Unique Education
Osaka University focuses on "comprehensive understanding," "design prowess," and "transcultural communicability" as goals of our philosophy on education. Osaka University, therefore, promotes unique approaches including linguistic and international education, advanced liberal arts, graduate school advanced minor programs, and the Global 30 program.
Advanced Education in the Liberal Arts -- Intellectual Gymnastics
Advanced Education in the Liberal Arts is a curriculum for students who have attained a certain level of specialized professional knowledge, students who will soon be entering the real world where understanding and abilities are needed in addition to their specialized professional knowledge.
Center for the Study of Communication-Design
By coordinating design studies with education in communication and advanced liberal arts, the Center for the Study of Communication-Design (CSCD) aims to produce graduates more capable of conducting research based on a broad viewpoint tempered with solid judgment.
Graduate Minor Program & Graduate Program for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies
The Graduate Minor Program denotes interdisciplinary education programs for graduate school, aimed at helping graduate students acquire a broad education and the ability to see things from more than one viewpoint while attaining advanced special knowledge in new fields.
Global Collaboration Center
GLOCOL (the Global Collaboration Center) was established in 2007 in order to nurture personnel with greater international-mindedness. By coordinating research into global issues with actual practice in cooperation with those working on such issues within and outside of the university, GLOCOL develops education programs to nurture personnel capable of playing a larger role in the real world.
International Education through Global 30
Osaka University was selected as one of the 13 core universities implementing the Project for Establishing Core Universities for Internationalization (Global 30) in 2009. This program aims to nurture superior personnel who can play an active role in the global arena by establishing a system to provide degree programs where all the instruction is in English, improving the system for accepting international students, and promoting international cooperation.
Basic Seminars
"Basic Seminars" were established as a feature of the advanced liberal arts curriculum at Osaka University in the 2010-2011 academic year. In less than a year, Basic Seminars established themselves as the most popular subject, one in which a limited number of students learn through roundtable-type discussions with a teacher. These seminars take many forms: experiment-focused, practice-focused, debate-style, and seminars focused on fieldwork and/or career development as well as seminars integrating literature and science. There are also "discovery seminars" in which participants jointly "discover" an issue to examine. Since the 2010-2011 academic year, high school students have been able to participate in advanced liberal arts seminars targeted at first year university students. Moreover, from 2011-2012, the President plans to recommend topics and vehicles to further promote Basic Seminars.
