Division of General Education and Core Curriculum (DGECC) held a meeting the other day to discuss the number of courses it would be providing in the next semester. It has decided to open 18 classes for 12 categories and each class will be carefully designed to fulfil a versatile and holistic appeal, which should meet the students’ desires for variety and novelty. Once these classes pass the Curriculum Committee Meeting held this Friday and the Academic Affairs General Meeting next month, they will be open for enrolment.

The courses that are worth anticipating include firstly the ‘Appreciation and technique in water colors,’ covering still life, landscape, and portrait, and taught by Lee Hsi-jia. Furthermore, there is ‘Counselling and management in mental health’, which opens a way for students to understand some of the most common challenges and psychological crises encountered in life. In the course of the class, students will also learn some self-help tools. Furthermore, in the ‘Overview of the life in Latin America’, the teacher, Gong Guo-wei will use his valuable experiences acquired through his numerous visits to Latin America to illustrate to students the history, people, nature and culture of the region.

Equally anticipated ones are, for example, ‘The Introduction to Christianity’ and ‘The introduction of Buddhism’. In the former case, Christianity will be taught systematically in order to understand its essence and some crucial social issues in the West will be dissected from a Christian point of view in order to comprehend the inseparable connection between Christianity and the Western civilization. In the latter case, students will be taught how to grasp the true spirit of Buddhism as honestly as possible. Finally, two courses that deal with ‘sex’ are to be offered, and will present some interesting food-for-thought for students. The first one is ‘Sex in psychology and ethics’. Hsu Tsuo-ming and Huang Li-li will co-teach it and they intend to use films, and case studies to lead students through the maze of the psychology of sex, its evolution and the ethical choices when in crises. The second one is called ‘Sex in literature and philosophy’ which provides an angle of examining sex from literature and philosophical point of view for students.