We must do more than just play the game of anticipation and catch-up; we must embrace the game of disruption itself.
We live in a time of uncertainty about what the future holds. Capitalists and socialists alike, through the likes of the insurance industry or the public pension system respectively, will tell us that we can and should do things to buffer ourselves from the unpredictable winds of the future. In the world of education, the go-to solution for future-readying is to anticipate the skills necessary for the future and to nurture a workforce ready to take on the professions of tomorrow.
When we launched the SMU Core Curriculum in 2019, we recognised that while some trends in the present give us clues about the future economy on which we can and should act on, we must also recognise that it is intrinsic in the nature of the modern economic and social milieus in which we live that some things cannot be predicted.
The College of Integrative Studies was developed to further respond to our constantly evolving world. Student needs have changed as the demands of economies and societies transform. As industries evolve, new and often unusual combinations of domain knowledge and skill sets are required, especially as employers increasingly seek graduates who can cross disciplinary boundaries with ease to attend to the complexities of modern economies and societies.
Our Individualised Major Programme will be the first of its kind in Singapore and will take individualised and interdisciplinary learning to the next level. We nurture a new type of graduate who is not held back by any disciplinary perspective , but in possession of both an interdisciplinary and cross-domain toolkit that responds to the needs of evolving as well as frontier industries. Our graduates have the intellectual disposition to stay ahead of social, environmental and economic disruption they will encounter through the course of their careers.
The new SMU College of Integrative Studies will be an incubator of interdisciplinary and integrative research-led teaching - a place where students will be empowered to cultivate the integrative intelligence needed to confront the realities of the world we live in.