Multidisciplinarity in Undergraduate Education: Journey at the National University of Singapore

From iconic paintings—“Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper”—to designs for flying machines and ground-breaking studies on optics and perspective, Leonardo da Vinci fused science and art to create works that have become part of humanity’s story. The world is at another transition point now, dealing with several human-triggered crises ranging from climate change, water scarcity, and pandemics to geopolitical issues. These are so-called wicked problems which one cannot hope to solve—presence of several actors (humans, animals, plants and other natural elements) with different objectives and ever-changing behaviour, operating and interacting at different time and length scales produce highly unexpected, emergent behaviour. Such problems defy solutions and can, at best, be understood and managed, calling for the script of a new humanity story. In this context, it is important that education, particularly at the undergraduate level, should be more of a generalist nature.