Finally reached the part that I wanted to write about for the whole day. I am not very experienced in writing blogs to begin with, let alone write something that can give good advice. Here goes nothing!
Disclaimer: I am not a frequent lecture-goer. I tend to watch recorded online lectures instead and study at my own pace. So I will give inaccurate reviews about lectures.
Overview
Since it is my first semester, the timeslots are preallocated. [Note: Since I'm not like normal NBS students, my 2nd semester isn't preallocated and it's game on Star Wars unlike the rest of year 1 NBS students.]. I did successfully add-drop and changed stats tutorial timing. Otherwise, I will have 0 free weekdays and that is sad. Changing that timeslot to have half a day free every week was a game changer! Also, all my modules for this semester have final exams. So that is 7 exams. Oh, and 5 exams are within the span of 4 days I APPLAUD the thoughtfulness of the exam arrangement department or whatever you call it. Worst 4 days in my life.
AB1202 - Statistics and Analysis
Lecturer/Course coordinator: Mr Chin Chee Kai
Tutor: Ms Tan Chor Hoong
Assessment criteria: Class participation (15%), Assessment (20%), Quiz (15%), Open-book finals (50%)
The primary textbook used is written by Mr Chin himself. I don't think it's needed since his lecture notes are condensed and included everything in the textbook. Unless you are interested in reading more in depth about the topic. The breadth of topic is the same.
I attended most of his lectures, which is no easy feat. The only lecture that I didn't attend was because I have band performance on the same day and I had to go and prep for it. Rather than reading what's on the slides, he uses the lectures to explain the concepts. That is if we can follow his thought process (also no easy feat). But it's ok if you can't understand the reason/derivation behind certain concepts. A little background check: He has a degree in computer science so he loves to play around with using Excel and R. Understanding [Note: not memorise] the concept itself would suffice. It is an open book exam anyway.
For my tutorials, my experience was less than ideal. My tutor was evidently new to the teaching industry. I will give her credits for being optimistic and enthusiastic though but objectively speaking, I didn't learn much from her. She happened to get the 2 classes that has a cluster of us BCG students, and we love to bombard questions (regardless of class part). Unfortunately, she didn't manage to tackle the answers to our questions. Again, her effort is noted. I've heard that Mr Chin is good tutor though.
Assessments is just some ILE online quizzes and simple excel assessments (where he gives you all the instructions anyway). And he gives out bonus marks for doing some extra survey. So try getting all the marks for assessments.
As for exams, mark my words that open book exams are killer. You really have to understand the question and the relevant concepts to do well. Mr Chin is pretty much the definition of a troll teacher and his papers reflect that. Luckily, all's good for me surprisingly 😊.
AB1301 - Business Law
Tutor: A/P Lum Kit Wye (she's also one of the course coordinators for my semester)
Assessment: Class participation (20%), Mid-term assessment (20%), Open book finals (60%).
Textbook is definitely needed for pre-reading. Try to get an updated version from your seniors at a cheaper price ($69 is hefty!). There isn't much time to flip through textbook in exams though. Your best friend is ultimately your own bible. I didn't say senior's bible because 1. Some bibles are a condensed copy and paste from textbook which is not any more helpful or 2. Each individual may not understand the senior's bible fully. So just make your bible, which need not be perfect but should help you! However, you can find senior's bible as references.
Prof Lum is a good tutor! I would strongly recommend to get her if possible. Prepare A LOT before her classes because she doesn't spoonfeed students! And the seminar notes (made by her) are intentionally skimpy. She can pack in so much information in one short instance and you have to absorb the knowledge at her speed. But nevertheless, she is very informative and she makes you think like a lawyer (because she is one, most biz law profs are) instead of a business or accountancy student. She will also include some humour in her seminars when she can see that her students are getting restless, to perk us back up. I like the way she encourages class part, which is to go table by table (and she occasionally forgot which table she stopped at so she will randomly restart 😂) and anyone in the table is free to answer her questions. She doesn't enjoy surface level answers so she will keep asking more intermediate questions in order to lead us to a complete, in-depth answers. This is intended to help us string our arguments properly in exams, since one wouldn't expect one-liner as answers for Biz Law exam questions. Other tutors that my friends got are Prof Erin Goh and Prof Lim Yee Fen. In general, both seems ok and have merits in their own aspects too.
Finals is a hot mess for me. If not for my prof, I would probably hate Biz law because in my own words, "I cannot ang mor and I cannot write.". I'll much rather do some quick maf. It was one of my hardest papers because I'm naturally weak at it. In fact, I f*cked up the MCQ and every open-ended question was halfway done. And I panicked so much that I forgot to quote case laws. In fact, I didn't throw my Biz law notes til I got my results because I was mentally prepared to dabao. As of today, I still can't understand my grades (which is still one of my lower grades, but from the perspective of expecting to fail, I'm proud of myself) judging from my finals and my average mid-term assessment grade.
