We have a similar requisites system in the US, usually called gen eds, that too often ends up being a waste of everyone’s time (both for the students who are forced to take courses they don’t want and for the professors lecturing in halls crammed full of disengaged students). There’s nothing inherently wrong with sociology-esque theory, but only if that’s what the individual is genuinely interested in learning and has practical applications for. I think we would see a lot more creativity in higher education if self-directed learning were the norm.

I say “to a degree” because the schools themselves don’t do much interaction. It’s up to the student to craft those in-between classes. For example, next semester I was considering taking an independent study course to draft a business plan for a journalism idea I’ve been kicking around. The units would apply towards my business minor but I would recruit two advisers, a professor from both business and journalism schools, for the course. We will see how it goes.

I’d add schools of information studies to your list of examples. They study how to gather, collect, retrieve, transfer information of all sorts, but particularly through computers. Much valuable stuff there for journalists.

One other point I’d add … Just because j-schools draw on other schools doesn’t mean j-profs shouldn’t learn some of these cross-over skills. They’ll be more able to help their students find the right cross-over skills if they have many of them.