On (deep) multidisciplinarity
I find joy and security in knowing that I have a lot to learn. I am excitable, curious, and thrive in informationally-dense environments; however, I also have faced a lot of uncertainty and frustration when picturing my career path. In one regard, choosing to come to grad school was a great way of prolonging this seemingly-inevitable decision of picking a job for the next 40 years.
In grade school, I learned about multipotentialites. It was the first time (though not the last!) that I saw an example of a career path that would truly excite me, not just at the beginning, but all the way through. We have different names for these: polymaths, genius -- although that second one is a bit loaded and I would never consider myself to be one, especially after meeting so many of them at MIT. The tension between knowing what I wanted (something a bit untraditional and unmapped) and the fairly monotonous focus of college really prepared and propelled me to become a Renaissance person at MIT. Luckily, this institution encourages this; I often say that “whatever you want to do here, there’s someone doing it at 110%”. In my perfect day, I would read papers in the morning, go sailing, have a couple of meetings, go to a class on biomechanics or cognition, go to ceramics class, and have dinner with friends. I was lucky to have had many perfect days in the last years that this feels commonplace. I wanted to try -- not everything -- but things I was curious about, which felt closer to everything than it did to just one thing. Even just over the last 5 years, I’ve picked up SCUBA diving, freediving, biking, snowboarding, crocheting, knitting, ceramics, oil painting, yarn spinning, camping, and the list might be 5 times as long for the academic topics I have immersed myself in.
I say all of this to relay to you my central thesis, which is that everything is the same thing. Field and discipline delineations are false and unnecessary! It is all connected, interdependent, and actually the same thing in the end. In my work, I have stepped into (classically delineated) art, math, science, engineering, design, and emerged more whole than ever. I’ve found faith in the necessary and sufficient nature of deep multidisciplinarity.
Interdisciplinary vs. Multidisciplinary
I haven’t seen or heard the phrase of ‘deep multidisciplinary’ in my circles, so while I won’t claimed to be the only one who has coined it, I do use it quite frequently. Since I am in a field (space architecture) that is marked by its engagement with multiple disciplines, it’s typically considered ‘interdisciplinary’, or existing at the intersection(s) of two or more traditional disciplines. Other examples are computational architecture, biochemistry, and quantum computing, although some of these are now becoming fields in their own right (humans do love to partition...)
I find that ‘interdisciplinary’ has a downfall for creating even finer, more niche divides for study areas that were at one point, meant to be the crystallization of two unrelated fields. I think about all the fields holding hands; ‘interdisciplinary’, I find, severs hands. We start to craft, cut, and create these shallow niches, drafting hyperreal disciplines out of something that was meant to be deep and organic and meaningful. While they can be affirming to someone’s exact interests (because how likely is it that we all fit exactly into the middle of disciplines?), we run the risk that interdisciplinarity generates no new knowledge because one hasn’t spent the time and mental capacity on learning something well enough to extrapolate, innovate, or disrupt. We have started to see programs emerge in space architecture, through which we now produce space architects, who are college graduates trained neither in space sciences or architecture, but rather on an imagined world where we build 1,000,000 people moon cities. I’m not trying to besmirch these labels (space architect or interdisciplinary) -- in fact, I use them at times to describe myself -- but rather point to the danger that interdisciplinary programs can bring when one neglects the appropriate depth that generated these amazing collaborations and insights in the first place. Coming back to everything is the same thing, I do think the downfall of (some) interdisciplinary programs is very tied up with hyperrealism and consumerism and capitalism and meritocracy, whereby the name of your degree becomes more important than the degree itself, and the faster you can become an “expert” in something, the better you/your future are.
