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

Module Review: CN2122 (AY18/19 Semester 1)

CN2122 Fluid Mechanics is a 5 MC module that deals with fluid motion and calculation of mass, forces and energy changes around the system. The concepts in this module are really not easy to understand at first as they are very new. Constant revision is required in order to better understand the formulas used in fluid motion. The module is taught by three different Profs for the first time and it is the first time that it is increased from 4 MCs to 5 MCs. So, there is a lot that I want to share in this review. 

Assessment

20% Test 1 (1 hour, Open Book)
20% Test 2 (100 minutes, Closed book, 1 A4 Cheatsheet)
10% Assignment 
50% Finals (2 hours, Closed book, 2 page A4 Cheatsheet)

Lecturer: 
Week 1 to Week 4: A/Prof Ti Hwei Chen
Week 5 to Week 6: A/Prof Eldin Lim Wee Chuan
Week 7 to Week 9: A/Prof Ti Hwei Chen
Week 10 to 13: A/Prof Chen Po-Yen

Tutor: 
Week 2 to Week 5: A/Prof Ti Hwei Chen
Week 6 to Week 7: A/Prof Eldin Lim Wee Chuan
Week 8 to Week 10: A/Prof Ti Hwei Chen
Week 11 to Week 13: A/Prof Chen Po-Yen 

Textbooks/Readings
Fox and Macdonald's Introduction to Fluid Mechanics for Prof Ti's and Prof Chen's portion. Martin Rhode's Introduction to Particle Technology (2nd Edition) for Prof Eldin's portions. The profs will cut out examples or diagrams from the textbooks to input into their lecture notes. I don't feel that there is a need to get the textbooks (except for Prof Eldin's portion) as the lecture notes are quite detailed (although hard to understand haha). Past year tutorials and papers are also provided by seniors, so extra practices via the textbook is not a must.  

Lectures

There were 2 lectures per week. Each lecture were 2 hours long. Basically, this module has a lot (and I mean a lot of content). Again, I prefer to attend the lectures, rather than watch webcasts. Most of the lecture time is actually spent on deriving certain formulas for us to better understand how these formulas come about. Examples were provided too for us to see the application of the formulas. The derivation is not required to be known for this module (as well as in 2121) but it is good to understand the basics around the formula (like why the terms are written this way). There is a lot of integrals in this module, so be prepared. 

Prof Ti would most probably not be teaching this module anymore as he is retiring but I will still write my review about his lectures. Prof Ti has been teaching his portion of CN2122 for a pretttyyy long period of time already and he doesn't really change his notes over the years. He covered pressure in static fluids, continuity equation, energy equation, momentum and moment of momentum equation as well as major and minor losses across systems. It is not easy to understand him at first as he has his own ways of looking at certain systems and the terms used (e.g. control volume, control surface etc) are very new to me too. I had to read through his lecture notes multiple times before I could understand certain concepts. Luckily, after a while, I did get used to his way of explaining the concepts and it wasn't that bad listening to his lectures anymore. Prof Ti likes to also say things like "You should have learnt this in secondary school or in JC" which does lower our self esteem to be honest because we really have not seen some of these formulas before. 

Prof Eldin only taught us for 2 weeks. His portion is the shortest and he covered mainly on packed bed reactors, particle flow in fluids as well as fluidization. His portion was orignally a module by itself called CN3124 Particle Technology but the module is now removed. And only a portion of that module is being taught in CN2122. Prof Eldin's lecture is easier to understand than Prof Ti's. Prof Eldin spends a lot of time trying to slowly break down the concepts for us and sometimes will also draw additional diagrams on the visualizer to help us understand. He will usually tell us to listen to him first and then read his lecture notes after the lecture. In my opinion, he explains the concepts really well but he does sound rather monotonous. So, try to stay focused haha. His lecture notes are pretty good. His textbook portion can be downloaded for free via NUS libraries. He will teach us how to download the textbook on the first lecture. The tutorial questions he wants us to practice are all in the textbook so it is good to download this textbook. The tutorial questions in the textbook have final answers printed as well, so it is good to practice these questions too. 

