Integrative Projects and Academic Skills

The heart of the Liberal Arts and Sciences programme at UCG is the Academic Skills and Projects learning line. This learning line runs through the three years of your degree and will teach you to discover, apply, and integrate knowledge and understanding from diverse disciplinary domains to address complex societal problems. This learning line has a strong focus on innovation and you’ll learn to synthesize existing knowledge in new ways using creativity and imagination. UCG is the only University College in the Netherlands to require students to work on interdisciplinary projects throughout their bachelor studies.

Within the first year of the Academic Skills and Projects programme (Creating Horizons) the emphasis lies on asking questions about societal issues, relating these questions to academic disciplines, and using your imagination and creativity to come to potential (interdisciplinary) solutions. The chosen societal issues can be related to the excursions offered in the course or initiated by you, the student community.

In project group meetings we will focus on the development of creative thinking and academic curiosity. Much attention is given to critically appraising sources of knowledge, sensing - looking and listening - and identifying big problems. Input from academic sources, artistic and creative practitioners, as well as societal stakeholders (such as policy makers, entrepreneurs) is essential for developing these skills. You will reflect upon how these experts identify and eventually respond to the problems and challenges of society. In addition you will learn to understand and reflect on your own individual progress and on your contribution to group work and the community.

As a project group, you will work on several small projects and towards the end of the year on a larger group project. This group project consists of a critical reflection on a societal issue from various academic and non-academic perspectives, the first steps towards its solution, and a self-chosen creative (artistic) translation of this solution. At the end of the year, your group’s project will be presented to a broad audience of peer students, academics, practitioners and other key stakeholders at an annual exhibition.