Module Review: CFG1002 (AY18/19 Semester 2)

CFG 1002 Career Catalyst is a 2 MC compulsory S/U module which is super super important and useful in my opinion. It teaches us interview skills, resume, cover letter writing and basically things we need to take note in order to make good impressions with employers and secure employment. Since this is a pass fail module, I highly recommend taking this module. 

Assessment

20% Completion of Talent Connect Profile 
40% Resume Submission (via Talent Connect) 
20% Video Recording of Elevator Pitch and peer review
10% Lecture Attendance
10% Professional Attire

Lecturer: 
Mr Senthil Raja Jayapal and the CFG team

Textbooks/Readings
No textbooks obviously, all of the readings/power point slides will be provided by the CFG team via IVLE. 

Lectures/Submissions

There were a total of 6 sessions (meaning this module only lasts for half a semester). 2 sessions are e-lectures while 4 sessions are physical seminar style kind of lessons. The physical lessons were held at YIH Tokyo/Paris rooms. Attendance is taken. The lessons were faculty based, meaning those attending the same lesson as you are from the same faculty as you. This is because for some sessions, industry speakers are invited down to give a talk to us and these guys are from the engineering sector. 

So, for every session, there is a focus (like interview skills or resume writing) and most of the work we do are peer reviewed. For the third session, we were required to turn up in formal wear and this actually constituted 10% of the grades for this module. 

What I liked about this module is that it helped us set up out NUS talent connect account. Like 20% of this module requires us to complete the talent connect profile. Step by step guidelines were also provided for us, making it much more convenient and less confusing. If you do not know, NUS talent connect is a platform for us to apply for internship opportunities or even full time jobs when we graduate in future. Soo, this is super useful.

As for resume and cover letter writing, sample templates were provided to us and even sample resumes were given. It was really helpful in my opinion as I was always worried about how to write a good resume. PLUS, I get to upload my resume into NUS talent connect (which is 40% of this module). Once it's uploaded, I can just use that same resume for all my job applications, making it real easy to use the platform. The CFG team would also look at your resume and give you constructive feedback on how to improve on the resume. This doesn't constitute into your grading for this module but it is superrr helpful. 

For the elevator pitch portion, I had to basically record a video of myself promoting myself (as in my good qualities, what I am good at etc). The video is around 30 seconds to a minute long. Since I can record it at my own time, obviously I drafted a speech out first and just read the speech while recording myself. AND of course, you have to record it while wearing formal attire (well at least for your top half). Ain't too big of an issue in my opinion, this can be settled within an hour or two. 

As for the lecturers, they all speak very well and get their point across very well, so I really have to give props to the CFG team for planning out such a good and useful module. 

Expected Grade: CS

Final Grade: CS

Final Comments

A definite recommendation for this module. It teaches you important life skills that you definitely need in future, especially when you're finding a job. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: EG2401A (AY18/19 Semester 2)

EG2401A Engineering Professionalism is now a 2 MC module. It is a faculty requirement module. EG2401 used to be a 3 MC module but I'm part of the first batch to take the 2 MC version of this module. This module focuses on engineering ethics and the main thing that's different now is that there is no final exam for this module (YAY! This means that you don't really have to consider taking this module in summer exchange anymore). 

Assessment

40% Class Participation (Yes, this percentage is huge lol)
60% Group Project (Group report, presentation)

Lecturer: 
Weeks 1 - 3: A/Prof Lee Tong Heng 
Weeks 4 - 6: A/Prof Kevin Kuang
Weeks 7 - 9: A/Prof Neoh Koon Gee
Weeks 10 - 12: Optional lectures (only apply for EG2401)

Tutor: 
A/Prof Yang Hyun Soo

Textbooks/Readings
Charles B. Fleddermann Engineering Ethics - 4th Edition. If it's possible to find the online pdf version of this textbook, use that. The content in the textbook does supplement the lecture notes as well as for the tutorial. I don't find a need to purchase the textbook. 

Lectures

Lecture was once a week and was 2 hours long. Andddd they're webcasted. There were actually 2 lecture timeslots. I was allocated the Wednesday night lecture slot but because I had something on every Wednesday night, I just went for the Tuesday afternoon one instead. I would like to say that there isn't a need to attend physical lectures for this module. (Is this the first time Alan is saying this!? No, I don't think so) But yeap, you can just view the lectures on your laptop at 1.75x or 2x speed. I mean the content is useful for engineering work in future but some stuff are pretty straight forward. 

The main stuff covered is the different types of ethics and the different perspectives to look at a particular case. Engineering code of ethics was also introduced and impact of engineering on the environment was also talked about towards the end. 

People taking EG2401 and EG2401A attended the same lectures. Thus, Prof T.H. Lee talked a lot about revising for finals which doesn't really apply for us. He tends to beat around the bush too so I advice just watching webcast. The other lecturers were okay I guess but I just feel there isn't a need to attend the physical lectures. Like sometimes doing a google search can give the same information too, unlike engineering core modules. Thus, webcasts. 

Tutorial

There were a total of 6 tutorial sessions throughout the entire semester. There were supposed to be 7 but my tutor reduced it to 6. So yes, 40% of class participation depends on just 6 tutorial sessions hahaha (Actually 5, because the first tutorial is just an introductory tutorial). Each tutorial session is only an hour long. For every tutorial except for the last one, there is a set of tutorial questions for us to complete. It is more of the open ended kind of questions since we are dealing with ethics here. There isn't like an exact correct or wrong answer and thus, the answers are like kinda open for debate (thus this is where class participation come in). Each tutorial worksheet has 3 - 4 questions. In the previous tutorial, the tutor will assign students to present one question each for the next tutorial. Since there were only 14 of us and there were only that many questions in the tutorial, all of us only presented once for the tutorial questions throughout the semester. We can use any form of presentation platform (Word, PPT, Google Docs etc) we like so long as we did our work and got our answer across. 

Sooo, the tutor is pretty freestyle in my opinion. For every tutorial, the students will just present their answers. And we have to ask them questions or give our opinions so that we get our class participation marks. The questions/remarks we make need not be very insightful, sometimes even if we just summarize what the student presented, our tutor will still credit us for participating in class. Maybe this only applies for my tutor but my point is just to talk during class. You need not bring up new points, just summarizing is also contributing to your class participation already. PLUS, since class participation is 40%, how much you speak in each tutorial session is actually worth approx. 10% of your grades. (Crazy, isn't it?) 

