“The scary part was the chemotherapy. My body was having a really hard time adjusting to having a new immune system and especially being on immunosuppressants, I got sick a lot. I lost a lot of weight. At one point the chemotherapy did a lot of damage to my gastrointestinal tract so I couldn’t swallow or speak for a week.”
By contrast, “the actual day that I got my bone marrow transplant was really boring.” Amri explains that the transplant itself consisted of donated stem cells being introduced to her body. Luckily, the procedure was successful. “My immune system is four years old now which is kind of interesting. I have to get vaccines that you would get for babies because the transplant reset everything.”
While recovering, Amri completed high school virtually from a hospital bed, and later, after returning home to Plano, enrolled in Collin College, where early signs of her interdisciplinary leanings were apparent in her favorite class: an examination of how famous philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant, and Camus would approach the zombie apocalypse. Already, Amri had a passion for the humanities, but her deepest passion was for human relationships and how to make them better.
“When I was in high school, I had an amazing AP psychology teacher. He was so wacky, and he had a tweed jacket with elbow patches and crazy hair. He was always excited to teach us about psychology. So, for a while there I was convinced that being a psychologist or counselor was what I wanted to do. I really care about making people’s relationships better and their relationship with themselves better, so I thought that I wanted to go into psychology.”
However, as she was leaving Collin College, Amri knew one thing for certain. “I knew I wanted to go to UTD,” she explains. “My fiancé goes here, and I live close by so my family would be able to come and support me through every step… But I didn’t really think the psychology degree was right for me.”
Amri kept exploring UTD degree plans, finally finding the perfect fit for her. “I saw that the School of Interdisciplinary Studies would allow me to carve my own path. I thought that was amazing because everywhere else that I was looking at, I wouldn’t be able to really customize my degree. I would be beholden to what the university expects of me, and I was like, well, what if I want to take all these different psychology and sociology and English classes? What if I want to do my own thing and I really want to be supported in doing my own thing? That’s important to me.”
“What if I want to do my own things and I really want to be supported in doing my own thing? That’s important to me.”
Amri Carrasco
With the help of her advisor, Amri created a customized degree plan for the Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (BAIS). “I.S. is really the only degree plan I found that would let me be my own person and do what I want to do. I knew it was going to be perfect for me to build my own path. With the I.S. program, I’m not forced to make choices that I know aren’t best suited for me or that I’m not interested in or that I’m going to struggle in. I wanted to be able to pick and choose what works best for me.”
The BAIS is designed with a foundation of two schools – in Amri’s case, the School of Arts, Humanities and Technology, and the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences – and a concentration. Amri’s concentration, Lifespan Development, led her to seek out “any classes I could find that were related to the human lifespan and a person’s growth over time.” She took courses in sociology, psychology, and family relations, as well as humanities courses that examined these topics in the context of literature, music, film, and even anime and video games.
Amri finished her bachelor’s coursework in August 2023, walked the stage that December, and is graduating in May 2024 with her Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS) after entering the fast-track program, which allows certain undergraduate courses to count toward both the bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Because of this, and the fact that Amri took AP courses in high school that transferred as college credit and chose the 30-hour MAIS, she has managed to complete both her undergraduate and graduate degrees in four years. “It’s really saved me a lot of time so I can jump into a career,” she says.
“I think the beauty of my degree in Interdisciplinary Studies is that anywhere I go I can stand out as one of the best candidates because I have the most experience in so many different disciplines.”
amri carrasco
With the guidance of the MAIS program director, Dr. Syed Naqvi, Amri designed a graduate degree in Family and Social Relations. This course of study will allow her to craft a career that aligns with her overarching goal in life: “I really want to better my relationships with people.” Right now, Amri is a junior associate at Fisher Investments, hoping to develop a mentorship program for others in her position who need guidance navigating their career and interpersonal paths. But Amri has never limited herself and doesn’t intend to start.
“I think the beauty of my degree in Interdisciplinary Studies is that anywhere I go I can stand out as one of the best candidates because I have the most experience in so many different disciplines, whereas if I just got my degree in psychology or English I don’t know if I’d be able to market myself as effectively. With Interdisciplinary Studies, I’ve got you covered in every discipline you can think of. I can help whatever company I work for get better at whatever discipline they’re lacking in because I have that knowledge.”
As she leaves UTD, Amri has zero regrets. “I don’t think I would do anything differently, because I think that the way that I’ve done my degree, I have gotten a lot of amazing coursework in that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.”