Experiential Learning

Four walls can’t contain an entire education. That’s why, at Richmond, most students extend their educations by participating in experiential learning opportunities. They’re the chance to take what you’ve learned in the classroom and apply it to the real world, either via research, an internship, service or study abroad.

Internships

Internships become important self-discovery tools for interdisciplinary studies majors as they begin to chisel a specific and self-designed field of study out of a variety of academic interests. Often, interdisciplinary majors are incredibly driven students who can envision exactly how their field of study will translate to a career. An interdisciplinary major in postmodern art means a student wants to be a curator while an interdisciplinary major in political philosophy means a students wants to go to law school. Internships give these self-motivated students the chance to test drive their professional goals and tweak their program of study if necessary.

The Career Development Center can help you secure internships that will suit your academic interests.

Study Abroad

The beauty of designing your own major is that you can incorporate all of the academic experiences that are important to you. Many students know that they want to study abroad before they’ve even worked out the details of their interdisciplinary program of study. An interest in studying abroad in a particular country may lead you to incorporate cultural and language courses into your curriculum. For instance, an interest in cross-cultural psychology and a desire to study abroad in Africa led one student to incorporate African history and culture classes into her major.

For information on studying abroad, visit the Office of International Education.

Research

The research component attached to the interdisciplinary major is designed to be intense, helping students synthesize their academic experiences toward a purposeful and coherent end.

Recent senior theses are listed below:

"Strategic Rhetorical Visions Extending Bormann: Governor-Elect George Allen and the 1993-94 Virginia Gubernatorial Transition" (rhetoric and communication and political science)

"Postmodern Music and Art" (art history and music)

"The Evolution of American Public Opinion & Hollywood's Depiction of the Vietnam War" (English and history)

"Medical Sociology and Medical Ethics" (biology and sociology)

"Comparative Indo-European Linguistics" (modern literatures and cultures and English)