As for Prof Chen, I feel that he is the best lecturer out of all the 3 lecturers for this module. He explains the concepts best and even brings the different setups to lecture itself. Like he brought a legit centrifugal pump to lecture so that we can understand how the fluid motion works inside the pump. His concepts taught are not easy to understand either but he explains it very carefully and slowly so that it is much easier to comprehend. He covered laminar velocity profile, boundary layer, turbulent layer and pumps and turbines. His lecture notes are detailed enough and in my opinion, there isn't a need to read the textbook. He does also write additional notes and diagrams on the visualizer for us. 

Tutorial

Okay, time for tutorials. Tutorials were once a week and 1 hour long. Prof Ti's tutorials are kind of a dread to go because he requires us to present solutions for certain questions in the tutorial. He would just call us randomly up to explain. Then, if we don't have any questions, then he would just move on to the next question without explaining anything sometimes. Eventually, the number of people attending his tutorials reduced by quite a lot. Towards the end, he even cancelled the tutorials and decided to explain the tutorial during the lecture itself. During the lectures, he actually explained the tutorial problems pretty well and highlighted the concepts required for each question. I actually wished that he'll do the same during the tutorial. I feel that we cannot present our solutions very well during tutorials because these concepts are still relatively foreign to us at that point of time. 

Prof Eldin's tutorials are a must go. He loves to reveal exam tips and certain concepts that he wants to test during finals. Prof Eldin would usually give a brief summary of his lecture content first before going through the tutorial questions. He has his own powerpoint slides with solutions in it. Similar to lectures, he would tell us to listen to his explanation first and told us to read the solutions after tutorial. I felt that this wasn't a bad idea as he breaks down the content pretty well through his explanations. There were only two tutorial sessions with him but the content covered is not that little. Do look through the past year CN3124 questions as well as it will help a lot. 

For Prof Chen, he uploads the tutorial questions and the solutions together. It is really good in my opinion as the solutions can answer some of the doubts that I have with certain concepts. Similar to Prof Eldin, Prof Chen would summarise the content in lectures first before explaining the tutorial problems. He likes to go step by step when explaning the problems, which I like a lot. He would explain even simple terms which serves as a reminder in my opinion. I would greatly advise to go for his tutorials too as he would also give tips on answering certain questions. 

(My review is based on the lecturers and tutors teaching CN2122 in my semester. If another lecturer is teaching CN2122 for your semester, then the experience might be different. The content should still be similar which means you might still face the problem of having to read the lecture notes multiple times before being able to understand the concepts haha.) 

Tests
There were 2 tests in total, each of 20%. The first test was Prof Ti's portion in week 8, from the beginning of his lectures till energy equations. The paper consisted of 5 MCQ questions, 1 hour long and it is open book. Prof Ti's way of testing is very interesting but since he's retiring already, I don't think you'll be able to experience it hahaha. Basically, each of us will get different page numbers. Then for each page number, the values given for the question is different. So, our MCQ answers will all be different. (Means technically we can't compare answers after the paper) I did the past year papers which helped me a lot, so I did decently well for this test. HOWEVER, there's this little problem for the first test. Basically, Prof Ti didn't exactly had enough time to finish going through the tutorial questions up till energy equations because 2 weeks of lectures and tutorials were taken up by Prof Eldin. In the end, Prof Ti had to cancel tutorials and did the explanations during lecture (thankfully before the test). I felt that Prof Ti's portion should be taught finished first before Prof Eldin comes in with his lecures, so there may be a little of a scheduling problem here. 

The second test was for Prof Chen's portion in week 12, from Chapter 1 to 3 (laminar velocity profile, bondary layer, velocity potential and stream function). This test is 100 minutes long (be thankful that it is 100 minutes long). Only a 2 page cheatsheet was allowed to be brought in for the test. Prof's Chen's way of testing is pretty interesting. The test included T/F questions, definitions of terms and 2 structured questions. Since Prof told us that there were definitions tested, I wrote them inside my cheatsheet. The test was thankfully not as bad as I thought because I really made full use of the 100 minutes to complete the paper. I did rigorous practice of past year tutorials as well so that I have a better grasp of the concepts tested. Overall, I didn't do too bad for this test.

