The undergraduate degree program features a 21st century curriculum built around liberal arts principles and imbued with the hallmarks of a Duke education blended with Chinese tradition. The program incorporates interdisciplinary approaches, engagement with research questions, problem-based and team-based learning, and opportunities for students to craft individual pathways and deepen their intellectual engagement over time.
At Duke Kunshan, our liberal arts and sciences education fosters the freedom to explore academic interests while developing a breadth of knowledge and key skills including creativity, independent thinking, teamwork, written and oral communication, and evidence-based reasoning. Our approach combines theoretical and practical knowledge, delivered in small classes and taught in an open, participatory style that offers significant co-curricular and applied learning opportunities, including civic engagement and leadership opportunities.
Duke Kunshan also has a unique focus on producing a significant signature product and an emphasis on character development and rooted globalism. We foster an especially close connection between faculty and students, promote the intermixing of students with different interests, and provide direct access to research opportunities for undergraduates.
Other unique features of the Duke Kunshan undergraduate program include:
• Majors that have interdisciplinary and disciplinary components, with the former serving as the entry point and primary definition of a students’ academic focus, and the latter providing specialized training as well as divisional foundation courses that prepare students for advanced study and signature work that addresses a specific question, problem or issue. The disciplinary component includes independent research, a senior thesis or creative production.
• Common Core courses that focus on big questions and critical challenges.
• Electives that broaden students’ educational experience via distributional requirements and enable them either to develop greater specialized knowledge or to further broaden the scope of their study.
• Experiential opportunities that align the formal curriculum with practical experience, internships and other hands-on offerings.
• Intensive seven-week terms enable students to take two in-depth courses with the flexibility to take some courses in 14-week blocks.
• Fridays are designed for practical work, field trips, internships, co-curricular activities and civic engagement.
• Mini-term courses provide a focused exposure to a single topic while enabling students to move outside of their comfort zone. There are no pre-requisites or grades for these non-credit courses.
• Seminars of fewer than 20 students make for an intensive, mind-on-mind education.
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