news

text｜wu yaqi

some time ago, it was popular among young people to attend night schools, and now many young people are eyeing the micro-majors offered by universities.

according to reports, beijing forestry university recently welcomed the first batch of freshmen in three micro-majors: nature education, artificial intelligence, and carbon neutrality and smart environmental protection. office workers have become the main force in the classroom. a class of the micro-major of nature education at beijing forestry university has 54 students, 35 of whom are from outside the school. moreover, it is reported that the capacity of the micro-major courses offered by beijing forestry university this semester is about 50 people, which has been welcomed by students inside and outside the school. all the places were snapped up before the registration deadline.

it can be seen that a number of micro-majors opened by colleges and universities, although they do not confer degrees, are still quite popular. micro-majors refer to a group of core courses that colleges and universities offer around a specific academic field, research direction or core literacy in addition to students' major studies, for students or the public to choose and study.

micro-majors are different from minor majors and their main feature is “small but fine”.for example, there are not many core courses in micro-majors, and classes are usually scheduled on weekends or weekday evenings. when setting up micro-majors, schools focus on small areas or interdisciplinary subjects, usually around cutting-edge technologies, emerging industries and other hot areas in the market and society. as beilin teacher mentioned in the interview, one of the reasons why micro-majors are popular is that "you can learn the most fashionable and real skills."

for example, in early 2022, zhejiang university, fudan university and six other universities, together with leading domestic artificial intelligence technology companies, jointly launched the "ai+x" micro-major, allowing students to start learning my country's independently developed programming platform on campus; in november 2023, the first class of the family education micro-major of the open college of east china normal university was launched to cure parents' anxiety about raising children, and live broadcast to the public simultaneously on the cloud, providing ideas for the new challenges and new problems faced by parents in the new era of social transformation...

the so-called "fashionable" refers to the current society's keen attention and learning needs; the so-called "real skills" focus on cultivating the professional skills or core competencies of students inside and outside the school.therefore, the micro-major setting is more smoothly and closely connected with the social environment outside the campus, and also emphasizes practicality and practicability. the professionalism shown in this is not only helpful for students with career planning and employment plans, but also consistent with the clear goals of office workers with relevant work needs.

in addition,the "micro" in micro-majors means that the burden is relatively small in terms of both time requirements and content arrangement, which fits the work and life rhythm of young people and their pursuit of speed and efficiency.moreover, from the examples of micro-majors in universities mentioned above, it is not difficult to see the flexibility and diversity of their course content and teaching methods. for example, the content can range from science and technology to emotional education, and the form can be transformed from single on-campus teaching to joint training with external enterprises, etc., which is conducive to the expansion of the breadth and depth of the major.

photo by wang peike, xinhua news agency

of course, the popularity of micro-majors also requires some sober thinking. for example, how to ensure the feasibility of the topics set as micro-majors? can most students take micro-major courses that they are interested in? how to ensure the depth and systematicness of teaching with limited class hours?

however, it is undeniable that micro-majors, as an exploration of talent training and teaching reform by colleges and universities, have to some extent broken the limitations of majors and promoted the intersection and integration of disciplines; they have also broken the barriers of university walls, provided learning opportunities for those who seek knowledge outside the school, and extended the tentacles of knowledge to the more general education in society.

↓↓↓