Assignment
As for the assignment, this is for Prof Eldin's portion. It is 10%. Basically there is a case study of an engineer solving a certain problem and we are supposed to critique the way the engineer solved the problem. After that, we would recommend our own solutions. Since discussion with friends is allowed, I discussed with others for the assignment and it wasn't a very big problem. However, there were some concepts required that were only briefly touched on during lecture. (This applies for finals too, so do read every part of the lecture notes carefully. 

Final Exam

WOAHHH, final exam hahaha. Only 2 hours; and there are literally 3 booklets for the paper. Like one Prof's content to one booklet. Thankfully, there were key formulas printed at the back of each booklet (such as Navier Stokes Equation etc). However, even with so muchhh content, we were only allowed to bring in an A4 2 page cheatsheet to the exam hall. I wrote everything as small as I could and managed to squeeze all that I needed inside the cheatsheet. You can view my cheatsheet here. I practiced the past year papers, practice problems given by the Profs as well as redid tutorials in order to prepare for this paper. I would say that 2 hours is obviously not enough and there is really no way to finish the paper hahaha. But I'm glad that I did sufficient preparation for the paper.

There were 5 questions in total. For Prof Ti's portion, there were 2 questions and was 30% of the finals. There were certain phrasing of the questions that I was unsure of. But Prof Ti has clearly mentioned that we had to write the control volume chosen clearly as well as state our assumptions clearly. That was exactly what I did, so yayy.

For Prof Chen's portion, there were also 2 questions and was 30% of the finals. Prof Chen's portion was the easiest out of the 3 in my opinion. I think it's because of sufficient practice that I did, since I knew how to approach the questions asked. Thus, this portion wasn't a big problem. 

Prof Eldin's portion was the toughest. There was only 1 question but it is 40% of the entire finals. The question format is similar to the assignment but the problem is now different (obviously). There was one or two questions that I haven't exactly seen before so I wasn't sure how to approach the questions. I did this portion the last so I was rushing through it. (I did Prof Chen's one first, then Prof Ti's, then Prof Eldin's) I didn't manage to finish this portion since there wasn't enough time and I was also unsure of how to tackle the problem. 

At this point of writing, only Prof Ti has provided feedback for the paper. His feedback was mainly about us not stating our assumptions clearly and not approaching the questions the right way (meaning we're conceptually wrong).

Expected Grade: A

Final Grade: A+

Final Comments

THIS MODULE IS NOT EASY. I spent a lot, and I mean a lottt of time, reading the lecture notes, online forums etc, to understand the concepts taught. I practiced tutorial questions over and over again so that I can be more confident in tackling the problems. Be prepared to invest quite a bit of time in this module. Start revising this module early (as compared to CN2121) and I can assure you that you won't regret it. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: CN2121 (AY18/19 Semester 1)

CN2121 Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics is a 4 MC module that deals with enthalpy, entropy, gibbs free energy calculations, phase equilibria and chemical reaction equilibria. The concepts in this module are pretty abstract in my opinion as it deals with concepts like fugacity and chemical potential. Just know that one can never fully understand thermodynamics. However, for me, with sufficient practice and revision, I am able to better understand and comprehend the concepts (same with CN2122). 

Assessment

20% Test 1 (Open Book)
20% Test 2 (Open Book)
60% Finals (2.5 hours, Open Book)

Lecturer: 
First half: A/Prof Yan Ning 
Second half: A/Prof Kyle Phua Kok Loong

Tutor: 
First half: A/Prof Yan Ning 
Second half: A/Prof Kyle Phua Kok Loong

Textbooks/Readings
McGraw Hill's Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics 7th/8th edition - J.M. Smith, H. C. Van Ness, M. M. Abbott. It isn't a must to have the text book in my opinion as the lecture notes are pretty sufficient. The textbook is only recommended for additional question practices as the profs will upload the solutions to the textbook questions in IVLE. (Not a must to be honest as seniors have given us past year tutorials with detailed solutions and these are much more useful)

Lectures

There were 2 lectures per week. One lecture is one hour long and the other is 2 hours long. There is webcast provided for this module but let me give some advice (which applies for the other modules that I'm gonna review for this semester, so I won't repeat again for those modules). It is wayyyy better to attend the lectures physically than to watch webcasts in my opinion. Plus, you can ask the lecturer questions immediately when you have any doubts. For me, I usually get distracted easily when watching webcasts, so I prefer to go to lectures. 

