The Anthropology major teaches students to question what it means to be human by exploring as wide a range of human experience as possible. A key approach is to instill in our students an appreciation of the diversity of human social and cultural life across time and space. In classes, we investigate the lived experience people have of their society, exploring differences of language and culture, gender and sexuality, social class, caste, race, ethnicity, religion and locality. As anthropologists frequently focus on life among people who are geographically and socially marginalised, themes of power and powerlessness, identity and otherness, belonging and migration are central to the Anthropology major.

Although Yale-NUS College was not the first institution to offer courses in Anthropology (e.g. the Department of Sociology at NUS has offered courses for many decades), it is the first institution to have a full-fledged, standalone Anthropology program. In the early years of the major, the faculty comprised primarily of short-term visitors from universities in North America. They included Marcia Inhorn, Nicole Constable, Steve Ferzacca, Erik Harms, and John and Jean Comaroff, some of whom also served as Heads of Studies. Despite the high-turnover of faculty, the major was able to attract significant student interest, with several dozens of students majoring and minoring in it each year. This is extraordinary given that Anthropology was (and remains) a relatively unknown field in Singapore, which suggested that the major offered something very exciting to students who were willing to take the risk and explore something that their parents might not understand.

The faculty composition only stabilised in the last few years, with the hire of Zachary Howlett, Stuart Strange, Gabriele Koch, Neena Mahadev, Lau Ting Hui, and Nur Amali Ibrahim.

Emphasis on conducting original research:

In all Anthropology courses, students are taught how to conduct ethnography, which is Anthropology’s signature research methodology. Some of the skills they acquire include learning how to carry out participant-observation, to conduct interviews, to document oral histories, to analyse various types of textual materials (from newspapers reports to governmental policies, social media posts, etc.), and to formulate an interpretation of the data collected. Additionally, many students are also hired by the faculty to become research assistants. Students bring all these skills together in their capstone project, where they will conduct a year-long original research project. Importantly, the research strengths of Anthropology students explain why many of them become qualitative researchers (in academic, medical, governmental, and corporate settings) after graduation.

Experiential learning:

As part of our courses, faculty will often take students to field trips to various locations around Singapore. Some of the places where students have visited in recent years include:

• Little India (for Borders and Boundaries course)
• Art Science Museum (for Body andSociety)
• Buddha Tooth Relic Temple (for Religion and the Media Turn)
• MacRitchie Reservoir (for Multispecies Ethnography)
• Tech Able, an organization supplying assistive technology for the disabled (for Medical Anthropology)

Emphasis on appreciating diversity and difference:

Anthropology students will learn to offer ethnographically and historically grounded descriptions of the human condition; to provide concrete examples of alternative ways of being human; and, upon that basis, to question what it means to be human in the world. Such awareness can lead to new kinds of civic engagement around the world and novel modes of moral and ethical reasoning.

Empathy for the less privileged in society:

In our courses, students learn about the operations of power in the world—from economic power to the power of the state, geopolitical relations, the relations between the different genders and sexes, and how these different forms of power overlap with one another. They learn to analyse how power works, through particular historical and cultural contexts, to place certain people at the margins of society.

A culture of collaboration and mutual help:

Within and outside the classroom, the Anthropology major emphasises the importance of developing a culture of collaboration and mutual. In the classes, our faculty utilise techniques like group discussions and peer reviews to encourage students to learn how to think together. Our capstone students are encouraged to organise themselves in writing groups where they can brainstorm ideas and keep one another accountable to their writing schedules. We also organise regular parties that act as asocial glue and help to foster collegiality.

The minor in the interdisciplinary Chinese Studies programme is designed to foster an in-depth understanding of China, both as a historical tradition and as a modern nation with a wide-ranging sphere of influence. Central to the programme is the belief that an informed knowledge of Chinese language, literature, culture and history is essential to a proper understanding of the Chinese world today. Conversely, educated cognisance of the political, economic, environmental and demographic issues currently facing the Chinese world are no less vital to us in our roles as informed global citizens. While strategically capitalising on Yale-NUS College’s location in Singapore, an historically important hub within China’s sphere of regional influence, the programme offers a range of coursework in both the Humanities and Social Sciences Divisions. It is designed to expose students to a wide array of disciplinary vantage points from which to study China and the greater Chinese world, both past and present, and to provide them with the necessary skills to do so with competence and a growing level of expertise.

