Lessons from abroad: Broadening horizons through NUS College’s Global Experience courses

Lessons from abroad: Broadening horizons through NUS College's Global Experience courses

Following a successful debut, the flagship Global Experience programme at NUS College has been expanded to cover more locations with a total of 12 courses.

From villages to cities, from rivers to the ocean, more than 200 NUS students immersed themselves in new environments and broadened their horizons literally and figuratively this past summer in NUS College's (NUSC) flagship Global Experience (GEx) courses.

In line with NUSC's mission to "break open the classroom," the month-long experiential learning courses take students around the world to learn about the strengths and challenges of selected locations or regions through conversations with researchers, expert practitioners, and communities; field visits; and hands-on activities including independent study projects.

The inaugural run of GEx received positive reviews from students, prompting the programme team to expand the number of courses in the second run. A few places in each course were also opened to non-NUSC students from other NUS residential units. Of the 12 courses available, seven are new, with five of them covering regions of Southeast Asia and two taking place in major cities, namely Beijing and Chicago.

Conservation and sustainable tourism: GEx Bali/Lombok

Students got more than their feet wet in Indonesia - they dived into the ocean and got muddy in mangrove forests to learn about conservation and sustainable tourism efforts in Bali and Lombok, gathering insights on how these practices could be applied to the rest of Southeast Asia.

Led by local fisherman collectives and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the students observed sustainable methods for octopus fishing and ornamental fish harvesting, installed artificial reef structures for coral nurseries on the ocean floor, and waded through knee-deep mud to plant mangrove tree seedlings.

The students were both sobered by the challenges that the communities face in preserving their environment and way of life, and inspired by the tenacity and resourcefulness of the communities and NGOs.

Said first-year Business Analytics major Saanvi Tondak: "It is very easy to pass didactic judgments, especially with the sheltered Singaporean lives we live. However, being on the ground and witnessing the complexities first-hand made me realise the nuances involved." For instance, she gained a deeper understanding of how the economic considerations of tourism intertwine with the need to protect natural habitats.

Observing the NGOs' methods, which did not always follow strict scientific principles but sometimes relied on common sense and trial and error, inspired second-year Life Sciences major Mahiraah Begum to take a similar approach. "It showed me that I don't need to wait for perfect knowledge to begin my own projects; I can start small, experiment, and adapt based on real-world feedback."

The NGOs' focus on empathy and humility in listening to the communities when developing their solutions left a strong impression on first-year Environmental Studies major Justin Kam, who summarised his learnings thus: "We must empower not impose; we must listen before we act."

Resilience and livelihoods at water's edge: GEx Mekong Delta

More than just a geographic feature, mighty rivers like the Mekong shape the communities and cultures that develop along their banks, connecting them to nature and one another. GEx Mekong Delta took students to five locations in Cambodia and Vietnam along the Mekong River and around its delta, focusing on the local communities, how they organise their lives and livelihoods around the natural ecosystems, and the stressors they face from rapid development and environmental change - all through an interdisciplinary lens that combined the skills of ethnography and photography.

Through their daily interactions with the locals, the students learned to overcome their reservations and hone their ethnographic skills in navigating language barriers, reading body language and non-verbal cues, and asking the right questions to clarify ambiguities.

Photography added a new dimension to their approach, enhancing their fieldwork and making their research output more comprehensive and engaging. For Wilfred Tang, a third-year Sociology and Global Studies double major, a camera was a good conversation starter as people would ask him to take their photos. Using it thoughtfully prompted him and fellow student Lim En Jia, a second-year Political Science major, to notice patterns they could research further.

For example, Wilfred's observation that most of the vendors in his photos of a particular market were women guided his conversations with the sellers to find out more about the market as a gendered space. He learnt that the women's decisions to make a living this way were shaped by broader social factors such as education, skills, and poverty.

Said En Jia: "Using the camera as a conduit to see the world forced me to slow down and take a closer look at the common sights that I take for granted. Seeing people exercising in the park became a question of the use of public spaces in fostering connection; food stalls by the river became a question of development and who gets left behind."