I like my tutor in the sense that, when there are students who have not spoken at all throughout the tutorial session, he would call his/her name and ask him/her for his/her opinion on the issue so that that student can get some class participation marks. I would say for the tutorial questions itself, they are rather straightforward. Sometimes, we require to search for more examples but they can easily be found on the internet, so you do not have to worry about the difficulty of these questions. The difficulty comes in the project portion. 

As mentioned earlier, there were 6 tutorial sessions in total. The first is an introductory one where the tutor broke down the components of the module etc and we had to choose our project topic as well.  The next 4 were on the tutorials. So, there are 4 tutorial worksheets in total. The sixth tutorial involves the presentation of our project topic which I'll elaborate later. The final one was supposed to be 2 sessions but the tutor combined it into one 1.5 hour session so that it is more convenient for us (like we don't have to go for that tutorial lesson twice which is on a Monday morning at 9 am.)

Project
Wow, the project. Pretty intense one, I would say. We were split into groups of 3 or 4. My group had 4 students. Luckily, we all knew each other already so our discussions were much faster. We were given nine project topics to choose from and to write a report about it. The deadline of the report was on Week 11. All the topics revolve around the idea of engineering ethics and whether we agree with the implementation of that certain topic in today's society. (e.g. digital technology, spycam, clinical trials etc) My group chose the topic on clinical trials in developing countries. Basically, the outline of the report involves us bringing up 4 case studies on such trials and discussing whether they are ethical anot using the ethics concepts learnt in lectures. We have to propose viable solutions as well to counter the unethical aspects of the clinical trials. The outline for the other topics are also rather similar, just that the topic is different. Research is obviously needed, AND we had to write around 25 pages for the report (20 for a group of 3 and 15 for a group of 2). I mean 25 pages is stated as the maximum but we used it as a guideline for our report. We had to also submit a 2 page interim report to our tutor in Recess Week to update him on our progress of the report. 

I would say our tutor is lacking in this aspect because he gave us little to no feedback with regards to our report and interim report. As such, we just wrote the report based on our own feel andddd yeap. We just wrote the report using our own style and managed to churn out 25 pages of arguments and solutions. Well, the funny thing is that we only started legitimately discussing the report writing on week 9/10 and we churned out the entire thing within a week lol. It was an interesting process but not an easy one of course. (Please don't follow us. Start writing earlier.)

Now, for the presentation. So, other than the report, we had to prepare presentation slides to present our topic to the tutorial class on the last tutorial session. Well, my group was pretty last minute so we literally just copied our report into the presentation slides and changed them into point form. There wasn't any exact guidelines to follow for the presentation either so we just did our own flow and everything. So, for the actual presentation, groups of 3 had 5 minutes each to present and groups of 4 (my group) had only 4 minutes each to present. Pretty intense eh. We actually rehearsed the presentation a few times before the actual one so that we could present within the time limit. We had to speak pretty fast sooo, I advise not to present your entire report. But present the key factors that are more important in the report. 

As usual, after every presentation, there will be a Q&A session and we had to speak up, ask questions or give your opinion in order to obtain our class participation. The presentation was pretty okay in my opinion, so the toughest part of this module is just the report writing. 

Expected Grade: B

Final Grade: A-

Final Comments

This grade came as a real real surprise, I would say. I didn't expect us to do that well because we did it in a rather freestyle manner but I'm happy that we did it haha. 

This module's difficult part would be the project portion. I am glad that they removed the final exam portion as the finals require us to write essays about ethical considerations (which is super tough in my opinion). Overall, I would say that you can now take this module in NUS and need not worry about having to find a summer exchange programme for this module anymore. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: FIN2004/2704X (AY18/19 Semester 2)

FIN2004/2704X Finance is a 4 MC module. It is an introductory module to finance concepts but it ain't as easy as it sounds. I took this module as an elective and I would provide my perspective as an elective student for this module. This module covered concepts like time value of money, risk and return, bonds, stocks, capital budgeting, long term/short term financial planning and a brief introduction to options. 

Assessment

5% Class Participation
10% 3 Tutorial Quizzes (Closed Book, 1 or 2 A4 Cheatsheet)
30% Mid-Term Test (80 Minutes, Closed Book, 1 A4 Cheatsheet)
55% Finals (2 hours, Closed Book, 1 A4 Cheatsheet)

Lecturer: 
Dr. Jumana Zahalka

Tutor: 
Kang Ya, Bella

Textbooks/Readings
McGraw Hill's Fundamentals to Corporate Finance 2nd Edition - By Stephen Ross, Randolph Westerfield, Bradford Jordan, Joseph Lim and Ruth Tan. The textbook does add as a supplement to the lecture notes. BUT for this module, I would not recommend buying the textbook because sometimes, the lecture notes would have different definitions for certain key terms, as compared to the textbook. AND we are supposed to follow the lecture notes definitions. Furthermore, the lecture notes are very detailed for this module, thus I feel there isn't a need to have the textbook.  

Lectures

There is one 2 hour lecture every week (from Weeks 1 - 12, Week 13 is an optional consultation session) and there is no webcast provided (I'm not sure whether this is the same for the finance lectures for biz students). There is one set of lecture notes every week and there is quite a lot, and I mean really quite a lot of slides every week. SO, this module is pretty content heavy. There's always quite a lot of things to cover every week and lectures usually last around 1 hour 30 minutes to 1 hour 45 minutes. Thankfully, there are some portions of the notes that say 'Appendix' or 'Not Examinable' and these parts will not be covered in the lectures. 

Dr Zahalka is a really good lecturer in my opinion. She knows her content very well and explains all the concepts really well. It's just that these concepts are very new to me so I take a while to process these information. She will bring in additional examples that are not part of the notes as well so that we can better understand and apply these concepts to real life situations. 

After attending the lectures, I found the content to be very applicable to me since I may go into bonds and stocks in future.

Tutorial

Tutorials took place once a week, and they were 1 hour long. My tutor was a PHD undergraduate. She would usually summarise the content before starting the tutorial. We were split into groups of six. One group has to present the tutorial solutions for that week. And we only need to present once throughout the entire semester. The presentation constitutes into the 5% of the class participation portion (along with tutorial attendance of course). There were no issues with the presentation because we can refer to past year senior tutorial solutions for reference. After the presentation, the tutor will then explain her own solutions. As such, she takes up a lot of time during tutorial. Usually the tutorial will last an hour long or may be even longer. I feel that she can shorten the lecture summary portion so that the tutorial will not take up so much time.