The minor was first envisioned and proposed by the members of Chinese Studies Council in February of 2017. Scott Cook served as chair of the Council, and the other members included Petrus Liu (Literature), Chin-Hao Huang (Political Science), Angel Hsu (Environmental Studies), Elton Chan (Political Science); and Lei Yu-Hsiang (Economics).

The basic form of the minor has not changed over the years, as it proved to be a successful model of an interdisciplinary minor. Specific courses have been added or subtracted as faculty have either come to or departed from the College, or as existing affiliated faculty have supplemented their Chinese Studies offerings.

A variety of methods depending on the course. Overall, the minor is inherently interdisciplinary has a regional focus within a larger global context.

A (non-inclusive) sample of recent course offerings in the minor includes:

Humanities Division

- YLC3203: Advanced Chinese 1
- YLC3204: Advanced Chinese 2  
- YLC3205: Advanced Readings in Chinese: Cinematic and Literary Texts
- YLC3206: Advanced Readings in Chinese: Modern Chinese Literature
- YHU2204:Modern Chinese Literature and Film
- YHU2212:Classical Chinese
- YHU2218:Chinese Migrations to Southeast Asia
- YHU2287: Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Buddhism
- YHU3204: China and the West
- YHU3211: Tales of the Strange
- YHU3205: Ming Imperial Voyages  
- YHU3224: Warring States China Intellectual and Political History
- YHU3230: The First Opium War, 1839-42
- YHU3336: Goodbye Mao? : China’s Postsocialist -Transformations
- YHU4222: The Historiography of Sima Qian
- YHU4204: Rise of the West and the Great Divergence
- YHU4218: Chinese Poetry
- YHU4237: Chinese Prose

Social Sciences Division

- YSS3212: Chinese Politics
- YSS3217: Urbanisation in China
- YSS3226: Conflict and Cooperation in East Asia
- YSS3241: Chinese Political Philosophy: Confucianism & Its Rivals
- YSS3268: Anthropology of China
- YSS4205: Chinese Foreign Policy
- YID3207: China’s Energy and Environmental Sustainability

The vision for the Environmental Studies Major was to educate future interdisciplinary, forward looking, critical, and reflexive environmental scholars, practitioners, advocates, changemakers, and citizens of the world. It was purposely designed to be distinct from the environmental studies programmes of Yale University and the National University of Singapore, offering a balance of breadth and depth of knowledge, skills and experiences that cut across and integrate the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities. The Environmental Studies Major at Yale-NUS College was meant to deviate from the dominance of environmental science and studies programmes around the world that emphasise technocratic and managerial solutions. While the programme envisioned students to be stewards of sustainability, it also aimed to train them to become circumspect of solutions that claim to resolve the world’s knottiest socio-ecological problems. Its faculty hoped that the graduates of the programme will not only have the right set of analytical skills and critical lens, but also the determination to weather the tides of a highly uncertain and turbulent future and the commitment to search for meaningful solutions with the right dose of reflexivity and humility.

Interview with founding Head of Studies (Environmental Studies) (2013—2022), Professor Michael Maniates

Interview with Head of Studies (Environmental Studies) (2022—Present), Professor Marvin Joseph Montefrio

Interdisciplinary
Environmental Studies was the only major in the college that drew its curriculum on all three divisions: Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Natural Sciences. It was also the only major that allowed students to pursue a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree. Students were offered a diverse suite of foundational and elective courses that fall in any of these divisions, with several integrating two or more. The gateway course, Introduction to Environmental Studies, was a prime example of a course that integrates the social sciences, humanities, and the natural sciences. Students learned about the Earth’s biogeochemical systems alongside the politics of sustainability and the ethics of human-environment relations. Advanced courses such as Ecological Economics and Singapore’s Biodiversity were excellent examples of interdisciplinarity too. In Ecological Economics, students learned about the history of economics, the fundamental tenets of mainstream economics, the laws of thermodynamics, the philosophy of modern science, and the complexities of human decision-making behaviours. In Singapore’s Biodiversity, two professors—Anthony Medrano (an environmental historian) and Eunice Tan (a biologist)—co-taught a course that brought together ecology and environmental humanities.

