The ISF major houses a research-driven program of liberal education. It is a problem-based program, not a discipline. It offers motivated students the unique opportunity to develop an individualized cross-disciplinary Research Program that includes a Course of Study and a Senior Thesis. The Course of Study is made up of courses taken in the social sciences, the humanities, and/or the professional schools and colleges, alongside the required courses in ISF. The capstone experience a scholarly, rigorously-researched 40 page required Senior Thesis, a sustained inquiry in the social sciences and humanities based on original, cross-disciplinary research. Read more about the major
The Interdisciplinary Studies Program is proud to host Berkeley Course Threads, developed by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, that give students the chance to connect their courses thematically to earn a certificate in interdisciplinary studies.
Recent ISF Graduates
Tali Gires
Human Rights and NGO’s
While also winning the Florence Palmer Prize in Political Science in 2014 for her work on NGO’s, Tali wrote her ISF thesis on constructions of gender relations among different ethnicities living in rural communities in the San Martin region of Peru in order to understand how gender and ethnicity play a role in survival strategies for these communities and how gender and ethnic constructions relate to the development of economic and political structures. Based on fieldwork conducted in this region, she analyzed the ways in which these mestizo and indigenous communities have...
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