NYU Shanghai will offer the below two January Term courses in January 2027.
Dates: January 4-15, 2027
9:00 AM - 12:00 noon, Monday-Friday
PCIX-SHU 102 Experience Studio: AI Thinking from User to Builder (2 credits)
Instructor: Professor Tyler Chen
This project-based course offers you an intensive hands-on introduction to the architecture and limitations of AI. In the first week, you will move beyond passive use of AI tools to examine the core principles that drive how modern AI systems function. This is paired with direct field research, challenging you to address a genuine, unmet need within a community partner organization. By situating this work in China, a global leader in AI research and deployment, the course provides you with a vantage point for observing AI technology in real-world application. You will learn how to utilize AI coding agents to design, build, test, and deploy a functional tool for real-world community partner. No previous coding knowledge is necessary.
PCIX-SHU 102 Experience Studio: A Letter to the Future (2 credits)
Instructor: Professor Ian Xingchen Zhang
This course will take students into a living neighborhood on the verge of vanishing called Yangsi Town. Here, long-term residents and migrant tenants share courtyards, makeshift kitchens, and sunshine that rarely reaches into the narrow alleys. Students will learn how to use oral history, sensory ethnography, photogrammetry, panoramic and immersive audio, and AI-assisted design to record the atmosphere, sounds, and stories of Yangsi Town together with local residents. They will translate what they gather into creative "letters to the future": VR experiences, sound installations, interactive projections, and persistent AR annotations layered back onto the real streets. By interacing directly with urban change in the field, students will gain not only digital-making skills but also a critical, humanistic understanding of how everyday life, habitat, and cultural identity can be preserved and reimagined before a place is gone.
Tuition: USD 4,184
Housing: University housing is optional and available by application for a flat fee of 3,119 RMB from January 3 to January 16. This rate applies to all room assignments. Students will be administratively assigned based on availability.
Check-in date: Sunday, January 3, starting at 12pm (noon)
Check-out date: Saturday, January 16, by 12pm (noon)
Application Instructions
NYU New York, NYU Abu Dhabi, and students from other universities: The application will open on September 23. Create an application ID in the online application system. Select "Start NYU Shanghai January Term 2027 Application".
Application Deadline: Sunday, November 1, 2026
NYU Shanghai students only: Get your J-term registration hold cleared by your Academic Advisor and enroll in the course on Albert.
If you are interested in additional short-term study at NYU Shanghai, you may also consider our semester-long and summer terms.