BCG - Year 2 Semester 1

Ok since I have procrastinated this for one whole month, I can now say: HAPPY (very belated) NEW YEAR!!! 🎆🎉🎊

And also I've gotten back my grades so I can properly rate my quality of work I guess. Here we go!

Overview
Hell has taken over this semester. This is the hell semester! I bet I'll keep saying that in subsequent semesters so I'm desensitised (not in a good way. I just don't even want to care anymore) to this semester's suffering.
I really don't enjoy this semester. The modules are interesting (on paper. Or when you properly learn it yourself). Of course the school messes up your passion for it. As always.
To sum up: If my friend asks me "Do you have 5 projects or 5 finals?" I will just snap at them and reply "I have 5 projects AND 5 finals!" Just spending 13 weeks til the very last day on projects and not studying at all. And then studying from scratch afterwards. And then getting fucked by all the finals. I really don't think anything is going well for me but I also feel like I have zero rights to complain so let's just shove that aside...
Btw it has gotten so bad that I don't even watch recorded lectures anymore (since I felt like I really had no time to do so), with the exception of one half of a module (will get to that later). There is no room for me to give any review on the lecturers at this point.

Basically how do I feel right now? Erm...

(Credits: AKBingo)

My GPA will get destroyed so badly. Can't even have high hopes.

CZ2001 - Algorithms
Course coordinator: Prof Tan Ah Hwee, Asst Prof Kelly Ke
Tutor: Assoc Prof Lin Feng
Assessment criteria: Lecture quiz (20%), Group lab project (4 * 5%), Finals (60%, closed book)

Easily one of the most important modules! Although this is really in the introductory level. (The more legit stuffs are in Advanced Algorithms). Interesting but tough one. The first lecturer, Prof Tan, is... I feel neutral about his teaching. I don't actually learn anything tbh. But he's not bad either? He teaches the more miscellaneous topics like time complexity (which leads in to the bulk of what we learn) and then P and NP out of nowhere. BTW he doesn't teach the latter very well. I guess they'll teach more in Advanced Algo (that's his mindset I'm pretty sure).
The second lecturer, Prof Ke, is pretty good! It's worth watching her recorded lectures since she does mention things beyond the slides for better clarification. Her content is more structured as well, touching the different sorting algorithms and graphs. Don't think you can really go wrong with her part of the course. (unless you're me. I'll get to that later.)
Nothing notable for tutorial. There are so many profs who teach this mod as tutors so my tutor can't speak for the rest. And also because I stopped going for tutorials at some point of time answers are uploaded btw psst.
There are only 4 labs for the semester and it's group work. This is one of the labs where you must do your work before the lab! Depending on the lab tech, the quality of the lab work may be strictly judged or just be brownie points. Can go either way. I feel like my lab tech (a Korean PhD student) may be the latter. I hope she's the latter 😅 You'll need to present for at least 2 labs to get your fair share of presentation marks. The projects are pretty interesting if you put in the effort. First lab is effortless, but subsequently you'll need a decent amount of coding (but more on how you apply the right algorithms as the name of the course suggests). My group has strangers + 1 good friend. My friend and I did 1 project proper while 2 other strangers did the other 2 (I don't even count the first one so) and there's also one freeloader bro fuck off. For my group where we don't know one another well it is possible to let 1 or 2 people tank one lab work (and have them present), although not the same 1 or 2 people lah that's downright an ass move.
Lecture quiz was manageable. Really try to aim for full marks if possible. (Unless they want to throw a curveball and amp up the difficulty for future cohorts.) Obviously my dumb ass didn't get full marks (but 1 of the marks gone is a phantom mark IDK why it's not there but I was too lazy to argue).
Onto finals... 2018/19 Sem 1, easily the hardest paper of all. Doesn't help that I had a panic attack and couldn't finish the paper. Had a good 35 marks farewell (not even accounting for careless mistakes) and my most traumatic paper. It's that paper when I thought "Question 1 is killer. Maybe it's just to waste my time from the later and easier questions." and the later questions are still screwed up anyway. But some people find it easy. I have no comments. To each their own although I would prefer not rubbing that into others' face (I'm really speaking to the people doing that to me days after the paper it's not funny when someone found the paper hard and had a panic attack.). I can only hope for the 40% (that everyone else can easily get anyway) so bell curve is not in my favour.

