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iamnikoli · 1 year ago

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AY22/23 Sem 2 Module Reviews

The overloading sem. I initially took 32MCs but I dropped to 24MC by week 5 because I couldn’t cope with the workload. It was difficult to simply adopt an S/U mindset and I found myself with very little free time. I also felt like I couldn’t enjoy the extra mods I took out of interest, so the overloading didn’t feel worth it. As a DSA major, I took HSH1000, HSI10000, DTK1234, MA2001 (which were pre-allocated to me because I was even-digit). I also bid for ST2131 (because a lot of DSA major mods have it as a prerequisite) and SP1541 (to S/U).

DTK1234

Module Coordinator: A/P Hans Tan

Tutor: Angela Tay

Lecture Topics:

Week 1-2: Intro Segment - Design Doing, not Thinking (Norman Door) Week 3-4: Segment 1 - Systematic Creativity (come up with problem statements, solution statements) Week 5-6: Segment 2 - Empathize (Empathize with user) Week 7-8: Segment 3 - Do, Undo, Redo (Prototyping) Week 9-10: Segment 4 - Evaluate with People (Evaluate prototype with user) Week 11-12: Wrap Up Segment - Thinking about Design Thinking

Deliverables:

Intro Segment + Segment 1-4 Individual Learning Activity (ILA) - 6% x5 Intro Segment + Segment 1-4 Team-Based Workshop (TBW) - 6% x5 Interim Design Thinking Journal (DTJ) - 15% Final Design Thinking Journal (DTJ) - 25%

Other Comments:

Most people dread this module, and for good reason. This mod is just a lot of fluff and you’ll need good smoking and bullshitting skills to do well, no cap. The ILAs are generally quite doable and you don’t need much time except Segment 1 ILA. The TBWs are either worksheets and class participation through activities and discussions during the fortnightly tutorials. You might find some other reviews saying that how well you do depends on how much your T/A likes you. While I don’t advocate sucking up to your T/A, I think it doesn’t hurt to talk and connect with your T/A, and just participate actively in tutorials :)) As for the module content itself, it really is a lot of fluff and talks about the different phases and steps in design thinking. Just use common sense to figure out how to smoke and “relate” the design thinking concepts to your user and your solutions/problem statements. The DTJ is an extension of this, so you’re expected to reflect and consolidate whatever you learnt or did. Just to be clear, the interim and final DTJ are the same document, just that you do like the first half of the DTJ in the interim, and you do the second half + revise the earlier parts from interim based on your T/As feedback. There’s also a 100 sec video that you have to submit in the final DTJ.

Note that in my semester, unlike the previous semester we weren’t given any of our scores, I only got my overall banding (BE, ME, EE) for the first half ot the semester which included ILA x3, TBW x2 and Interim DTJ, along with some comments.

I actually have very little to say about DTK lol, just don’t do your ILAs last minute, participate actively in the tutorials and smoke smoke smoke and you should be fine HAHA

TLDR:

Module content is fluff, just smoke through your assignments Try to consolidate and flesh out the design thinking concepts in your DTJs (and maybe ILAs) Make your T/A like you

Grades:

Expected grade: B+ Actual grade: A

HSH1000

Module Coordinator: Prof Loy Hui Chieh

T/A: Nicholas Loo

Texts:

Week 1-2: The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas Week 3-4: The Epic of Gilgamesh Week 5-6: Hind Swaraj (Gandhi) Week 7-8: Xunzi Week 9-10: No Exit Week 11: A Number Week 12: Sexual Politics of Meat

Deliverables:

Fortnightly quizzes (best 6 out of 7): 35% Peer Reviews and Surveys: 5% (note: these are just surveys about the mod and your peers, the peer review scores given by your peers don’t affect your 5%, as long as you complete your peer review of your peers you will get the full credit) Tutorial Preparation Tasks: 5% Tutorial Participation: 15% Meme Competition: 5% Group Discussions Summary x4: 20% (5% each) Final Project: 15%

Other Comments:

