School of Economics and Social Sciences

The Singapore Management University School of Economics & Social Sciences was established in 2002 to launch SMU's Bachelor of Social Science undergraduate programme with principal disciplines in Sociology, Political Science and Psychology and a Bachelor of Science programme in Economics. In 2007, a restructuring exercise led to the Economics Department being separated from the rest of the Social Science faculty to form two new schools; a School of Economics and the SMU School of Social Sciences.

The restructuring was made to allow both schools, which have seen rapidly growing student enrolment and faculty numbers, to have greater focus on their individual strengths and develop distinctive curricula at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Famous quotes containing the words school of, school, economics, social and/or sciences:

    “Out of life’s school of war.—What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “Parental attitudes have greater correlation with pupil achievement than material home circumstances or variations in school and classroom organization, instructional materials, and particular teaching practices.”
    —Children and Their Primary Schools, vol. 1, ch. 3, Central Advisory Council for Education, London (1967)

    “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
    —Anonymous.

    An axiom from economics popular in the 1960s, the words have no known source, though have been dated to the 1840s, when they were used in saloons where snacks were offered to customers. Ascribed to an Italian immigrant outside Grand Central Station, New York, in Alistair Cooke’s America (epilogue, 1973)

    “Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
    —Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)

    “The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.”
    —David Hume (1711–1776)