In general, I believe interdisciplinarity is a positive trend in the sense that it gets closer to everything = same thing. But what if we give ourselves some grace, patience, and time to really learn and absorb and sit with uncertainty and discomfort? What if we can reclaim and curate for ourselves, what interdisciplinarity claims to do for us? I have found confidence in the belief, and encourage it in others, to find immersive experiences in a field of interest. You should aim to gather the data that people who have ‘grown up’ in that field gather, and synthesize on your own. I find this to be more productive, meaningful, efficient, and satisfying than to engage in a program that accelerates the delivery of knowledge. To emphasize my belief in the importance of deep, immersive experiences in multiple disciplines, I use ‘multidisciplinary’ to describe the additive and synergistic relations that the joining of many fields can, ought, and do provide us.
Now, I comment on some thought frameworks I use to seek deep multidisciplinary in a world made by/for discipline purists.
Through a conversation with a mentor (with similar mindset and many more years of career experience), I discovered that being short-term strategic about the next 1-3 years was productive for me. In the long term, I still want to capture flexibility and allow myself to encounter opportunities that I cannot project from where I am now. Every turn, every experience brings new horizons. Finding acceptance and excitement around the long-term uncertainty helps me not dwell on pitfalls claims, like what is ‘normal’ or ‘desirable’ or ‘preferable’.
A portfolio is a collection of work, thematically centered around a thesis that is more personal -- it’s your way of looking at the world, or the lens/perspective you offer. It can be non-linear, with less of a focus on dividing work into sections on a resume (education, professional experience, etc) but as a non-hierarchical collection of interests and efforts. This feels much more representative to me, as my interests are sometimes not reflected in the scope, intensity, or recency of my professional work.
Traveling between disciplines
I had ‘grown up’ in bioastronautics (the study and support of humans in space) and consider it my home field. It has the advantage and disadvantage of being characterized by multiple disciplines -- to a large extent, I rarely feel like I have an ‘expertise’ in the way someone studying computer science or medicine might. The richness of the field also meant that I was and could never be bored -- it expanded my horizons and made me a systems thinker, honing my power to draw parallels and connections across disparate topics and building an incredibly diverse skillset that allows me to work with and communicate data from/to every audience I can imagine.
When I shifted from my home discipline for the first time -- toward design -- I was incredibly nervous and frustrated. At this point (about 2 years ago), I had spent 6 years in bioastronautics and 7 years in aerospace engineering. My awards, accolades, and network was commensurate with that time spent. I realized how lacking and incomprehensive my resume might look to someone from the architecture industry, full of acronyms and jargon. Moreover, I knew only a handful of people in this industry. It struck me, how much security I found in knowing the people at conferences, being able to reach out to 2nd level LinkedIn connections, and most of all, knowing that my position was a leader in my peer group was hard-earned and recognized. I felt that shifting fields meant starting over, being a beginner, and I felt the tension that I knew well as an immigrant: that you are fluent in a whole other language, but no one knows. That you have so much to offer, but how to communicate that, to the right people?
Finding the right people is 90% of the transition. To grab the right eyes, I focused on reconfiguring my experiences into a more design-forward portfolio. I learned (very basic) Indesign and consulted publicly-available design portfolios to build my own. I attended many resume review workshops with a new document for the first time in years, and worked with a professional in the career services department to shift my project descriptions. I took headshots and wrote up descriptions for creative side-projects I had pursued over the years. I researched architecture firms that might intersect in what I can offer and what I would like to learn. I cold emailed companies, leveraging the prestige of the MIT name that I hope carried overseas, and emphasized my data-driven skillsets.