I’m honestly quite meh about this module. I think the texts covered are interesting but way too long (80-100 ish pages especially for Gandhi and Xunzi). Most people complain a lot about the quizzes whenever HSH is mentioned, and rightfully so. The quizzes are incredibly painful to do, if you actually try to do them well. You have to understand and analyse/scrutinise the texts and lecture recordings. Here’s a snippet of my work process for the quizzes:

Attempt the quiz myself, with justifications for each choice (whether a statement is right or wrong) written down

Discuss the quiz with my group, and note down the group’s consensus+justifications - this generates Attempt 1 of the quiz (note: you get 3 attempts for each quiz (best score of 3 taken), if Prof Loy is nice he might give an extra attempt)

Analyse Prof Loy’s written replies in the forum to all the hardworking students that asked questions about the quiz. Gather the quiz answers from two of my friends who’ve discussed with their own groups.

Psycho-analyse everything with one of the two friends while taking everything into consideration - justifications for a selection, what Prof Loy says, tele poll (take with a pinch of salt though), the answers generated between the 3 groups. This generates Attempt 2 and 3 (we used the two attempts for different permutations of the answers we weren’t confident about)

I initially put the tele poll answers for one of my attempts, but they were consistently lower than my Attempt 1 and 2. You can probably get a median score if you follow the tele poll, but to really do well I feel that you really need a good group of friends to discuss with. More importantly, you and your group should ideally justify/discuss the quiz answers factually or based on some grounded reasoning (eg. this was said during the lecture/shown on the lecture slides, or this appeared/did not appear in the text and in the context of the chapter/paragraphs, this deduction makes sense). Btw you don’t have to read the whole text before trying the quiz, just watch the lecture recording for a general understanding first, and ctrl-f and read the paragraphs around the paragraph discussed in the quiz sections. As for the rest of the mod, it’s pretty easy. There are tutorials every fortnight, and you have to submit 3 annotations on Perusall before every tutorial (this counts for your tutorial preparation marks). Tutorial participation was very chill, because we would all get full marks as long as we turned up and we all contributed during the group discussions. Tutorials with Nick Loo were quite fun and you can tell that he’s passionate about the mod. He would usually go through some interesting questions and responses by us from Perusall, and then go through some content and skills before making us discuss questions in our groups. Overall, tutorials in HSH are a lot more chill than HSA or HSS where tutorial participation is more harshly graded.

Group Discussion Summaries (GDS) were 400 word responses to one of the three or four questions given. It’s quite OTOT, your group just has to submit it by the week after the tutorial. Your experience with this portion will vary depending on your groupmates. I had very hardworking and smart groupmates so this was easy, while one of my friends had to tank the GDS because his group was lazy and uncooperative. GDS was usually a 2 hour affair every even-week weekend night. Most people should get full marks or close to full marks for GDS anyway. Chop chop finish to focus on your other stuff~

The final project has two versions, a generic one provided by Prof Loy, and a T/A specific one. Choose the T/A one (duh bc your T/A is gonna be the one marking). Mine was on exhibit curation, so I had to do a 700-word write up on two exhibit artefacts chosen for a theme related to what was discussed in any of the texts (you can choose your theme). I did mine on passive resistance which was discussed in Gandhi, then in the writeups I expounded on how each artefact showcased passive resistance in their own way, and linked it back to its relevance to society/me, ala HSA1000 style.

TLDR:

Quizzes and the final project make or break your grade Workload depends on how much effort you put on the quizzes. The tele poll answers usually suck lol Discuss quiz with friends (side note: i noticed those who didn’t tend to do a lot worse for the quizzes)

Grades:

Expected grade: A- Actual grade: A+

HSI1000

Lecturers: A/P Ryan Bettens, A/P Adrian Lee, Mr Siva N.