Okay, back to the lecture itself. I have to say Prof Yan Ning is really good in explaining the concepts to us, especially since these concepts are new to us. He can get a littleee boring after a while but if you try to stay focused throughout, then attending his lectures ain't a big issue. Prof Kyle tends to stutter a little sometimes and sometimes sounds unsure of the content that he is teaching. I am not saying that he is not a good Prof because the concepts he is teaching is real abstract and is not easy to explain, as compared to Prof Yan Ning's content. For Prof Kyle's portion, I had to read the lecture notes a few times before I could fully understand (not exactly fully, one can never fully understand thermodynamics) all the concepts. 

Tutorial

Tutorials took place once a week, and they were 1 hour long. The tutors would usually have their own lecture slides with the solutions and they would go through the tutorial questions with us. One tutorial usually consists of about 3 - 5 questions, so it ain't that bad (as compared to CN2122). The Profs would usually summarise the content taught in lecture too before starting the tutorial questions, which is good. Since there is no tutorial participation for this module, attendance for tutorial is pathetic. There's usually like 8 - 9 students for each tutorial when the class size is 25? BUT LISTEN TO ME. ATTEND THE TUTORIALS. Because the profs would give exam tips and tell us what would be tested and what would not be tested. In my opinion, both profs teach well during tutorial. For both CN2121 and CN2122, the tutorial solutions usually have minor mistakes here and there (like careless math mistakes made by Profs haha) but yeah, ain't a big issue so long as I can understand the concepts behind it. After all, our Profs are human too and they do make mistakes occasionally. But for CN2121, the tutorial solutions are quite detailed, just that sometimes they skip the math. 

Tests
Test 1 is based on all the content taught by Prof Yan Ning and Test 2 is based on first half of the content taught by Prof Kyle Phua. Both tests are open book (which isn't exactly a good thing haha).

Test 1 was really tough in my opinion. It consisted of 5 MCQ questions and 1 structured question. Prof Yan Ning tested very conceptual questions, rather than application questions. Which is bad hahaha. It is not easy to find the answers in the lecture notes too so it'll be good to read through the definitions of certain concepts like enthalpy and entropy during revision. 

Test 2 was much better. Prof Kyle tested more application questions where we made used of the formulas we learnt in lectures and tutorials to calculate fugacity, enthalpy change etc. Although it is open book, I advise to write all the formulas needed on a piece or few pieces of paper so that you do not need to flip through the lecture notes during the test. 

Final Exam

Phew, final exam. 5 structured questions in 2.5 hours. Doesn't sound so bad at first because it means 1 question for 30 minutes. But it's bad when you don't really know how to start answering the question hahaha. Yet again, Prof Yan Ning's questions are tougher than Prof Kyle's questions. (The first 2 questions are Prof Yan Ning's, and the last 3 are Prof Kyle's) I am not sure whether the same Profs would be teaching this module for future semesters but I advise doing the easier questions first (which are the last 3 in this case). Plotting of graphs were needed during the exam; the graph paper is already printed inside the exam paper. 

Overall, the questions require some thinking first because I was unsure what concepts to apply at first. Like the question won't ask "find the fugacity/enthalpy etc". It would be something like "Explain what is wrong with this system or whether this system is feasible" sooooooo I was unsure whether I approached the questions correctly. But at least I did finish the paper in time. 

You can view my notes here. My notes for CN2121 were a little messy back then, pardon me for that. 

Expected Grade: A

Final Grade: A

Final Comments

An abstract module. Totally fine if you still don't really understand the concepts in this module at the end of the module. Thermodynamics is a continuous learning process. Prof Yan Ning told us that he has ex-students telling him that they don't really understand the module although they got A for the module. Sooooo yeap, that's how weird thermodynamics is hahaha. 

I guess I managed to get my A because I did constant practice of past year and current tutorials. So I got used to using the formulas and applying it to different cases given.

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: GEH1005 (AY17/18 Semester 2)

GEH1005 Crime Fiction in English and Chinese is a 4 MC Human Culture Module taught by the Chinese Literature Department. Do not worry, the entire module will be taught in English and the Chinese lecturers will be speaking English throughout the entire module. The Chinese stories were also translated to English so there is nothing to worry about. You might think that it's very strange for an Engineering student like me to take such a module (since it's a literature mod if you think about it) but I definitely did not regret taking this module at all. 

