NUS Bulletin AY2021/22

The University Town College Programme (UTCP) is a residential programme offered at College of Alice & Peter Tan, Residential College 4, and Tembusu College. Designed as a more coherent delivery of general education, the UTCP emphasises multidisciplinary learning and active small-group learning. Students from different disciplines, cultures, and nationalities are put together in each class, which helps them to assimilate and synthesise cross-disciplinary knowledge, facilitating multi-perspectival thinking.

Through its multidisciplinary curriculum, the UTCP will help students develop effective communications and strong writing skills, critical thinking skills, and intellectual breadth and rigour to tackle the complex, inter-related challenges confronting the world today. A host of informal learning activities, such as talks by distinguished visitors, as well as social and sporting activities, complements the formal curriculum.

Incoming freshmen may apply for the UTCP concurrently with or after their NUS application. Admission into the UTCP is contingent upon the acceptance of an offer to pursue an undergraduate degree programme in NUS.

Admissions for current undergraduates is typically opened on a case-by-case basis. Hence there are semesters where none or only selected RCs will open for applications. The admissions exercise for current undergraduates will be announced on the RC admission website before the start of the semester if places are available.

Interested applicants should submit an online application via the Joint Residential College Application System. Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview. You will be assessed based on your essay(s) and interview, in addition to your academic achievements and co-curricular experiences.

In your application you may indicate your preference, if any, for either College of Alice & Peter Tan, Residential College 4 or Tembusu College, but your eventual placement (if selected) may be different.

Only one application may be submitted per Academic Year.

For Cohort AY2021/2022 onwards:

Incoming Freshmen admitted to the UTCP will be offered a two-year residency in either College of Alice & Peter Tan, Residential College 4 or Tembusu College, during which you should complete the UTCP curriculum comprising five modules:

• A Junior Seminar,
• An Ideas & Exposition module,
• Two Senior Seminars (one with a Singapore Studies focus), and
• A fifth module* which will fulfill one of the 21^st Century Competencies pillars: Digital Literacy or Data Literacy.

*[Updated Feb 2022]: After careful consideration of the students’ workload and the 2-year residency timeframe to complete the UTCP modules, it is decided that UTCP RCs will not offer the fifth module which will fulfil one of the 21st Century Competencies pillars: Digital Literacy or Data Literacy as planned earlier. 

Students will instead read at least a Data Literacy or Digital Literacy Pillar module as per their faculties/degree programmes requirements within their two-year UTCP residency, and use it to count towards their completion of the UTCP. This applies with immediate effect to cohort AY2021/22 onwards.

UTCP RCs will focus on enhancing students’ learning experiences of the four existing modules that are offered at the RCs (i.e. a Junior Seminar, an Ideas & Exposition module and two Senior Seminars) which best leverages the unique educational advantages of the RCs.

For students from Law, Medicine, Dentistry and selected programmes with curricular constraints (e.g. Nursing, Music, Architecture, Industrial Design and Joint Degree Programmes), an academic pathway is tailored for you to still read modules with your College as part of your College experience.

For Cohort AY2020/2021 and before:

Incoming Freshmen admitted to the UTCP will be offered a two-year residency in either College of Alice & Peter Tan, Residential College 4 or Tembusu College, during which you should complete the UTCP curriculum comprising five modules:

• A Junior Seminar and Ideas & Exposition 1 typically in the first year, and
• Two Senior Seminars (one with a Singapore Studies focus) and Ideas & Exposition 2 typically in the second year

Alternative learning pathways are designed for students from Law, Medicine, Dentistry, and selected programmes with curricular restrictions (e.g. Nursing, Music, and Joint Degree Programmes) to still read modules as part of the residential college experience.

Current undergraduates from Year 2 onwards will be offered a one-year residency if you are admitted in Semester 1, or a one-semester residency if you are admitted in Semester 2. For both cases, you should read one module with your College during the offered residency period.

For Cohort AY2021/2022 onwards:

With effect from AY2021/2022, students from faculties in the modular system are required to complete six General Education (GE) modules under the enhanced GE curriculum (https://www.nus.edu.sg/registrar/academic-information-policies/undergraduate-students/general-education/for-students-admitted-from-AY2021-22).

The UTCP is designed as an alternative pathway to the GE programme at NUS. UTCP students who read the four UTCP modules (a Junior Seminar, an Ideas & Exposition module and two Senior Seminars) will fulfil the requirements of the following four GE pillars:

• Cultures and Connections
• Critique and Expression
• Singapore Studies
• Communities and Engagement

The Data Literacy and Digital Literacy pillars will not be offered by the RCs and UTCP students will read these modules with their faculties.

For UTCP students from NUS College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS) who read the four UTCP modules (a Junior Seminar, an Ideas & Exposition module and two Senior Seminars), you will be exempted from the following four CHS Common Curriculum Modules marked with ‘X' in the table below. UTCP CHS students will be required to read the CHS Common Curriculum modules indicated in yellow.

For UTCP FOE & SDE students from Residential College 4 (RC4), IE2141 is precluded from RC4 Junior Seminars (UTC1702x). Effective from the AY2019/20 cohort onwards, FOE & SDE (Architecture, Industrial Design and Projects & Facilities Management) students who have read a RC4 Junior Seminar (UTC1702x) will be exempted from the IE2141 graduation requirement. You will be required to take an additional 4 MCs of UEM in place of IE2141 to meet the minimum number of MCs required for graduation.

For more details on the fulfillment of your degree programme graduation requirements, you are advised to check with your respective programme offices.

For Cohort AY2020/2021 and before:

Students from faculties in the modular system are required to complete five General Education (GE) modules under the NUS GE curriculum. For cohorts admitted from AY2016/2017 onwards, students who complete the UTCP are exempted from four of the five modules of the GE curriculum.  This means that four UTCP modules will be read in place of the GE modules and the fifth UTCP module is taken as an Unrestricted Elective (UE) or Faculty requirements (if applicable).

The university requires all undergraduates (with the exception of Law, Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing) to complete the GER1000 Quantitative Reasoning (QR) module. This is the fifth GE module, and serves to complete the GE requirement for UTCP students. This module will be pre-allocated for you to read in your first or second semester.

Students who do not have the opportunity to complete the UTCP may seek exemptions from certain GE pillars based on the UTCP modules read to date, subject to the GE Committee’s approval.

In some instances, Ideas & Exposition modules may be read in lieu of other writing / communication modules offered by the Centre for English Language Communication, which are graduation requirements for selected Faculties. Notwithstanding, each I&E module may only count towards either Faculty requirements or University Level Requirements but not double-counted towards both.

*x represents a letter suffix which denotes the topic of the Ideas & Exposition module

For UTCP FOE students from Residential College 4 (RC4), IE2141 is precluded from RC4 Junior Seminars (UTC1702x). Effective from the AY2019/20 cohort onwards, FOE  students who have read a RC4 Junior Seminar (UTC1702x) will be exempted from the IE2141 graduation requirement. You will be required to take an additional 4 MCs of UEM in place of IE2141 to meet the minimum number of MCs required for graduation.

Students whose programmes do not have University Level Requirements (namely Law, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, and students on Joint Degree Programmes with overseas universities) should check with their respective programme administrators on how or whether the UTCP modules may be classified for graduation.

For more information, please visit http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/campus-living/residential-options/residential-colleges.

For more information on the Colleges offering the UTCP, visit http://capt.nus.edu.sg/, http://rc4.nus.edu.sg/, and http://tembusu.nus.edu.sg/