Understand the score.
Practise the evidence.

University education is often expected to produce both specialist expertise and adaptable graduates. Although students need sufficient time to master their principal discipline, I agree that a carefully limited requirement to study outside it can improve the quality and usefulness of their education.

The main benefit of cross-disciplinary study is that important problems rarely fit within a single academic boundary. An engineering student who understands basic economics, for instance, is better equipped to consider whether an elegant technical solution is affordable at scale. Likewise, a business student who studies environmental science may evaluate the long-term consequences of a company's decisions rather than focusing exclusively on immediate profit. In both cases, the additional subject does not replace specialist knowledge; it gives students a wider framework in which to apply it.

A second advantage is improved communication. Graduates commonly work with colleagues whose training, assumptions, and vocabulary differ from their own. Encountering another discipline forces students to explain ideas without relying on specialist shorthand and to recognise that evidence can be interpreted in different ways.

Nevertheless, the requirement should remain modest. Students in intensive programmes could find an unrelated compulsory course distracting. Universities should therefore offer a choice of relevant modules and limit the requirement to one well-designed course, preserving disciplinary depth while developing genuine intellectual breadth.

In conclusion, all students should experience at least one subject beyond their main field, provided that the choice is flexible and the workload proportionate. Such a policy would develop broader judgement and clearer communication without undermining specialist expertise.