Moreover, students had the autonomy to design their own area of specialisation by curating foundational and advanced courses offered in the environmental studies programme and beyond. Because of this flexibility, students were able to bring together different fields and disciplines across divisions. Many of our students successfully designed areas of specialisation and pursued capstone projects that cut across two or three divisions. For example, one student specialised in sustainable agriculture and took courses in environmental literature, food ecology, and environmental politics. She also pursued a capstone project that employed a rigorous social science research with an accompanying documentary.

In spite the purposeful design of the environmental studies curriculum to ensure interdisciplinarity, achieving it was not easy at the outset. Eventually however, students and faculty learned to be open and became entrepreneurial enough to explore interdisciplinary initiatives on their own.

Normative and Critical Yet Nuanced
The field of environmental studies is problem-driven, i.e., much of its scholarship is premised on finding the solutions to knotty socio-ecological issues. The Environmental Studies Major at Yale-NUS College also attracted students who were driven to action; many of them organised and became key actors of environmental initiatives and advocacy groups on campus and beyond. Some of the notable initiatives were I’deco (the student organisation in Yale-NUS College committed to environmental action), Chili Padi Academy (an I’deco initiative that educates future young environmental leaders in the Southeast Asian region), GreenCheck (an organisation that supports climate-action groups around the world), Fossil-Free NUS, and the Singapore Climate Rally. Because of the nature of the discipline and the students that the programme attracted, quite a few of the courses offered were action-based and normatively driven (e.g., Another World is Possible: Ecotopian Visions; Environmental Movements: Past, Present and Future; China’s Energy and Environmental Sustainability; Food and Sustainability). Even courses that were highly theoretical, such as Social Theory and the Environment and Ecological Economics, had normative and action components in them. There was even a moment when the programme incorporated a required upper-level module—Applied Environmental Research—that provided students with the training and experience to conduct environmental research with normative and action goals in a collaborative setting.

Many courses, particularly in the social sciences and the humanities, were also fundamentally critical. While the programme advocates for sustainable living and action, it was also critical of ideas and solutions that did not sufficiently tackle systemic and structural issues. This boded well with the students’ inclination to organise and participate in bolder advocacies and initiatives that endeavour to address the root of socio-ecological problems. The critical scholarship in the programme was balanced with nuance; political economic ideologies, for example, were tempered by the pragmatism of more managerial perspectives. Thus, environmental studies students were also trained to be reflexive and critical of their own perspectives.

Experiential
One characteristic of environmental studies courses that students appreciated the most was the attention to experiential learning. Environmental Studies courses had the reputation of having many field trips and unique activities. Courses like Asia’s Edible Oceans and the Ecology of Food bring students to many sites of interest in Singapore, some of which unfamiliar to Singaporean students. Courses like Urban Agriculture and Food Sustainability, on the other hand, made students grow and cook their own food. Even environmental science courses, such as Field Research and Wildlife Forensics and Sharkfin Trade, had field- and laboratory-based learning as central to their pedagogical design.

Global Affairs is a multidisciplinary major within the Social Sciences, focused on global issues and global solutions. The goal of the Global Affairs major is to help students understand how our increasingly interconnected world works and how it could work better. The major equips students with the social science research skills, multi-perspectival and big-picture thinking, and knowledge of the international system needed to understand and address today’s transboundary challenges. The Global Affairs major provides an academic programme that is not constrained by a single disciplinary lens. Instead, it seeks to ground students’ training in both international relations and international development, recognising that political, economic, and social actors in the Global South and Global North are tightly intertwined in today’s globalised world.

Students in Global Affairs explore the causes and consequences of globalisation, international migration, international development, security and conflict, ethnic politics, human rights violations, and global governance. Through their coursework, students are taught how to critically engage with and interrogate both qualitative and quantitative research on global issues.

Mixed methods: Classes encouraged students to be open to quantitative and qualitative methods, encouraging a flexibility of thinking.

