Recruitment Marketing Tips: Stop Leading with "Interdisciplinary"

I love interdisciplinary education. I just don't love the word interdisciplinary in recruitment marketing.

Before anyone comes for me, let me be clear: I'm not arguing against interdisciplinary education. I'm arguing against using interdisciplinary as a recruitment message.

It's peak higher ed jargon. Faculty understand it. Staff understand it. Accreditors understand it. Curriculum committees understand it. We spend our careers talking about interdisciplinary teaching, interdisciplinary research and interdisciplinary curricula. It's a useful academic term.

But it's an academic term, not a recruitment message.

Try this. Finish the following sentence: Our interdisciplinary curriculum...

Now delete everything you wrote. Start over. This time, don't describe the curriculum. Describe the graduate. What can they do that they couldn't do before? What kinds of problems can they solve? How do they approach challenges differently? What opportunities become possible because of the way they were educated?

Those answers are your marketing. Not the word interdisciplinary.

Translate, Don't Explain

Good recruitment marketing doesn't ask prospective students to learn higher education's vocabulary. It translates higher education's vocabulary into language they immediately understand.

Instead of saying your curriculum is interdisciplinary, show students what becomes possible because it is. Show the environmental science graduate who understands policy, economics and communication. Show the business student who uses psychology and data analytics to solve customer problems. Show the teacher who blends neuroscience, technology and education to help children learn. Show the engineer who understands design because she spent time in the art studio.

Don't ask students to admire your curriculum. Help them imagine themselves living the outcome.

Interdisciplinary isn't the message. It's the mechanism.

The message is what that education makes possible.

Don't market the jargon. Market the meaning.