T/A: Sankar (for workshops), Dr Angeline Shu (Exploratorium 1), Dr Ng Yee Hong (Exploratorium 2)

Lecture Topics:

Week 1 – L1: The Founding of Modern Science Week 2 – L2: The Baloney Toolkit Applied to a Simple Investigation Week 3 – L3: Scientific Explanations and Models Week 4 – L4: Experimentation and Uncertainty Week 5 – L5: The Science of Climate Change Week 6 – L6: Modelling Climate Change Week 7 – L7: On the Mongering of Doubt Week 8 – L8: The Reliability of Climate Change Predictions Week 9 – L9: Our forests, fragmentation and connectivity Week 10 – L10: Restoring Green Spaces & Human-Wildlife Coexistence Week 11 – L11: Climate Change, the Hinterland and the Sustainable City Dweller Week 12 - L12: Fallacies in the Name of Science & Module Wrap Up

Deliverables:

Weekly Quizzes - 1% x10 Exploratoriums (Labs) - 5% x2 Workshops - 10% x3 Midterms - 15% Finals - 35%

Other Comments:

Prof Bettens did Block 1: The Scientific Method (L1-L4), Prof Adrian Block 2: Climate Change and Misinformation (L5-L8), Mr Siva Block 3: Climate Change and Biodiversity (L9-L11).

I think this module started out really promising, with very useful skills like the Baloney Toolkit, but it progressively got more boring and fluff. The workshops and labs were super annoying because they were in 3 hour blocks, so timetabling was difficult.

The weekly quizzes are very doable, just watch the lectures/read the notes and attempt. You get 10 attempts per quiz anyway, and you can see your results on Examsoft right after your submission, so you can tell if you’ve hit full marks or not. I used about 3-4 attempts every quiz. You should aim to get full marks for the quizzes because most people would be getting full marks anyway.

The labs and workshops are also quite chill. The labs are slightly easier because you just go there and play do the experiments, and fill up a vanguard sheet with explanations, drawing and other details about your thought process in the experiments. The workshops are also okay, you just need to participate actively and do whatever’s required. Workshop 3 had a field work component, so during recess week, my friend and I went to Labrador Nature Park and Labrador Nature Reserve to gather data and photos (they will have instructions on what to do). The field trip and report was (in my opinion) the most sian part of the module, because I was already so busy but I still have to go all the way to Labrador to measure tree heights??? Well anyway for the workshops, most people seemed to get about 7-8/10. And I have to say that my workshop T/A, Sankar, is a very chill guy who loves animals, he’s super funny too so the workshops are always fun.

Midterms and finals are the differentiating components. They are open-book, closed-internet exams, and you do it on Examplify (the same as the weekly quizzes). You only have 2 minutes per question for both exams, so ctrl-ing F everything isn’t going to work. You have to roughly know the course content, and know which lecture notes to ctrl-F from. Also, from Lecture 7 onwards, the lecture notes weren’t that helpful, and for Block 3 no lecture slides were given. For Block 3 especially, you have to watch the lectures and take down notes, and also save the information about certain policies (like SGP2030) from online because these are tested but only mentioned in passing in the lectures. I recommend collaborating with friends to split the workload in making the lecture notes. Try to get notes from seniors as well, because these can be useful. Overall, the tests weren’t super difficult for my semester.

TLDR:

Weekly quiz must get full marks Labs and workshops are chill, just participate actively in the latter Make your own lecture notes (recommended to split workload amongst your friends) for the second half of the lectures No time to Ctrl-F every question in exam, you need to know the course content roughly and which lecture notes to Ctrl-F

Grades:

Expected grade: A- Actual grade: A+

MA2001

Module Coordinator: (The one and only) Prof Wang Fei

T/A: Peng Fei (but I mainly attended the tutorials run by Zekun)

Lecture Topics:

Linear Systems and Gaussian Eliminations (Linear systems, elementary row operations, row-echelon forms, Gaussian elimination)

Matrices (Matrix operations, inverses of square matrices, elementary matrices, determinants)

Vector Spaces (Euclidean n-spaces, linear combinations and linear spans, subspaces, linear independence, bases, dimensions, transition matrices)

Vector Spaces Associated with Matrices (Row spaces, column spaces, nullspaces, ranks and nullities)

Orthogonality (The dot product, orthogonal bases, least squares solutions, orthogonal matrices)

Diagonalization (Eigenvalues, eigenvectors, diagonalization, orthogonal diagonalization)

Linear Transformation (Linear transformations from Rn to Rm, ranges and kernels)

Deliverables:

Homework - 6.25% x4 Midterms - 25% Finals - 50%

Other Comments:

I have a confession to make. Despite my grade for this mod, I still feel like I suck at linear algebra. I found vector spaces (chapter 3 and 4) to be the toughest because it was difficult to understand the rationale behind the various matrix operations as well as the mathematical terminologies. I feel that if you can understand vector spaces, the rest of the topics are quite manageable.

