What does the sentence below mean? Thank you very much in advance. 1) The course does not consider the subjects in silos.
Individual compartments, I would guess. A silo is a place for storing grain. Not an expression a native would use. Are you sure it is right? 'The course does not consider the subjects in isolation' would make more sense.
The term silo to describe a closed system that does not work well with or within another system, is a business management term. It was first used about ten years ago, and it IS widely used in the United States, within the IT and business management communities. Therefore, the quotation you have provided may mean that the courses students take must be considered holistically, as a whole. Honestly, it's not a very well written sentence... or, it lacks context... or both. It is difficult to tell what the writer is referring to when he writes these subjects.
Originally, a silo is a storage bin big enough to be a small building, such as for holding harvested crops. If a farm has several crops to store, they are separated into different silos. Multiple silos can also keep pests from spreading. Silos has come to metaphorically mean groups of people who don't interact, and especially don't share information with each other. It's a problem in business when each project team struggles with the same problem because they don't know it's been solved several times already. In your context, it means that the subjects are not taught as separate units. Instead the students will consider how the subjects influence each other. For example, if you studied environmental policy alone, you might think that China is a horrible polluter. But learn about international trade, and you'll discover that it's the US that orders the products of China's carbon-spewing factories.