Tutorial Quizzes
There were a total of 3 tutorial quizzes, one on week 6, one on week 10 and the last one on week 13. The quiz is set by the tutor so it will differ for all tutorial groups because the tutors are different. For my tutorial group, we have 6 MCQ questions to complete within 20/25 minutes for each of the quizzes. So, for the tutorials on these weeks, there will be no tutorial presentation. Quiz 1 covered weeks 1 - 4 content, Quiz 2 covered weeks 5 - 8 content and Quiz 3 covered weeks 9 - 11 content. 

For Finance MCQ questions (this also applies for mid terms and finals), they tend to be very tricky, regardless of whether they are mathematical questions or conceptual questions. There are times where after I calculated for an answer, my answer may not appear in one of the choices at all (Yeah, that's how bad it is). Usually I will try to recalculate and if I cannot get any of the choices, then I'll just guess the answer in the end. 

The quiz questions were not as tough, as compared to the mid term and finals questions. So, I advice studying and revising the content well so that at least, you can score well and secure 10% of the grades. How the grading works for the quizzes is that the tutor will take only your best 2 quiz results. This means that you can choose to attend 2 quizzes and ignore the last one. But I'll still advice to try attending all quizzes since it serves as a form of practice for midterms and finals. 

Mid Terms
Wow, midterms. The paper had 30 MCQ questions and I would say it is not easy. The mid terms took place on Week 7. A lot of calculation is involved and careless mistakes can easily be made. Be very very careful when reading the questions as one word in the question can change the answer entirely. 

The lecturer does upload past year mid term questions for us to refer and practice. To me, this is really really good as it provided me with good exposure to finance type of questions. There were a total of about 10 - 11 past year papers to practice, so do try them out.   

Final Exam
Final exams consisted of 40 MCQs and it was 2 hours long. The worse thing is that we can only bring in 1 A4 cheatsheet. My seniors could actually bring in 2 A4 cheatsheets, which is real good. Soooo, what I did was that I wrote my cheatsheet on 3 A4 pages, then combined them into 2 A4 pages using word. You can refer to my cheatsheet here. I am so sorry but my cheatsheet is actually very messy and I would recommend looking for other cheatsheets that are flying around the internet. 

Most of the paper covered content from the second half of the semester. The first half of the paper was quite okay. The hard part was the second portion of the paper. It is the portion where I calculated an answer (capital budgeting portion) and my answer is not part of any of the options provided. I had to guess some of the questions in the end. But I would say 2 hours is enough to complete the 40 questions in the paper. 

Expected Grade: A

Final Grade: A

Final Comments

I would say that I gained a lot of insight with regards to financial markets in general after taking this module. I would recommend this module for those who want to really learn more about finance related terminologies. If you're planning to take this module just to get one more A, then I won't recommend you taking this module.

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: CN3135 (AY18/19 Semester 2)

CN3135 Process Safety, Health and Environment is a 3 MC module that focuses on the risks and safety required in any process related to Chemical Engineering. It covers concepts like source models, dispersion models, ignition sources, probability and sustainability. 

Assessment

10% Take Home Quiz (Group Work)
30% HAZOP Project (Group Work)
60% Finals (2 hours, Open Book)

Lecturer: 
Prof Reginald Tan Beng Hee

Tutor: 
Prof Reginald Tan Beng Hee

Textbooks/Readings
Chemical Process Safety 3rd Edition by Daniel A. Crowl and Joseph F. Louvar. I would recommend buying/renting/borrowing the textbook as we often need to refer to the graphs and appendices from the textbook. Plus the finals is open book, meaning you can bring this textbook into the exam hall. The textbook supplements the lecture notes a lot as well, thus I really recommend purchasing/renting one. 

Lectures

There is only 1 lecture per week which is the 2 hour long one. But usually, the lectures are only around 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes long. Take note that my review for the lectures and lecture notes from now on only applies to this Prof. If another Prof is teaching you this module, then the experience is likely to be different (unlike the level 2000 modules where the experience may still be around the same even if different Profs teach the module). Sooo, I would like to say that Prof Tan isn't real good in preparing for lectures. His lecture notes are very brief and lack critical information. Many of the important formulas are not present in the slides and I have to read the textbook by myself in order to learn the formulas required to tackle certain questions. (There was one time he only uploaded the lecture slides when he entered the LT during the lecture time slot and used that computer at the front of the LT to upload the notes.)

His lectures are also rather brief. Sometimes, the only reason why I attend his lectures is because he will tell us the portions of the topic that will not be tested for the final exam. AND there are no webcasts for this module as well. Overall, I felt like most of the concepts I gained from the module was from reading the textbook, and not from attending the lectures. The portion on sustainability was very applicable to real world situations (pollution prevention and action against global warming) but then again since his notes were brief, I had to google some information by myself. 

Tutorial

Tutorials took place once a week, and they were 1 hour long. Prof Tan is better at teaching in tutorials, as compared to lectures. Usually, at the beginning of the class, he would allow some of us to write the tutorial answers on the board so that we can get bonus marks for the module. Obviously I like this because you will still get the bonus mark even if you answered the question wrongly. So, just go to the front and write your answer.

Prof Tan will also give a brief summary of the topic and then go into the questions. He would give us tips/advises that will greatly help for the final exam. Thus, tutorial is a definite must go. This is also because his solution power point slides are also very very brief and most of the important points are only mentioned during tutorial. So, don't miss tutorials. 

Take-Home Quiz
There is one take-home quiz for this module. It consists of 2 questions which covered topics from the first half of the module. The deadline for the quiz was on Week 8. We were required to submit our answers on IVLE. The quiz is group work and we had to get into groups of 3-4 students. The first question covered calculations while the second required us to write an essay about an incident involving hazardous scenarios. It wasn't too difficult and plus, it's group work. The quiz can be done within a day or two, so you don't have to worry too much about it. 

HAZOP Project
Hazard and Operability Studies (HAZOP) Project/report requires us to think up of risky scenarios and come up with solutions on how to mitigate/avoid such scenarios. Examples are like no flow in feed stream or no agitation in reactor tank. This is a group project and it is the same group as the take-home quiz group. Again, it is group work, so working together to come out with consequences and solutions to hazardous situations wasn't tooo difficult. You can refer to senior reports as well for reference while writing your own report. 

The above 40% from HAZOP Project and take-home quiz wasn't too tough and thus, most of us did well, causing the bell curve to be real steep (meaning your grade is actually dependent more on the final exam). 

Final Exam

The final exam was 2 hours long and was open book. It consisted of 2 questions. One question was about a storage tank and questions requiring calculations were asked. For the second question, we were given a text to read and the questions were essay type of questions which are related to the text itself. Basically, the second question covers the pollution prevention and sustainability portion of the module. You can view the final exam paper I took here. Since there were 2 questions, I would advice spending an hour each on each question. Question 1 definitely took up more time because there were calculations involved. 