The Chinese way of technology: GEx Beijing

Understanding China is crucial to appreciating its influence in multiple spheres, including geopolitics, economics, technology, environment, and more; so a group of students travelled to Beijing for a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the country as represented by its capital city.

The inner workings of Beijing as a smart city were a key focus, with highlights including a visit to the Beijing High-level Automated Driving Demonstration Area (BJHAD), where they got a glimpse of the complex suite of cloud connectivity, technological and infrastructural innovations, and policy systems needed to make autonomous driving a reality.

The experience of touring the BJHAD in autonomous vehicles and taking a driverless ride-hailing service to a nearby shopping mall was thrilling and eye-opening for second-year Computer Science major Timothy Putra Prasetio, who was impressed by the technological advances made possible with strong societal and government support.

"Observing how companies like Tencent and Dahua Security allocate substantial resources to research and development to create groundbreaking technologies has inspired me to prioritise continuous learning and innovation in my own work," he said.

Non-curricular activities yielded lessons about the wide-ranging potential of technology too. Final-year Chemistry major Chelsea Wong checked out an escape room with some classmates in their free time and was awed by the experience. The room setup was larger and more sophisticated than what she was used to in Singapore, with walls that "collapsed" and characters and objects that appeared seemingly out of nowhere upon the completion of certain tasks. In answer to the students' amazed questions about how these were achieved, a character actor replied, "Magic!" They then explained that technology was used to give customers the sensation of having experienced magic in the escape room.

"My impression of technology was that of systematic machines and software that increase the convenience and efficiency of daily living," Chelsea said. "I realised that I could be reading all kinds of articles about technology in China, but being here and experiencing the city for myself made these lessons a lot more memorable and powerful."

Another highlight of the trip for her was getting to meet Singaporeans working at the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City. The experience reminded Chelsea of the importance of continuing to find ways to maintain Singapore's relevance on the world stage, including through the efforts of Singaporeans representing the country and working overseas.

Agritech enterprises in the heart of America: GEx Chicago

Over in Chicago, a major city in the US state of Illinois, another group of students explored the possibilities and lessons from an agricultural city where food is grown in community gardens and vacant lots and on rooftops. Growing more of our own food in an urban environment is a key challenge for Singapore, and Chicago's example demonstrates how doing so not only increases self-sufficiency and resources but also encourages communities to spring up and flourish around such spaces and activities.

Though the garden plots were visible enough, many of the lessons had to be unearthed with deeper digging. Third-year business analytics and Communications and New Media double major student Kyoeun Kim recalls passing through a community farm on her first day in Chicago during her morning run and thinking of it as no more than "another pretty horticultural farm."

However, a couple of weeks later, she saw the same farm with new eyes during a visit organised as part of the GEx programme, in which the youths who worked there explained its broader impact on their lives.

"The urban farm serves as a vital opportunity for growth, healing, and food sovereignty for Chicago's youth, particularly those from disadvantaged neighbourhoods who lack access to quality education and fresh produce," Kyoeun shared. "Coming to Chicago as a student researcher rather than a tourist allowed me to study and appreciate the spaces for their significance to the local community, rather than through my limited perspective."

She also learnt to deconstruct her perspectives. Citing, as an example, her expectation that most of the farms would resemble the high-tech farms present in Singapore, she was surprised to find a low-tech rainwater collection tower being used at a different community farm. Upon studying the history of the space and interacting with the community members, she learnt that the tower was actually an ingenious invention that maximised resources in an area that lacked direct access to water, partly as a result of historical racial inequalities.

Course facilitator Dr Jerome Kok said the community farm visits were meant to help students realise that food is not just about production, but that the growing spaces can have an impact on empowerment and justice issues, as well as culture and heritage for their surrounding communities. "I think (the visits) helped to abstract the idea of 'food' and demonstrated the very natural way that it invites different disciplines to the table," he said.