Educating talents and creating scholars is the foundation of the country. Subject majors are the core pillars of the higher education system and the basic platform for talent cultivation. This year, 24 new majors have been officially included in the 2024 catalog of undergraduate majors in ordinary colleges and universities. They are cutting-edge, interdisciplinary, and have obvious cross-integration features.
It’s the beginning of school again in September, and the new major has welcomed its first batch of new students. What do these new majors study? What is the basis for professional dynamic adjustment? What new trends in talent cultivation does it reveal?
In recent years, my country's higher education discipline and major structure adjustment work has been in-depth advancement. A number of new disciplines and majors that adapt to new technologies, new industries, new formats, and new models have been successively established, and a number of disciplines that are not suitable for economic and social development have also been eliminated in an orderly manner. major. According to statistics, the addition, cancellation, and adjustment of majors in colleges and universities this year involve a total of 3,389 majors, the largest number in history.
1 Century Education Research Institute Dean Xiong Bingqi: "According to the overall deployment of the Ministry of Education, from 2023 to 2025, we will optimize the distribution of disciplines and majors in colleges and universities by about 20%. This time the optimization and adjustment is from the previous pursuit of scale development, quantity The shift in development to focusing on quality and characteristic development is a very important direction for optimizing disciplines and majors. "
The "Decision" of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed, "Establish a discipline setting adjustment mechanism and talent driven by scientific and technological development and national strategic needs. training model”. From September 9th to 10th, the National Education Conference was held. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in his important speech that we should take scientific and technological development and national strategic needs as the driving force, focus on improving innovation capabilities, optimize the layout of higher education, improve the adjustment mechanism for subject settings and talent training models in colleges and universities, and strengthen basic disciplines, emerging disciplines, and interdisciplinary disciplines. Construction and cultivation of top talents.
These all reveal the new trends in talent training in our country. At present, the pace of promoting the optimization and adjustment of disciplines and majors in our country is accelerating. One of the main basis is to serve the national strategic needs.
1st Century Education Research Institute President Xiong Bingqi: "We are now facing the mission and requirements of the times from a big country in education to a powerful country in education. To achieve a strong country in education, science and technology, and talents, and to improve the quality of talent training, it will ultimately fall into disciplines and Major. In this regard, it is necessary to optimize the layout of the school's disciplines and majors. proposes the development of new engineering, new medicine, new agriculture, and new liberal arts. New is not new in new bottles, but new in quality. The next step is to take the path of connotative development of disciplines and majors to improve the quality of talent system training. "
Many of the new majors in colleges and universities this time are designed to serve the national strategic needs. South China University of Technology's "Intelligent Marine Equipment" major is one of the new majors this year. According to the school, this major actively responds to the country's strategic needs to march into the ocean and build a maritime power. It is to serve the development of the marine economy in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and A new engineering major established to meet the urgent need for information and intelligent technology in the field of ocean engineering. At the beginning of the semester in September, this new major welcomed its first batch of 20 undergraduate students.
Data show that in 2023, Guangdong Province’s gross marine product value accounted for 18.9% of the country’s gross marine product value, ranking first in the country for 29 consecutive years. The school believes that Guangdong is a large maritime province with a sound manufacturing industry chain, and the demand for talents in this field will be considerable in the future.
reporters found that of the 24 new majors added this year, 12 are engineering majors, accounting for 50%, and most of them belong to interdisciplinary subjects, such as intelligent marine equipment, interdisciplinary engineering, electronic information materials, and soft matter science. With engineering, etc., this is highly consistent with the country’s adjustment direction in the layout of disciplines and majors.
1 Century Education Research Institute Dean Xiong Bingqi: “When optimizing disciplines, we need to add new majors including science, engineering, and medicine. This is the most important reason why the majority of new majors are engineering; in addition, from the perspective of discipline development , To adapt to the development of future society, it is necessary to interdisciplinary and integrate disciplines to cultivate compound talents."
The "Intelligent Marine Equipment" professional course system of South China University of Technology reflects the deep integration of marine engineering, mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence technology, big data processing, software design and other disciplines, and is an emerging interdisciplinary subject.
