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Recognising the need for formal graduate-level training and education in project management, the MSc(PM) Program at NUS was developed in the mid-80's. The need to establish the program stemmed principally from the growing demand for mid-career construction professionals who wanted to make a switchover from their base disciplines to project management. While the industry need dictated the necessity, the growth of the program over the years was given impetus and driven largely by the development of the practice and profession of project management both in Singapore and internationally.
It is well established in the construction and development industry that project management is invariably a mid-career transition for practitioners after they have had some years of direct industry experience in their base disciplines. The multi-disciplinary nature of project management and its span of focus across the whole realm of development and construction dictated that the very basis of such a graduate program would comprise a class of diverse backgrounds and disciplines brought together in a very dynamic classroom environment, driven by a marriage of theory and practice.
Accordingly, the program received its inaugural intake in 1986 and the size of this first intake was 12 participants. Over the years the typical class size has fluctuated between 15 and 25. In more recent years there has been a conscious decision to expand class sizes to 30-38.
With current allowances for cross-program registrations from the School's other Masters programs, as well as from cross faculty registrations for individual modules, class sizes for each module within the program have now been capped at a maximum of 40. This is deemed the largest possible size of the class to enable a meaningfully healthy level of participant interaction, a necessary feature for any graduate program of international standing.
The old program structure of 6 modules is presently one that requires either completion of 8 modules with a dissertation or completion of 10 modules, i.e. 8 modules plus 2 modules in lieu of the dissertation component. Coupled with new electives that now include a Case Studies module and an e-Project Management module, the program has come through its last 17 years with great strength, much academic rigour and with development of an alumni network that surpasses that of most other equivalent programs.
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