Some years ago, a senior colleague, who was a computer scientist, shared how she worked on an international project with a multidisciplinary team. Although the project was technology-themed, the project team had several kinds of disciplines, including anthropologists, historians, social scientists, etc. This diverse team composition required her to learn a bit about other disciplines to effectively collaborate and contribute to the project’s success.
If interdisciplinarity is crucial, how do we design education, especially higher education, to prepare students for it? Or I should even start with, “Are we preparing students to be able to function across disciplines?” Or is higher education in Nigeria siloed across singular disciplines? It made me reflect on how restricted higher education in Nigeria has been in terms of multidisciplinary exploration. To adequately prepare tertiary students for the world they will enter after graduation, we need to incorporate opportunities for interdisciplinarity into their learning pathways.
Another way to enhance interdisciplinarity in Nigerian higher education is by encouraging interdisciplinary research among undergraduates. For example, students could collaborate across disciplines for their final year theses. This collaboration would allow them to integrate different perspectives and methodologies, enriching their research and broadening their academic experience.