CZ0001 - Engineers & Society
Lecturer/Course coordinator: Prof Rowland Sam (no tutorials)
Assessment: Mid-term assessment (40%), finals (60%)
As noted above, my lecture attendance is terrible. But as is almost everyone else. The cohort size is big but I think he has less than 50 "loyal customers" at MAX. It's just a matter of when I gave up going for his lectures. BTW Prof Sam is the sole teaching staff for E&S for ALL the engineering schools (or more than 1 engineering school for sure) because no one wants to teach this. He is very passionate about this topic! I think he's some fellow for PEB or something? But anyway, his experience in engineering is unquestionable. And technically he is a good lecturer content-wise. His notes are actually good by itself. The problem is that the content is dry! 🎵I have SS, I have engineering... UHH! E&S! 🎵 <- I think that's a good summary of E&S. For "tutorials", some guinea pigs loyal customers students will volunteer their answers and he'll review it in lecture accordingly. This could potentially be helpful if not for the fact that the students give answers that are not exam friendly and just not very helpful in analysing. Again, this is not even the lecturer's fault.
The mid-term assessment is a first for our cohort (ie. used to be 100% finals). It's 3.5k words and it just requires a lot of research and appeal to him with ethics on your part. So let loose and write something that gives your topic some justice.
Finals was just memorising and regurgitating. Imagine doing intense memory work for this along with 4 other subjects on a lovely exam hell week, I don't even know how I pulled it off. Again, his notes are pretty clear so just write like how he normally does. The distinction between A range and the rest would probably be the small portion of opinion-based questions.
Update: They have changed the syllabus right after this semester. Still the same course code, but totally different contents, different course coordinators, different assignments and exam format. I should add that it sounds way more difficult than what I had to do so I'm considered very lucky here 😂
CZ1003 - Intro to Computational Thinking
Lecturers/Course coordinators: Dr Lua Ruiping, Dr Lin Shang Wei
Tutor: Dr Lin Shang Wei
Assessment criteria: Group project - Telegram (30%), lab quizzes (10% - my memory is a little fuzzy it's either this or 20%), finals (60% - or 50%)
This is basically a how to Python course, but given a fancier name. This is meant for those with zero programming language background (ie. myself) but there will be people who have background in Python but aren't officially exempted. It's either they have learnt Python on their own or for BCG poly students who despite having the relevant diploma, aren't exempted.
The first lecturer, Dr Lua, is one that is very passionate about the subject. He talks about his side ventures (he isn't a full-time staff here so he has other commitments) and geeky hobbies frequently. There is a Telegram supergroup with all the students in the cohort, for the purpose of the Telegram project and also to facilitate communication between the students and himself.
He is also in charge of the Telegram project. The project is basically to create a Telegram bot. This is a HUGE LEAP from what he has taught. Ultimately, it's getting good groupmates (programmers, idea man, report writers etc.) and fortunately, I did! Shoutout to Team Scrubzbot! We did well for the project 😊. The bell curve for the project is pretty screwed up as he will simply give 50% of marks for average groups and the highest was around 70%.
The second lecturer and also my tutor, Dr Lin, just happens to teach the more technical and "dry" content. Nevertheless, he still gets his contents across just fine. Both are fine as tutors, though I think Dr Lua would have an edge in terms of teaching his students effectively.
For exams, I think our cohort got a tougher than usual paper. The PYP within our syllabus tend to focus more on theory (eg. Explain the LEGB rule.) rather than application, and pseudo-codes is pretty much a given tough question. However, the pseudo-code question for my paper was ok (the calm before the sh*tstorm) and we got a messed up recursion question. That topic is a hit or miss and I definitely missed it, walking out of the exam hall feeling utterly demoralised (still in the 5 papers in 4 days hell week!). The best way to conquer this module is to internalise the Python syntax yourself + take note of the "hot topic" theory questions that they'll most likely include in the exam paper.
CZ1004 - Intro to Computing Systems
Lecturer/Course coordinator: Dr Li Fang
No tutorials, but there are lab sessions and each class will have a lab supervisor. Ultimately, the content is still taught by Dr Li.
Assessment criteria: Group project (30%), MCQ lecture quizzes (2 quizzes, 10% each), MCQ finals (50%)
Honestly I would recommend non CE/CS students to take this as UE - course code CE1002. Steep bell curve but an easy topic to conquer! If you don't want a tainted grade, just S/U instead since it isn't hard to pass. I think UE students would have 20% individual project (IDK how demanding this is) instead of 30% group project but the quizzes and finals are MCQ. Content is less saturated than Astronomy!