Since its inception in AY 2017-18, the Minor in Global Antiquity offered students the opportunity to craft an individualised course of study on ancient societies, the development of ‘classical’ traditions, and their continuing cultural significance. Ancient societies in South Asia, ancient China, the Mediterranean, and the near East developed the enduring paradigms of thought that structure our ways of understanding the world; the Global Antiquity Minor trained students to develop tools of analysis for the ancient world. The study of antiquity requires an interdisciplinary array of scholarly approaches to interpret the extant fragmentary sources (textual and material): at the heart of all these methodologies is a strong foundation in ancient languages to engage with cultures in their own linguistic form. In designing a course of study, students were encouraged to seek connections across regions and periods, to think historically, and to view antiquity as dynamically transforming and globally interconnected through multiple forms of intercultural contact.

Faculty involved with Global Antiquity included Amber D. Carpenter (Philosophy), Scott Cook (Chinese Studies and History), Steven Green (Literature), Rebecca Head (Literature), Andrew Hui (Literature), Malcolm Keating (Philosophy), Emanuel Mayer (History), Mira Seo (Literature), Heidi Stalla (Literary Arts, Creative Writing), Jonathan Vandenberg (Theatre), Matthew D. Walker (Philosophy).

As of 2021, tuition in ancient languages was offered via the American Institute of Indian Studies online course (Sanskrit), part-time tutor (ancient Greek: Ellie Lasthiotaki), and tenured Yale-NUS Faculty (Latin: Mira Seo, Steven Green; classical Chinese: Scott Cook).

Faculty offering courses with significant content in ancient or pre-modern societies within their respective Majors were invited to cross-list their course with the Minor. Faculty in Literature, Philosophy, History, Arts & Humanities, and Philosophy, Politics & Economics contributed courses, which ranged across global societies from the archaic to the medieval periods.

The Minor was academically enriched by a range of research activities which invited students to partake in the wider, international world of scholarship on antiquity. An affiliated research series, the Ancient Worlds/Global Antiquity research series, hosted local and international speakers on a regular basis. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted in-person meetings of this series; but talks continued online through the duration of the pandemic.

Such activity was complemented by occasional, larger-scale events hosted at the college, such as:

Ovid’s Exile Poetry Across Time and Culture (25-26 February 2019; sponsored by Tan Chin Tuan Chinese Culture and Civilisation Programme): a two-day workshop run by Steven Green for invited members of the international Chinese translation project and the wider Yale-NUS community.

Comparative Global Antiquity (2-5 August 2019; hosted by Yale-NUS (Mira Seo, Andrew Hui) and the Postclassicisms Network and Comparative Antiquity: A Humanities Council Global Initiative, Princeton University): papers from Yale-NUS Faculty and alumni, and international speakers.

Alumni who graduated with a Global Antiquity minor, in consultation with the minor advisor, coordinated an event to share how the Minor had impacted their careers and lives positively. This event, “Afterlives of Global Antiquity Minors,” took place on 16 March 2022 in the Tan Chin Tuan Lecture Theatre. It included Yale-NUS alumni Nicholas Lua (History; Class of 2019), Carmen Denia (Literature; Class of 2017), and Carson Huang (Literature; Class of 2020). The students presented their research and answered questions from an interested audience of current and potential future minors.

Distinctive within the region, the Minor had consistent success in getting students into prestigious postgraduate programmes.

Faculty from various Majors participated; hence, the teaching methods were interdisciplinary.

Courses in Global Antiquity encompassed ancient language courses, on the one hand, and topical courses on ancient literature, philosophy, and history, on the other.

Languages

Advanced Ancient Greek (YLG3201)
Advanced Latin – Catiline in the Roman Elite Imagination (YLL3202)
Advanced Latin – Catullus (YLL3201)
Advanced Latin – Ovid’s Metamorphoses (YHU3329)
Beginning Classical Greek (formerly Intensive Elementary Greek) (YLG2201)
Beginning Latin (formerly Intensive Elementary Latin) (YLL1201)
Beginning Sanskrit 1 (YLN1201)
Chinese Poetry (YHU4218)
Chinese Prose (YHU4237)
Chinese Tales of the Strange (YHU3211)
Classical Chinese (YHU2212)
Directed Language Study – Beginning Sanskrit (YIL1201S)
Directed Language Study – Intermediate Sanskrit (YIL2201S)
Intermediate Ancient Greek (YLG2202)
Intermediate Latin (YLL2201)