Assessment

20% Class Participation
20% Group Project
30% Final Written Paper
30% Final Exam (2 hours, open book)

Lecturer: A/Prof Zhao Zhenxing

Tutor: A/Prof Zhao Zhenxing

Textbooks/Readings
No textbooks for this module. There will be readings given every week. The fun part about this module is that the readings are actual detective stories like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot etc etc. There is 1-2 readings which is not given in IVLE and he recommended us to buy the book to read. If I remembered correctly, the 2 readings were Murder on the Orient Express and the CSI one (Take note the readings may change for your semester). I am totally fine with buying these books because I love reading mystery books. Well, there are online versions of these books too so I will not say its compulsory to purchase them. 

Lectures

Lectures were 2 hours long on Thursday, 4 - 6 pm. The lecturer will usually talk about the author/genre for the week with a set of powerpoint slides. Sometimes, we will watch clips of certain shows related to crime/detective fiction. So, this is one lecture that I really don't mind attending. We even watched movies like Psycho and Infernal Affairs (the cantonese one). However, since the lecturer does upload all powerpoint slides onto IVLE and he often just reads from the slides during lecture, it is not 100% required to attend the lectures (even though there isn't any webcast for this module). 

Tutorial

Tutorials took place once every 2 weeks and they were 2 hours long. For each tutorial, we we would usually discuss 1-2 readings. This meant that there were some stories that were not discussed at all during tutorial. So, like a typical literature lesson (which I have not experienced since Sec 2), we had to analyse the characters and their personalities/intentions. Since there is a whopping 20% class participation, it would be good to just contribute anything you can think of. This is because the tutor is really nice and doesn't criticise anything you say. Even if you say something simple like 'the antagonist is really evil', the tutor would just be like 'yes, yes, good that you pointed that out'. So... the class participation portion ain't really a big issue. We do get broken into groups sometimes as well (not the same group as the group project) to discuss. 

Group Project
As for the group project, we were supposed to film a video about a crime and how the crime was solved. And yes, we have to act. We could create a story from scratch or adapt one of the readings we have. But, the video could only be 5 - 10 minutes long. For my group, we adapted concepts from a few readings and combined them together to create a new story. The acting was really cringy at first but for that 20%, I guessed we decided to get serious and complete it well. We filmed at one of my group mate's hall room and it was really enjoyable for all of us. (Just take note that this group project segment may change for future semesters because in the previous semester, the previous batch was required to write a detective story instead of acting it out.) 

Final Written Paper

We were required to write an individual literary analysis that compares at least one western detective story with at least one Chinese detective story. Well, it is kinda my first time writing such a paper but it wasn't too bad because the lecturer gave sample analysis for us to reference. I guess I started early too so I was able to complete it on time. 

Final Exam

As for the final exam, we were given 2 hours to write 2 essays (aka 2 literary analysis). Surprisingly, I was able to complete on time. Well, this is the important part. It is open book. Which means... you can bring in the notes that you have typed out. So, I would highly recommend typing out your own summary/character analysis of the readings as it would make the paper way way easier. Plus, the lecturer also gave us access to past year papers so we could kinda predict the type of questions that would come out for the finals as well. 

Expected Grade: B

Final Grade: A

Final Comments

To me, I felt I did really well for the preparation notes for my finals and and spent quite a bit of time on the final written paper as well. All this, I guess, helped me to get the most surprising A this semester. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

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

Module Review: CM1502 (AY17/18 Semester 2)

CM1502 General and Physical Chemistry for Engineers is a 4 MC module that focuses on molecular spectroscopy, kinetics, equilibria and linking these concepts to various industries. I would say I had the most ups and downs when taking this module, as compared to the other mods in this semester. (Get ready for a rant, I have a number of complaints for this module. But, I'm just gonna say that these are my opinions and it may or may not represent the opinions of everyone else who took this module.)