The workload is generally okay, you have two 2 hour lectures every week, as well as a 1 hour tutorial every week. You’re allowed to tutorial-hop and you can attend any tutorial slot you like, even if it’s not the one you registered for on ModReg. I took full advantage of this, and by a stroke of luck, the first tutorial I went to was Zekun’s. I found his teaching to be very effective, and he even offers consults to students. Guys please take full advantage of your T/As hahah make them work for their $40/hr pay but Zekun was very helpful and I feel that I learnt a lot from his tutorials. Of course, make sure you attempt the tutorial questions before tutorials (which are selected textbook questions) to maximise your learning.

The 4 homework assignments given often have a few difficult questions, and I highly recommend checking your answers with friends to make sure you didn’t make any mistakes. As with most math mods, the median for the homework is usually quite high, either full marks or a few marks from few marks so it is paramount that you try and secure close to full marks if possible.

Midterms and finals were generally quite tough. I didn’t do very well for midterms, I got 32/50 when the average was 29, upper quartile was 35. I think it was due to a lack of understanding of vector spaces, plus computational errors can really cause you to get penalised. I focused a lot on proving questions by practising the textbook questions, but the paper was mainly computational questions (like 34 marks out of 50), while only 6 marks were proving and 10 marks true-false questions. For finals, there were 70% computational, 20% proving and 10% true-false questions, so I changed my strategy and tried all the past-year papers and selected textbook questions to really make sure I get the computational questions right. These are quite standard so you just have to learn the different ways they ask the questions and you should be fine. Don’t worry too much about the proving questions, most people can’t do them anyway, but to really do well, you shouldn’t leave these questions blank. For the true-false questions, if you don’t know just guess and pray that luck is on your side lol.

I can only say that making full use of my T/A, working together with friends and a strategy of focusing on computational questions plus whacking and brute-forcing my way through the tough parts of the paper is probably how I could get the grade that I got.

TLDR:

Focus on computational questions, but try not to leave the proving questions blank in exams Work with friends on the homework assignments Attend tutorials and ask your T/A for help because clearing your doubts early on (especially the topic of vector spaces) is essential Brute-force and just whack if you don’t know the answer

Grades:

Expected grade: B+ Actual grade: A

SP1541

Module Coordinator: Ms Brenda Yuen

Tutor: Ms Isabel Poh

Deliverables:

Book Chapter Reflection - 5% Science News Article - 20% Revised Science News Article - 30% Oral Presentation - 25% Reflective Commentary - 10% Interaction and Engagement - 10%

Other Comments:

This module basically teaches you how to turn research articles (which are meant for specialist readers) into popular science news articles for common people like you and me. They introduce you to various science communication strategies like explanatory strategies and evaluative language.

I didn’t like this module and it had quite a heavy workload. Two 2 hour sectionals every week and you’re expected to do readings and prepare some answers for the discussion questions. This module is just very dry and not enjoyable :( As for my tutor, I don’t really have much comments, she was helpful and answered all of our questions. But yes this module is really boring and I don’t think her style of teaching helped.

I honestly put very little effort into the assignments because I was planning to SU, and especially after I got 66.3/100 for my first science news article submission. They do take some time to do, especially if you’re planning not to SU as you might have to go through a few drafts. You may consider consulting the NUS Libraries Writers’ Centre. I didn’t bother because I wanted to focus on my other modules. For my second science news article which I really didn’t change much and just added some stuff that was required, I got an even more tragic 65.6/100 lol. Ironically, my book chapter reflection and reflective commentary got really high marks at 94/100 and 90/100 respectively (not me spending only 30 minutes on the 300-word reflective commentary :’)

The 8-10 minute oral presentation (I got 71.3/100) which is based on your chosen science news article isn’t terribly hard, just do your best and try to be natural, don’t use any scripts. How natural you are depends on your knowledge about your chosen research article topic, so choose well.

