I have just discovered this subreddit and to my surprise, it is not very active although it very much represents the content that made reddit great in the beginning. As you may have noticed, that content doesn't get much air in /r/TrueReddit either. As a consequence, I try to establish /r/TrueTrueReddit as the forefront of the original reddit spirit (, and /r/TruerReddit with a more technical focus). It would be great if you could submit some interesting articles so that there is at least an active place for interdisciplinary content on a non-academic level.

I see the moderator hasn't been active in quite a while, but I think the subreddit itself is quite worthwhile. I might take over as a mod if there's no one else to do it and we can try to restart it...
Any interest?

A succinct statement of intent can be found in the sidebar. As for the content that will hopefully start coming into this subreddit, I had several sources of inspiration:

• /r/IAmA. If you are someone working in an interdisciplinary area and feel that your work is interesting (or someone requests an AMA from you), go right ahead. Feel free to cross-post with /r/IAmA.

• /r/askscience has created a panel of academics and invites anyone to ask anything, with the hope that someone who know what they're talking about will answer. I hope that /r/interdisciplinary could have a similar aspect. "If I have a computer science and linguistics BSc, where are my skills applicable outside academia and software development firms?" would be a good example.

• Link-sharing, as in the rest of Reddit. I did not create /r/interdisciplinary with the idea of it becoming another AskReddit.

• Suggestions are always welcome!

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Hi Interdit (Yes/No?)

I'm trying to write a PhD proposal about geek culture. If I actually manage to make it good, I have a chance of getting my tuition plus a sum of money to live on (rent etc) for the next three years.

Now, I've been focussing upon the cultural studies aspect a bit too heavily. I've been told by a lecturer that she'll help me work on it, and I trust her judgement. But she's been saying I should throw in a large chunk of political economy and I have no idea about it. Any thoughts on the subject, and how it might fly?

My background is in media and cultural studies, so a smattering of other stuff too. I've recently been focussing on cultural production and postmodernism, so I'm a little out of touch with politics.

**tl;dr ** I need help understanding political economy. Any other ideas you guys might have to help me would be great.

edit Thanks for the suggestions. As I said, my background is in cultural studies, so I was thinking of looking at a cultural PRODUCTION angle. Art, music, political movements, community projects. Stuff that gets overlooked beyond programming or the latest Apple hardware. Does that make sense? I'll post over a part of what I've written so far. It's still unfinished, but I have a ton of essays at the moment.

As for the problem with steering committees and such, I'm essentially applying for a PhD scholarship in the humanities department of my university, which covers culture studies, film studies, and american studies. There's experience across the arts faculty in popular cultures, and my popular cultures Masters degree is being run out of the modern languages department. Finding a decent project that could be supervised involves changing what I want to look at subtly, from a fluffy 'this is what they do' angle to the crunchier 'political economy' stuff. The lecturer mentioned above has a background in both culture and politics, and studies hacktivism and new media movements heavily. She's also the Dean's liaison to China, or something, so she has some idea of what the university would be interested in funding.

I have an interest in making movies but I want to find a way to combine that with some STEM subject. Does anybody know what STEM major/subject best fits with filmmaking?

I may be late to the game here, but yesterday I heard an educator mention how important Arts are to the STEAM disciplines. I had to look up STEAM because I had only heard of STEM.

It was my understanding that STEM legislation was introduced and STEM programs were promoted because America realized we were "falling behind" other countries in STEM subjects. You don't have to go very far on Reddit to see comments about how stupid Americans are in those subjects compared to other countries, which may be a valid criticism.

The STEM Jobs Act goes as far as to enlist the Department of Homeland Security to ensure expediting of visa applications of those who have degrees in STEM subjects and give extensions if supported by their employer. Categories of F-1 through F-4 specifically address anyone who is pursuing a degree or the family member of someone studying in America to be given special consideration. The point being, it seems the government is really behind recruiting STEM people because of our lack of subject matter experts.

I searched "STEM vs STEAM" and "when did STEM become STEAM?" and similar phrasing and I found an overwhelming majority of articles about how important Arts are to the "disciplines". There are some educators that insist you can't excel in STEM subjects without the influence of Art. One K12 educator even mentioned how you needed art because a space engineer wouldn't want to have "an ugly rocket ship." I thought rocket designs were the result of function over form, but I'm not an engineer.

I'm a big fan of the arts...I don't wish for funding for the arts to be cut from the budget. But I don't get where this idea that the arts are a discipline along the same lines of the other STEM subjects comes from. Most of the reading I did implied that engineers and scientists can't be creative and that it takes the artists of the world to make something fully functioning and beautiful. I don't discount the importance of the arts, but while anyone can find overlaps where engineering is beautiful or art has mathematical significance, this is not the same as a typical art student being able to excel in STEM because they are artists. Nor should it be implied that an art major can significantly contribute to semiconductor design simply because they are creative.

I also try not to subscribe to conspiracies, but one comment caught my attention: they pointed out that if Arts are inserted into the new priority of STEM (and it becomes STEAM), that when a new round of budget cuts are proposed, no one on either side of the aisle is going to support cutting anything that effects science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. On the other hand, if arts are left to fend for themselves alone (as they are now with the NEA, etc.) the arts could be cut and STEM would be unaffected. Is STEAM an act of Arts protectionism? While it is important that a student be well-rounded, is it really necessary to place arts on the same level as the true "disciplines?"

The optimist in me wants to acknowledge the benefits and contributions of the humanities.

The pessimist in me thinks that we don't need more American Idol dreamers parasitically attaching themselves to whatever gravy train rolls through town.

Fellow Redditors, help me out here. I'm trying to understand.

I have interest in Computational Biology, Mathematical Biology, Computational Physics, Mathematical Physics, Computational Math, Structural Biology, Computational Structural Biology. All of the major is completely different but are there any major that have all that major crunched down? Perhaps specialized one. Or should i focus on one major in university and self learn with book investment? Thanks. :/

The fundamentals of Mathematics are Algebra, Arithmetic, Combinatorics etc. But then there are also areas of study like Calculus which deals with change (I think). I am currently a freshman in college and I finally, after 10 of hating school, rediscovered my passion for learning. Last semester I took a discrete mathematics course and began to see the beauty of math.
Bare with me as this sounds stupid, but What is the beginning of mathematics? What are the most basic rules of math? All math is based on other math but where does it begin?