Update: HOW?!?! THE HELL?! Ok at this rate it doesn't even matter how well or badly I did for any paper. It really doesn't matter. Hard paper + me in my worst state = somehow managed to get out alive.

CZ2002 - Object-oriented Design and Programming
Course coordinator: Dr Zhang Jie, Mr Tan Kheng Leong
Tutor: Dr Althea Liang
Assessment criteria: Group project (30%), Lab work (5%), Java prereq quiz (5%), Finals (60%, closed book)

Another important module my friend! It's a pre-requisite (co-requisite actually but co-requisites are for CS gods and I'm not one) to Software Engineering so you should aim to internalise it and not just learn for the sake of clearing your core. 
The first half is core OO concepts like Inheritance, Polymorphism. Basic Java syntax will bo covered along the way so it should start off fine. The first lecturer is so-so. For the most part I couldn't catch what he is saying so I didn't bother watching recorded lectures. But from what I've seen, he doesn't follow the slides strictly. He's more likely to code on the go but if you can't catch what he's saying then well 💁
The second lecturer is better but talk about a bullet train! He'll cram 3 chapters in one week and finish everything by week 11 so that we can spend time on the project (I'll get to that later). This includes learning C++ in 2 lectures (and I don't. I screwed up that part for finals but will get to that later again). Otherwise, he knows his stuffs and he'll give you proper answers when you ask him anything via email.
Nothing much to say about tutorials again when my tutor isn't particularly impressive at teaching and there are uploaded solutions. 
Onto assignment components. The 5% Java quiz is pure giveaway and even the lecturer said it. Just do it before week 2 or something and you're free to Google and redo however many times to get full marks. So just do it.
The lab is rather intense for just 5%, but that depends on your lab tech. I know there are nice ones out there. Mine wasn't, she's definitely one of the more anal ones which can be time-wasting (and she still wants it done before the lab ends wtf! Except for the last lab. She gave up like we did. Just asked us to email her.)
The group project is the second most hectic work I've done for this semester (will mention the first in a later part). You only get the work on week 8, coupled with other projects due on week 12/13, and my group are all my BCG friends and we are all dying together. So we got a substantial part of the work done only starting from 48 hours before the deadline. Including not sleeping on the night before submission (a first for me welcome to uni~). And we submitted 5 minutes after the deadline but it's still the same day and the lab tech is nice and accepted our work as on time~ I am really grateful for my team though! All nice people (that I knew are reliable so our lives are made easier) and I hope we can do well despite the last-minute rush.
Finals was manageable... if you had made consistent effort to keep up. I didn't and it bit me back really hard. So all fault's on me I won't deny. The hard semester was the previous semester, AY17/18 Semester 2 (got a hold of my friend's paper and the difference in difficulty level is obvious). But I couldn't capitalise on easier paper IDK what to say. So please don't underestimate the fact that you need consistent effort on OODP. Not just for your grades. But it's a fundamental concept in general.

Update: Yes I did not do well as expected. But I'm kinda glad (?), like a blessing in disguise. I know I can continue on to subsequent semesters with this slightly tainted grade and feeling less stressed out about keeping a track record for... whatever.

