At noon on March 5, Xinya College held a discussion on the yearly thesis course reform and a supervisor exchange meeting for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) majors enrolled in 2021 at Conference Room 212 of the Central Main Building. Chen Tao from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences attended the exchange meeting together with teachers from Tsinghua University, including yearly thesis supervisor Chen Jidong from the School of Public Policy and Management, Jiang Qiaolei from the School of Journalism and Communication, Li Bangxi from the School of Social Sciences, Liu Enzhi from the School of Marxism, Qu Xutong, Sheng Kai, and Zhao Jingang from the Department of Philosophy, Wen Wen from the Institute of Education, Yan Hairong from the Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences, Yan Di from the Xinya College, and Zhang Cheng from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature. Yuan-Jung Cheng from Shih Hsin University also attended the exchange meeting together with leaders of Xinya College, including Dean Mei Ciqi, Deputy Dean Zhang Weite, and Director of the Teaching Affairs Office Zhang Wenjing. The attendees exchanged ideas on the design and reform of the PPE yearly thesis course, specific course arrangements, and supervisors' work.

The yearly thesis is a compulsory course for undergraduate students majoring in PPE at Xinya College in the second semester of their third year. This semester witnessed the curriculum reform. Supervisors were hired to organize one-on-one or one-on-two discussions and academic tutorial courses to guide the yearly thesis and provide distinctive and personalized in-depth academic training for juniors or above majoring in PPE and humanities at Xinya College.

Mei Ciqi first expressed his gratitude to the supervisors in his speech and then introduced the original intention of Xinya College's yearly thesis reform. He hoped that a new tutorial system could be adopted to provide accurate training for every student through small-scale, high-intensity, and institutionalized courses. Mei Ciqi said that the principle of the course is to facilitate close contact between students and teachers in academic research in face-to-face small courses, as well as help students understand the strict academic research paradigm and strengthen their exploration competence and independence by stressing the learning process and weakening the importance of the results.

Zhang Weite introduced the overall arrangements of the course in detail. According to the plan, the supervisors need to guide students 10 times, including intensive report reading and writing and feedback, thesis tutoring, and yearly thesis oral defense. The focus is on the high-intensity reading and writing by students and adequate feedback from teachers, which will ultimately help students find meaningful academic problems, master basic methodology, and complete valuable research through immersive learning.

The participating supervisors exchanged ideas on the guidance methods, differences in different disciplines, course links, teaching requirements, etc.

After the discussion, a meeting was held for students and their supervisors to have the first preliminary exchange.