The Common Curriculum: A Distinctive Yale-NUS Experience
The Common Curriculum is the unique Yale-NUS approach to general education. This foundational sequence of 10 interdisciplinary courses introduces students to multiple modes of thought from global perspectives. Transformative works of literature, philosophy, history, and social thought, and focused training in writing, quantitative reasoning, and scientific inquiry prepare students to question, analyse, and critique with precision.
Through the Common Curriculum, students develop new intellectual capacities and passions, while learning more about themselves and the world they inhabit. This shared intellectual background is the basis of our academic community.
2021 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Maria Ressa in 2013
ON CITIZEN JOURNALISM, POLITICAL ACTIVISM, AND CSI
In the opening year of the College, Maria Ressa visited Yale-NUS to run a student workshop on citizen journalism, social media, and how liberal arts training and courses like CSI can empower students to participate more critically in the world.
The Common Curriculum
The Common Curriculum is the signature Yale-NUS academic programme taken by Yale-NUS students in their first two years. Drawing on intellectual traditions from all over the world, the Common Curriculum expands and transforms students’ capacities to question, critique, and understand different disciplines and cultures. The Common Curriculum forges the distinctive open-mindedness and versatility of Yale-NUS students and graduates.
Literature and Humanities 1 and 2
YEAR 1 COURSE
Students explore works across time and space to learn how humans represented and shaped their worlds. We aim to cultivate the cultural, aesthetic, and rhetorical literacy needed to become a cosmopolitan reader of human experience.
Philosophy and Political Thought 1 and 2
YEAR 1 COURSE
Students encounter transformative examples of philosophy and political thought that address enduring questions about the nature of reality and knowledge: ideas of the self, consciousness, divinity, happiness, ethics, and the character of law.
Comparative Social Inquiry
YEAR 1 COURSE
Students interrogate the social forces that determine how human beings live. As inherently social beings who interact through networks, we are the product and shapers of norms and institutions.
Quantitative Reasoning
YEAR 1 COURSE
By introducing topics on algorithmic thinking and statistical inference, this course trains students to become critical and informed readers of quantitative data.
Scientific Inquiry 1 and 2
YEAR 1 COURSE
Science is often thought of as a collection of “facts” about our world. These two courses examine how scientists arrive at our understanding of the world. They ask, “What do we know?” and “How do we know it?”
Modern Social Thought
YEAR 2 COURSE
Students encounter foundational figures of modern social thought and explores the ways in which their writings have been taken up in contemporary social analysis and political practice in different parts of the world.
Historical Immersion
YEAR 3 OR YEAR 4 COURSE
Historical Immersion courses focus on a particular historical moment, event, or individual, to enable students to explore a unique historical moment in greater depth.
Week Seven: Learning Across Boundaries
YEAR 1 COURSE
Learning Across Boundaries (LAB) is one of the College’s flagship experiential learning offerings, which takes students, faculty and staff out of the traditional classroom setting.
The Common Curriculum is the signature Yale-NUS College academic programme taken by Yale-NUS students in their first two years. Drawing on intellectual traditions from all over the world, the Common Curriculum expands and transforms students’ capacities to question, critique, and understand different disciplines and cultures. The Common Curriculum forges the distinctive open-mindedness and versatility of Yale-NUS students and graduates.
Literature and Humanities 1 and 2
YEAR 1 COURSE
Students explore works across time and space to learn how humans represented and shaped their worlds. We aim to cultivate the cultural, aesthetic, and rhetorical literacy needed to become a cosmopolitan reader of human experience.
Philosophy and Political Thought 1 and 2
YEAR 1 COURSE
Students encounter transformative examples of philosophy and political thought that address enduring questions about the nature of reality and knowledge: ideas of the self, consciousness, divinity, happiness, ethics, and the character of law.
Comparative Social Inquiry
YEAR 1 COURSE
Students interrogate the social forces that determine how human beings live. As inherently social beings who interact through networks, we are the product and shapers of norms and institutions.
Quantitative Reasoning
YEAR 1 COURSE
By introducing topics on algorithmic thinking and statistical inference, this course trains students to become critical and informed readers of quantitative data.
Scientific Inquiry 1 and 2
YEAR 1 COURSE
Science is often thought of as a collection of “facts” about our world. These two courses examine how scientists arrive at our understanding of the world. They ask, “What do we know?” and “How do we know it?”
Week Seven: Learning Across Boundaries
YEAR 1 COURSE
Learning Across Boundaries (LAB) is one of the College’s flagship experiential learning offerings, which takes students, faculty and staff out of the traditional classroom setting.
The Common Curriculum is the signature Yale-NUS College academic programme taken by Yale-NUS students in their first two years. Drawing on intellectual traditions from all over the world, the Common Curriculum expands and transforms students’ capacities to question, critique, and understand different disciplines and cultures. The Common Curriculum forges the distinctive open-mindedness and versatility of Yale-NUS students and graduates.
Modern Social Thought
YEAR 2 COURSE
Students encounter foundational figures of modern social thought and explores the ways in which their writings have been taken up in contemporary social analysis and political practice in different parts of the world.
Science Common Curriculum Distribution Courses
YEAR 2 OR YEAR 3 COURSE
Building on the two previous Science Common Curriculum courses (Quantitative Reasoning and Scientific Inquiry 2), the distribution courses will expose students to mathematical and scientific practice, share a set of core learning goals, enhance quantitative skills, and foreground inquiry within specific subfields.
The Common Curriculum is the signature Yale-NUS College academic programme taken by Yale-NUS students in their first two years. Drawing on intellectual traditions from all over the world, the Common Curriculum expands and transforms students’ capacities to question, critique, and understand different disciplines and cultures. The Common Curriculum forges the distinctive open-mindedness and versatility of Yale-NUS students and graduates.
Historical Immersion
YEAR 3 OR YEAR 4 COURSE
Historical Immersion courses focus on a particular historical moment, event, or individual, to enable students to explore a unique historical moment in greater depth.
Science Common Curriculum Distribution Courses
YEAR 2 OR YEAR 3 COURSE
Building on the two previous Science Common Curriculum courses (Quantitative Reasoning and Scientific Inquiry 2), the distribution courses will expose students to mathematical and scientific practice, share a set of core learning goals, enhance quantitative skills, and foreground inquiry within specific subfields.
Hear from our Students and Alumni
Crystal Yong
CLASS OF 2019
The Common Curriculum gave me the largest epiphanies in my life! Learning about the human pursuit of knowledge made my existence feel small yet I feel an infinite connection to this human journey of deep inquiry into our universe.
Academic Experience
The Common Curriculum prepares all students with a shared intellectual foundation for further academic development and lifelong learning. After this broad interdisciplinary exposure, students select a major to pursue more deeply while exploring additional electives in other fields that may be added as a minor.
