livingbutamireally

[livingbutamireally]

AY2022/2023 Y4S1 Module Reviews

I have been putting this off for awhile and have been writing this over the span of a few weeks truthfully maybe even a month. I have no idea what is it in this semester but i get tired just from doing absolutely nothing. We already knew but the transition from work back to school wasnt easy at least for me couldnt remember some of the coding stuff i used to have at my fingertips. But i guess there was enough mods for me to practice them over so it didnt take too long for me to get back on my feet. Feels so surreal that its finally my last modreg season actually....

Without further ado the

Overview

LAJ2201 Japanese 2

GEH1016 Understanding Consumption

BT4103 Business Analytics Capstone Project

BT4212 Search Engine Optimization and Analytics

BT4222 Mining Web Data for Business Insights

LAJ2201 Japanese 2

Lecturer

Kitai S., Amazaki O.

Textbooks

Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 1 Main textbook Second Edition (SGD42.00)   

Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 1 Translation & Grammatical Notes in English Second Edition (SGD33.00)

Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 1 Hyoojun Mondaishuu Second Edition (SGD18.00)

Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 1 Kanji Eigoban Kanji (English Edition) Second Edition (SGD32.00)

Prices are how the school vendor charges, if you can source cheaper ones outside feel free to get those instead! You will need Hyoujun Mondaishuu in physical copy so please get that at the very least.

Weightage

Term Test 1 Performance i dont know if im allowed to share this info tbh here goes nothign

                                                             Ave        highest     full mark

Kanji & Vocabulary                       8.3         10             10

Grammar 1 Particles                    5.9         8                8

Grammar 2 True or False             4.4         6                6

Grammar 3 Finding errors           2.5          6                6

Reading                                       7.6         10              10

Listening                                      7.5         11             12

Term Test 2 Components *performance not revealed

Kanji + Katakana Grammar 1 (particle) Grammar 2 (true/false) Grammar 3 (conjugation) *new Grammar 4 (finding error) Reading Listening

Review

honestly LAJ has been very exciting for me personally if not one of the most fun moments ive had in nus. sure 1 sem is barely enough for you to ground yourself in the fundamentals of a language and of course interest far supersedes any kind of effort u put in because it is not the hours u put into it that count, but rather the passive picking up of things as u go along. sounds cheesy as hell that is probably true. anyways laj has been nothign short of enjoyable despite the really tight timeline plus very consistent schedule of always being on the grind for submissions. the workload really IS a lot and its very time consuming so i have to think hard if i really want to take this next sem. honestly as someone whos been into this hellhole for awhile, learning it formally is still really different from anything ive been doing on my own (watchign etc).... like i didnt know i still have so much i dont know??? ok tbf i came in with no grammar knowledge other than the basic の and と that any seasoned otaku would know so i struggled Hard.. but i think the experience of learning with new friends really ive made eased it in so much for me... i love it.. 1000/10 would recommend if ur already into the culture idt u have anything to lose?? idt i did well throughout tbh as in weekly quizes ive got a lot of 6/10s but on days where i studied 30 mins before the class i get 9/10 so do what u got to do ig. my term test perf wasnt very good either so im not getting my hopes up despite me taking this module with the intentions to bring my gpa up. 

for the drill every week theres 1 lecture, 2 tutorials. the lecture goes through one chapter of the minna textbook which includes both a set of vocabulary and some grammar rules. for tut A u got to hand in the kanji homework and theres a vocab quiz too in class that u need to prep before hand. tut A also goes through renshuu C-1 and C-2 dialogues usually. And every sun there are prep quizes for  both vocab and kanji due, this preps u for the in class quiz can retake as many times to perfect ur score. for tut B u got to hand in the hyoujun mondaishuu (physical) for the previous weeks lecture and they go through more speech patterns covered in renshuu C-3 usually. Renshuu C is where u find the dialogues that you will need again for the oral interview basically memory work. Oral interview pairs u with a classmate and u guys take turns to talk, what is tested is the same as renshuu C just under different context/setting. sometimes theres additional hw to submit for shadowing (recording urself repeating the dialogue right after a recorded dialogue), writing (short compo) and reading (comprehension). When its nearing term tests, u will get a listening quiz the week before tt iirc the stuff are said only ONCE so if u zone out then byebye. The term test itself also has a listening component which is basically the same drill again for god knows why. other than that we had this online exchange session pretty fun with other jp uni students zoom n chat kind of thing then a presentation on ur exchange in w13. Pretty fun time passes too fast in laj honestly it made my week go by too fast (spend too much time doing jp).

GEH1016 Understanding Consumption

Professor  Dr. Hendrik M.

