The Multidisciplinary Competency within the Grand Challenges Scholars Program is designed to help students develop an interdisciplinary mindset when addressing complex global challenges. Engineering solutions do not exist in isolation. Rather, they intersect with business, policy, ethics, human behavior, economics, medicine, and culture. This competency ensures that students move beyond purely technical training and gain the broader perspective necessary to design impactful, systems-level solutions.
To complete this competency, students must:
Successfully complete FSE 150: Perspectives on Grand Challenges for Engineering, which introduces systems thinking and the global context of engineering challenges.
Complete either:
One upper-division interdisciplinary course (3 credits, 300/400 level), or
One approved interdisciplinary experience (75–150 hours) aligned with their Grand Challenges theme.
These experiences must involve meaningful engagement outside of traditional technical engineering tasks and explore areas such as public policy, healthcare systems, ethics, business, social sciences, or other complementary disciplines. The goal is to develop the ability to integrate diverse perspectives when designing engineering solutions.
For my Health theme, I fulfill the Multidisciplinary Competency through:
FSE 150: Perspectives on Grand Challenges for Engineering, which introduced systems-level thinking across health, security, sustainability, and joy of living, and
MedTech Accelerator Internship, a healthcare-focused interdisciplinary experience that allowed me to engage with clinical, business, and regulatory dimensions of medical technology innovation.
Together, these experiences strengthened my ability to approach biomedical engineering challenges not only from a technical standpoint, but also from social, economic, and real-world implementation perspectives.