Is MIT or Duke more interdisciplinary for undergraduate students?

The central tradeoff is that MIT makes it especially easy to connect computing, science, and hands-on research, while Duke offers more room to build a broad, self-designed academic path that can include design, the humanities, and health. For your CS-biology interest, MIT has an established Computer Science and Molecular Biology major, extensive undergraduate research through UROP, and a campus culture where lab work across departments is common early in college. Its Media Lab, biological engineering programs, and Design minor can also create useful entry points for work that sits between technology, biology, and design.

Duke is highly interdisciplinary in a more curricular and customizable sense. Students in Trinity can combine majors and electives across arts and sciences, and Program II allows students to propose an individualized major when existing programs do not capture their goals. Duke also has interdisciplinary project structures such as Bass Connections, Code+, and Design Health, which can be particularly appealing for someone interested in applying computing and design to health or biology problems.

One practical distinction is the academic environment. MIT’s core science and engineering requirements are substantial, but they place you in a dense ecosystem of technical peers, labs, and project-based opportunities. Duke can make it easier to maintain serious interests outside STEM alongside CS and biology, especially if design means human-centered design, visual work, policy, entrepreneurship, or health applications rather than primarily technical prototyping.

For the combination you described, MIT has the stronger day-to-day infrastructure for integrating CS and biology into research and technical projects. Duke may be the more compelling option if you want to design a wider academic identity around those fields and expect design, social impact, or nontechnical coursework to carry equal weight.