Literature

Ancient Humour (YHU4227)
Chinese Poetry (YHU4218)
Chinese Prose (YHU4237)
Chinese Tales of the Strange (YHU3211)
Dante and the European Middle Ages (YHU2230)
Food and Ethics in Roman Literature and Culture (YHU3248)
Introduction to Roman Literary Cultures (YHU2211)
Literary Genres – Ancient Epic and Gangster Film (YHU2256)
Literatures of the Islamic World (YHU2312)
Love in Antiquity – Eros in Translation (YHU3271)
Medieval Romance – Magic and the Supernatural (YHU2309)
Ovid the Innovator (YHU3222)
The Story of the Stone (YHU2214)
Topics in European Literature (EN4263, offered at NUS)
World Religious Poetry (YHU3259)

Philosophy

Ancient Greek Philosophy (YHU2252)
Ancient Greek Political Philosophy (YSS2208)
Aristotle (YHU3245)
Chinese Political Philosophy (YSS3241)
Classical Indian Philosophy (YHU2315)
Classical Indian Philosophy of Language (YHU2251)
Debate and Reasoning in Indian Philosophy (YHUXXX)
Doing Things with Words (YHU4219)
Indian Buddhist Philosophy (YHU3214)
Kong Zi: The Man, the Myth, the Legend (YHU3351)
Socrates on Trial (YHU3294)

History

Ancient Economies of the Mediterranean and Western Asia (YHU4231)
Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul (YHU2250)
China: Neolithic to Yuan through Archaeology (YHU3215)
Historiography of the Zuozhuan (YHU4259)
Pompeii: Art, Urban Life and Culture in the Roman Empire (YHU3225)
Rome in Antiquity (YHU3339)
Rome: the Eternal City (YHU3209)
The Age of Nero (YHU3252)
The Annals of Lü Buwei, the First Book of Chinese Empire (YHU4260)
The Historiography of Sima Qian (cross-listed with Literature) (YHU4222)
The Interconnected World of 1000 CE (YHU3207)
The Mediterranean World (YHU2271)
Warring States China (YHU3224)

Arts and Humanities

Acting II (YHU3360)
The Bacchae of Euripides (YHU3340)

The Yale-NUS minor in innovation and design aims to provide students the opportunity to learn and apply the principles of Design Thinking to solve a real-world problem. Our students will partner with NUS students from a range of disciplines and through experiential learning and project work learn:

(i) To identify and solve problems within highly ambiguous resource-constrained circumstances;

(ii) To think critically and creatively; and collaborate with others from different disciplinary backgrounds,

(iii) To apply the knowledge and skills learned for the conceptualisation, implementation and realisation of an engineering design solution to solve a real problem.

(iv) To develop their professional skills and abilities such as communication, project management, and teamwork.

The leadership of Yale-NUS and the College of Design and Engineering identified this as a possibility.  A Yale-NUS faculty committee comprising S. Adam (Physical Science); S. Bernasek (Physical Science), J. Comaroff (Geography), N. Clarke (Life Science), N. Rajagobal (Academic Affairs), J. Roberts (EVPAA), and J. Jacobs (Urban Studies) panned and implemented the minor.

The minor was only launched in 2021 with students taking modules starting in 2022.  The closure of the College meant that the minor could not expand or grow as we had initially planned.

The largest component was team-based projectwork.  The modules were taught withcase-studies, and a tutorial style was employed to tailor the Yale-NUS moduleto the minor.

Mathematics and computation have occupied a central place in the liberal arts curriculum from its earliest history. In recent centuries, the mathematical sciences have been viewed as fundamental in describing the laws of nature – the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics. In the twentieth century, statistics enabled the growth of social sciences. In the present day, computers are not merely aiding in the observation of societies, but reshaping them. We encourage students to participate actively in these flourishing developments. Our students have embarked on projects to design robots, launch software, analyse big data networks, develop data visualisation tools, and philosophise on randomness and chaos.

MCS includes the diverse, but connected fields of mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics. They all heavily build on fundamentals and knowledge development in specific areas can only happen progressively.

Planning for the Mathematical, Computational and Statistical Sciences (MCS) major began in the 2012-13 academic year, with a view to its first major courses being taught, in common with the other Science majors, to sophomores in the 2014-15 academic year. (At that stage, the curriculum was structured so that many Science majors would be fully occupied with the Common Curriculum throughout their first year.)

