Common Curriculum

Thinking with Writing (NTW-coded courses) provides students with fundamental skills in academic inquiry, writing and research needed for university life. 

Instead of one standardised course, students get to choose one out of a series of NTW-coded courses, each covering a different topic with an interdisciplinary approach.

Through this course, students learn to read and evaluate arguments, formulate interesting questions, develop their own arguments and participate in an ongoing academic debate. 

NTW is a prerequisite for NGT and most NHS-coded courses.

Reasoning with Data (GEA1000N) concerns how data are collected, organised, analysed, presented, and discussed to gain understanding and guide actions. 

Students will develop numerical intuition and develop skills in data visualisation, descriptive and inferential statistics, probability, and hypothesis testing. Each topic is explored with real-world data and contexts ranging from voting patterns to environmental quality. 

GEA1000N is a prerequisite for most NST-coded courses.

Understanding the Social World: Singapore and Beyond (NSW) explores social scientific approaches to critically understand how social forces, such as norms, relationships, identities and institutions, interact and influence each other and impact the lived experiences of different peoples, and why they seem natural despite being constructed realities.

In investigating these complexities, students can gain a deeper understanding of Singapore and other societies undergoing rapid change brought forth by economic growth, globalisation, climate change, technological advancement, and growing inequality.

Computational Problem Solving's (NPS) main aim is to enable students to learn how computational methods such as algorithms can be used to formulate, solve, and analyse problems that relate to their everyday lives, ranging from climate change to cybersecurity.

Students explore both technical and social aspects of some of the algorithms that impact their day-to-day lives. Examples might include, but are not limited to, Google’s PageRank algorithm, recommender systems such as those employed by video streaming services, social media platforms, and facial recognition technology.

Global Narratives (NGN) introduces students to enduring works of the human imagination across many global traditions and periods, in various genres and media forms such as poetry, philosophy, visual arts and drama.

The course explores how these works represent cultural narratives, values, and questions that encapsulate historical moments and communicate beyond their specific contexts.

Global Social Thought (NGT) covers influential currents in social thought and their relationship to contemporary global concerns. Students will examine the ways in which these ideas have been taken up in contemporary social analysis and political practice in different parts of the world over time. 

Science and Society (NSS) explores the intersection and interplay of science and society. Students will examine how scientific knowledge and technological development influence and shape institutions, peoples, and environments. In turn, they will survey how social, cultural, political, economic, and material realities instigate scientific discovery and research. The complex interactions among society, science, and technology will be examined in the context of some of the most pressing problems humans and non-humans face.

 
Note: the different insrtuctors offering the course are now doing their own version with their own topics