TLDR:

Prepare an S/U for this mod

Grades:

Expected grade: B Actual grade: B+ (S)

ST2131

Module Coordinator: Prof Chan Yiu Man

T/A: (Unnamed for...reasons...)

Lecture Topics:

1. Combinatorial Analysis (Permutations and Combinations) 2. Axioms of Probability 3. Conditional Probability and Independence 4. Discrete Random Variables 5. Continuous Random Variables 6. Jointly Distributed Random Variables 7. Properties of Expectation 8. Limit Theorems

Deliverables:

Timed 30 minute online quizzes - 5% x4 Midterms - 20% Finals - 60%

Other Comments:

This mod is really just self-study lol. Prof was quite good at explaining stuff and he would elaborate on stuff with detail so you won’t get lost. However, be warned that the Prof is essentially a boomer the Prof speaks quite slowly and you’ll probably be better off watching his recorded lectures at x2 speed.

I have,,,no words for the tutorials. My T/A was so bad that I don’t know and don’t want to know her name. She was basically talking to her computer the whole tutorial and didn’t explain stuff clearly. I tried giving her a second chance and went up to ask her questions about some of the working after the lesson, but her explanations are very confusing and I left the tutorial room even more confused than when I entered the room .__. I ended up tutorial-hopping and going to the Prof’s tutorial slot instead, which was much better, though there was another T/A who I felt I liked best but unfortunately I was not always free for his timeslots. Anyway the tutorial questions are taken from the textbook and the tutorial answers are uploaded on Canvas so a lot of my friends ended up skipping the tutorials and self-studying.

Quizzes were generally okay except for the last quiz. I got 2/5 for the last quiz (oof) and it seemed like most people got around 2-3/5 also. It was tough because it covered chapter 6 and 7 which were difficult topics, and we probably didn’t have enough practice. Also another comment on the quizzes is that they are mainly in the second half of the semester (the quizzes were held online over the weekend of week 5, 8, 10, 12) which added a lot of unnecessary stress because the second half of the semester tends to have more assignments for other modules. It also didn’t make sense to leave the chapter 1 quiz to week 5, chapter 2 to week 8, chapter 3-4 to week 10. I would have liked a more even distribution of the quizzes over the semester. We were warned not to discuss quiz questions but tbh the quiz questions are mostly the same, usually with different values in the questions, so :)

The midterms were quite easy, and most people scored well for it. Contrary to some other sources, the median was about 22-24 according to the Prof (I heard it from the horse’s mouth). I got 27/30 which was decent but not amazing.

Finals is, as usual, the make or break. I did both the textbook questions (with solutions found online) and the past-year papers, but I think the past-year papers had very different topics and different focus areas and I couldn’t do most of the past-year papers. (Do note that this mod is run by the math department in the first semester, so avoid all sem 1 papers if you’re taking it in sem 2.) I went for a group zoom consult with the prof, armed with a few past-year papers I was unsure of and even he didn’t know the approach to answer the questions. That was the moment I realised that doing the past-year papers were probably not helpful and I should focus on the tutorial questions along with the textbook practice questions. In the finals, the first 3 questions were quite easy and standard, but the last 3 questions were apparently difficult for most people. As it turned out, 2 of the 3 questions appeared in the textbook practice questions in a similar fashion, and I was able to answer them pretty well I think. I only didn’t know how to do the last question which was a proving question. I essentially left it blank :/ But I thought most people would have found the paper easy because the ‘difficult’ questions weren’t really unseen, guess not hahah

TLDR:

Be prepared to self-study. If you get a bad tutor, don’t be paiseh to tutorial hop Make sure you score for the earlier quizzes Keep up with the content, and dedicate more time and effort for Chapter 6 and 7 Do the textbook practice questions to prepare for exams

Grades:

Expected grade: B Actual grade: A

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