The original intention was to create a broad major, enabling students to acquire expertise in breadth as well as depth. It was recognized that how it took shape would be influenced by, and itself influence, the MCS faculty hires that were to be made as well as students’ demand. The initial development of the Major was guided by a student-centric approach, to ensure that students could gain a solid education across as much of the mathematical, computational and statistical sciences spectrum as practically possible, given the small size of the College, and in particular of the Major. This ambition was made feasible by access to the relevant departments of NUS, each large and of high international research stature.

Another formative point for the MCS curriculum development was the realization – well known to those with university education in the MCS disciplines, but not more widely appreciated – that university-level MCS studies, with a greater emphasis on conceptual understanding, differ greatly from what is taught at the secondary level, where formula manipulation and memorization tend to predominate. This implied a need to introduce material to students at an early stage, both in the Common Curriculum and in electives, that would expose students to this unfamiliar approach before committing to a major.

The major was originally conceived of as “Mathematics and Computer Science” or MCS. Over time, with the growing number of students interested in data science, it was re-branded as “Mathematical, Computational, and Statistical Sciences” and still abbreviated as MCS. The earliest MCS faculty were Jon Berrick (mathematics), Martin Weissman (mathematics), Aquinas Hobor (computer science), and Alex Cook (statistics).

The interdisciplinary nature of the MCS major was somewhat ahead of its time. In recent years, many educational institutions (including NUS) have realized the advantages of capitalising on the synergies between the constituent disciplines and created new interdisciplinary majors, often emphasising data science.

The MCS major turned out to be much more popular than expected, typically being the first or second most popular choice of major in each cohort. This unexpected popularity presented challenges in staffing and advising, but was overall very much a boon.

The Major has witnessed a huge increase (unpredicted by the College founders) in student numbers over the years. The overwhelming majority of past and current MCS majors did not arrive at the College intending to major in MCS (nor in other sciences). Moreover, a fair proportion of MCS majors first chose other majors, but switched to MCS later.

MCS faculty employed a wide range of teaching styles. Where appropriate, courses emphasized the connections between the three constituent fields. Innovative pedagogies, such as flipped classrooms and team-based learning, we employed at all levels of instruction.

Moreover, MCS faculty are active in developing and promoting new teaching strategies. For example, a faculty member was the Principal Investigator (PI) on a teaching innovation grant funded by the Yale-NUS Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and is currently a co-PI on a teaching enhancement grant from the NUS Centre for the Development of Teaching and Learning (CDTL). Unprompted, several MCS faculty created their own informal teaching circles, to visit and coach each other in their class teaching.

The most important courses in the MCS major were the foundational ones, specifically Proof and Introduction to Computer Science, which were also the very first courses created for the MCS major. These courses introduced students to the modes of thought that separate MCS from other sciences.

Urban Studies is a multi-disciplinary field of study that offers students an in-depth understanding of cities, the processes that give rise to them, and their social and environmental consequences.

The Urban Studies major draws on the insights and approaches of a range of disciplines, including sociology, geography and environmental science, architecture and planning, political science, anthropology, economics and history. The programme takes full advantage of Singapore as a global city and city state and its strategic location in Southeast Asia.

The programme recognises that urbanisation happens at a scale and pace never seen before in human history. To understand society today, we must ask urban questions. The programme engages students who are curious about the city, enthralled by its architecture, energised by its culture, troubled by its social injustices, worried about its environmental harms, or enthusiastic about its economic and creative potentials.

The founding vision of the College always included an Urban Studies major. This reflected the intellectual vision of the founding leaders and in particular that of Lily Kong, who is a geographer. Also, it was assumed that in Singapore, where there is an emphasis on urban solutions, such a major would thrive.

Professor Jane M Jacobs was the inaugural Head of Study and appointment. We grew slowly at first as there was a priority in other areas linked to the Common Curriculum. We appointed a planner, Nick Smith, from the Harvard GSD programme as the next faculty member, followed by geographer Yaffa Truelove. This set the core initial faculty, with others coming and going across the decade. It was important as the major grew to have more senior presence and local expertise. This was achieved through joint appointments from NUS sociology, notably Professors Chua Beng Huat and Ho Kong Chong, both of whom have served time as Head of Study.