Assessment

20% Quizzes (3 in total)
10% Lecture Quiz Questions (participation marks) 
20% Lab Work
50% Final Exams (on Examplify, open book)

Lecturer: A/Prof CHIN Wee Shong

Tutor: Zhu Ziyu

Lab: Various Lab technicians

Textbook
Chemistry - the Molecular Nature of Matter and Change, 7th Edn., Silberberg and Amateis, McGraw-Hill Education, 2015.

Definitely not a must to get this textbook. A lot of such content can be found online in other websites.

Lectures

Lectures were 2 hours long on Monday, 3 - 5 pm, but we always end pretty early like around 4/4.15 pm. The thing about this module is that there would be online lecture webcasts to watch first (about 1-2 hours per week) before attending the lecture. (just like MA1512 and MA1513) The online lecture basically explains most of the content we need to know and going to physical lectures are like a chore. We needed to attend the physical lectures as there were questions to answer (via SMS) during the lecture. If not, I seriously doubt any of us would attend the lecture. Furthermore, the lecture notes are very brief, like some form of revision notes, and it wasn't easy understanding the concepts unless we read up more online. This is the main problem of the module imo. (Like most of the content I learnt and understood was from Wikipedia. Ya you heard me right. Wikipedia.) The lecturer also didn't really explain the concepts well. Everything was very brief and along with reading Wikipedia, I had to watch online videos with regards to the content I wasn't sure of. It was really annoying especially for the very new concepts like IR spectra, H-NMR spectra etc. 

Tutorial

There are only 4 tutorials for this module and each tutorial were 1 hour long. We have tutorial questions to attempt before attending the tutorial. Well, my tutor for my tutorial timeslot was a graduate student (I may be wrong here but she definitely isn't a prof. And you might not get the same tutor as me so our experiences may differ a little here and there). Well, her voice was kinda soft and she wasn't totally sure of some of the concepts as well. But the good thing is that she would help us check on the questions we asked and she would email us after the tutorial with explanations to the questions we asked. 

Another problem with this module is that there were no solutions posted for the tutorial questions. I mean the intention might be for us to listen well during tutorials but sometimes, there might not be enough time to explain every single question in depth and it would be very very helpful to have at least a brief solutions to the tutorial questions. 

Laboratory Work
There were a total of 3 three hour long lab sessions. One focused on titration, one on IR spectroscopy and one on absorbance. For the first two sessions, we were only required to fill up a lab worksheet while for the last one, we were required to write a full lab report which includes an intro, procedure, results, discussion etc etc. Each lab session took place in different laboratories in Faculty of Science. We were then graded based on the worksheets and report submitted.

We were a little lost when we first started each lab but I would say that the lab technicians/professors were really helpful (the sad thing is that I can't remember any of their names). When we had any issues, we could easily approach them and they would spend time to explain where we went wrong and how we can improve on our experiments. 

Quizzes
As for the quizzes and final exams, we were to attempt all of such tests on the online platform known as examplify. Well, the future is here. We are doing our exams on our laptops now. Here comes the problem. We had 3 quizzes in total. 2 to be attempted "at home" and 1 to be attempted during one of the lectures. The ones to be attempted at home can obviously be discussed so i have no issues with that. Now, comes the one we had to do during lecture. Well, we had the quiz in an LT and guess what happened? Obviously, people cheated during the quiz and used their phones to chat when profs were not looking. There was even one student who submitted the quiz after he went back to hall (lol this one really dem fail cos our prof can detect which part of school we are at when submitting the file). As such, we had to do a re-test again (which means more time spent on revision). What I felt was kinda dumb was that we were using laptops and we were in an LT. This clearly meant that those sitting on top can see the answers of those who are sitting below them! 

Ok, now back to content, all the 3 quizzes are MCQ or MRQ (multiple response, where we had to choose a few options out of the many given, as compared to just choosing 1 correct answer for MCQ). They were all rather manageable fortunately so long as revision was done.

The good thing about the quizzes and final exam was that it was all open book. So, we could refer to our notes and do the paper. 

Final Exam

Thankfully, for the final exam, we were separated into 3 different LTs and we could sit with a gap in between us. Each of us had a plug to charge our laptops. The final exam not only had MCQ and MRQ questions. It also had 2 essay questions and 4 structured questions. Well, the structured questions only required the answers and no working was needed. This was kinda sad in my opinion because our working could be perfect but if we typed a number wrongly in our calculator or we did last step wrongly, then we would lose all the marks for that question. 