AND there's another point to take note. Based on the past year papers I've done + from the actual final paper I did, Prof Tan would always like to test one or two terminologies that we've never heard before. Plus, these terms cannot be found in the textbook. All we can do is to make some form of inference and do our working from there. (For the paper I did, it was question 1d) Well, I tried to infer for my paper and hopefully, I inferred correctly hahaha.

As for question 2, you can see the tips I've written in my notes. You can view my notes here.

Expected Grade: B+

Final Grade: A+

Final Comments
I really didn't expect to score well for this module. Most of the help I got were from my friends, the textbook and the internet and I actually felt it was my least confident module this semester. I guess researching more on sustainablity and practising the past year calculation questions helped me do well for this module. 

I actually have a small wish for this module to be 4 MCs because safety is actually a rather hugh issue in chemical plants and the Prof wasn't able to fully cover all the concepts in the textbook as well. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: CN2125 (AY18/19 Semester 2)

CN2125 Heat and Mass Transfer is a 4 MC module that is like a sequel to CN2122 but it is tougher in my opinion. Tougher in the sense that there is more content per week. It was pretty mind-blowing in the beginning as we were flooded with formulas and new terms but it got better in the later weeks as we kinda got used to it plus similarities can be drawn between heat transfer and mass transfer. 

Assessment

15% 3 Homework Assignments, 1 Mini-Project Assignment, 1 Industry Lecture Report (How the 15% is divided among these 3 segments is not known)
25% Quiz 1 (1 hour, Open Book)
      + Quiz 2 (35 mins, Open Book)
60% Finals (2.5 hours, Open Book)

Lecturer: 
First half: A/Prof Wang Chi-Hwa
Second half: A/Prof Praveen Linga

Tutor: 
First half: A/Prof Wang Chi-Hwa
Second half: A/Prof Praveen Linga

Textbooks/Readings
Welty, James R., Charles E. Wicks, and Robert E. Wilson (WWWR). Fundamentals of momentum, heat, and mass transfer, 5th ed. There is another textbook that is catered just for CN2125 (like the title of the textbook is CN2125). BUT, the content of the lecture notes prepared by the profs were taken from the WWWR book, so that's why I recommend that textbook. CN2125 covers Chapter 15 - 29 of WWWR textbook while CN2122 covers Chapters 1 - 14 of the very same textbook. Yes, this textbook is that powerful such that its contents have to be split into two modules. 

I would highly recommend having at least an online pdf version of the textbook as some parts of the textbook will help to reinforce what the profs have taught. Sometimes, I would be unsure of the units of some terms in certain formulas given in the lecture notes and I would refer to the textbook to double confirm. Plus there are extra questions in the textbook to practice as well (which tbh I didn't have time to practice hahaha). 

Lectures

There were 2 lectures per week. One lecture is one hour long and the other is 2 hours long, just like CN2122. The lectures lasted for 12 weeks straight; there wasn't one on week 13 as one lecture was taken up by Quiz 2 and the other by Good Friday. This module has webcast but again, I would recommend going for the lectures as the Profs for this module teach well in my opinion. 

Soooo, in the beginning of CN2125 lectures, prepare to be a little mindblown because Prof Wang tends to talk pretty fast sometimes and he rarely has breaks in between his sentences. A lot of parts of the lecture notes are also just copied straight from the textbook, so you have to listen to him well in order to understand what the notes are trying to explain. In my opinion, I feel that Prof Wang does explain the content well but since the content is new, it took a while for me to understand what he was trying to explain. I had to re-read the lecture notes a few times, especially for convective heat-transfer correlations and boiling/condensation before I could understand them. Prof Wang took the lectures from Weeks 1 - 8 which covered steady/unsteady state conduction, natural/forced convection and fundamentals of mass transfer/diffusion.

Prof Linga then took the lectures from Weeks 9 - 12 which covered steady/unsteady state molecular diffusion, convection mass transfer and radiation. In my opinion, Prof Linga teaches the content very well too and I feel that he is better in explaining the concepts as compared to Prof Wang. I rarely referred to the textbook as well for Prof Linga's portion, as compared to Prof Wang's portion. Prof Linga also brought up real life applications of what we learn to help us better understand how the content we covered can be applied. Overall, I have no complaints for the two Profs in CN2125 (as compared to CN2121 and CN2122) and I am rather satisfied with my experience in their lectures. 

Tutorial

Tutorials took place once a week, and they were 1 hour long. For all the tutorials for CN2125, the tutorial answers are uploaded on the same document together with the questions. In my opinion, this is actually very good because it provided me with a better understanding of the topic before attending the tutorial itself. Sometimes, I would not be able to understand the phrasing of the question or what the question is actually asking me to find. Referring to the answer as a reference can help me A LOT in this aspect. Even with answers provided, tutorials are still worth going as more often than not, I would not be able to understand every single part of the answer sheet. (There are sometimes errors in the answer sheet as well.) Also, the Profs would usually give tips and "shortcuts" about certain concepts, which is real good. Do take note of everything the Profs say as it may just be a clue for one of the questions for your final exam. The Profs taught well for the tutorials, just like the lectures. 

One thing to note, although we ballot for our tutorials, we may not need to attend the exact tutorial slot given to us since attendance is not taken. Thus, people jump around tutorial slots (including me). Sooooo, do reach early as there might not be enough seats for tutorials sometimes (applies to CN2116 as well). (This occurred for my batch but may not occur for yours, so no worries if it doesn't apply to you hahaha.) 

Homework Assignments
There were 3 homework assignments in total for CN2125. The first one (due on week 5) covers steady/unsteady conduction, the second one (due on week 8) covered condensation and mass diffusivity, the third one (due on week 13) covered steady/unsteady molecular diffusion. Each assignment contained 2 - 3 questions. They were all rather do-able and since they are homework assignments, you can discuss with your friends. So, the homework assignments aren't a hugh problem and is actually a form of bonus marks for us. So, do them well and get those marks. 

Mini-Project Report and Industry Lecture Report
We had to form a group of 3-4 students and write a 2 page mini project report. How the report works is that we have to come up with our own heat transfer problem that occurs in real life (yes, we become Profs for one time and come out with a problem statement) and then solve the problem. It is rather interesting in my opinion. It wasn't that big of a problem writing the report as there were many concepts in this module to choose from. My group decided to work on a critical radius problem. There are also sample reports provided by Prof Wang so you shouldn't worry too much about it. 

