Senior Learning Experience

Students selected to stay in the College for a third year and fourth year continue to explore their potential— primarily through the Tembusu Senior Learning Program (TSLE) Project and Year Four Mentoring Programme (Y4MP) respectively.

Selected students are encouraged to make the most of their extended stays at the College through the TSLE. It is designed to support students:

  1. engaging in independent inquiry that both engages multiple disciplines and relates different disciplinary content, especially across the STEM/non-STEM boundary where possible
  2. productively developing particular disciplinary connections to produce scholarly outcomed;
  3. contextualising communication of ideas for interdisciplinary spaces and public engagement;
  4. critically reflecting on and assessing their own work and performance to support goal-setting, plan formation and decision-making;
  5. developing the skills required to work and collaborate in an interdisciplinary team under the guidance of a supervisor in a research-informed project;
  6. provide leadership and model behaviour for Year 1 and 2 students through presenting, describing and reflecting on work at a public College event.

The following projects are currently available as part of the TSLE for Third Year students:

    1. Artificial Intelligence Utopias: Singaporean Views, supervised by Dr Connor Graham.

      This project examines the relationship between conceptions of ideal or nightmarish world and AI technology in Singapore. It achieves this through semi-structured interviews, document analysis, the analysis of text using thematic or grounded analysis and the use of generative AI tools.

    2. Curating Nature, Architecting the Wild, supervised by Dr John Wee.

      This project seeks students serious about committing their time and effort to reading and understanding the history of curating nature, and to writing an interdisciplinary research paper that thoughtfully engages with the natural sciences as well as the art of spatial design.

    3. Generative AI for Qualitative Research, supervised by Dr Eric Kerr.

      The project investigates the extent to which generative AI can construct and pose appropriate questions to potential interview subjects. The project then tests the effectiveness of generative AI for analysis of interview responses, delivering a model of qualitative data analysis.

    4. The SEA is Us?, supervised by Dr Celine Coderey.

      This project considers how the shapes, meaning and functions of the sea and the coastal spaces have changed across time and how the sea experienced and signified differently by different people and communities living in contemporary Singapore. 

    5. Mental Illness as a Criminal Defence, supervised by Dr Mike Grainger

      When and why should mental illness provide a defence to a criminal charge? In this project, students will gain in-depth knowledge about this interesting and contentious area of scholarship, and along the way will learn transferrable research, writing and communication skills.

Updated: 2nd January 2023

The Tembusu (Fagraea fragrans) is a large evergreen tree in the family Gentianaceae. It is native to Southeast Asia. Its trunk is dark brown, with deeply fissured bark, looking somewhat like a bittergourd. It grows in an irregular shape from 10 to 25m high. Its leaves are light green and oval in shape. Its yellowish flowers have a distinct fragrance and the fruits of the tree are bitter tasting red berries, which are eaten by birds and fruit bats.