[Singapore] - Yale-NUS and University Scholars Programme students, alumni react to news of merger

[UltimaOnline]

SINGAPORE: Students from Yale-NUS College and the University Scholars Programme (USP) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have said they are shocked and confused at the news that the two programmes will merge.

Yale-NUS will close in 2025, ceasing Yale University’s collaboration with NUS, and its 2021 intake will be its last batch. The two programmes - Yale-NUS and USP - will be merged and will accept its first batch of students from 2022, NUS announced on Friday (Aug 27).

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/yale-nus-usp-merger-new-curriculum-students-2139471


[–]ivorysteelglass Mature Citizen 47 points 3 hours ago
I'm not from Yale-NUS, but I am a student at NUS who is due to graduate in 2025. I also applied to and received an offer from Yale-NUS in July this year and it was one of my top choices, so I do feel for the Yale-NUS freshmen who have to deal with this just one month into their first year.
This merger seems like something that was planned, yet my offer letter from Yale-NUS never mentioned anything about the potential merger. One of the reasons I ultimately decided on the NUS+USP offer was because I was offered a scholarship by NUS but not by Yale-NUS, and choosing Yale-NUS would have meant giving up the scholarship and having to pay much higher school fees.
It was a really hard choice for me to make at the time, and it all just seems really unfair for the Yale-NUS freshmen, who just started school less than a month ago and might have made a different choice if they had only been given a more complete picture before accepting their Yale-NUS offer.

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[–]LaZZyBird 41 points an hour ago
What is the point of setting up a new liberal arts college if it does not include a tie-up with an actual liberal arts college like Yale?
Half of the appeal of Yale-NUS is Yale. People joined because they wanted a taste of Yale's curriculum without having to actually go to Yale in the USA. Most of them would have just signed up for another course in NUS if there isn't Yale in there.
Plus, Yale's admission policy and the Yale name makes the faculty a lot more international than most universities in Singapore. Would not expect the same once we remove the Yale from the NUS.
Also imagine the bait and switch alumni have to deal with. What is a Yale-NUS degree now? A degree from a school that only lasted ten years and have no history? Or just another NUS degree? Paid so much money, turns out the degree is just another NUS degree in disguise. Cannot even call the alumni society Yale-NUS now, cause it no longer exist.

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[–]IndependenceFit6502 [score hidden] 20 minutes ago
Yale isn't a LAC. Ync was never branded to be like yale, but rather an asian alternative to actual LACs like Amhearst, Swarthmore etc

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[+]Jammy_buttons2 comment score below threshold (1 child)






[–]Naiveseeker 25 points 2 hours ago
Huh isn't this a literal bait and switch?

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[–]hugthispandaMature Citizen 23 points 3 hours ago
Interdisciplinary curriculum is a convenient pretext for these faculty mergers. What they are really doing it for is to cut down on operating costs by reducing number of faculties.

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[–]Jammy_buttons2Mature Citizen 38 points 4 hours ago

“(Here at Yale-NUS), boys can wear dresses, and in orientation there
were people who would dance in the rain. People can just do what they
want and (other) people would leave you alone. I’m happy that there was
this space, even if you weren’t so inclined to dance in the m&d.”

LOL, I am sure I know people who did it in Kent Ridge haha

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[–]sitsthewind 11 points 3 hours ago
Back in the day, I audited a module in NUS where everyone was asked to try cross-dressing for (at least) a week lol.

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[–]Solus_1pse [score hidden] 18 minutes ago
How can females cross dress? Whatever men wear is already socially acceptable for women to wear.

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[–]sneakpeek_bot 8 points 5 hours ago

'Definitely didn’t see it coming': Yale-NUS and University Scholars Programme students, alumni react to news of merger​

