NUST offering minors is great but there’s a lot more to be done
The news of NUST offering a minor program appears to be the most important — yet so overlooked — development during this academic term. With the majority of the varsities in Pakistan still following the traditional method of fixed curriculum, it’s a welcome step to introduce a flexible curriculum that lets students enroll into courses outside their discipline, ranging from business, economics to coding and robotics.
It is not hard to imagine how unexciting it becomes studying courses with little or no diversity. Suppose you are a student of chemical engineering (as it is in my case) at SCME, chances are you will be studying closely-related subjects like Fluid Mechanics, Mass and Heat Transfer or a certain combination of these at any point in your academic life. Not that these subjects are dry in their very nature, it’s the lack of variety that makes this experience utterly dull and uninspiring. What breaks this monotonous cycle of routine is the choice to enroll in courses from other disciplines, depending on your interest and passions, and explore new areas.
It is, however, just a small reason why you should be taking a minor.
The underlying idea behind the flexible curriculum and incorporating liberal arts education is to foster creativity and provide an environment conducive to critical thinking, analysis, and interdisciplinary collaboration. When Steve Jobs dropped by a calligraphy class in Reed, he had little idea how would this knowledge of different typefaces benefit him. It came years later to him when was designing fonts for the Macintosh, his know-how of basic calligraphy helped him shape beautiful typography that we see in Apple devices today. In Pakistan, many students join universities having little idea about their passions, often following the stereotypical standard admission guidelines: engineering and medicine are glorified certificates for stable jobs and good rishtas, business is alright if you can’t make it to the first two, arts is for girls and so on and so forth. If you have been through this, now is the time to redeem that. Go sign up for that course on Robotics you had always wanted to take or Government & Politics because you love House of Cards. Just like Steve Jobs, you never know at what stage in life they would come back to you. Sometimes you ought to study things for the sheer pleasure of them.
Moreover, research dynamics are fast changing as problems become more complex and multi-faceted. There is overlapping of disciplines, giving rise to interdisciplinary research, which has gained traction in recent years. Nature, one of the most credible scientific journals, issued a special edition dedicated to interdisciplinary research in September 2015. Stress is being studied in the context of psychological and social pressures; addiction is neurology and falling economy; populism and refugee crisis is affecting genres of narrative in modern literature. Flexible curriculum is imperative to train minds who can think of problems through multiple lenses of varying disciplines and facilitate interdisciplinary research to help find the solutions.
However, the current status quo leaves a lot to be wanting. Despite there being a good number of schools, the number of courses being offered does not reflect that. Unless a particular course has a prerequisite, students should not be barred just because a sophomore applied for a course being taught to juniors. It’s in the news that NUST will start charging for the extra courses one takes out of choice from next term (Fall’19). In case this is true, this will discourage many students who wish to delve into subjects their departments do not offer. Minor courses should remain free of charge to encourage maximum participation from all schools, giving everyone a fair and equal chance. One more thing that needs to be addressed is the unavailability of courses related to Philosophy and Literature — which is understandable because NUST does not have departments for these. It cannot be overemphasized these subjects are critical to one’s personal and intellectual development, imparting knowledge critical to analyzing contemporary issues and making informed decisions. It is no surprise one of the most famous courses at Harvard is Justice, taught by the famed scholar of philosophy Michael Sandel, which discusses classical and contemporary theories of justice, political philosophy and morality. What NUST must do is introduce courses related to these subjects and make them open to all. A competent visiting faculty can be arranged to design and teach the subjects.
By breaking the rigidity of fixed curriculums, NUST has taken the step in the right direction. It’s heartening to see policymakers in the Main Office open to change and up-to-date with modern education practices, a good departure from an otherwise sluggish system plagued by bureaucratic hurdles. Through continuous self-reflection and constructive feedback from the students, NUST’s minor program can be amended to make it more open and inclusive, which will make NUST a more amazing place to study at.
Jarrar Haider is a chemical engineering student at NUST.