CZ2003 - Computer Graphics and Visualisation
Course coordinator: Assoc Prof Alexei Sourin, Assoc Prof Zheng Jianmin
Tutor: Assoc Prof Alexei Sourin
Assessment criteria: Tutorial (10%), Individual lab assignment (30%), Finals (60%, closed book)

This module is interesting, although I believe it's watered down/simplified compared to what actual CGV out there looks like. I am saying that it's "watered down" even though it's a f*cking tough module. Sounds about right. I know I will die in the real world out there ok?
Don't start asking me about lectures because I high-key didn't bother. The first lecturer, Prof Sourin, likes teaching his stuffs but what I got was half incoherent teaching of his content and the other half talking about his gadgets (so you learn nothing). As for the second lecturer, I find the notes and visuals sufficient so I don't think f2f lectures are any more helpful.
Tutorials are actually important (but err not very useful). Important because you need to submit weekly homework and it's not just some token participation marks. You get marked down if it's not correct. So I would advise doing it earlier in the week and do peer checking (it helps I mean we were all dying so two braincells are better than one). And also don't do previous semester's tutorial questions. Yes they are different and I learn it the very hard (and heated like I kinda flared up and lost my temper for that week) way.
Not very useful if you get Prof Sourin. Again, smart guy but some professors are well, much better at research than teaching and he's probably one of those. No solutions other than verbally explaining and his not very legible handwriting so good luck! I took pictures during his class to refer back at a later time but it didn't work. However, I can attest that Assoc Prof He Ying is pretty damn good when he took over my class ONCE! the clarity in teaching is so much more pronounced! He's not course coordinator so IDK if he's available every semester but do get him (and drop Prof Sourin's class) if possible.
Lab is individual work, split into 5 parts. You need a report + all your files with the shapes for each lab, to be submitted in one big proud brainchild of yours ZIP folder. So just do your thing every 2 weeks consistently and you are on track. Heck you can even do it at home (but like please go and sign your attendance or something). You have the software... for like a 30-day free trial (but that can be compensated with Notepad++). The software for displaying is free no worries. You can rush through all 5 labs at the last minute but it takes away the fun so nahhh. 
Labs 1 to 3 and 5 are just math equations making shapes and stuff. I think you can really innovate for Lab 4. Let me show you what is NOT a creative example:

Like go do a Pokemon or something and change up the colour scheme (I just let it be a simple gradient when you could've tried to explore how to assign a specific colour to each shape yea I was lazy).
Generally finals are pretty standard, except for my f*cking year of course. It wasn't like god-tier messed up like algo but still pretty messed up. The kind where you can smell from afar that the first half is intended to kill people but nevertheless possible to overcome (unlike algo). The second half is standard but here comes negative values that aren't supposed to happen YAY 👍
And yours truly can't read questions properly apparently because she panicked over the question part at the last part of page 1 trying to make the shape as described by words. 
And spend 30 minutes doing that. 
Then flipped to the second page.
Then realised there is a totally different shape that they're showing and I'm supposed to make it.
So let's spend more time trying to make that new shape.
Then randomly punch in whatever I can think of in the GC.
And I somehow got it in my first try.
(This is equivalent to coding without knowing wtf you're doing and somehow managed to run it without bugs holy cow! I wish I can do that in real life but AHH!)
That's just my exam story. That question was so traumatising and funny that I had to sidetrack for a while.
I got out still alive without considering harakiri I think that's pretty good.

I should put a disclaimer that I don't have much nice things to say about business mods but it will get worse from here. Just bear with me. And I will try to write a little more impartially as well.

AD2101 - Management Accounting
Tutor: Ms Anne Chia
Assessment: Class participation (10% for being a male I don't mean to be sexist but), Online quizzes (20%), Group project (20%), Finals (50%, open book)

Ok content wise, by right MA should be easy and basically idiot-proof. Like it should be easier than FA and maybe FM (haven't taken FM yet but I just have this feeling). MA is literally addition but with business and money and decision making. (While FA have balance sheet and IFRS that is painful and FM is way more than just addition.) However, you don't have a lot of practice to begin with. Imagine doing only one or two part questions in a 3 hour seminar. And 8 proper lessons. So you won't even get to do 20 questions for the semester. The painful lack of practice is the lethal part.
Furthermore, not all profs are created equal. If you get my prof please drop. Try to get the course coordinator Dr Michelle Phang. IDK how much better she is though I just know anyone but my tutor. We don't get a lot of practice and she has to make it worse by not discussing the questions properly. Either by going ridiculously off-track (IDK by then I'm already sleeping in class don't trust me on this) or onto my next point on class participation. It's fine if you want people to step up and try to present even if it's wrong (ie. effort marks) but there is a very thin line between that and... purely talking rubbish. My class has noise pollution an "acapella group" (only one of them is really jialat and the rest are only guilty by association) (also my prof literally used the term "acapella group" I didn't make it up) + two clowns doing exactly that. They are regular appearances and just present (the wrong answers somemore!) every week and they get the marks. And there are still silent warriors who haven't really gotten the chance to present. So that just screams "not very objective" to me. Personally I gave up with the class part thing because I can mention the right answer but have that (let's call him) acapella leader echo my answer and she's like "Good job _acapella leader_!". I like to joke that it must be superposition because I'm sitting right in between the two clusters of clowns so yknow destructive interference.
Before I get to assignment components, I should mention that they made it compulsory to buy the textbook. Or at least the e-book as you'll need the code to do your online quizzes. Also it's open-book so no harm buying the textbook (even though I didn't touch it during finals) with the code at a bundle price.
Online quizzes has two parts, and they're still not a way to practice for MA. The weekly ones is basically participation marks (grind til you get a certain number of correct answers from the question bank, usually about 8~10). And they are only testing definitions. Finals surely isn't testing definitions so yea it's pretty useless. There are however, two quizzes worth 5% apiece. Those are somewhat more relevant questions but are way more direct than finals. But a good place to start. You only get 2 attempts (best of 2) though, and they aren't surefire full marks. See the problem is I don't really listen to class and I can't really translate what I've learnt (or lack thereof) in tutorials to the questions, so I'll just randomly whack some guesses and try to correct it in my second attempt.
(Btw a little tip: The answers may be Google-able. Most of them are on sites like CourseHero and Chegg but some are available FOC. Somehow. just tweak the numbers accordingly.)
The group project requires little MA content for some reason. That's the consensus amongst my whole group. It's like... a marketing project. You pick a non-profit organisation, do a fundraising event and justify how you can get at least $10k profit. Which part of "fundraising event" does not sound like marketing? Anyway here is our group's organisation:

Yep for real. It qualifies though so let's make it impressionable. We had a "shitty" fundraising event HEH. I mean shit-themed. I think our team did pretty nubbad for this :) We were quite comprehensive and kinda foresee most of the Q&A so we weren't really rekted. And our marks turned out fine~

Now for finals. It's open book for starters so it really is kinda easier than FA to some extent. There is this tendency (by the course coordinator) to set harder paper over time (there was a paper with a median grade of D mind you!). My paper is thankfully more manageable than the median grade D paper but still not easy. But there are only 2 questions with interlinked parts. There is ECF but I mean the thought process can f*ck you up anyway when you don't get previous parts right. My tip is to just take a good 10~15 mins to read the whole question and consolidating the relevant information. At least the information is there for my question. I can't say the same for other PYP. Oh ya do make an excel sheet for MA finals, plus the school's summary notes (for the formula). And you should be fine.


BC2402 - Designing and Developing Database
Tutor: Dr Josephine Chong
Assessment: Class participation (5%), Individual assignment (10%), "E-learning" Access assignment (5%), Group project (30%), Finals (50%, open book)

This is an important module for BCG students as it'll be counted in both transcripts. But to say that the content that NBS teaches is important... erm... Well if I had the choice I would like to take SCSE's Database (CZ2007). NBS Database is definitely watered down and not even technical. I guess it fulfil's business needs but IMO that's still learning nothing.
Out of all the classes that you have to attend, only 7 classes max are actually important. But you can find better materials online seriously. Or ask SCSE friends for Database notes.
The course coordinator has changed from Prof Damien Joseph to Prof Ben Choi (ie. previous seniors' review can be thrown away oh my god both profs are on different tiers). I'll talk more about Prof Choi later. But my tutor is Dr Chong. She's probably part-time I think. I mean at least she's nice, will drop you hints on what she look out for in projects and assignments (whether her hints are technically sound is another matter but she's marking it so don't even think about refuting. Just suck it up.). I feel like she just kinda gauged that half of the class is BCG students and the other half is ACBS (and really a minority of BUS) so she felt kinda... I don't dare say we're intimidating but when some of us wanted to clarify things from a more CS student perspective it just becomes a stalemate so she actively avoids that route and basically us during class. IDK how much better in Prof Choi. My friends say that he's the lesser of two evils but from the way he manages assignments I really doubt so. Here's why.
First, class part. 2.5% for actually talking (I doubt my prof actually keeps track it's basically attendance marks). Our class doesn't talk for the most part. I feel kinda sad that our prof has to hype herself up but it made for a little good comedy. There was one fine day where no one answered her simple yes or no question so she really said "Yes, Josephine." to herself. Another 2.5% for weekly quizzes (done in class) where the content just comes out of nowhere. At least you can Google it. "engage in meaningful discussion with your groupmates".
And then there's a 5% "e-learning" assessment, which is just using Microsoft Access. I thought it was part of the 10% individual assignment but apparently not. I think this is quite idiotproof since it's drag and drop. And there's no need to overdo (like autopopulate 10k data) if your prof probably won't understand or appreciate it.
10% individual assessment is the smaller pain in the... To be fair it's basically like a mock exam paper and you have a lot of time to do it. The problem lies with the question in my honest opinion. This is where it gets a little annoying. The normalisation question is really out of sorts for this assignment and even for PYP. I even went to check with my SCSE friends to clarify if normalisation is supposed to be like this, and they aptly gave a "WTF someone has to be mentally challenged to even propose such terrible database design" reaction. Yep. And there is data flow diagram. From my knowledge, that is not related to database. But the course coordinator forcefeed that in and penalise people who "didn't derive their ERD from the DFD". Overall, I would say that it's worth 3 days worth of efforts (just to be careful) but nothing more.
There is also a 30% project. VERY VERY ONEROUS! Easily the most hiong project for this semester. My group meets up every week + one last day midnight spurt to finish the project. It ended up being a 117-page report. I bet juniors reading this may be thinking "Maybe you're a BCG senior and your group is just hiong~" WELL NO! You can easily reach the 100-page mark. There is A LOT to do and weekly commitment is really important! (Even if you want to be last-minute at least start during recess week. That's the threshold.) I know my cohort's project is already less rigourous compared to our seniors' (Prof Choi actually cut away some components for us halfway through the semester). Previous semesters require your database to be uploaded to the server but they decided to simplify for us and just make us write SQL statements (literally just CREATE and SELECT statements. No views and triggers holy cow). Granted it's not very helpful but job's done. The only good thing that came out of my project is my teammates (yes we're all BCG but trust me at least it's a really good environment. Look forward to what I have to say about the next subject and you'll understand why). So shoutout to my teammates Kang Yu, Chong Yan and Satya! One more thing to be thankful for and one less thing to rant about.
And now finals! 4 questions in 2 hours. The format is same old: Data flow diagram -> ERD -> Normalisation -> SQL. I don't think it's hard but I didn't feel confident as I don't know what the profs are looking out for. It just... contrasts with what I know about database from a CS student's perspective and that irks me. To put it crudely I was asking myself if NBS is basically teaching the wrong things and getting away with it since they "don't have to be so technical". SQL is easy to score (since they break it down into parts and it's open book so just print the syntax that are easily available out there just by Googling) but it's not finals without Pris making stupid careless mistakes. And I only realised it after finals. Ack! And also I ran out of time finishing my DFD (I did ERD first and DFD last btw.). For someone who manages to do such amazing feats in finals, my grades are still thankfully decent.
One golden rule that I think I can give to juniors (assuming the profs are still the same or at least similar): Fake it til you make it, one assumption at a time! Basically you write assumptions when you do your DFD/ERD/Normalisation. If anything needs a little explanation to idiots layman, stoop down their level and write an assumption. It honestly doesn't have to be right (there's no right and wrong. Just a good or bad design but I don't think the profs care tbh.). Just convince the markers. Also SQL syntax may not even have to be completely right. Again, I don't think the profs want to make the effort to test out every written syntax into their prepopulated data and check for correctness. My prof said that as long as it makes sense to the markers. That's all :)

BC2406 - Analytics I
Tutor: Mr Neumann Chew (also the course coordinator)
Assessment: 100% tanking with no fruition Class Participation (20%), Team challenge (2 * 10%), Group project (30%), Competency-based assessment (30%)

Saving the best (ie. most things to diss about) for last. My dissing will be pretty personal at this point but I will try my best. But this is my one pick for worst subject that I've taken in NTU, solely for execution. Or maybe I'm just really disappointed since I want to take up data science personality, and this should at least be decently introductory. It's not even there.
Let's jump into class part. Oh wait, there is none. For a module with 20% participation, almost no one but Prof Neumann talks. So yes we sit through 4 hour lectures. Even SCSE don't torture us like that come on. You only get called ONCE (maybe twice if you're lucky) to answer and that's the only thing that he can grade for that 20% right? *facepalm* And after he managed to get everyone to answer once there is basically absolutely zero class part. I reached a boiling point once where I put my bigass headphones on (and watched IZ*ONE's shows) during class and was not even attempting to listen to him. He probably didn't notice or he probably did and gave me low marks as if he wasn't doing so already. So it wasn't a lose. He had a bad impression of me and vice versa.
Err and you'll be using R during his class. So there are some activities but the problem is, he doesn't elaborate on what he's doing (or at least if he tried he's not doing a good job). Just end up having him upload his code (without useful comments) and most people simply copy-and-paste his codes. IDK personally I try to do more than what he can do, or at least get to a solution via my own merits. Just for my own learning's sake.
Ok about groupmates. This applies for all BA mods to be honest but I didn't face that problem in BC2402 so I will address it here. I've read seniors' (very clearly non BCG students) blogs and they'll say that it's better to group with BCG people since we'll do the code and you can freeload "learn from the more technically proficient people" (or yknow sugarcoat along these lines). I'm just here as a BCG student saying that we don't really like freeloaders. I know BA students can do better than that, and really NBS BA knowledge is not sufficient imo. IDM people who put in the effort (even if limited output) or people who wants to divide and conquer and cover my share of non-coding aspects (reports etc). I think my group is not bad in terms of divide and conquer. I might as well be honest if I'm ratting my group out but there are two other useful people and I thank them for that :) And the other two managed to drive me nuts and have me edit their parts of the report at midnight... of wait one member's part is completely eliminated since we can't make insights out of that point woohoo thanks for the suggestion. Ok next thing, we are not gods. I am technically very cui, I don't dare to go out and declare that I'm amazing at R (but apparently NBS BA students can I applaud their shamelessness confidence). As far as I'm concerned, I didn't overdo my R code (eg. using other predictive models or machine learning) because I am not confident. And your BCG teammates may feel the same (although there'll be some that can really do it and are confident but then it's just me). Rule is: If you are useless can't do it yourself don't bark at me asking if my work is too simplistic. Baby steps. We're both taking it. So humble yourself a little.
By the way, for this class, groupmates are randomly allocated. I'm fine with pure random allocation but I can tell that it's not pure random. There is deliberate stratification of the BCE/BCG pool and the rest. So each group has an average of 2 BCG in a group of 5. 
Onto the actual group work: There are two team challenges (each to be done in a week). Using what we have learnt or lackthereof and yes I'm cancelling so many words out of passive-aggressiveness for the week. I think my team did well for the first challenge (if Prof Neumann calls your group up for presentation it's a good sign). By well I don't mean my concepts are actually technically sound. It's watered down and idiotproof simple enough for him to understand. So yes for profs like him just keep it simple because they literally won't understand. I admit that I fucked up the second challenge with my code. Basically you get a severely undersampled minority and if you use this certain model it just predicts the majority for every instance, which is stupid. So you can counter that by oversampling that minority using this extension called SMOTE. I did kinda Google a bit about that and wanted to use it but my team objected because "Prof Neumann never mention" (another thing is Prof Neumann kinda doesn't like people outdoing