As our world faces major complex challenges that call for a strong interdisciplinary connection between academic and professional innovation, an interdisciplinary approach in transitioning from academia to the workforce is recommended. Students enrolled in interdisciplinary programs are educated to reflect on their own learning process and development to provide society with critical analysis and solutions beyond the limits of a single discipline. They are typically given the opportunity to wrap up their educational experience with a comprehensive capstone project towards the end of their program degree. 

This experience should be structured to harness the potential of hybrid and interdisciplinarity approaches in personal branding for potential career options. As we teach students to integrate knowledge and think critically about solutions to complex problems, we also want to guide them to utilize various branding tools in advertising their acquired hybrid skills as they prepare for their future professional careers. At California Baptist University, we have been inspired to design the capstone experience to present ample strategies and tools in preparing for career goals. We adopted an interdisciplinary approach in choosing the deliverables and assessment tools to create an open space for students to present their professional profiles using various modalities.  

The process begins with developing an authentic curriculum vitae tailored for interdisciplinary careers. This involves highlighting hybrid skills as they are necessary for landing in the right position, while emphasizing on the broad understanding of the multiple disciplinary skills acquired throughout their educational journey. Students are encouraged to present themselves professionally in a manner that highlights the connection, intersection, and the common ground of their areas of emphasis of their interdisciplinary studies program. This task includes a draft of their resume returned to the student with recommendations, refined into a final resume based on professional examples and feedback. I like to describe the final step of this resume building process as a self-confidence builder, as it brings great pride to students, who end up realizing that they have more to offer to the world’s complex problems than they had thought. 

Students are given the task to brand their professional profiles through a short video presentation of themselves either by speaking directly to the camera or by providing brief snapshots of their professional and educational experience. This visual approach to personal branding serves a great purpose by bringing out their interdisciplinary capabilities in a visual format, highlighting their strengths and passions by describing how they will apply their hybrid skills towards complex societal, economic or other problems in today’s world. This presentation makes them more memorable to future employers and can be used for other professional endeavors.  

As part of their capstone experience, students are given the opportunity to reflect on their interdisciplinary skills, connections and integration strategies learned and acquired throughout their degree program. This type of assessment is scheduled for every other week in the 8-week online capstone course and develops from a basic outline to a fully developed paper with emphasis on five concepts learned throughout the interdisciplinary studies program. The purpose of this activity is to guide the student in gaining a deeper understanding of interdisciplinary concepts and skills while encouraging them to focus on the five to ten most skills most important for their future careers. This task is meant to nurture their self-reflexive skills, helping them better explore future professional possibilities. They prepare a robust employment packet as the final learning outcome of their capstone experience. 

Halfway through the course, students are asked to schedule an interview with career center personnel with a list of prepared questions and topics to discuss. This experience has been received with positive feedback from students who described it as beneficial to their career search in so many ways. They receive clarification on interview skills, career options and possibilities, as well as continuing education opportunities. In some cases, they were encouraged to refine their resumes even further to meet the needs of the current workforce. The process was guided by the instructor and written reports of the interview were required as tasks for the course. The meetings are typically conducted virtually; however, students are encouraged to attend the meeting face-to-face if they choose to. 

Additionally, the capstone project involves guiding students to create a LinkedIn profile with their experience and educational background as part of their employment packet. The professional profile provides venues to various networking opportunities that students can benefit from. This is a chance to create an influential online presence specifically to recruiters and potential employers.   

Ultimately, this capstone experience is structured to encourage graduating students to think more broadly and with an interdisciplinary mindset of how they can seek a future career with a diverse, creative and unique employment packet. This packet speaks to their own interdisciplinary nature and desires to integrate knowledge learned to tackle complex problems that require a hybrid and diverse set of skills.