The Department of Southeast Asian Studies is located in the Asian Studies Division of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. We offer BA, BA (Hons), MA by coursework, MA by research and PhD degrees, awarded by one of the world’s top-ranking academic institutions. Our Department is unique for a number of reasons, including:

(a) our location within the region, facilitating easy field visits and exposure to primary research even in undergraduate classes;
(b) a genuinely inter-disciplinary approach to scholarship that is grounded in theory and sensitive to local contexts;
(c) faculty specialisations that include cultural studies, politics, visual culture, social history, heritage studies, science, technology and society, environmental and development studies, migration, performing arts, religion, and more;
(d) experiential and immersive experience of learning;
(e) small classes at the graduate level, permitting close interactions between faculty and students;
(f) belonging to a Faculty that has one of the largest concentrations of scholars of Asia anywhere in the world; and
(g) excellent library and archival collections.

We expect our undergraduate majors to become proficient in a Southeast Asian language (currently we offer Bahasa Indonesia, Malay, Thai and Vietnamese), and encourage them to take advantage of our partnerships with first rate universities in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Thanks to this expansive and future oriented training, our students are equipped to take on a number of professions. Some of our recent graduates may be found in Government Ministries, from Defense to Foreign Affairs; a number of graduates work for large international corporations; still others are in the non-governmental sector, having started their own NGOs or working for international agencies; while some have decided to pursue careers overseas.

We welcome you to explore the many facets of student life, faculty expertise, and the various exciting programmes on offer at our department.

Assoc Prof Vatthana Pholsena
Head, Department of Southeast Asian Studies
National University of Singapore