week 1 Introductions

Hi everyone welcome to our Blog! I’m Cydney. I hope that your semester has started nicely. I/We look forward to getting to know everyone, and feel free to ask us any questions or concerns that you have. I’ll start by telling you a little about myself. I am originally from West Virginia and moved to Florida with my family. I am currently in my only class needed left to graduate here at UCF. Yayy! My areas of concentration are Business (minor), education, and humanities. I currently just got a job with Universal Studios with one of my best friends and cannot wait for the adventures to come! Throughout your IDS journey, you will find new ways to go about finding your career, and we are here to help you discover and share thoughts and facts that could help you as well as others.

Most of the time the postings probably will not be this big of an intro, but since it is the first, everyone from our Capstone group is going to introduce themselves as well followed by a few questions for yourself.


Hello! My name is Carmin Leach. I started as a traditional student in 2001 until I became a non-traditional student in 2004 when I started my family. I'm a forever senior... graduating this semester. My two areas are Education and Behavioral & Social Sciences and my minor is in Entrepreneurship. I was an Education major until the reality of having a family and working full time did not allow me to participate in the internships. I really struggled trying to balance all of those responsibilities so currently I am able to focus just on being a mom and a student.

I explain IDS to others by saying that it allows me to learn about three different areas that interest me. I still want to become a teacher and being able to have a psychology background in my studies will only benefit myself and my future students. After teaching for several years, I would love to open up a school of my own. I plan to use that Entrepreneurial spirit at that time.

This major means a lot to me personally because I will finally get my degree! After struggling through these last few years trying to figure out the dynamics of finishing school, I know now I will be able to complete it. A disadvantage of this degree however is that I think a lot of people don't take it seriously. We should be given just as much credit as those who study a "regular" degree if not more because we are becoming well-rounded individuals.

Hello! My name is Jennifer Rimoczi. My areas of concentration are Commerce and Public Affairs with a minor in Women Studies. My ultimate goal has always been to help children and protect their rights. I plan to work for DCF (Department of Children of Families) when I graduate this semester, and by understanding and helping women, I knew that I would be able to better help children as well. As I was taking courses as a junior, it was brought to my attention that I could become a IDS student, and when I understood what this was, I knew it was for me!

In most cases, I have to explain to people exactly what IDS is. I tell them that IDS is a major that has two areas of study versus just one, and you have your minor as well. You choose the areas of study that interest you. It opens more options and possibilities, career wise in the future.

If I could do it all over again, I would be an IDS student again! The benefits for me have been great having been able to study in the different areas that I find interesting. The only downfalls is that it is not so familiar to main stream society. We have to be prepared to explain to others what IDS is. Main stream society expects you to have one area of expertise, and have not fully recognized the importance of becoming well rounded students and individuals. We must be ready to use our minds, and not just our knowledge!

Salutations! My name is Adriana Valencia and I am a graduating senior this semester! My areas of concentration are Commerce and Computation Science with a double minor in French and Marketing. My ultimate goal in life is to become a children’s and reference librarian, this aspiration is the main reason I chose to attain an Interdisciplinary Degree in order to further my education in the area I would like to utilize as a librarian that cannot be attained through the master’s degree. But the hardest reasoning I have found is that most people do not understand what an IDS degree is. How could I explain it to them properly? This is what I say:

"IDS is similar to a liberal studies degree, but I chose which subjects to concentrate in. It’s almost as if I am specializing in specific subjects I find relevant to my future career. Or to put it simpler, I am cross-training in different fields."

Even though that sounds awe inspiring, it does have it down fall. Because its concentrations, I am not getting a complete background in any one subject for a detailed understanding, which makes for a hard defense in saying you fully understand an area. But it will make it easier if you need to learn or work in a different area later. This degree allows you certain versatility in the workforce and in higher education.


So how do you explain your IDS degree to someone else? When applying for schools or jobs in the future, that is something that could come up a lot, and knowing and preparing the correct way to explain it, can help. Focus in on the advantages and positives rather than negatives and disadvantages, use those to try and discover new perspectives of the situation, such as knowing how to turn those negatives around!
Within your post this week tell us about yourself as well as your degree and how you would present it to others. Just a few other topics that could help us get to know each other could be who are you? What year are you? What are your areas of concentration? What do you plan to do with those in the future?