Southwest Transportation The university's "High Power Semiconductor Science and Engineering" major is also one of the newly added engineering interdisciplinary disciplines. High power semiconductors can withstand high voltages and high currents and have a wide range of applications in new energy, aerospace, high-speed railway and other fields. Application scenarios. Southwest Jiaotong University has a profound background in the electrical field. The new major is an emerging interdisciplinary major that integrates electrical engineering, electronic science and technology, automation, microelectronics science, solid state and semiconductor physics, and materials science.
In a VR microelectronics technology training class after the semester started in September, the freshmen immersed themselves in what it means to start from a "real problem". Through virtual simulation technology, students were able to recreate the integrated circuit manufacturing production line scene. You can experience the real factory environment on campus, understand the process flow, and improve your understanding of the integrated circuit production line.
experts said that in addition to serving the national strategic needs, the second basis for professional adjustment is to meet the needs of economic and social development for talents. demand. In recent years, many new industries and new business formats have emerged in society, giving rise to many new professions, which have also put forward new requirements for talent training in colleges and universities.
Among the 24 new majors added this time, such as coffee. Science and engineering, health science and technology, equestrian sports and management, sinology and Chinese studies, applied Chinese, etc. are among the newly established majors to meet the demand for talents in social development. Among them, sinology and Chinese studies are the new majors of Beijing Language and Culture University this year. The new four-year undergraduate major for international students mainly cultivates senior professionals engaged in international cultural exchanges. In September this year, the first batch of international students in this major have begun to study professional courses.
Another newly added major in Beijing Language and Culture University, Applied Chinese, will begin enrolling students in 2025. The person in charge said that the college will hire experts in management, law, medicine and other disciplines to teach students, focusing on cultivating "Chinese+" innovative and compound talents.
Su Yingxia, Dean of the School of Applied Chinese at Beijing Language and Culture University: “The innovation of Applied Chinese teaching is that it has distinctive Chinese+ integration and application characteristics, and attaches great importance to practical teaching. According to the four training directions set by the Applied Chinese major, namely Business Chinese, Culture and Tourism, Science and Technology Chinese, and Primary and Secondary School Subject Chinese, students will be recruited in a targeted manner in related fields and in countries and regions with extensive exchanges and cooperation between China and foreign countries. "
In recent years, Beijing Language and Culture University has vigorously developed emerging disciplines and interdisciplinary subjects under the concept of "new liberal arts". Not only did it establish seven new majors this year, including two new majors: Applied Chinese and Sinology and Chinese Studies, It has also cooperated with other universities to create four "language + major" joint training experimental class projects for domestic students.
The third basis for professional adjustment is the positioning and conditions of running schools. Experts believe that professional adjustment is. It is a dynamic process that should continuously enhance the foresight and accuracy. When doing "addition", we should avoid "rushing in" and plan to add majors in advance based on the needs of economic and social development, the urgent needs of regional development, the positioning of the school, and the conditions for running the school. To do "subtraction", we must avoid problems such as the lack of scientific and prudent planning and the one-sided pursuit of "big and comprehensive" in the setting of disciplines and majors. Colleges and universities need to develop standards in different tracks.
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Education Sciences: "Colleges and universities need to develop. Change your concept. You cannot think that you can continue to run a major for a long time. You must understand more about the market demand, the job market, the labor market, and the needs of the employer. You cannot run a school behind closed doors; secondly, for the internal affairs of the school, The majors set up must undergo quality evaluation in a timely manner. The reason why it is difficult to find employment in the majors offered by many schools is because the quality of different schools varies greatly.When your quality is below the average in the same industry and type of major, you should be as cautious as possible in recruiting students and take measures to adjust as much as possible. "
In view of the changes brought about by the current dynamic adjustment of majors, experts suggest that colleges and universities should strengthen the interpretation and publicity of new majors when conducting enrollment work, promptly resolve doubts and confusion, and help students and parents better understand the new majors ; for For students and parents, when choosing a major, you should not follow the trend and chase the popular ones, but make a rational choice based on your own advantages and the needs of social development. On the new journey of
, we should adhere to the orientation of service to support Chinese-style modernization and accelerate adjustment and optimization. Only by cultivating national strategic talents and urgently needed talents in a targeted manner can we provide strong talent support and intellectual guarantee for comprehensively promoting the construction of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation.
