Multidisciplinary approaches in university studies. The perspective of the students enrolled in the UAM-Iztapalapa

Abstract

This article aims to provide elements to assess, from the students’ perspective, the relevance of the reform to the university training model, in terms of the multidisciplinary approach. The great majority of mexican public universities have made curricular adjustments in this sense, through the emphatic incorporation of subjects belonging to multiple disciplines. The Iztapalapa campus of the Metropolitan Autonomous University (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, UAM) has done so in most of the degree plans of its three academic divisions. However, 17 years after the process of inserting multidisciplinary elective courses began, the result of this policy have not been showed yet; this study contributes to repair this lack, appealing to the opinions of its students on the usefulness of the information and institutional orientation received, their motivations and the fulfillment of their expectations, the relevance of these courses, and their proposals for improvement.