SINGAPORE - The National University of Singapore (NUS) on Tuesday (Dec 8) officially launched a new college that will house two of its oldest faculties - arts and social sciences, and science - and take in some 2,000 undergraduates. The College of Humanities and Sciences, which will admit its first cohort of students in August 2021, marks a major shift from the traditional way of learning in separate disciplines. Both faculties date as far back as 1929, and will continue to operate separately. Students will still graduate with a bachelor's honours degree in arts, social sciences or science within four years. But a key difference is that they will have to take 13 common modules in areas that cut across different fields of study, such as design thinking, artificial intelligence and scientific inquiry. Students will spend a third of their overall curriculum on such modules, which will focus on the intellectual approaches and connections across disciplines. Other topics include Asian studies, computational thinking and community and engagement. Students will also take two higher-level interdisciplinary modules of their choice. These aim to integrate knowledge across disciplines. With t...