As for the industry lecture report, the lecture, which is actually a webcast lecture, is given by a chemical engineer from Shell. His talk is mainly about applications of different types of heat exchangers in the oil refinery and LNG industry. We had to write a 1 page report summarizing what we learnt from the lecture. The funny part about this was that the lecture is webcasted and was recorded in 2015, instead of actually inviting the person himself down to give a talk. This actually means that this webcast video has been used for four batches of chemical engineering undergraduates taking CN2125. But I do gain insights after listening to his talk so I am not in a position to complain here. 

Quizzes
Quiz 1 was based on the first 5 weeks of lecture content and was held on Week 7. All the tests and exams for CN2125 were open book, thankfully. The first quiz wasn't too tough in my opinion; no large/complicated formulas were required and hints were even given for all the questions. If you have revised well, Quiz 1 shouldn't be a big problem.

For Quiz 2, it covered the first 2 weeks of lecture taught by Prof Linga and was held on Week 13. There was only 1 question on steady state diffusion (with heterogeneous reaction) but it can be a little tricky and tedious. Prof Linga likes to tweak his questions slightly differently from the lecture examples so we require a little more thinking in order to understand what the problem statement is asking for (this applies for his portion in the final exam as well).  

Final Exam

Well, the final exam was really different from how the Profs described it. It consists of "5 structured questions" and was 2.5 hours long. The reason for the quotation marks was that there were actually 11 questions that were divided into "5 parts" and the worse part is that the questions in each part were not even related to each other. Thus, there were actually 11 questions to be completed in 2.5 hours, meaning about 13 - 14 minutes per question. I have prepared my own notes on all the chapters which were very helpful to me in my opinion. My notes can be accessed here.

Some questions are rather straight forward wheareas some are rather tricky and require you to read between the lines to understand what they are asking for. This is because sometimes, the question sounds as if they're asking a concept of a certain topic but what you're required to solve is actually a concept from another topic. An example would be question 3 below because that question sounded like a natural convection question but it turns out it was asking about unsteady state conduction. So, be very careful and think for a while before you answer the questions.

Here are the lists of questions for the final exam I took. They may not be in the correct order as I am just remembering them from the top of my head (we can't bring the scripts back). Here we go:
1. Steady state conduction (summation of resistances, total heat transfer rate)
2. Natural convection of air flow over a horizontal cylinder 
3. Usage of Bi modulus and lumped-parameter analysis to calculate h, heat transfer coefficient
4. Forced convection laminar flow through a pipe, log mean temperature difference 
5. Condensation on horizontal pipe + banks of horizontal tubes
6. Liquid mass diffusivity (Stokes-Einstein Theory)
7. Critical radius of plastic insulation around an electrical wire 
8. Double pipe heat exchanger, Log mean temperature difference
9. Steady state diffusion for heterogeneous reactions (Carbon + oxygen to give carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide)
10. Two phase mass transfer (mass transfer coefficient, k, expressed in terms of mole fractions for both the liquid and vapour phase)
11. Radiation energy balance (Fraction functions, Gray surface analogy)

Questions 1-8 were on Prof Wang's portion while questions 9 - 11 were on Prof Linga's portion. I managed to complete the paper jusstttt on time as the last 2 questions were rather tricky (Prof Linga's questions hahaha). Overall, I feel that with sufficient revision and going through the tutorials, the final exam should be conquerable. But time management can be an issue, as compared to CN2116, so do take note of that. 

Expected Grade: A

Final Grade: A+

Final Comments

CN2125 was a rather heavy content module but I felt I did gain quite a lot from this module. Not an easy module to study at first but it gets better once you get used to the style of content. I felt that I did well for this module because I kept reading through the lecture notes and my own notes again and again until I really understand the concepts presented to me. So, do allocate some time for this module every week to revise its concepts. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: CN2116 (AY18/19 Semester 2)

CN2116 Chemical Kinetics and Reactor Design is a 4 MC module that focuses on designing the best reactors for our reaction in concern. This module is not easy to understand as it can be rather unpredictable and there isn't exactly that "standard procedure" for solving questions, like for the other level 2000 core modules in Chemical Engineering. 

Assessment

10% Weekly Homework Assignments (9 homework assignments in total)
15% Quiz 1 (1 hour, Open Book)
15% Quiz 2 (50 mins, Open Book)
60% Finals (2.5 hours, Open Book)

Lecturer: 
First half (Weeks 1 - 7): A/Prof Lee Jim Yang
Second half (Weeks 8 - 13): A/Prof Xie Jianping

Tutor: 
First half (Weeks 2 - 8): A/Prof Lee Jim Yang 
Second half (Weeks 9 - 13): A/Prof Xie Jianping

Textbooks/Readings
1. Chemical Reaction Engineering Third Edition by Octave Levenspiel.
2. Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering Fourth Edition by H. Scott Fogler.
Between these two textbooks, I recommend the first one since the lecturers take the graphs and figures from that textbook. I recommend getting at least the online pdf version of the first textbook as it will supplement some parts of the lecture notes. 

Lectures

There were 2 lectures per week. One lecture is one hour long and the other is 2 hours long. All lectures were webcasted. Well, CN2116 is actually a very conceptual module and to be honest, it isn't like CN2125 where there is a lot of content. There is still quite an amount of content but the emphasis is on knowing our fundamental concepts well. In my opinion, it wasn't easy understanding the lectures. I had to read the lecture notes a few times before I could understand them (just like the other level 2000 modules in Chem Eng, lol). The two Profs teach the module well in my opinion. I felt that attending lectures for this module was pretty crucial as the Profs tend to talk about things/important points that are not covered or not explained well in the lecture notes. 

Prof Lee likes to deviate a lot in his lectures by giving real life examples which is good in my opinion. He always gave his sly smile when talking about setting tricky questions for tests and exams. Prof Xie likes to link what he teaches to the industry too but his style is more content oriented. I would say that overall, Prof Xie's portion is easier to understand than Prof Lee's portion. It's not because Prof Xie teaches better (I think they're equally good), but it's just that naturally the content on the second part of the modules is easier to understand and has at least some form of "pattern" to recognize. Prof Lee covered basic ideal reactors, rate law data, design of reactors for single and multiple reactions and for non-isothermal conditions. Prof Xie covered non-ideal reactors and heterogeneous catalysis. 

Tutorial

Tutorials took place once a week, and they were 1 hour long. There were 2 sets of questions every week, one known as homework questions and another known as discussion questions. The discussion questions will be discussed by the tutors during tutorial while the homework questions are meant to be attempted by ourselves and then we have to submit them at the Chem Eng office the week after. (Meaning the tutors won't go through the homework questions. They'll just upload the homework answers a week later and if we have questions, we have to consult them ourselves.) I would have to tell you that the tutorial questions are NOT EASY hahaha. They can deviate quite a little from what is covered during lecture. Basically, there are new concepts highlighted or new ways to look at the topic through the tutorial questions. There is also no "standard procedure" to approach each question so it gets a little tough. BUT of course, the assignments can be discussed among friends and the Profs do reuse some/most of the questions from the previous year assignments as well. The solutions provided by seniors can be a form of reference when doing the homework questions. (My advice is to take note of the questions you've done as it will help you get used to the style of questioning for this module, especially for tests and exams.)

Now for the tutors themselves. For both tutors, they love to write on the board and they don't use the visualizer (which is cool imo as they will literally draw out the concepts for you). Prof Lee's tutorials, I have to say, are rather mind blowing. He does summarize the lecture topic before going into the discussion questions. BUT he will always bring up concepts we've not heard before. OR like a new perspective to view the question. He provides an in depth explanation as well which is really good in my opinion. He usually uses the full 1 hour for the entire tutorial to cover the questions. He did give quite a number of tips that were pretty useful for the quiz and final exam as well. As I said before, Prof Lee likes to set tricky questions that require some reading in between the lines. So, do attend tutorials to take note of his tips. 

As for Prof Xie's tutorial, he will also summarize the topic first before going into the discussion questions. Prof Xie also highlighted a number of points to take note which are rather important. Prof Xie's portion of questions are a little more predictable, so there is some form of "standard procedure" when solving his questions. BUT he still gives exam tips, which overall makes tutorials for CN2116 really worth going for. 

Quizzes
Quiz 1 consisted of 10 MCQ questions and was 1 hour long. It tested Chapters 1 - 4 for Prof Lee's portion (up till reactor design for single reactions). Prof Lee sets MCQ questions for all his quizzes and final exam, which isn't exactly a good thing. I feel like when it comes to University exams/tests/quizzes, I would prefer them to be structured questions. This is because we can still get some method marks by writing the formulas out. However, one careless mistake can result in a wrong MCQ choice and the entire mark will be deducted. So, I feel MCQ in Uni isn't exactly real fair (especially for someone like me who makes careless mistakes often hahaha). 

Another thing to note for CN2116 exams/quizzes is that when you think you require a lot of algebraic steps to solve the question, you're most probably thinking too much and there is an easier way to tackle the question. Well, this applies at least for the MCQ questions. Prof Lee's MCQ questions focuses more on the conceptual aspect of the module and it requires you to know your fundamentals very well. If you do your homework and discussion questions diligently, the quiz will not be toooo tough (I mean, it's still tough hahaha). Reading between the lines is definitely required for this quiz. A tip from me is that, whenever you're stuck on a question, always start off with the design equation of the reactor that is used in the particular question. That would be a good starting point to solve the question. Another thing is that 1-2 questions may be reall dumbbb - dumb meaning if you read carefully, you'll realise your answer is just 'none of the above' (for MCQ) and no legitimate calculations are required even though a lot of numbers are given to you. 

Quiz 2 covers Chapters 7 - 9 for Prof Xie's portion (up till elements of heterogeneous catalyst). It consists of two structured questions and we were given 50 minutes to complete it. It wasn't an easy paper, mainly because there are many combinations that could possibly be tested for compartment modeling (Chapter 8). Basically, some trial and error will be required in order to obtain an answer. But I definitely prefer Quiz 2 over Quiz 1 because Quiz 2 is structured questions hahaha. It means that we can still get method marks even if we aren't able to fully answer the question. Similar to Quiz 1, do your homework and discussion questions diligently. Know the concepts well. Question every statement written in the problem statement. And you shouldn't do too badly for the paper. 

Final Exam
Finals consisted of 10 MCQ questions for Prof Lee's portion (Chapter 1 - 6) and 3 structured questions for Prof Xie's portion (Chapters 7 - 11). The paper was 2.5 hours long. In my opinion, there is definitely enough time to complete the paper. The only problem is whether you are able to solve the question anot. Similar to Quiz 1, the MCQ questions require some reading in between the lines. The structured questions were rather similar to the 2018 paper so it wasn't really that intense. But just know that for this module, the questions are real tricky and ain't that straight forward. There were some parts that I wasn't sure of whether I answered them correctly because I've not seen that style of questioning before. It shows that the Profs are real good at tweaking questions and require us to think quite a lot. For me, in order to prepare for this final paper, I redid all the tutorials, did up my own notes, and practiced some of the past year papers that were provided by seniors. You can refer to past year papers via Min Han's blog. AND you can refer to my CN2116 notes here. Hahaha my handwriting ain't that good so, please understand. 

Expected Grade: A

Final Grade: A+

Final Comments

I felt that I did really well for this module because I followed all the Profs' advices. They always emphasized that this is a conceptual module, meaning that they're testing the concepts and not the math. With this approach, I studied hard and did good for this module. But still, I would say this is not an easy module. Take note of the tips I've given too and try to look at the problems from different perspectives. :) 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: GEQ1000 (AY18/19 Semester 1)

GEQ1000 Asking Questions is a 4 MC general education module that every NUS student (except for medicine, law, dentistry) have to take. Basically, this module looks into 6 different faculties and we will study how these 6 faculties ask and answer questions. This module is compulsory satisfactory/unsatisfactory, meaning that we'll just get a pass or fail in our grade book and it won't affect my CAP. As a result, it wasn't a stressful module for me haha. 

Assessment

14% Forum Posts
36% Class Participation (Yes, you heard me right)
36% Online Quizzes and Assignments
14% Final Reflection Paper 

(^This will likely change for future semesters.)

Lecturer: 
Various lecturers from the 6 different faculties

Tutor: 
Dr Seah Kar Heng

Textbooks/Readings

Each faculty would have their own readings but it's not a lot. Ain't that bad to read them as they will help in answering the quiz questions. 

Lectures

Lectures are entirely online. They are supposed to be watched from Week 1 to Week 12 but everything was uploaded from the beginning (if I remember correctly). So, you can watch the videos from the beginning. The videos every week will take up about 1 hour+? I watch them at 1.5 speed and do write down notes here and there. This is because the online quizzes will ask stuff about what the lecturers talk about in the lectures. So, what do the lecturers talk about? hahaha. Very philosophical stuff actually, to be honest I don't really gain a lot after listening to all the lectures, the only thing I gain is some content that the particular faculty teaches. The 6 faculties are Philosophy, Science, Computing, Engineering, Economics and Design. Each faculty takes up 2 weeks of lecture videos. 

