Module Review: DSC1007X/DAO1704X (AY17/18 Semester 2)

DSC1007X/DAO1704X Decision Analytics using Spreadsheets is a 4 MC module in Business School. I took it as an elective and it is a Microsoft Excel heavy module. You would get to learn a lot about Excel and its shortcuts through this module. I would recommend a Windows laptop (and not a Macbook) for this module as there are some functions/software which are unavailable/different on Macbook Excel. It is also recommended to have a graphic calculator (GC) so that you can calculate normal/binomial/poisson distribution. 

Assessment

15% Tutorial Assignments

15% Group Project

10% Quiz (mid-terms, 40 minutes, closed book)

20% Tutorial Participation

40% Final Exam (2 hour, closed book, 2 page cheat sheet)

Lecturer: A/Prof Tan Kok Choon

Tutor: A/Prof Tan Kok Choon

Textbook
Business Analytics - Data Analysis and Decision Making 6th ed. I bought the online version which is pretty expensive. In the end, I only used the textbook to attempt the tutorial questions in it (which I could just borrow from someone else taking this module). So, I would say it is not 100% required to get the textbook.  

Lectures

Lectures were 2 hours long on Thursday, 12 - 2 pm. There were no webcasts for this module so I attended all the lectures for this module. Since we had to use Excel during the lecture, bringing a laptop to lecture is necessary (This might sound stupid but there are people who print lecture notes and not bring laptops for lectures. And I am kinda part of that group of people). The lecturer was really good in explaining the content/concepts and shortcuts we need to know although there may be some Excel shortcuts that we already know but he did not. This isn't a big issue since there are just too many shortcuts in Excel and it's impossible to know everything. So, what we mainly did was comparing data and learning how to use Excel to solve business problems (aka minimizing cost and maximizing profit). The module also covered quite a number of H2 Math statistics concepts like normal/binomial/poisson distribution and it was a good revision for me. 

As for timewise, there may be days where the lecturer would end exactly at 2pm. So, it will be good to not have another lesson right after this lecture. 

Tutorial

Tutorial was once a week and it was 1 hour long. I was really worried about tutorial at first as there was a 20% Class Participation and I'm not the type who would talk a lot during class (I'm a typical introvert). However, on the first tutorial, we were already split into our own groups and we could then discuss within our groups (which somewhat shows a form of class participation). 

I was really lost for the first few tutorials too since my Excel skills aren't exactly that good. But as time went by, I slowly improved and going for the tutorials weren't that much of a worry anymore. 

Group Tutorial Assignment

For every tutorial, there would be tutorial questions given to tackle. We are supposed to submit our tutorial answers (as an excel/word/ppt file) as a group every week and all of these assignments would contribute to 15% of the overall grade. I was really thankful that this was a group assignment and my group members were really helpful as well. 

As for the group project, we were required to create a business problem and come up with simulations of said problem to see whether our proposed solution to the problem works. It kinda felt like we were creating an A level stats questions and then we would solve it ourselves. After that, we were required to write a report about it and record ourselves presenting on the problem (yes, we recorded ourselves doing a presentation.). Which is a good thing anyway since we need not present in front of a crowd of people. 

Quiz
For the quiz and final exam, we could write the excel formulas as our final answers to the questions. This meant that it is not a MUST to bring a GC for the tests but I would still highly recommend bringing one as I am extra Kiasu. We could bring in a 1 page cheat sheet for the quiz. It is clearly advised to write all the excel formula formats on the cheat sheet so that the paper will be way easier to attempt. The quiz felt like a math paper for me as the questions mainly involved H2 math statistics and probability. There were 5 questions in total and finishing it within 40 minutes was totally manageable. 

Final Exam

As for the final exam, it was 2 hours long and we were only allowed to bring in a 2 page cheat sheet. You can view my 2 page cheat sheet here. There were quite a number of tricky questions which were not exactly talked about in class before. I guessed these questions were set with the intention of separating the bell curve. But, oh well. There were 4 main questions to be answered, totally manageable within 2 hours. 

Expected Grade: B+

Final Grade: A-

Final Comments

Well, I was totally pleased with my A-. I wasn't really confident about this module when I first took it and I had intentions to S/U it. But, I guessed it was due to my consistent revision. Plus, I had great team mates as well which made the group project much more manageable. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan