Ahead of their graduation, 60 per cent of the pioneer batch from Singapore’s first liberal arts college have secured jobs or offers to pursue graduate studies.
This was announced at Yale-NUS’ first graduation ceremony, which was held on Monday (May 29) at the University Cultural Centre.
Of those who have gotten job offers, a quarter will be working in the government as public servants and another quarter will work in consulting. Other popular options include becoming teachers, bankers and working in technology.
Those pursuing graduate studies have been accepted into institutions like Cornell University in the United States and Tsinghua University in China.
The 60 per cent figure is in line with that of newer institutions such as Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). More than two-thirds of SUTD’s pioneer batch in 2015 had gotten job or graduate school offers at graduation.
At the Yale-NUS ceremony, which had 119 graduating students present, Education Minister (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung said that the liberal arts occupies a special place in Singapore’s higher education landscape.
“All our universities expose their students to different subjects and promote inter-disciplinary learning. But liberal arts is the purest form of multidisciplinary education…within our higher education landscape, we need to maintain a plurality of options to suit different interests, aptitudes and styles of learning.
“This creates a diversity of talent in our collective future.”
Yale-NUS College, an autonomous college of the National University of Singapore, was established in 2011 and admitted its first batch of students in 2013.