Moving forward, she hopes for more sessions or townhalls between the NUS admin and affected students with more information about what will happen in the future.
“As of now, the Q&A, even though they’re involving both USP admin and the NUS provost, they seem to be giving very vague answers, or they don’t seem to be giving us very concrete assurance of what’s going to happen,” said Charlene.
“They keep saying something is going to happen, but it’s just all very unclear, and all the details aren’t really there yet. I guess it’s just quite disconcerting.”
For future plans, she hopes the university will engage with students first on the initiatives before “throwing us into the depths of these announcements”.
Several final-year Yale-NUS students on campus expressed sadness about the loss of college culture.
The smaller size of Yale-NUS meant students felt “closer to management”, said 22-year-old student Alice, who declined to give her real name.
“Whatever we feel about certain things, we feel comfortable voicing it out. … And if we scale up, I'm not sure how much support there will be in the future. I’ve just had a good time in this school and thinking how it will change (makes me) a bit sad,” she told CNA.
“This space is quite special, especially in Singapore… The founding faculty and admin knew what it was like to run a small liberal college,” said Henry (not his real name), 24.
“There’s a closeness that’s not contrived, but actually cultivated. I think a lot of people are saying they have no faith that they will be able to replicate it in a larger (setting).
“(Here at Yale-NUS), boys can wear dresses, and in orientation there were people who would dance in the rain. People can just do what they want and (other) people would leave you alone. I’m happy that there was this space, even if you weren’t so inclined to dance in the m&d.”
Final-year student Lucas said he feels “doomed and lost”.
“What’s the point of anything now, if all I can say is that I’m from a failed experiment that no longer exists? Why was this not made more transparent?” the 24-year-old said.
Freshmen at Yale-NUS were also reminded to pay their university fees just before the announcement on Friday, he noted.
In an email sent to students on Aug 2 seen by CNA, the NUS Office of Finance said that the due date for the payment of tuition fees for the first semester of the 2021 academic year was Friday - the same day of the merger announcement - for all modes except GIRO.
Lucas felt news of the merger “trapped the freshmen”, and said he was advising all of them to drop out of the programme because of the “terrible planning”.
ALUMNI SURPRISED AND SAD
Alumni for both colleges also expressed shock and disappointment at the news.
An alumnus from the pioneer batch of Yale-NUS who only wanted to be known as Qistina said she was “genuinely shocked” despite having heard rumours of a merger.
Noting that NUS had also previously announced that it would form a new College of Humanities and Sciences in September 2020, she added that this news now “makes a bit more sense”.

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1.0.2 | Source code | Contribute

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[–]Doxq [score hidden] 34 minutes ago
"Whatever we feel about certain things, we feel comfortable voicing out", but apparently only under a pseudonym. Looks like today's liberal arts students have been tamed, no longer have a backbone to voice out prejudices, and are more distracted with attention seeking activities for no meaningful reason (Male wearing dress and dancing in the rain). Might as well shut them down altogether, save some face for us majority non-liberal arts Singaporeans.

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[+]ToastedKoppi 9 points 3 hours ago (1 child)




[–]rockythebalboa1990 24 points 4 hours ago
elites sad that elite programs not so elite anymore

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[–]shimmynywimminyMature Citizen [score hidden] 31 minutes ago
yale nus considered elite meh? well, definitely not elite anymore.

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[–]Boogie_p0p 9 points 4 hours ago
The Yale-NUS students interviewed really... lol. So dramatic.

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[–]handicapped-toilet 11 points 3 hours ago
Waiting for the video from The Mockingbird News Channel

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[–]Eclairattack 17 points 3 hours ago
I mean the mockingbird started from Yale NUS. So they'll probably be pretty devastated, as that space allowed them start the whole concept.

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[–]ireallyhatedriving15 -2 points an hour ago
Well... it is a liberal arts college. This is to be expected of them

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[–]ilovenoodles06 -3 points 4 hours ago
Actually what does yale nus teach?

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[–]hugthispandaMature Citizen 28 points 3 hours ago
Yale NUS is the Special Administrative Region of NUS.

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[+]Snuffle247 29 points 3 hours ago* (8 children)




[–]007accountant Sovereign 19 points 4 hours ago
How to distinguish themselves from NUS plebians.
/s

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[+]Julius_Sneezer05 12 points 4 hours ago (0 children)






[–]RepresentativeOk6676 9 points 4 hours ago
Tbh I really have no idea that makes their degree so special from the NUS.

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[–]GhostBearKhan 15 points 4 hours ago
Based on what I saw the syllabus was last time, it was like the liberal arts college in the US where they touch every subject

 

[mudhatter]

stinkypura = good for nothing
get over it

 

[UltimaOnline]

https://www.straitstimes.com/singap...s-over-plans-to-merge-yale-nus-and-university

Students unhappy, anxious over plans to merge Yale-NUS and University Scholars Programme​

The move to merge the liberal arts college with the National University of Singapore's University Scholars Programme (USP) was announced on Aug 27, 2021.PHOTO: ST FILE
Ang Qing and Ng Wei Kai

• PUBLISHED
  2 HOURS AGO

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SINGAPORE - Yale-NUS College students who turned down a place at prestigious universities with long histories said they now feel short-changed that the college will soon cease to exist.
A first year student at Yale-NUS - who declined to be named because the university has told students not to speak to the media - said some students are considering dropping out of the Yale-NUS component of the double-degree programme in law.
He said: "This is just not what I signed up for... The timing of this is difficult as well because we have just paid about $12,000 for our first semester's tuition."

He added that he had turned down offers at University College London and the London School of Economics and Political Science in favour of Yale-NUS.

The move to merge the liberal arts college with the National University of Singapore's University Scholars Programme (USP) to form a new institution was announced on Friday morning (Aug 27), much to the surprise of students and staff.

Classes were cancelled and everyone was asked to attend a virtual townhall meeting at 9am.

