Second-year Data Science and Artificial Intelligence student Cammy Mun, who takes classes from both the School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences and from the School of Computer Science & Engineering, is a shining example of how undergrads can benefit from interdisciplinary learning.

“Unlike the students who specialise in computer science or computer engineering, I take math courses alongside coding and computing modules, which helps me draw connections between these cores of data science and to think critically,” she says.

“For example, I’m now doing Data Analysis with Computer – a math-heavy module that uses the programming language R to find out the mean or median of data, as well as plot visualisations to process large chunks of data quickly.”

Her course has even garnered the attention of Forbes, which named it one of the 10 best AI and Data Science Undergraduate courses for 2021.

Starting in the new academic year, all freshmen will benefit from a common interdisciplinary core curriculum that covers topics such as digital literacy, communication and inquiry, ethics and global challenges.

“Not only will students from different disciplines be put together in teams to learn, they can take many modules from outside their own disciplines,” says Prof Ling.

This story was published in the Jan-Mar 2021 issue of HEY!.

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