The HASS provide its students with a variety of basic and introductory courses covering a wide range of professional fields in order to encourage them to develop interdisciplinary aspirations and interests as the foundation for further engagement in interdisciplinary learning.

Classics course

    Although the HASS has both academic heavyweights, who have mastered professional classics in the field of humanities and social sciences and have been giving incisive opinions, and young professors, who are more than proficient in newly rising up research topics, the teaching has been confined due to departmental boundaries. In light of that, the HASS has particularly planned and designed both ‘「Humanities Classics Course’ and ‘Social Sciences Classics Course’, a variety of not only classics but also introductory articles and popular topics, taught in inter-department groups for students to have a picture of the thinking characteristics and value orientation of humanities and social sciences as well as to have a taste of different teaching styles and learning spirits of the HASS faculty.

    Furthermore, the concept of ‘Flipped Teaching’ has also been introduced into the design of course delivery; that is, in addition to the conventional verbal lectures, students have to study the materials given by the professors and to learn the knack of note taking; meanwhile, by Q&A with the professors, students are able to acquire a deeper understanding about the contents of the classics or special topics.

Micro course

   Regarding local cultivation, autonomous learning, international integration and the spirit of doing from learning/learning from doing as its strategic objectives, in addition to conventional courses, the HASS has also implemented the ‘Micro Course’ featuring both humanities and social sciences and workshop elements. This is a specialized and intensive course taught by experienced masters from the industry or the art circles and domestic or overseas academic giants via practical workshops on mid-term weekends in order to enhance the flexibility for responding to the demand for talents in humanities and the innovated teaching contents and assessing measures in the digital era.

Resident course

   In recent years, higher education has positively and proactively constructed co-learning & co-working fields for both colleges and localities advocating that students’ learning field should no longer be limited to campuses with an innovative learning modes, autonomous learning and teamwork, instead of by the book in order to embrace the objectives of local social practice, i.e. to know the locality, to practice the locality and to create the locality, so that college education can make its practice truly grounded.

   By constructing a quality learning environment, planning and designing local social practice programs, implementing resident learning courses and coping with local groups or communities, the ‘Resident Course’ provides students with an opportunity to study related courses in the very practice fields. The mentoring system adopted by this course not only enables students to put into practice through their social practice ability and interaction with local communities what they have learned, but also engages students with innovative learning modes, i.e. autonomous learning, teamwork, etc., to further put into action through digging and exploring the knowledge related to local communities what they have learned. Students are also expected to start caring about and knowing local knowledge, to cultivate both creativity and aesthetic senses about written languages and visual images, to further review if their learning outcomes meet social needs, to plan and execute the sharing of college resources with localities, to develop some collaborative operation mode and to eventually achieve the goal of deepening the local connection.

    The HASS has built up the ‘Humanities Innovation & Social Practices Base’ at the ‘Made-in-Fuli Agricultural Experiment Base’ located in Fuli Township, the southernmost point of Hualien County in order to bring students to local communities to engage in series of courses not only intensive in contents but also connected with localities so that college courses can connect with local characteristics, inject new energy into Hualien and keep college talents in eastern Taiwan.