This module is basically a very bathtub water shallow level of content. It's intended to be a little preview of subsequent vital modules for CE/CS students. This module is made to pass easily, but you need to work smart and not mess up to get A.
Even the lectures are conducted in a chill manner. Dr Li's notes has many layman analogies to aid us, and she uses the Responseware app to do in-lecture questions so as to not saturate us with content and recap the content taught.
The only part that is demanding is the group project, which is to create a website talking about Smart Nation. This time, I would like to thank my groupmates for helping me a lot! Sorry for your scrub teammate here T^T. A tip is to please go to lab early and make sure to change the IP address so that your site can work with the designated lab PC. My whole lab class wasn't prepared which didn't give her a good impression already...
Otherwise, the MCQ quizzes and finals are manageable. The MCQ format is a first for our syllabus again. The problem with easy MCQ papers is evidently the steep bellcurve (it's not hard to get full marks), which explains where I fall short.
Update: The syllabus has changed. I think this subject is way too easy in everyone's opinion so they have just scrapped this subject as a whole and replaced it with a totally new one. Something about Intro to Physics of Computing if I'm not wrong.
CZ1011 - Engineering Math I
Lecturers/Course coordinators: A/P Deepu Rajan, A/P Lau Chiew Tong
Tutor: Asst/P Lana Obraztsova (Please avoid her at all cost!)
Assessment: Lecture quiz (2 * 16%), lab work (8%), finals (60%)
This is a free A for me. I've put in relatively less effort for this module [Note: refer to my previous post about not getting exemption from E Math I.] because I could more or less borrow my knowledge from JC and AB1202.
I barely attended lectures but from recorded lectures, both profs are good at what they do. And since E Math I is more foundational by nature, they have done their job by teaching in a manner catering to weaker students. And I would have much preferred to get them as my tutor instead of Prof Lana.
I won't talk too much about Prof Lana here as I will gladly leave that to E Math II. But this is the only tutorial that I don't attend.
For lab, I wouldn't say it is useful for this module or for anything actually. Our lab prof gave us the answers and everyone can just write it down and make sure to submit it to him before lab session is over to get full marks for lab.
Since this is my last paper and I have ample time to revise for this module after the hell week, I felt more confident for this paper. Other than one whole part of a question that I completely stumbled over, this paper was relatively ok.
CZ1012 - Engineering Math II
Lecturers/Course coordinators: A/P Cai Jianfei, A/P Adams Kong,
Asst/P Lana ObraztsovaTutor: A/P Adams Kong, A/P Wang Ping
Assessment: 2 lecture quizzes (40%), finals (60%). There are lab sessions but they do not contribute to your final grades.
I thought this was a free A for me til Prof Lana came in. First half is still manageable as it builds upon JC knowledge (or even O level A Math) and both Prof Cai and Prof Kong taught their topics well. Their lesson schedule and materials are well-arranged and it makes it easier to follow through.
My tutor for first half is Prof Kong. He's a funny guy! His lectures and tutorials are equally entertaining! He is basically the perfect prof whom students will like, is good at teaching, destroyed my Chinese scholar friend sorry mate and is good at research! Wait my group chat name with my BCG friends was Adams Kong fanclub right? 100/10 would recommend him as your tutor 😂.
If I haven't pre-empted enough that 2nd half was hell because of Prof Lana, yes 2nd half was hell. We were her guinea pigs as this is the first (and hopefully only) semester where she is a course coordinator for E Math II. I will minimise making overly negative comments about her, so to summarise: poor lecture notes, poor presentation, doesn't deliver content properly and many more. Coupled with the fact that she taught Fourier series and Fourier transform, which is a killer topic even with a better professor that my seniors got in previous semesters. She even banned us from using calculators in a MATH QUIZ, reason being "I cannot check if everyone's calculator is approved.". She sets poorly written questions and also impossible questions despite lacking in teaching us adequately.
My tutor for second half is Prof Wang and she is our saving grace! Her tutorial pace is slower but she does digress every question nicely and explain the solutions thoroughly. Honestly why isn't she taking the lectures instead? This is especially helpful for the killer topic by the name of Fourier.
Finals was terrible because of Prof Lana! It was a leap from the standards in PYP. The first half was indeed harder than usual and I stumbled, no excuses. And the second half, set by our favourite name in town, was just messy! I virtually lost all 50 marks in the 2nd half that my final grades are astonishing! I texted my mum right after the paper to tell her that she'll see me failing a Math paper for the first time in my life. I somehow didn't so~
One thing to note about the CS modules is that the seniors' PYP solutions aren't the most accurate. My friends and I have identified that most of their answers have gone wrong somewhere so that is something to be wary about. The profs don't really like to go through PYP answers due to school policy. So your best bet is your own group of friends who are suffering surviving with you. As for NBS, examiner's report are easily available at NBS intranet so that is your best reference point other than your friends.
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