When The Straits Times visited the campus on Friday afternoon, the mood was sombre, with many staff and students seen hugging one another and talking in small groups.

ST understands that a messaging group has been set up by Yale-NUS students to air concerns about the merger. Some students in the group have said they are mulling over their options, including leaving for another university.

A 24-year-old final-year student said the changes have sparked concerns about having a degree that carries the name of an "impending non-existent" college - although the degree is awarded by NUS.

Environmental researcher Xie Yihao, 28, who is from the pioneer batch of students who entered Yale-NUS in 2013 said he was shocked, angry and confused about the news, which came as a total surprise.

Mr Xie said: "I am a little uncomfortable with how this is portrayed as something to celebrate for NUS.

"Yale-NUS may just be an experiment in the Singapore education system that has served its purpose. But for students whose life trajectories could change because of this, they can't be treated like experiment subjects."

Some students and alumni said they fear that the merger will spell the end of the college's unique culture and diverse pool of international students.

A 23-year-old third-year student said: "The diversity of students will probably drop because a lot of international students know about Yale-NUS because of Yale".

Under Common App - a college application portal used by nearly 900 US colleges - prospective students can opt to apply for Yale-NUS when applying for Yale.

Former Yale-NUS student Vaness Kow, 21, who graduated this year, said the merger might mean ground-up campus groups that students have set up will disappear.

She said: "So many people have worked hard on things like creating student organisations from scratch or creating safe spaces for people to feel comfortable expressing themselves".

Alumnus Daryl Yang, 28, who graduated in 2019 with a double degree in law and liberal arts, was former president of the Yale-NUS gender and sexuality alliance.

He said he was concerned about whether the new institution will be an inclusive community for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) students.

Mr Yang said: "My experiences at Yale-NUS were unique and cannot be replicated anywhere else because what we had built was not merely an institution of higher education, but a community of learning in pursuit of the truth and a better world."

After the virtual townhall meeting on Friday morning, board members and faculty fielded questions about issues such as cost of tuition fees and student diversity in separate dialogues for Yale-NUS and USP students.

A third-year USP student, who asked not to be named, said she was concerned about whether academic requirements for her degree programme will change.

She said: "In response to questions about academic structure in the New College (placeholder name for the new college), the NUS provost provided several vague and speculative answers. But this can always be rescinded since the session is informal.

"And the merger is upsetting because there was no student consultation for such a big decision."

https://www.straitstimes.com/singap...s-over-plans-to-merge-yale-nus-and-university

 

[A Singaporean]

What is point of going to U. In the end you will still do grab delivery.

 

[mojito]

Yale nus is passe. This is the age of Uptron.

 

[ginfreely]

I just realised I can’t find my posts last night. which bastard owner or moderator deleted my spam of Jeremy Quek @glockman posts last night while keeping all these spamming scamming posts by your fellow bastards slandering me a real virgin a fake virgin dirty whore? @nayr69sg? @zhihau? @Leongsam? My guess is @nayr69sg because he is the most free and sneaky manipulative bastard. Shame on you bastards.

 

[borom]

This episode illustrate what exactly the PAP is all about- total lack of transparency and regards for the welfare of people.
They just do anything they like without any accountability and their lack of compassion for the elderly who are dying from covid everyday is shocking.

They use the fact that we are a small country without natural resources to justify everything they do -from paying themselves the highest political salaries in the world to the death of our elderly from covid.
It is hard for me to imagine that people can be as heartless and cruel as them .
History will judge them I am sure

 

[vamjok]

in that shit place for almost 10 years of my life as a staff and student, saw tons of overlapped between Yales-NUS and USP programmes in terms of their intention and goal. for a silly liberal art degree, sch fee is way more expensive than other more specialise degree in NUS, that itself totally doesn't make any sense. Yales-NUS students can take any of NUS modules, but not vice versa (who in the right mind will do that anyway. own faculty workload is hard and heavy enough), but most of them lack of depth in the subjects (esp their science graduates yes they have major in chemistry/physics/maths as well).

when it started, I already predict sooner or later it will merge with the USP programme in the next 10 to 20 years. but I never expect it to be merged so fast

 

[eatshitndie]

no ivy league schools wish to associate with national up skirt and tarnish their century old good images anymore.

 

[Datingafter35]

Looks like their curriculum encourages lqbt and rebellious behaviour. I extract this assumption from their cross dressing event. Why the fark would anyone encourages anyone to be in anyone else's shoes unless they want to encourage empathy

 

[zhihau]

when it started, I already predict sooner or later it will merge with the USP programme in the next 10 to 20 years. but I never expect it to be merged so fast

follow the money trail, they say...

 

[JohnTan]

Liberal arts education is for faggots and dope addicts. Real men and women study medicine, law, engineering, programming, architecture, finance and accountancy.