National University of Singapore

This course examines the fundamentals of cognition. Topics include key cognitive domains and operations such as attention, memory, language, problem solving and decision making. The course requires students to take Introduction to Psychology as a prerequisite.

This course offers an opportunity to grapple with some of the most enduring challenges to human thought. The starting point is a conception of ourselves as free and conscious beings equipped with bodies that allow us to observe and explore a familiar external world. Successive lectures investigate alternative conceptions of the human condition, such as ones in which we are unfree, or non-spirituous, or inhabit a world whose fundamental nature is hidden from our view. Different conceptions bear differently on the further question of what we should value and why. Discussion is both argument-driven and historically informed. Assessment: attendance, quizzes, final exam.

This course examines the theories of knowledge and methods of inquiry appropriate to studying politics. It introduces alternative perspectives of the social sciences and to the empirical, critical, and analytical skills they imply. It pays particular attention to the basics of good research and skills essential to conducting independent research.

This course introduces students to basic probability theory and statistical inference. Topics include basic concepts of probability, conditional probability, independence, random variables, joint and marginal distributions, mean and variance, some common probability distributions, sampling distributions, estimation, and hypothesis testing based on a normal population.

This course covers the various organizational and managerial issues commonly found in the global business environment.

Logic is the study of valid argument. Each logical system puts forward its own definition of validity, which purports to approximate our informal notion. This course provides an introduction to classical logic. The first half of the course focuses on propositional logic, and the second half on first-order predicate logic, a natural development of the former.

This course examines policies and programs dealing with ethnic relations based on the experiences of Singapore and Malaysia. It focuses on how these much talked about and debated policies, impact or affect the Malays in particular, who constitute a numerical minority in Singapore, but form the majority in Malaysia. The course examines major socio‐historical factors conditioning these policies and programs and the processes by which they are materialized from the period of British colonialism to the present. How these efforts bear upon nation building and national integration is explored.

This course provides instruction and practice in writing for the mass media, including the Internet. It explores similarities and differences in writing styles for all mass media and for professions in journalism, public affairs, public relations, advertising, and telecommunications. The course emphasizes accuracy, responsibility, clarity, and style in presenting information through the various mass communication channels. It surveys communication theories of various professions that communicate via mass media, establishing the basis for advanced studies in writing and communication.