in the selection of the area of concentration is active not passive. The student must actively plan his/her program and cultivate relationships with assigned or designated faculty. In other words, the student is responsible for shaping his/her program.
The ISP's aim is to foster intellectual rigor, curiosity and an integration of "knowledges" in the 21st century world. All prospective interdisciplinary studies program applicants must have a 3.0 cumulative GPA in order to apply to the program.
