UTD is at a crossroads. University investment continues to rise, tuition keeps increasing and our student body grows larger and more diverse, yet the gap between administrative control and student needs keeps widening. UTD’s plan for becoming a hallmark institution remains unchanged — chase endowments and employment statistics to mirror elite universities — but this plan fails to acknowledge how our generation’s challenges require more than technical competence. Climate change, healthcare inequality and democratic erosion demand people understand both technical details and human stakes. UTD is different from historically elite colleges, and that difference can take us from producing technically competent but intellectually passive graduates to creating people who will actually make a difference.
Degree programs that only address economic needs like making students employable rather than focusing on building cultural capital — that is, passion, community and resources — plague our campus. Currently, UTD students discover their real passions despite their formal education rather than because of it, which plays into the unhappy, dispassionate culture on campus.
An uninspiring campus not only hurts students’ mental well-being and lifestyle but also actively harms their careers and professional identity. Walk into any computer science class at UTD, and you’ll find students memorizing concepts for interviews, not exploring technology’s societal impact. Business students learn corporate project management to become compliant employees, not innovative leaders. The curriculum optimizes for placement: developer positions at tech corporations or analyst roles at consulting firms.
An uninspiring campus not only hurts students’ mental well-being and lifestyle but also actively harms their careers and professional identity.
Our course catalogs and major requirements make passion projects relegated to spare time, should students even have energy left after perfecting GPAs for graduate school or resumes for recruiters. However, there is a place where the economics-first model is being subtly challenged in ways that are paying off already. The Hobson Wildenthal Honors College demonstrates what happens when education builds cultural capital differently. Its one-credit reading classes break through rigid departmental divides, reaching students across majors through Socratic discussion rather than standardized tests. The culture this approach builds makes professors more inclined to help students find themselves and think broadly about meaningful careers. Because disciplines are less compartmentalized, unique and unorthodox conversations take place, and as professors facilitate such lectures, they become far more comfortable having authentic conversations.
The results show that students in these classes fill and create new roles. And the honors college isn’t unique; research shows that when computer science students understand social contexts and issues through non-CS coursework, whether learning about healthcare disparities through sociology courses or building financial tools for individuals with historically less access to credit, they make technology that addresses human needs. This gets at the core of the difference in academic approach. While standard courses churn out analysts or research assistants, interdisciplinary courses connect “why” and “who” they serve. These students end up just as technically skilled while being more purposefully directed. Such cultural capital would make any student more driven, not just students in honors programs.
While standard courses churn out analysts or research assistants, interdisciplinary courses connect “why” and “who” they serve.
Critics might argue that passion doesn’t pay and less success in the job market is not because of the academic system, but rather a lack of work ethic. However, companies increasingly seek employees who think across disciplines and imagine different futures and research shows the most sustainable driver of work ethic is intrinsic motivation. Ironically enough, these ideas are taught to business students, but the real implementation of passion-driven education is barely felt in the standard curriculum. The ability to navigate complexity, not just follow established pathways, is sorely needed and lacking in the “elite” institutions that higher education has been emulating for far too long. UTD’s youth and diverse student body position us perfectly for developing this cultural capital. We bring perspectives from across Dallas, Texas, and the world into excellent engineering and business programs and growing liberal arts programs. We need only connect them intentionally.
Transformation doesn’t require massive endowments but unified effort from professors and students. Every major should include courses connecting technical skills to social impact, with senior-level curriculum tackling real-world issues alongside job preparation. Professors shouldn’t just add project and portfolio-based evaluations, but give more creative room for students to come up with ideas that connect with their personal drive. This approach allows students to cultivate a vision of what kind of social impact they can use their technical skills to bring about.
We should also expand the honors college model. Not every student can join honors, but every student deserves interdisciplinary thinking and purposeful mentorship, which means professors need to have proper conversations about professional identities and support students in class with innovative projects and cross-departmental collaboration. Recognize that unfamiliarity with academic conventions represents an opportunity, not a deficit. First-generation students’ practical problem-solving and community connections are cultural capital that programs should value and develop.
However, these changes can’t exist until we measure success differently. This is already starting to happen, but we need to push tracking community engagement and social innovation as equally crucial as prestige and salary. Professors are responsible for being more proactive and willing to have more intimate conversations about purpose and career. Everyone can develop cultural capital once we unlink it from financial standing. Creating compelling candidates isn’t the goal but the byproduct of cultivating motivated changemakers.