NG5001 (Academic Communication for Postgraduate Researchers)

Designed for all PhD students of the NUS Graduate School (NUSGS), this module facilitates further development of students’ academic literacies in critical reading, writing and oral presentation. For critical reading, students will be guided to deconstruct and evaluate arguments – competences which students will then deploy by writing a proposal. In writing the proposal, students will need to demonstrate the ability to use suitable academic conventions. This proposal will subsequently be delivered as an oral presentation to a cross-disciplinary audience. This module utilizes a blended learning approach, where students’ learning experiences will comprise in-class and online synchronous and asynchronous lessons and activities.

ES2631 (Critique and Communication of Engineering Ideas)

This course equips students with competencies requiring students to analyze, critique, and communicate engineering ideas in a systematic and thoughtful manner. Students will be introduced to a reasoning in engineering framework (Paul et al., 2019), as well as key principles of effective communication in the field of engineering, such as being purpose- and context-conscious and audience-centric (Irish & Weiss, 2013). These will be applied to analyze engineering ideas in both written and oral communication. Students will also engage in a group engineering conceptual design project aimed at promoting critical analysis and communication within groups.

UTW1001T: How Rich Should Anyone Be?

Is it wrong for eight men to have as much wealth as 3.6 billion people? If so, what should we do about it? This course offers a deep dive into the nature and ethics of wealth inequality. It has two parts. We first address a theoretical question: When, if ever, is inequality morally wrong? This lays the foundation for the second part, where we examine the causes and consequences of wealth inequality, along with possible responses. The aim is to critically examine our attitudes and policies as we strive for a just and practical distribution of wealth.

UTW1001J: The Framing of the Climate Crisis

How do we raise questions about our collective responsibility as a species towards our planet?  How do we deliberate about uncertainty regarding climate change’s effects?  In this course, we discuss issues ranging from Siberian fires to climate refugees to investigate how some perspectives of the climate crisis become salient and prominent while others are silenced in dynamic socio-political environments.

By analysing the discourse of an article and examining its presentation, we understand the ‘spin’ on a particular perspective. We then investigate what makes some of these perspectives popular ways of understanding  the climate crisis, while others are absent.