Interdisciplinary vs. Multidisciplinary
I haven’t seen or heard the phrase of ‘deep multidisciplinary’ in my circles, so while I won’t claimed to be the only one who has coined it, I do use it quite frequently. Since I am in a field (space architecture) that is marked by its engagement with multiple disciplines, it’s typically considered ‘interdisciplinary’, or existing at the intersection(s) of two or more traditional disciplines. Other examples are computational architecture, biochemistry, and quantum computing, although some of these are now becoming fields in their own right (humans do love to partition...) I find that ‘interdisciplinary’ has a downfall for creating even finer, more niche divides for study areas that were at one point, meant to be the crystallization of two unrelated fields. I think about all the fields holding hands; ‘interdisciplinary’, I find, severs hands. We start to craft, cut, and create these shallow niches, drafting hyperreal disciplines out of something that was meant to be deep and organic and meaningful. While they can be affirming to someone’s exact interests (because how likely is it that we all fit exactly into the middle of disciplines?), we run the risk that interdisciplinarity generates no new knowledge because one hasn’t spent the time and mental capacity on learning something well enough to extrapolate, innovate, or disrupt. We have started to see programs emerge in space architecture, through which we now produce space architects, who are college graduates trained neither in space sciences or architecture, but rather on an imagined world where we build 1,000,000 people moon cities. I’m not trying to besmirch these labels (space architect or interdisciplinary) -- in fact, I use them at times to describe myself -- but rather point to the danger that interdisciplinary programs can bring when one neglects the appropriate depth that generated these amazing collaborations and insights in the first place. Coming back to everything is the same thing, I do think the downfall of (some) interdisciplinary programs is very tied up with hyperrealism and consumerism and capitalism and meritocracy, whereby the name of your degree becomes more important than the degree itself, and the faster you can become an “expert” in something, the better you/your future are.
In general, I believe interdisciplinarity is a positive trend in the sense that it gets closer to everything = same thing. But what if we give ourselves some grace, patience, and time to really learn and absorb and sit with uncertainty and discomfort? What if we can reclaim and curate for ourselves, what interdisciplinarity claims to do for us? I have found confidence in the belief, and encourage it in others, to find immersive experiences in a field of interest. You should aim to gather the data that people who have ‘grown up’ in that field gather, and synthesize on your own. I find this to be more productive, meaningful, efficient, and satisfying than to engage in a program that accelerates the delivery of knowledge. To emphasize my belief in the importance of deep, immersive experiences in multiple disciplines, I use ‘multidisciplinary’ to describe the additive and synergistic relations that the joining of many fields can, ought, and do provide us.
Now, I comment on some thought frameworks I use to seek deep multidisciplinary in a world made by/for discipline purists.
Short-term strategy, long-term uncertainty
The language we use to reflect on our identity shapes the development of that identity. I’ve often found the metaphor of a ‘path’ or even ‘journey’ to be reductive when picturing my own career, even when recognizing that doubling-back, spirals upward, and dead-ends might exist in a path. While the past might look like a path in hindsight, the present and future feels more like ‘being at sea’ to me. There are intrinsic efforts I make -- adjusting the sails, pulling on ropes, changing the heading, charting stars -- and simultaneously a need to surrender to external events -- storms, swells, calm seas, currents -- that means I don’t get to 100% choose where I go. I find that capturing this uncertainty allows me to be flexible, intuitive, and short-term strategic about what I do next, in order to influence where I go next.Through a conversation with a mentor (with similar mindset and many more years of career experience), I discovered that being short-term strategic about the next 1-3 years was productive for me. In the long term, I still want to capture flexibility and allow myself to encounter opportunities that I cannot project from where I am now. Every turn, every experience brings new horizons. Finding acceptance and excitement around the long-term uncertainty helps me not dwell on pitfalls claims, like what is ‘normal’ or ‘desirable’ or ‘preferable’.
Toward a portfolio
I find that the way in which I view my evolutions or growth is similarly reflected into how I describe my skillsets and projects I’ve worked on. In engineering, we often focus on a resume or CV; it wasn’t until I stepped into the design world that I became familiar with the concept of a portfolio. Since then, this has been my preferred way of describing my work.A portfolio is a collection of work, thematically centered around a thesis that is more personal -- it’s your way of looking at the world, or the lens/perspective you offer. It can be non-linear, with less of a focus on dividing work into sections on a resume (education, professional experience, etc) but as a non-hierarchical collection of interests and efforts. This feels much more representative to me, as my interests are sometimes not reflected in the scope, intensity, or recency of my professional work.