Timewise, we were given 2 hours for the paper which was in my opinion, sufficient to complete the paper. 

Expected Grade: A

Final Grade: A+

Final Comments

To be really really honest, I was very thankful that I could do so well for this module. I guessed I consistently went online to search about anything that I wasn't sure of and this has helped in strengthening my concepts and knowledge about physical chemistry (irony, isn't it). 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: GER 1000 Quantitative Reasoning (AY17/18 Semester 2)

GER1000 Quantitative Reasoning is a 4 MC GEM module that is compulsory for all undergraduates (with the exception of students in medicine and law). You would have heard of a number of seniors complaining about this module and the amount of effort required for this module but I would assure you it would not be as bad as it sounds. (Btw, this is coming from a viewpoint of an engineering undergraduate.)

Assessment

10% Class Attendance and Participation
10% Online IVLE Quiz
20% Mid Terms (Closed Book, 14 MCQ Questions)
27% Group Project (Report + Poster)
33% Final Exam (Closed Book, 28 MCQ Questions)

Lecturer: Various Professors from different faculties

Tutor: A/Prof Tan Weiyu, Colin

Lectures

Lectures were entirely online and can be accessed via IVLE. There were a total of 6 chapters for this module, mainly Design, Association, Measurement, Sampling, Uncertainty and Networks. The module basically focuses on questioning the data we see everyday (on the newspaper, online etc) and whether we should believe the things we read and see. (Despite the name of the module, the lecturers kept emphasizing that this is more of a qualitative module but after taking this module, I still felt like the name of the module makes sense.) There were a couple of content that was already covered in H2 maths (like probability) and it served more of a revision for me. 

As for the online lectures itself, because the lecture notes already provided the lecturer's transcript, there isn't a need to watch the online videos. Reading the transcript along with the PowerPoint slides is actually sufficient. 

Online IVLE Quiz
There is one IVLE quiz every week from Week 1 - 10. There are about 5-6 MCQ questions per quiz. We were given multiple attempts for the quiz and obviously, we would also be able to discuss the questions with our friends. So, the quizzes were giveaways.

Tutorial

Tutorial took place once every two weeks and there were a total of 6 sessions. I guess it was a blessing in disguise as I had my tutorial in Arts. Our tutor is a Math Professor and he likes to babble about math and side track a little. But other than that, he actually gives pretty good explanations about the topic and provides a rather good okay environment to simulate thinking and problem solving. Since we had a group project to settle, we would sit in our own groups during tutorial and the discussions would be done within the same groups itself. 

Group Project
For the group project, we are required to critique a news article that was written about a scientific study. Take note here: we are criticizing the news article and not the scientific study. Although the study had issues, our focus was only on the news article. We were then required to write a 2 page summary and do up a poster to talk about the bad points of the news article and to suggest a few points of improvement. 

This is where I was very thankful that I took my tutorial in Arts because my group members were able to write very well and design really good posters. I provided the content and they refurbished it and made it sound so classy and formal. (I guess I would never be able to do that) I felt that the main reason why I did well for this module was because of the group project. 

On Week 13, we were supposed to present the poster to our tutor. But my tutor had a different way of grading us. What we did was put up our posters during tutorial and we go around pointing out flaws on the posters of other groups. The tutor will listen to how we counter the flaws which were pointed out by the other groups. 

Mid Terms
Mid Terms took place on a Saturday afternoon on Week 8. It was a one hour paper which consisted of 14 MCQ questions. I would say a lot of the questions were really tricky (just like the final paper) and I had to read really closely before being able to pick out an answer. I scored the median score for mid terms and was mentally prepared to S/U this module. However, I guessed I didn't need to in the end because of the group project. 

Final Exam

The final exam was 2 hours long and consisted of 28 MCQ questions. Like the mid terms, the questions were really tricky. Since I'm the indecisive type, I kept changing my answers during the paper. But the paper was still doable and 2 hours was totally sufficient to complete the paper. 

Expected Grade: B

Final Grade: A+

Final Comments
I was really surprised that I could do so well for this module. I came in with the expectation to S/U it but did really well in the end. My advice is to focus and do well for the group project. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan