CN1102 Chemical Engineering Principles and Practice II provides experiential exposure to chemical engineering concepts for Year 1 Chem Eng students. It is pretty similar to CN1101 but this module focuses more on bio-reaction kinetics, bioreactor design and purification techniques. It is a compulsory core module for all JC/IB students.
Assessment
10% Chalk and talk
20% Lab Attendance
30% Lab Report
20% Lecture Quizzes
20% Final Design Project
(NO FINALS)
Lecturer: Various ChBE professors, different prof for every lecture
Lab tutor: Prof Li Zhi
CELC/Tutorial tutor: Ms Lee Kit Mun
Comments
The module was a new module introduced this academic year to "ease" our entrance into NUS Chemical Engineering. Yet again, it wasn't planned very well like CN1101. I guess my batch can be considered to be like "guinea pigs" and I hope the system would improve for future batches.
Lab tutor: Prof Li Zhi
CELC/Tutorial tutor: Ms Lee Kit Mun
Comments
The module was a new module introduced this academic year to "ease" our entrance into NUS Chemical Engineering. Yet again, it wasn't planned very well like CN1101. I guess my batch can be considered to be like "guinea pigs" and I hope the system would improve for future batches.
The module consists of a 2 hour lecture, 4 hours laboratory and occasional 2 hours tutorial. Just like in CN1101, the lectures and lab were conducted by the ChBE professors while the tutorial was conducted by the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) tutors.
Lecture
The structure of every lecture is as such. One of the profs would start off explaining the things that we did in the lab session in the previous week (like a debrief session). He would explain the good things we do in the lab and the bad things we should avoid. This is pretty good as such lab work actually do prepare us for many more sessions to come in Year 2-4.
After that, we would have a lecture quiz (the 20% section above). The quiz consists of 5 MCQ questions and the questions are based on the topics touched on in lab in the previous week. Here's the problem. The quiz are to be answered using clickers. Although the professors kept emphasizing "no talking", we are in a LT and it was really easy to just whisper to each other to confirm the answer. Well, this isn't exactly a bad thing but it would just mean that there can be some people who didn't bother reading the notes at all, sit beside someone smart, and ace this section all the way. Furthermore, there were some people who had problems with their clickers and couldn't submit their answers on time. However, upon appealing, they couldn't get their marks back either (which was really unfair in my opinion).
After the lecture quiz, one of the profs would then brief us on the lab session taking place the week after.
Lectures, to be honest, was a mess where all of us seem to be talking a lot more than usual and the lecturers had to quieten us down like in JC. The noise level wasn't exactly that low in other modules but it was exceptionally loud for this mod. I think it is because there isn't any finals for this module and after the lecture quiz, we can basically not worry about that particular topic anymore.
Lab Sessions
Lab sessions weren't as bad as CN1101. This is because we get to experiment on cells and stuff, which is way better than playing with water. During the lab sessions, we work as a group. We have to produce a 2 page lab report for every lab session which would account for 30% of our grade. Thankfully, my group members were really cooperative. The lab report deadlines were initially set to be the day after our lab session but from Week 3 onwards, we were required to submit the lab report before the session ends. I wouldn't this is a very bad decision because we do not need to worry about the report anymore once the session ends.
With regards to the lab sessions itself, I learnt how to use simple apparatuses. I know this sounds stupid but during my JC days, the equipment my JC used in laboratories were pretty old, so I was pretty new to seeing these more "high tech" apparatuses. Some things we did were measuring rate of cell growth, sterilization techniques and studying the effects of different bio reactors. I would be lying if I said I didn't learn anything at all throughout the eleven lab sessions we had.
Prof Li Zhi was pretty okay. He was able to answer our queries about certain concepts well but since he wasn't directly involved in the planning stage of this module, there were some things that he was unsure of and had to consult the other professors. (I would say that he wasn't unsure because he lacked the expertise but because he just didn't know the exact details of the experiments that we would be doing.)
However, there's this issue which was also prevalent in CN1101. The professors do not seem to be prepared for our lab sessions as we actually overheard one prof briefing another about the lab experiment minutes before our lab session started. Sometimes, there were not enough materials to use in the lab. I guess it is because it is still a new module and everyone is unsure about how all the experiments would play out.
Another major issue is that this is a experiential/foundational module. This meant that we learnt some of the very important formulas in Chem Eng without knowing exactly how it came about or how it was derived. Thus, we were just touching on the surface of the topics. Many of us felt like our foundations were very weak and sometimes, we did the experiment without knowing the exact principle behind it.
Chalk and Talk
Like in CN1101, we had a Chalk and Talk session at the end of every lab. The difference now is that we were informed about the questions during lecture so we had like a week to prepare for our presentation. This was obviously much better than CN1101 as the question was given to us like on the spot and we had to think of an answer within that few seconds. Furthermore, for this module, we only needed to present to our group mates and our prof which was definitely less stressful.
The topics can be rather abstract/complex but with 1 week given to do our own research, it ain't really a big problem.
The structure of every lecture is as such. One of the profs would start off explaining the things that we did in the lab session in the previous week (like a debrief session). He would explain the good things we do in the lab and the bad things we should avoid. This is pretty good as such lab work actually do prepare us for many more sessions to come in Year 2-4.
After that, we would have a lecture quiz (the 20% section above). The quiz consists of 5 MCQ questions and the questions are based on the topics touched on in lab in the previous week. Here's the problem. The quiz are to be answered using clickers. Although the professors kept emphasizing "no talking", we are in a LT and it was really easy to just whisper to each other to confirm the answer. Well, this isn't exactly a bad thing but it would just mean that there can be some people who didn't bother reading the notes at all, sit beside someone smart, and ace this section all the way. Furthermore, there were some people who had problems with their clickers and couldn't submit their answers on time. However, upon appealing, they couldn't get their marks back either (which was really unfair in my opinion).
After the lecture quiz, one of the profs would then brief us on the lab session taking place the week after.
Lectures, to be honest, was a mess where all of us seem to be talking a lot more than usual and the lecturers had to quieten us down like in JC. The noise level wasn't exactly that low in other modules but it was exceptionally loud for this mod. I think it is because there isn't any finals for this module and after the lecture quiz, we can basically not worry about that particular topic anymore.
Lab Sessions
Lab sessions weren't as bad as CN1101. This is because we get to experiment on cells and stuff, which is way better than playing with water. During the lab sessions, we work as a group. We have to produce a 2 page lab report for every lab session which would account for 30% of our grade. Thankfully, my group members were really cooperative. The lab report deadlines were initially set to be the day after our lab session but from Week 3 onwards, we were required to submit the lab report before the session ends. I wouldn't this is a very bad decision because we do not need to worry about the report anymore once the session ends.
With regards to the lab sessions itself, I learnt how to use simple apparatuses. I know this sounds stupid but during my JC days, the equipment my JC used in laboratories were pretty old, so I was pretty new to seeing these more "high tech" apparatuses. Some things we did were measuring rate of cell growth, sterilization techniques and studying the effects of different bio reactors. I would be lying if I said I didn't learn anything at all throughout the eleven lab sessions we had.
Prof Li Zhi was pretty okay. He was able to answer our queries about certain concepts well but since he wasn't directly involved in the planning stage of this module, there were some things that he was unsure of and had to consult the other professors. (I would say that he wasn't unsure because he lacked the expertise but because he just didn't know the exact details of the experiments that we would be doing.)
However, there's this issue which was also prevalent in CN1101. The professors do not seem to be prepared for our lab sessions as we actually overheard one prof briefing another about the lab experiment minutes before our lab session started. Sometimes, there were not enough materials to use in the lab. I guess it is because it is still a new module and everyone is unsure about how all the experiments would play out.
Another major issue is that this is a experiential/foundational module. This meant that we learnt some of the very important formulas in Chem Eng without knowing exactly how it came about or how it was derived. Thus, we were just touching on the surface of the topics. Many of us felt like our foundations were very weak and sometimes, we did the experiment without knowing the exact principle behind it.
Chalk and Talk
Like in CN1101, we had a Chalk and Talk session at the end of every lab. The difference now is that we were informed about the questions during lecture so we had like a week to prepare for our presentation. This was obviously much better than CN1101 as the question was given to us like on the spot and we had to think of an answer within that few seconds. Furthermore, for this module, we only needed to present to our group mates and our prof which was definitely less stressful.
The topics can be rather abstract/complex but with 1 week given to do our own research, it ain't really a big problem.
Tutorial
Tutorials were conducted by CELC. My tutor for this module was Ms Lee Kit Mun. She is a very good tutor who gave us timely feedback on our reports and Chalk and Talk. We only had 3 tutorial sessions which were on Week 1, 9 and 12. The first week was a recap on the Chalk and Talk. For week 9's session, we were told how to create a good scientific poster for our final project. On week 12, we had a peer discussion and review on our draft posters. Overall, the tutorial sessions were pretty okay, and turned out to be the least problematic for the entire module.
Tutorials were conducted by CELC. My tutor for this module was Ms Lee Kit Mun. She is a very good tutor who gave us timely feedback on our reports and Chalk and Talk. We only had 3 tutorial sessions which were on Week 1, 9 and 12. The first week was a recap on the Chalk and Talk. For week 9's session, we were told how to create a good scientific poster for our final project. On week 12, we had a peer discussion and review on our draft posters. Overall, the tutorial sessions were pretty okay, and turned out to be the least problematic for the entire module.
Final Project
For the final design project, we were required to design a bioreactor and use a fruit of our choice to convert sugar (inside the fruit) into alcohol. No additional sugar/alcohol are allowed to be added in and grapes were forbidden to be chosen as one of the fruits. We added the fruits in week 8 and measured the yield and purity on week 12. We were then required to design a poster to explain our entire experimental process. By the way, the poster required was A1 in size. We were required to print it out and we had this 'exhibition' on week 13 where 2 members from each group had to present on the project and answer questions given by the profs.
Expected Grade: A
Final Grade: B+
Final Comments
I guess the main reason why I didn't do as well for this module is because of our final project results. As compared to other groups, our alcohol percentage wasn't that high. On top of that, I didn't do exceptionally well for the lecture quiz portion as well. I felt like this module has a lot of room for improvement and I hope future batches would like this module more.
Stay tuned for more updates.
- Alan
For the final design project, we were required to design a bioreactor and use a fruit of our choice to convert sugar (inside the fruit) into alcohol. No additional sugar/alcohol are allowed to be added in and grapes were forbidden to be chosen as one of the fruits. We added the fruits in week 8 and measured the yield and purity on week 12. We were then required to design a poster to explain our entire experimental process. By the way, the poster required was A1 in size. We were required to print it out and we had this 'exhibition' on week 13 where 2 members from each group had to present on the project and answer questions given by the profs.
Expected Grade: A
Final Grade: B+
Final Comments
I guess the main reason why I didn't do as well for this module is because of our final project results. As compared to other groups, our alcohol percentage wasn't that high. On top of that, I didn't do exceptionally well for the lecture quiz portion as well. I felt like this module has a lot of room for improvement and I hope future batches would like this module more.
Stay tuned for more updates.
- Alan