Traveling between disciplines
I had ‘grown up’ in bioastronautics (the study and support of humans in space) and consider it my home field. It has the advantage and disadvantage of being characterized by multiple disciplines -- to a large extent, I rarely feel like I have an ‘expertise’ in the way someone studying computer science or medicine might. The richness of the field also meant that I was and could never be bored -- it expanded my horizons and made me a systems thinker, honing my power to draw parallels and connections across disparate topics and building an incredibly diverse skillset that allows me to work with and communicate data from/to every audience I can imagine. When I shifted from my home discipline for the first time -- toward design -- I was incredibly nervous and frustrated. At this point (about 2 years ago), I had spent 6 years in bioastronautics and 7 years in aerospace engineering. My awards, accolades, and network was commensurate with that time spent. I realized how lacking and incomprehensive my resume might look to someone from the architecture industry, full of acronyms and jargon. Moreover, I knew only a handful of people in this industry. It struck me, how much security I found in knowing the people at conferences, being able to reach out to 2nd level LinkedIn connections, and most of all, knowing that my position was a leader in my peer group was hard-earned and recognized. I felt that shifting fields meant starting over, being a beginner, and I felt the tension that I knew well as an immigrant: that you are fluent in a whole other language, but no one knows. That you have so much to offer, but how to communicate that, to the right people?
Finding the right people is 90% of the transition. To grab the right eyes, I focused on reconfiguring my experiences into a more design-forward portfolio. I learned (very basic) Indesign and consulted publicly-available design portfolios to build my own. I attended many resume review workshops with a new document for the first time in years, and worked with a professional in the career services department to shift my project descriptions. I took headshots and wrote up descriptions for creative side-projects I had pursued over the years. I researched architecture firms that might intersect in what I can offer and what I would like to learn. I cold emailed companies, leveraging the prestige of the MIT name that I hope carried overseas, and emphasized my data-driven skillsets.
All it takes is one person to say yes. For me, this was the partner in charge of research collaborations at 3XN/GXN, a Danish architecture studio specializing in behavioral and circular design. It was an immersive and eye-opening experience in what working in an architecture office could look like. It was exactly the experience I wanted! And as I’m getting ready to shift toward my next transition after my PhD, it feels much easier to shift again. I had heard this before I started, but it took me an embodied experience to learn: you’re not starting over. You carry everything you have learned with you into the next pivot. And your knowledge/prestige/connections/currency might look something like this:
As I’m gearing up for a big shift in my job title in the next 1-2 years, it feels like I’m already subconsciously anticipating these changes. I’m looking for opportunities that are a bit ‘out of left field’ but feel like a natural progression in terms of my interests. It’s always worthwhile remembering that as long as it makes sense to you, it doesn’t have to make sense to anybody else. Sometimes, we spend a lot of time justifying each twist and turn, especially in a world that rewards a straightforward, ambitious career path that looks clear and intentional. Even careers that have been nonlinear are ultimately made sensible in hindsight. I’ve given you some tools and persuation toward that end, but I’ll conclude the post by encouraging you to let go of that. It’s not necessary, or maybe even useful, to operate within the framework I’ve laid out -- because at the end of the day, it is still a framework. How you choose to live your decisions, can also be different from how you choose to describe your decisions. Embrace the uncertainty, the contradictions -- they will bring you somewhere true and exciting.
VIEWS MY OWN
I am, among many things, a PhD candidate at MIT AeroAstro. Motivated to always learn, categorize, and create frameworks for my experiences, I write and share reflections on my PhD journey in a collection called fieldnotes. Fieldnotes are detailed observations collected by anthropologists, sociologists, and ethnographers while situated in an environment of interest; the obsessive intensity to learn and grasp and make sense of phenomena during the collection of fieldnotes is the way that feels most reflective of the way I live life.