Let me play Devil's Advocate for a moment. (Okay. Maybe I'm not playing.)
First, I'm a big believer in broad education generally--see http://www.gunnarswanson.com/writing/GDasLiberalArt.pdf--and for designers. I'm also a believer that one of the giant problems in vocational training is that vocations are moving targets. Additionally, many designers traditionally work across "traditional" boundaries. And there's a whole pile of problems with assuming that students are going to spend their lives doing exactly what they are being taught.
That said, I've seen some design-without-silos programs that don't seem to prepare students for anything. As important as transdisciplinarity is (generally and for designers), disciplinarity help a lot in maintaining standards.
As I said, I've seen sans-silo programs that don't prepare students to be designers. What I have not seen is a design program that doesn't imply that it is preparing their students to be designers. Most plainly make the claim that they are. There's no imperative that higher education be vocational but I believe that there is an imperative that we be honest about what we do.
Staying in traditional silos (something that I am not advocating) leads to the danger that students are not prepared for the future of design but it doesn't follow that escaping the silos will prepare them for either the future or the present.
Gunnar
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