What you're saying makes sense and is one viewpoint. I could see it the opposite way too: In school, it's good for someone who doesn't know or care about epide

What you're saying makes sense and is one viewpoint. I could see it the opposite way too: In school, it's good for someone who doesn't know or care about epidemiology to get a slice of what would be useful to an epidemiologist. Likewise in reverse. The reason Macs have always had nice topography is because Steve Jobs happened to audit a calligraphy class taught by a monk (who stopped being a monk because he met a nice girl). I'm not banging the interdisciplinary drum- we all already know learning outside our interests is good. I'm saying it's probably a good educational tool to force students to look at problems based on their utility to someone else. Sometimes the further a problem is away from being directly useful to you, the wider your horizons will be once you understand how to solve it, and (more importantly) why to bother.