The award-winning Transdisciplinary Electives Program helps you differentiate yourself, which is why eight electives are embedded in every undergraduate degree.* All you need to do is choose which one inspires you the most. In each TD elective subject, you’ll work on a real-world challenge presented by an industry partner organisation.

* Excludes students concurrently enrolled in the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation.

What's different about a Transdisciplinary Elective subject?

In each of the eight Transdisciplinary electives you will: 

  • Work on complex real-world challenges with an industry partner
  • Collaborate in teams with students from all faculties across UTS, leading to breakthrough ideas
  • Implement hands-on transdisciplinary methods and insights from different disciplines
  • Experience transdisciplinary learning with a different approach
  • Develop core skills in responding to challenges, working with others and communicating your ideas (traits highly desired by employers). 

Why is it valuable to work with industry in my degree?

Students who complete a Transdisciplinary Elective subject at UTS have a competitive advantage from: 

  • Working on a real project with industry professionals that you can add to your resume, LinkedIn or professional portfolio
  • A strong example of collaboration, problem solving and project delivery for stakeholders that you can use in future job interviews
  • A better understanding of organisations' expectations, problems, opportunities and workplace dynamics
  • Valuable insights into career pathways, sometimes outside the box of your main discipline of study
  • Making lifelong connections with students and academics across the disciplines at UTS and expanding your professional networks through the industry visitors to the course. 

What do I need to know?

Transdisciplinary Electives are all about teamwork and real-world projects, so to help you get the most out of them, we’ve added a few important things to consider when you enrol, based on what past students told us worked best. 

  • Online: three electives have limited online tutorials; all others are in-person
  • Block mode: four electives are available in block mode as well as the standard 12-week format
  • Enrolment: strictly closes on the first day of Week 3 (or Day 1 for block mode subjects). If enrolling via an e-request, make sure to attend your classes as early as possible and no later than Week 3 to ensure you don't miss any assessments
  • Class frequency: electives run either weekly or fortnightly
  • Attendance: each elective has an attendance requirement; please see the handbook description for each subject.

Transdisciplinary elective subjects

You can take the following transdisciplinary electives  at 6 or 8 credit points.

Subject Code and Name What's it about? Mode
95002 – Reframing, Remixing, Reimagining Society  Work with UNICEF Australia to challenge your assumptions, remix ideas across disciplines, and imagine fairer futures in the face of climate change.  Fortnightly in Autumn & Block mode in July. 
95003 – Sustainability in an Interconnected World  Collaborate with industry and engage with the community to understand sustainability in context and design regenerative solutions for change. Weekly in Spring & Block mode in February. 
Limited online options available in Spring. 
95004 – Technologies Reimagined in a Complex World  Partner with ServiceRocket, a tech-enabled services company, to explore from a systems perspective how everyday technologies can be reimagined for the future of careers, organisations and communities. Weekly in Spring  
with limited online options. 
95005 – Shaping Technologies that Shape Us  Team up with Microsoft to explore diverse perspectives on the impact of AI and influence how we develop these technologies for the common good.  Weekly in Autumn & Block mode in July. 
Limited online options available in Autumn. 
95006 – Envisioning Futures Worth Wanting  Work with the City of Sydney to explore what life could be like in a thriving, trustful, just and resilient urban future, learning how to analyse, imagine, and describe present-day realities and future possibilities.  Fortnightly in Autumn & Block mode in August. 
95007 – Pathways to Societal Transitions  In partnership with Lane Cove Council, research how data and AI infrastructures (such as data centres) shape communities and environments across Sydney, and co-design pathways for sustainable and inclusive data futures. Fortnightly in Spring. 
95008 – Transdisciplinary Action Lab  Collaborate with Miro, an online collaborative whiteboard platform, to explore new ways of working, test your ideas in action, and build an entrepreneurial mindset for tackling complex challenges.  Fortnightly in Autumn. 
95009 – Change-Making for Social Impact Experiment, imagine, and play together with a consortium of partners to explore the deep connection between personal transformation and systems evolution. Weekly in Spring 
Block mode in December.

 

People gathered around project displays.

Shaping Sydney’s Future with UTS Transdisciplinary Electives

Shaping Sydney’s Future with UTS Transdisciplinary Electives transcript

(Dr Scott Matter) The challenge for student teams this year was to imagine what everyday life could be like in 2051 in the City of Sydney.

 

(Hugo) If I can imagine a better future, we can work towards that. We’ve made a comic that details what Oxford St could be like in 2051. Having a conversation with the City of Sydney and engaging with them in that one is something really concrete that you’ve done.

 

(Kate Deacon) The opportunity for us to actually work with students on some of these real world problems we we’re facing was such a great idea.

 

(Kohdi) Definitely the biggest thing I got out of doing this elective was collaborating with people from different disciplines. I got to meet people from studies in architecture, engineering, people I probably wouldn’t have spoken to unless doing this subject, so that was really good.

 

(Olivia) In TD everything is a lot more creative, outside of the box thinking, there’s a lot of thinking about things differently. I want a better future for my kids, for my friends and my family. There’s so much potential for the City of Sydney and I want to be able to have a part to play.

 

(Kate Deacon) Productive collaboration is actually at the heart of what this is about. The secret sauce if you like of working in the real world.

 

(Kohdi) We were seeing how the work I do at uni can be transformed into industry.

 

(Hugo) I never thought I would be here engaging with the City of Sydney, actually trying to give them ideas on how to improve. It shows me that I do have good ideas and my opinion and voice matters in what Sydney is going through and how Sydney is changing.

Discover our electives

The UTS Handbook outlines what our Transdisciplinary electives are about, when they are offered, and how many credit points each is worth. 

See 6 credit point electives See 8 credit point electives