11 September 2020
From August 2021, undergraduates entering Nanyang Technological University will take a common core curriculum which will occupy as much as one-fifth of their academic workload.
The compulsory courses in the common core include globally relevant topics such as climate change and global health.
Currently, NTU has General Educational Requirement courses, where students select from a basket of elective courses, including those focused on science, technology and society. The new core curriculum will replace these general education courses.
Students from different disciplines will learn together in the same classroom. They will be expected to apply the knowledge from their respective disciplines to collaborate on group projects. Faculty from different disciplines will come together to design and teach the courses to offer a more in-depth and interdisciplinary exploration of knowledge.
NTU has said that the new core curriculum is in line with its “smart campus vision”, which seeks to prepare students for a new world that is being shaped by advanced digital technologies.