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Interested in Science and the Humanities? 3 Interdisciplinary Hooks that Will Make You Stand Out to Top Colleges

Jan 23, 2025

Despite recurring concerns about the challenges liberal arts graduates face on the job market, many students still dream of studying the humanities at an Ivy League institution, where renowned faculty members and innovative curricula attract top students. Studies show that pursuing an English degree doesn’t have to come at the expense of a lucrative career. Humanities graduates have been to find success and personal fulfillment in their careers post-graduation, and many even leverage their humanities degrees to careers in STEM fields.

But setting yourself up for success as a humanities student—both in the Ivy League admissions process and in the tech-dominated job market—requires intentional strategy and long-term effort. It is no longer enough to ace the AP English Lit exam or start a Jane Austen reading group at your high school—top colleges and cutting-edge industries are seeking self-starters, problem solvers, and those who combine multiple fields and methodologies to develop cutting-edge solutions to the most pressing issues of our times.

Students of English, Comparative Literature, History, and Philosophy are increasingly seeking points of contact with other (primarily STEM-based) disciplines in order to address key questions in their fields with new and more diverse methodologies. Many emerging subfields in the humanities are receiving increased attention, resources, and financial investments. These emerging subfields ask questions such as: How can AI enable us to more efficiently catalogue vast amounts of archival materials and make them accessible to the public? Can emerging neurological research about PTSD inform how we read first-person accounts of war? In what ways has the climate crisis impacted the literary, artistic, and cultural traditions of peoples around the globe?

Given this trend toward multidisciplinary curiosity, demonstrating a “hookâ€â€”a unique passion or area of expertise that anchors a student’s overarching admissions profile—based in the interdisciplinary humanities is one of the most effective ways for students to stand out in the college application process and beyond. Such a hook can illustrate a student’s ability to think critically across disciplines, address real-world problems, and contribute new perspectives to their field.

What is a Hook?

A “hook†is a unique passion or area of expertise that anchors a student’s overarching admissions profile and sets their application apart in the admissions process. The “hook†metaphorically hooks admissions officers in by compellingly demonstrating a student’s extensive, hands-on experience in their chosen field.

An interdisciplinary hook is one that braids two or more distinct areas of interest together through a passion project, strategic coursework, independent research, and/or an extracurricular activity. The more unique a student’s hook, the more likely it is that they will have to create their own opportunities, rather than building their profile through classes or extracurriculars offered through their school. While interdisciplinary hooks can be challenging to craft, they also pose rich opportunities for students to develop leadership, innovation, and creativity, as well as distinguish themselves from thousands of other applicants.

Humanities Subfields For Students With Multidisciplinary Interests

Finding creative intersections between your various interests is always a worthwhile endeavor, but developing a strong interdisciplinary humanities hook requires an added degree of strategy. Students should begin by researching subfields that combine humanities with scientific disciplines, and find areas of overlap between their own various interests.

Below are five interdisciplinary fields students can explore as they strategically develop their admissions profiles, along with guidance on how to demonstrate their engagement in these areas effectively!

1. Environmental Humanities

What it is: Environmental humanities examine how human culture, literature, history, and philosophy intersect with ecological and environmental concerns. This field explores issues such as climate change, sustainability, and environmental justice through humanities lenses. As University of Oregon Professor Stephanie LeMenager , “without ethical decision making skills, without storytelling ability, without knowledge of history or of how culture works, we can’t collaborate with our friends in the natural and social sciences to address climate change adaptation, the transition away from fossil fuels, anti-racist and decolonial conservation strategies, or any of the multiple ecological issues that threaten humanity and other life.†Scholars in the environmental humanities consider pressing questions such as: How has human-driven climate change impacted the cultural landscape of various communities? In what ways can creative endeavours such as art, literature, and storytelling affect climate activism? How might we envision less antagonistic or divisive ways of interacting with the natural world as humans?

Top Programs:

Ideal for students who:

  • Are passionate about environmental issues and ecological sciences
  • Want to use their humanities knowledge to affect social change
  • Are considering ecology and sustainability-focused nonprofit work as a career path

How to demonstrate your hook: The environmental humanities synthesizes humanities and ecological sciences with an aim toward positive social impact. Students can stand out by crafting interdisciplinary passion projects, such as organizing a community art exhibit on environmental themes or spearheading an ecocritical reading group that engages in community activism and raises awareness about ecological issues. Participating in volunteer work with a local sustainability or environmental justice group or founding an eco-justice club at school will demonstrate students’ engagement in the service initiatives central to the study of environmental humanities. Finally, conducting independent research on the history of environmental changes in their area or publishing writing (whether research or creative writing such as a series of poems on environmental issues) can also strengthen their profile.

