Commencement speaker Thomas Friedman encouraged the 2009 graduates of UMBC to continue thinking laterally. The Pulitzer Prize winner and foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times offered up a stereotypical knock on the liberal arts degree. With few jobs available and so many graduates, who gets the job? According to Friedman, UMBC graduates are well-equipped to enter the job market. To create a niche in this economic environment requires the will and imagination to think laterally, something UMBC students do every day.
Class of 2009
Friedman sites Michelangelo as one extraordinary example of a man whose life was defined by his interdisciplinary and artful endeavors. Problems are solved and conflicts often averted when research in any discipline is paired with the artistic, philosophical, or scientific. According to Friedman, it’s the intertwining of knowledge that yields imaginative and lasting solutions. It’s no coincidence that UMBC students get jobs when they graduate (if they don’t go directly to graduate school).
Interdisciplinary study is a given at UMBC, but it’s often a lasting challenge for incoming students. We already have hundreds of students who will begin the trek in the Fall of 2009. Who’s next?
Class of 2014 - To Be Determined
UMBC Admissions Counselors' Blog 