For philosophy, science, computing, economics and design, there are online quizzes to be completed at the end of the 2 weeks. Each quiz contains 6 - 12 MCQ questions to complete. It's open book so you can just refer to your notes, web lectures, readings, google etc. The toughest one in my opinion is the philosophy one as all the options sound correct hahaha. But is okay if you don't do well for the philosophy quiz because you'll definitely do decently well for the rest of the quizzes.

For engineering and design, we have to complete an assignment. Engineering was more of like choosing which option is best for a certain situation so as to balance energy usage, cost and feasibility. Design is more of designing a wallet for your friend so that his/her needs are met. Pretty easy to complete in my opinion if u just set about 1-2 hours for each assignment. 

As for computing segment, there's an additional component which is to make an origami and it needs to be submitted during the computing tutorial. The origami needs to have at least 20 folds. The purpose of folding an origami is for us to focus on the steps taken because they are similar to an algorithm in computing. For me, I folded a lotus flower and was pretty satisfied about it haha. 

Tutorial

Tutorials were once in 2 weeks, 5 in total. Each tutorial covered one faculty/topic, except for design. Design was a bring home tutorial, which is the wallet design thing explained above. My tutor is a very nice person from the engineering faculty. He broke us into groups of 5 - 6 and wanted us to have a leader in each group for every tutorial. So, the leader will help to speak for the group and get class participation marks. So, you don't have to worry if you aren't able to speak up during tutorial. 36% class participation is not scary for this module, just speak up when you're leading and you'll be fine. Of course, every tutor has his/her own style luh, so it may differ for you. My tutor would have his own presentation slides, telling us what activities to do during the tutorial itself. Overall, I look forward going for the tutorials for this module. 

Final Reflection Paper

The final reflection paper is a scary 14%. But again, do. not. worry. Basically, the lecturers just wanna see what we've learnt at the end of the semester. So, they asked whether we'll prefer to learn the module as one main module or broken into different professions/faculties. So long as u state your stand and argue well, it shouldn't be a problem since it is only 600 words required. 

Final Exam

No final exam for this module haha. 

Expected Grade: CS

Final Grade: CS

Final Comments

This is a not very stressful module hahaha. Put in effort to do your quizzes, assignments and final reflection paper and this module shouldn't be a problem at all.

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: DAO2703/DSC2006 (AY18/19 Semester 1)

DAO2703/DSC2006 Operations and Technology Management is a 4 MC module that deals with fundamental operations and supply chain concepts that will help in understanding level 3000 Ops Management modules. I took this module as an elective but since there is no X in this module, I have to compete with business students as well. So, I'm writing this review from en engineering student's perspective. This module is deceivingly easy and has a pretty steep bell curve.

Assessment

10% Tutorial Participation
15% Course Project (Your entire tutorial group is your group for this project, legit)
5% Tutorial Assignment
5% Group Assignment 
5% Peer Evaluation
60% Finals (2 hours, Closed Book, 1 A4 cheatsheet)

Lecturer: 
First half: A/Prof Mabel Chou Cheng-Feng  
Second half: Dr Qi Mei

Tutor: 
Mr Seah Seow Buay

Textbooks/Readings

Operations Management, by Cachon and Terwisech, McGraw Hill. Not a must to have the textbook in my opinion. The lecture notes are sufficient and any queries I had, I would ask the Profs or my tutor straight away.

Lectures

There is 1 lecture per week, 2 hours long. I took this module alone but I still dragged myself to every lecture every week haha. Lectures are webcasted. Lectures were kindaaa draggy in my opinion. Between the two Profs, Dr Qi Mei's lectures are more worth going for. Prof Mabel sometimes will talk quite a lot on business examples and may deviate away from the main topic. It is good as it helps us to be exposed to certain case studies but it is also not entirely good because it is not totally related to the module content. Dr Qi Mei focuses more on the module content itself. 

Tutorial

Tutorial was once per week and were 1 hour long. For the first 2 tutorials, we were supposed to discuss on the course project with the whole tutorial group. The 15% one. I was surprised at first since it's my first time that the entire tutorial group (about 32 students) is the project group. Obviously we had to break into different groups to write subsections of the report. The project was about a promising technology today that can improve or had already improved on today's operations management. We had to either write a report or present our ideas in a certain other way (obviously report writing is easier). My group did on beacon technology and my subgroup managed the portion on how beacon tech can help in cold chain management.

For the subsequent tutorials, we were broken into groups of 4 or 5. For every tutorial, there will be a set of questions to solve. Then, one group will present the tutorial solutions every week. The powerpoint/Excel presentations prepared every week by the group will also be graded. One's presentation skills will also be graded under 5% of the class participation. Each group only presents once so it isn't a big problem. The problems in this module are mostly the deceivingly easy kind, meaning they look easy when u first read it but there are tricky parts to the questions. 

The other 5% class participation involves 3% attendance and 2% actual answering of questions in class. I attended all tutorials lol but didn't answer any questions so I didn't score that 2%. I guess is mainly because I took the module alone and was pretty awkward with the other tutorial group members throughout the entire semester. So, I didn't really speak up during class. But, if u just speak up, class participation shouldn't be a big problem. But ofc, you have to answer the question correctly too to earn the class participation mark. 

As for the final 5% group assignment, it involves Prof Qi Mei's portion. We were supposed to talk about a business process using the terminologies we learn in class and then, talk about how we can improve on it. For my group, we talked about how we can improve the queue system in gong cha in utown. It was an interesting interpretation of how the queuing was like in uTown. For this again, we can choose to write a report or something else. But the easiest way to express our thoughts is obviously write a report haha. Ain't too tough to complete in my opinion.

As for my tutor, I feel like he is definitely a good tutor. For tutorials, he would usually summarise the lecture content first, followed by letting the presenting group to present. After that, he'll have some Q&A and then present his own solutions to the tutorial. I feel he summarised the lecture content well. He would usually write his notes on the whiteboard and a student would usually take photo and send to the rest of us. His summarised notes are real helpful in learning. Finally, he would usually ask us a few of his own questions at the end of the tutorial. Whoever can answer them first and correctly will get class participation marks. Some of the questions are MCQ while some are Multi response questions while some are open ended. I didn't managed to answer any of the questions correctly hahaha, so I didn't get my 2% marks. I have to admit that out of all the modules I did this semester, I spent the least time on this module. So, the concepts are quite foreign to me sometimes and I did regret a little. 

