Anant National University, India’s first Design University, located in the Heritage city, Ahmedabad, welcomes its new batch of Design, Architecture and Built Environment. The orientation day organised on August 12, 2018, follows the massive makeover AnantU underwent during the break. The university has revamped its curriculum across courses to become more interdisciplinary, and its infrastructure to accommodate this change.
All incoming students will collectively go through a foundational year which emphasises on unlearning pre-conceived notions of self and surroundings, and learning the basics of design at intrinsic and extrinsic levels. Their academic journey will continue with a choice based credit system wherein each student will have the freedom to pave his/her own learning path. With practices and pedagogy at par with leading global universities, AnantU has made available for its students an academic roadmap with the schedule of next 3 years published on the university’s website.
Principles of sustainability, and real-life cases relevant to the subject, will form a major component of all modules taught at Anant National University. A strong emphasis is laid on hands-on learning through workshops, studio work, field trips, research projects, and internships during the programme. To further support progressive academic modules and provide students with a holistic learning experience, the campus site has been rebuilt to provide students with a Makers’ Hub for conducting in-session, summer, and winter workshops, Learning Commons as a replacement of the traditional library, and Collaborative Classrooms to facilitate interdisciplinary learning.
Students of AnantU will also benefit from the guidance they receive under the university’s accomplished faculty members like Hemen Sanghvi, Sonal Beri, Amit Sheth, Jeroen van Erp from TU Delft, Rodolphe el-Khoury from University of Miami, and more, or from the current engagements it has with eminent global institutes like the University of Pennsylvania, Tel Aviv University, and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. AnantU’s current project with UPenn Design to help Bihar Museum integrate with its surroundings is also expected to create volunteering opportunities for its students.