The concept and direction of the major was developed firstly by Professor Jane M Jacobs. She did this through a process of benchmarking against other such urban studies programmes, particularly ones in liberal arts settings. As we were in a liberal arts environment we stressed that we were not a professional programme. Sure, our grads might go on into related professional programmes, but we really wanted our undergraduate programme to be built on a concept that reflected a liberal arts ethos. As such, we used to talk about our Urban Studies major as offering students a way of inquiring into one powerful, diverse and enduring manifestation of the human condition and its world making – the city and processes of urbanization. Once we had settled on this ethos, other aspects of the programme followed.

YSS4234 Heritage class on a field trip to Joo Chiat, in conversation with the owner of Kway Guan Huat, popiah skin maker, a heritage food business started in 1939.

Jane M Jacobs and Nick Smith worked together to set down some of the core elements of our approach to knowledge so that students could discern how our major differed from other social science and environmental majors offered in the College. Central to this was the notion of “spatial reasoning”. This became the analytical focal point from which other dimensions of the major radiated, including our approach to ethics (e.g. spatial justice), to techniques (e.g. Geographical Information Systems and data visualization), as well as to topic coverage (e.g. to always question theory built from western cities by looking comparatively at cities elsewhere).  Significantly, the team all worked together to design the introductory course, led by Nick Smith and Jane M Jacobs. “Cities A to Z” (actually the course was called Adelaide to Zhuhai: Cities in a Comparative Perspective). The name reflected Professor Jacobs home town (Adelaide) and a city in China (Assistant Professor Smith’s area of research).

In terms of recruitment and emphasis in the programme, Professor Jacobs made an early decision to have a team that reflected disciplinary diversity. The steady state team in Urban Studies included academics trained in planning, architecture, geography and sociology.

There are a number of key emphases in teaching:

Spatial Reasoning
‍This was the approach or lens that distinguished our programme from others and which was reflected in all courses. It had technical expression in two key courses: YSS3273 Geospatial & Demographic Methods and YSS3235 Urban Spatial Reasoning.

Experiential Learning
Understanding the city and urbanization by experiencing it was a clear commitment from the outset in the major. We have for many years included a field trip in the introductory course to either Batam or Jahore, using these places as a way to explore Singapore as an extended urban region. Prof Chua Beng Huat’s Urban Singapore is also a course built primarily around field visits scaffolded with relevant readings and assignments. A number of faculty also offered extracurricular field experiences including Prof Jacobs’ London LAB, Prof Smith’s Boston LAB, and Prof Cardoso’s Malacca Week 7.

Comparative Perspective
Thinking beyond Western urban theory and generating perspectives from non-Western urban contexts is a core commitment of the programme. This comparative perspective is the driving rational of the introductory course “Cities A to Z”. In that course we have a series of core themes that are then instantiated by way of selected cities. Not only does this de-centre western concepts of urbanization, it also broadens the empirical knowledge of students.

Visual and Studio-style Learning
We often would emphasis visual learning and crit-style pin ups. The outputs in the major were often showcased in exhibitions, particularly in Urban Spatial Reasoning.

YSS3217 Urbanization in China — Professor Yong Zhang

"I still vividly remember my first day stepping into Classroom 5 at Saga on 8 August 2022, marking my inaugural teaching day at Yale-NUS. It was a nerve-wracking yet exhilarating experience as I stood before 18 students, the maximum capacity allowed. The intimacy of the classroom setting was a stark contrast to the lecture halls I had grown accustomed to, reminiscent of the tutorial courses I had previously undertaken in Manchester. However, there was an added layer of pressure – the students' expectations were notably higher.

During that session, I introduced the module design that I had adopted from my previous instructor, Nick Smith, and tailored it to reflect my expertise. Drawing upon my first-hand research on urban China and my connections within the community of urban China researchers, I endeavoured to create an intellectually stimulating yet supportive learning environment.

Utilising a variety of methods including lectures, seminars, discussions, debates, guest talks, and films, I aimed to provide the students with a comprehensive understanding of the waves of urbanization in China. Moreover, I encouraged them to develop their own research interests, guiding them in transforming these interests into manageable research projects utilising second-hand materials.

As the final session approached its end, I stepped out of the classroom briefly to allow the students to complete their teaching evaluations for the course. Upon my return, I was deeply touched to find that the students had presented me with a thank-you card, adorned with their signatures and best wishes. This unexpected gesture made the course one of the most unforgettable experiences of my tenure at YNC, leaving a lasting impression on me."

The Urban Studies major put a lot of energy into building a community. This started with “swag” and we were the first major to introduce programme-level swag. Herein began the annual tradition of an existing Urban Studies student/s designing a tote bag to be presented to the newly declared majors. We also put a lot of energy into the Major’s Fair, using urban infrastructure props and developing a postcard series reflecting themes and places in the major.

We also sponsored annual events that celebrated the Urban Studies major and created social opportunities for students and faculty to mix, and for prospective students to see what we got up to.  We called these “block parties” and they usually involved an ice cream cart! We also routinely mentored students into various community engagement initiatives such as Parking Day.

The Double-Degree Programme in Law and Liberal Arts (DDP) is a five-year honours programme offered jointly by Yale-NUS College (YNC) and Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore (NUS), for those seeking both a broad liberal arts education and professional training in the law. Students graduate with a Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) degree from Yale-NUS College and a Bachelor of Laws (with Honours) degree from the Faculty of Law, NUS.

Designed for intellectually driven and globally minded students, the DDP provides students with the best of both worlds -- a rigorous, interdisciplinary legal education in a residential liberal arts setting. The DDP naturally attracts students of the highest calibre who seek to engage multiple disciplines, but who also want to ground their education with professional legal training. The simultaneous academic breadth and depth offered in the DDP would best suit intellectually curious students who are interested in both the fundamental legal underpinnings of society, and the big ideas that have shaped legal thought.

DDP students are trained to engage with cross-disciplinary endeavours with a big-picture perspective and critical analytical skills applicable in the legal industry and beyond. This especially prepares individuals for careers that require detailed expertise along with an awareness of macro-level developments.

In addition to the core academic program, DDP students have access to faculty members, resources and opportunities at both YNC and Faculty of Law, thus augmenting their avenues for exploration and growth. Beyond academics and career-related activities, DDP students also enjoy opportunities and freedom to explore their non-academic interests through the co-curricular activities and student associations in both institutions.

Finally, the rigor and versatility of the DDP is recognized by a wide range of organisations. This can be seen with recent graduates securing jobs not just as professional lawyers, but also in the non-governmental sector, public sector and foreign service. Other graduates have also secured scholarships and are/will be pursuing graduate studies around the world in their field of interests and excellence.

Partnership between Yale-NUS and NUS Law.

In the first year of their studies, DDP students read Yale-NUS Common Curriculum courses throughout the year alongside LL4146V Law & Society, a Faculty of Law course designed for DDP students, in the second semester. DDP students complete the remaining Common Curriculum courses throughout their second, third and fourth years while taking core and elective courses at the Faculty of Law. Students are also eligible to participate in a semester abroad in their fourth year, but should organise their modules in advance to avoid any clashes with graduation requirements. In their final year, students finish up their electives in both Yale-NUS and the Faculty of Law, while also writing their Capstone. The Capstone is a research and writing project on a topic that fuses their education in both the law and liberal arts.

Jasmine Goh (Class of 2021)

DDP students are able to approach legal issues from interdisciplinary perspectives and offer creative solutions.  More often than not, DDP students are also invested in causes and pursuits beyond the Law-making for well-rounded individuals.

Christopher Khew (Class of 2018)

My name is Chris and I am currently working in the litigation department of a law firm in Singapore. In my free time, I like to read and exercise. I hope to read in more than one language, one day.

The DDP is not for everyone. But for me it was one of the best choices that I made. I will always be grateful for my legal education at NUS, which taught me the skills that I needed to thrive professionally. But in the same breath, Yale-NUS gave me the opportunity to see the world and broaden my mind in ways that I could never have anticipated.

The DDP is a fantastic opportunity for students who want to study law and a bit of everything else. The truth is that studying law can be boring. There, I said it! In the DDP, you will find that the academic world can be your oyster, if you choose to make it so.