Final Exam

The final exam was 2 hours long and consist of 60 MCQ questions. Hahaha this module had a very steep bell curve I guess because of how the finals is like. There are MCQ questions where it is split into 2 questions. Meaning the same question but the options are different for 2 questions. This meant that it's either u get 2 questions right or 2 questions wrong. Super tricky haha. There were wordy questions too where like more than 1 option seems like the right answer. This meant that I had to guess in the end. Thus, I felt I didn't do very well for this paper, as compared to my core modules. The cheatsheet I prepared were more of formulas and it failed to help me for the more wordy questions. You can view my cheat sheet here. 

Expected Grade: A

Final Grade: B+

Final Comments

In my opinion, I didn't spend a lot of time for this module as I thought it would be an easy module. I regretted it in the end. I feel that if you can put in sufficient time to learn the concepts in this module, read the readings given to you, then this module shouldn't be a problem for you. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: ES1531 (AY18/19 Semester 1)

ES1531 Critical thinking and writing is a 4 MC module that is compulsory for all engineering undergraduates. It is meant to teach us writing (reports and reflections) as well as presentation skills. It also covers engineering leadership skills which the industry feels that many engineers lack today. 

Assessment

Assignment 1 (Individual, 20%)
Assignment 2 (Group, 35%)
Assignment 3 (Individual in class assignment, 30%)
Assignment 4 (Individual, 15%)

(Do take note that the assessment is based on the semester I took this module and it may change for yours)

Tutor: 
Ms Norsalawati Bte Salamat

Textbooks/Readings
No textbooks for this module. There are readings that will be provided that can be seen below. However, for me, the most important one is the core reading, followed by [2] for supplementary readings. The readings were meant to teach us core leadership skills that are used in the engineering sector such as collaborative optimization, organizational innovation etc. 

Core Reading
Rottmann, C.,Sacks, R., & Reeve, D. (2014). Engineering leadership: grounding leadership theory in engineers’ professional identities. Leadership, 11(3), 351–373. [Of particular importance is the 3-orientations model of engineering leadership on p.359]

Supplementary Readings
[1] Colcleugh, D. (2013). Everyone a leader: a guide to leading high-performance organizations for engineers and scientists. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press. [Read the first two chapters and pursue other chapters following your needs and interests]
[2] Freedman, J. (2010, January 27). The six seconds EQ model. Retrieved from https://www.6seconds.org/2010/01/27/the-six-seconds-eq-model/. [Focus reading on the section Eight Competencies of Emotional Intelligence]
[3] Goldberg, D. E. (2010). The missing basics and other philosophical reflections for the transformation of engineering education. In D. Grasso, & M. B. Burkins (eds.), Holistic engineering education (pp.145-158). NY: Springer.
[4] Ruben, B. D., & Gigliotti, R. A. (2016). Leadership as social influence: An expanded view of leadership communication theory and practice. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 23(4), 467-479. [Focus reading on the sections on agenda setting, management of meaning, sense-making and sense-giving for a deeper understanding of influence dynamics]
[5] Schell, W. J., & Kauffmann, P. J. (2016). Understanding engineering leadership: a critical review of the literature. Proceedings of the International Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management; Huntsville: 1-11.
[6] Sucher, S., & Preble, M. (2017). Case study: follow dubious orders or speak up? An intern contemplates whether she should compromise her values for a job. Harvard Business Review, 95(4), 139-143.

Lectures

There are no lectures for this module.

Tutorial

There is weekly tutorial sessions which are 2 hours long. The tutorials are usually spent on preparing us for our assignments and teaching us certain skills required for the assignments. I will break down the 4 assignments below. However, to be very honest, I felt that I didn't really learn a lot from this module. I initially thought that the module will teach us writing skills for reports and papers, but instead it focused more on leadership skills. It is not a bad thing as I did have a different perspective of engineering leaders after this module. The tutor does give us good advice in our writing and how we can improve on it too. But most of the writing skills I used were still the ones I learnt in Junior College (JC).  

Assignment 1
Assignment 1 is a 800 word reflection on a certain leadership case that has happened to you. It can be good or bad and we are supposed to come out with an assessment question to see how we can improve or learn from this case. After that, in the reflection, we had to answer the assessment question we gave ourselves. We are supposed to use the terminologies in the readings to help us analyse our case. To me, this assignment is similar to the application question in General Paper (GP) in JC. So, I answered the assignment in a very similar manner and surprisingly, did decently well for this.  

Assignment 2
Assignment 2 is a 1800 to 2000 words report. We were grouped into teams of 3. We were given the UN sustainable goals and we had to choose a goal and a country. We had to explain the problem in the country and come up with solutions for it. The explanation has to be scientifically or engineering related and not something like lack of government intervention. We had to do an initial draft first and our tutor will give us advice about it. In my opinion, my tutor gave pretty good advice, in the sense that I knew where our problems in the writing were after consulting her. We then rewrote our report and submitted it at week 13. I did average for this assignment in the end. 

Assignment 3
Assignment 3 was kind of like a "finals paper"? It was an in class assignment, open book and 1.5 hours long. The format of this assignment is the same as assignment 1. However, this time, the case is given in the question paper and we were supposed to come out with an assessment question related to the case study and answer that question. An example of an assessment question could be like "For a leader to display intellectual courage, how does a leader compromise on intellectual humility?" Then, the rest of the essay will be used to answer this question that u come up with. Thus, I felt like it is similar to the application question for GP. Since there was a time limit for this assignment, I felt I didn't write my best for this paper and did average for this assignment. 

Assignment 4
Assignment 4 is basically class participation in tutorials. For some tutorials, we were grouped into the same group of 3 people and were required to present some of our ideas and reflections in class. The presentations are often impromptu, so just go up in front of the class to speak and class participation shouldn't be a big problem.

However, for the last tutorial, we were supposed to create a poster for our report in assignment 2 and present it. Basically, we were supposed to present our solutions for the problem mentioned. Thereafter, the tutor will ask us questions and we will answer them. Ain't a big worry in my opinion.

Expected Grade: B

Final Grade: A-

Final Comments

I was surprised that I can actually get A- for this module. I felt that my writing skills are still not very good after this module and I felt that I didn't gain a lot after this module. Maybe it is because I came in with expectations of learning critical writing skills and the fact that my expectations were not met, that's why I feel this way. I guess it was my assignment 1 that managed to pull my grade up to A-. I felt that maybe instead of just focusing on engineering leadership skills (which is good, because it provided me with a new perspective about leadership in engineering), a segment can be spent on writing skills as well. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan