January Term 2025

NYU Shanghai offers January Term (J-Term) courses that give students the opportunity to engage with communities beyond the campus. 

Application Instructions

NYU New York, NYU Abu Dhabi, and students from other universities: Create an application ID in the online application. Select "Start NYU Shanghai January Term 2025 Application". Application Deadline: Sunday, November 3, 11:59pm (Shanghai time)

NYU Shanghai students only:

  • For ART-SHU 223 and INTM-SHU 239: Get your J-term registration hold cleared by your Academic Advisor and enroll in Albert.
  • For PCIX-SHU 102: Fill out this form to apply by Sunday, November 3, 11:59pm (Shanghai time). (New York, Abu Dhabi, and other university students should not fill out this form. See above instructions.)
Courses
ART-SHU 223 Site and Situation: Social Space and Public Art - 2 credits

What is the relationship between “Site” and “Situation”? How do economic, political and global entities use social space as means of perpetuating social constructs, collective identity, and human behaviours? Public art is one aspect of how social spaces are defined and curated. However, what is “public art”? How is it interpreted and practiced? How can artists make their own moves to interpret and re-situate site? Students will use Shanghai as a case study to investigate how materials both inform and are informed by location and geography. Through open, experimental, and cross-disciplinary practice, informed by field work, readings, workshops, and technical art assignments, students will develop one individual project – a portfolio which includes a research paper, scale model, an artist statement, and a presentation.

Instructor: Monika Lin

Format: In person. Every day for 3 hours from 9am to 12pm with 2 additional afternoon sessions (day 4 and day 7).

Location: NYU Shanghai Campus

Tuition: USD 3,832

Class begins: Monday, January 6

Add and Drop Course Deadline: Monday, January 6

Last day of class: Friday, January 17

Housing: Double studio rooms in the Residential Halls are available. The cost is USD 630.  

INTM-SHU 239 Digital Fabrication - 2 credits

Digital Fabrication is the process of using design of modeling software to generate digital files which can then be physically produced through a variety of methods, including laser cutting, 3D printing and computer numeric control (CNC). The ability to fabricate directly from our computers or design files used to be an exotic and expensive option not widely available, but recent changes within this field have brought these capabilities to within our reach. In this class students will learn how to design and model for and to operate fabrication machines. Emphasis will be put on designing functional parts that can fit into a larger project or support other components as well as being successful on a conceptual and aesthetic level. In this class students will discover methods to design and model using computer aided design (CAD) software. We will then utilize computer aided manufacturing (CAM) software to generate instructions that various machines can follow to fabricate our designs. We will also look at methods for 3D scanning, data manipulation and conversion, mold making, as well as printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication.

Pre-req: Application Lab, Communications Lab or Interaction Lab

Instructor: Rodolfo Cossovich

Format: In person. 9am to 12pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and 9am to 12pm on Thursday, Jan 9. 

Location: NYU Shanghai Campus

Tuition: USD 3,832

Class begins: Monday, January 6

Add and Drop Course Deadline: Monday, January 6

Last day of class: Friday, January 17

Housing: Double studio rooms in the Residential Halls are available. The cost is USD 630.  

PCIX-SHU 102 Experience Studio: Making a “Good Life” in Rural Guangdong Province - 2 credits

Experience Studio engages students in an immersive learning experience that brings them outside the classroom and into the community. This project-based course provides students with an opportunity to learn about ethnographic fieldwork in practice, and in doing so, support the reflective development of one of China’s first self-proclaimed “eco-village” communities (taking shape since 2014). Students will acquire embodied knowledge of this small but vibrant grassroots community and explore its connections to projects and processes beyond the village boundaries.  Guided by theoretical resources from anthropology and allied disciplines, students will explore different modes of living in the Kei Kai village, interacting with stakeholders of diverse backgrounds. In doing so, they will learn about the aspirations, possibilities, tensions, and contradictions that are reshaping China’s rural environments and rural existences.

The syllabus and detailed information can be found here. 

Instructor: Liangliang Zhang

Format: Project-based Ethnographic Fieldwork Course

Location: Kei Kai Village, Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province

Tuition: USD 3,832

Add and Drop Course Deadline: Saturday, January 4

Arrival/Check-in: Saturday, January 4

Check-out/Departure: Tuesday, January 14

Housing: Students will be housed in shared rooms in the village with 2-3 roommates of the same gender.