Learn More:

  • The College of William and Mary’s in the Environmental Humanities
  • Podcast Series

2. Medical Humanities / Health Humanities

What it is: Medical humanities explore how healthcare practices intersect with ethics, literature, history, and the arts. The field considers the human element of medicine, addressing issues such as patient narratives (historical and contemporary), healthcare inequities, and literary and artistic representations of illness. The aim of the medical humanities is to investigate the experiences of embodiment—including illness, pain, disability—from the subjective perspective of the patient, rather than the objective perspective of the practitioner. Through this approach, the medical and health humanities contribute invaluable insights to the medical profession by integrating the methodologies and perspectives of diverse humanities fields such as cultural anthropology, comparative literature, philosophy, and studio arts.

Top Programs:

  • (also home to the )

Ideal for students who:

  • Discovered their interest in medicine or health sciences late in their high school career and lack some of the science-based coursework needed for premed programs
  • Want to approach medical sciences from a more humanistic and “soft skills†angle
  • Aspire to be empathetic or holistic healthcare professionals or public health advocates

How to demonstrate your hook: While interdisciplinary in its scope, the medical humanities—like the medical sciences—is a research-focused discipline. Whether studying 16th century medical illustrations, translating Victorian women’s personal narratives about the experience of childbirth, or comparing cultural attitudes toward natural and synthetic medicines, scholars in the medical humanities are deft researchers and writers. Students should therefore prioritize independent research projects—consider, for instance, working with a local library or historical society to conduct primary source research on a medical issue in your community—and publishing your original work on a blog or a scholarly publication such as the . Students may also consider founding a in order to foster dialogue in their school or local community around health humanities-related issues. Finally, younger students should seek to enroll in challenging coursework in both science and the humanities, such as AP Bio, AP Anatomy and Physiology, and AP History and AP English.

Learn More:

3. Digital Humanities

What it is: Digital humanities combine computational tools with traditional humanities disciplines, such as history, literature, and philosophy, to analyze texts, artworks, and data in innovative ways. Rather than seeing emerging computational technologies as antagonistic, the digital humanities embrace digital tools for research and study in the humanities. Scholars and researchers in the digital humanities play a particularly important role in archival research and information sciences, whether digitizing historical manuscripts, cataloguing vast collections using AI, or using coding and programming tools to create interactive learning platforms for students to engage with archival materials. In addition to engaging with computer-based technologies, the digital humanities considers pressing ethical, sociological, and anthropological questions about how computational tools have shaped cultures, communities, art, storytelling, and interpersonal relationships between humans.

Top Programs:

Ideal for students who:

  • Have any degree of experience with coding or computer programming
  • Are passionate about integrating digital tools with cultural or historical research
  • Students who are interested in contributing to educational public initiatives or making archival materials more accessible

How to demonstrate your hook: Learning basic coding or web development to strengthen their technical foundation is an essential first step for students interested in digital humanities. Online platforms such as edX and Coursera offer introductory courses in C++ and Python that could benefit students with no prior experience. From there, students can develop eye-catching digital humanities passion projects such as creating a digital archive mapping the locations of significant historical events using GIS software, designing a website to digitize and annotate historical texts, or developing an app for interactive elementary Latin learning. Even an elementary digital project will demonstrate your hands-on experience with digital tools and creative engagement with issues in the field. Students looking for inspiration can check out that uses Google Docs for language transcription. They can also check out projects listed on the website—while these projects are significantly more advanced than most high school students’ skillset, they could inspire a smaller scale project that employs a similar method.

Learn More:

  • (free edX course)

By braiding together traditional humanities disciplines with interdisciplinary methodologies and real-world applications, students can demonstrate to top colleges that they are prepared to contribute to a new and dynamic era of humanities study. If you are ready to chart your unique interdisciplinary humanities path, schedule a free consult to learn more about how a Senior Mentor can help you level up your application profile for admission to a top humanities program

A modified version of this article originally appeared on .

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