him. One of my BCE friends really pwned him quite badly one day and the prof basically hated our class from then on. So we have the mindset that we cannot do things beyond his syllabus. That is really annoying. Kills the passion eh.). No let me correct myself there: Prof Neumann didn't mention to my class. But we are supposed to do that. And he mentioned to other classes hahahahahaha joke. So he gave a shocked Pikachu face was surprised to see most of our class not using SMOTE and penalty fest BAM. For the project, it's annoyingly open ended. That would've been fine if we didn't realise that the previous course coord (some Korean prof) made clear questions and guidelines for the project and you actually feel like you're learning something. But that aside, basically you find data and whoever whatever tf you need and want. IMO, not a job well done but at least job done. My group used 1) fictional data 2) not related to the theme of F&B industry 3) already cleaned so IDK how any prof can mark us for data cleaning. I take fault for that though. I just didn't want to use Prof Neumann's fictional data (In case you haven't realised how much I hated this prof with a passion that the antagonism is almost personal and yes I still have one more semester under him...) so I went to find on my own and it's not very good. And like I said, I didn't do anything amazing for my code. Just enough to have the job done. Anyway the business problem part holds a bigger weightage than the code so it's fair to focus more on producing sound analysis I mean this isn't an SCSE mod so mhmm. There is also a 15-min presentation on week 13 with Q&A from Prof Neumann (by right) but our Q&A is so dumb. Nothing about my R code (I would obviously be ready to answer wtf I was doing). It's just one generic question "What would you have done given more time?" So I don't see the need to over-prepare Q&A when it's... like this.
This leaves us with the only thing that can individually distinguish students, the 30% test. Sit in the lab for 2 hours, open-internet (you see the problem already?! I don't to elaborate but ahem WhatsApp, Google Doc, collaboration is possible out there how sure are you that individual merits are presented). There is a mock test the week before that and it was disastrous! Only for me to realise that I couldn't complete because I spent way too much time on the front part trying to do a good job when Prof Neumann's answer is something that my 5-year-old-cousin can do. It's a recurring theme for me to say that NBS BA modules in a nutshell is "not job well done, but job is done". And with his sample answer for the mock test you can use it as reference for the test. This part is fair and square and Prof Neumann intended it to be so. I just have his answers for once to know how much I should dumb down effort I should put in. And at that level, I barely managed to finish the test with my own merits and I am damn proud of that! Although my open-ended answers are rubbish but my one brain cell who can't handle timed pressure to begin with did quite well. I think? IDK how well or badly I've done for the test tbh. I didn't ask my group mates (they would be a good comparison point since we'll know why if our grades are different) since I'm at most acquaintances, but not very close to them. And also if they get higher grades than me despite me doing so much work my competitive and salty ass can't handle it.
Overall, absolute hell mod for me. I wrote an essay to provide feedback for the prof so I didn't 100% lash out on him here already. And also some comments I have about him are really off limits I'll leave it to the school to handle hopefully.
Only silver lining worth mentioning: Juniors, please go pray to your gods or anything. But there is a slim chance that you might get another prof to teach in the near future. Maybe even course coord if yknow something is done about the current course coord. MAYBE that prof is a pretty Korean lady but IDK 💁 Our class had a few training profs crashing our class, either to observe or to conduct a short lesson. We give anonymous feedback in the case of the latter as well. I know Prof Neumann is absolutely manpower tight for his modules since no one wants to be under him honestly and I think these changes can be seen from the next academic year onward. So good luck and I hope y'all can get better profs :)

In addition, I have taken GC0001 (Ethics and Moral Reasoning) and AB1000 (Career Foundations I). There's nothing much to do for both mods as it is Pass/Fail. Just err... put in a bit of effort to complete. And AB1000 is just attending a few talks (may or may not get Koi heh) + one recess day lesson ezpz. So they aren't really worth mentioning I guess.

That is a LOOONNNNGGG post (that I took a month to write). Let's see what's in stall for next semester for me :) Cheers~