Weightage

Content

Introduction - Thinking about Consumption

Geographies of Consumption

Consumption in History

Economics and Consumption

Business and Consumption

Psychology and Consumption 

Society and Consumption

Cultures of Consumption

Politics and Consumption

Ethics of Consumption

Environment and Consumption

Internet and Consumption and Conclusions 

Conclusions

Review

Took this as a ue just for the sake of a ue.. i saw the reviews saying its essay based sparks flew jk i think its like any other ge tbh the lectures go through consumption as viewed from the various disciplines, assumptions et cetera et cetera its like a content kind of mod? i skipped most of the later half of the lectures because my schedule was really so bad i needed more time for my other mods priorities right and i didnt do any of the readings theres just too much and im not that much of a reader i know.. attention span lasts for at msot 5s and these readings are like 30 pages on average long some weeks theres 2 readings i simply cant wiht the reading.. other than that u kind of just need to know what they are covering in the lectures so i should be safe..crossing my fingers.... tutorial wise its kind of seminar style? the tutor is able to talk a lot out of nothing sometimes which amazes me...its very nothing module idh a better word low effort ish? just sometimes we need to present and stuff in our groups for the tutorials and the final presentation on our location of research and findings..class part alright... essay is some reflection paper on what has been taught i think it wsa week 4/5 ish then group project is any location of your choice to study on the different perspectives of consumption and a bit of research u come up with this academic paper (tutor is very niao about the citation style and stuff so please be careful) then the original written finals by some reason i dont rmb became a take home final essay which is better for me since more time (not really for me cause AFA LOL) anyways shitted out the paper a day before submissions and still alive so...

BT4103 Business Analytics Capstone Project

Professor Um S.Y., Hahn J.P.

Weightage

Individual Component Consultation Participation        25% Weekly logs                            10% Group Component Presentations + Project deliverables      50% Client Satisfaction                                   15%

Note: The score for the teamwork component of your grade will be normalised based on your contribution to the team, which will be determined via a peer evaluation process and a client satisfaction survey at the mid/end of the semester

Schedule

Lectures for this mod only happened once during the start of the sem, on nusmods its a 3h long one but dw that only will occur just once. Following weeks will be a 30min consult that is set at the convenience of the group and the prof/TA can be held on another day as well really up to you. So at the start there was about 20 (?) projects on the portal they will brief you during that initial lecture and you can go in to look at the descriptions of the deliverables if it aligns with your groups interest. You bid for them by ranking the 20 projects and the assignment of groups to their projects is on fcfs basis (other than by rank) so please manage the time for bidding well if you want to get the project of your choice. Yeah and then you get to exchange contacts with your company etc to for an introduction of the expected work proper. After that you kind of really just liaise back and forth with your company on the submission, and every week the profs will check in with you on your progress, any doubts/challenges etc etc basically a slot to update on your work. There is a weekly log submission too due Fri 12pm where u outline your contributions in a doc to be submitted. Other than that for the presentations, there is an interim one nearing recess week and a final one in week 13. Interim was online/physical at your choice even though they did not make it very clear and finals is definitely physical with your project sponsors as well. Tip is to make sure u choose projects that you definitely have stuff to talk about.... if its too easy its a bit hard to make your project and value of work delivered look substantial enough.... 

BT4212 Search Engine Optimisation and Analytics

Professor Jin C.

Weightage

Class participation 5%

In-class quiz 5%

Homework assignments and group project 40%

Final exam 50%

Content

Keywords research, Google ranking algorithm updates, on-page/off-page SEO, randomized experiment design, A/B test, ranking algorithm, data mining and ml methods

Review

This actually is still a pretty interesting module even up till now but i especially rmb telling another friend how the content isnt dry like the other modules well till i was proven wrong with the experiment design flashbacks to ger1000 but overall i think its still pretty interesting the prof also is very engaging as in he talks in a way that captures your attention? or at the very least isnt very monotonous and he does put in the effort to come up with very relevant analogies amidst all the inevitably dry content Oh the reason why i was impressed was i actually finally understand?? the source material?? like snaps fingers enlightenment kind of thing???? hes actually really good at conveying the material without making it seem like the daunting insurmountable mountain... the first few weeks are fine though they ease u in wiht all the motivations behind efforts to improve seo ranking and the google ranking updates which are very interesting to learn about.. the ranking algo and ml parts are towards the end after week 7 and things start to get a bit haywire because its suddenly knee dip into matrices (after 3 years) and stuff solving eigenvectors (i thought we moved on from maths) </3 then towards the end the usual ml recap all over again this is good since most bt mods does a ml refresher over the models and stuff again so its a good recap or even does a good job introducing for those who are touchnig these for their first time. 

The quizes kind of didnt happen until after week 7 iirc theres only 2 for our sem its a 5 mcq luminus quiz kind of thing and its all ctrl-f-able open book so try to get 5/5 for these. The homework assignments are also more congregated towards the second half of the sem so just manage your time well and expect these to take up some keyword some of your time. There are 4 of those in total, the first is a simple writeup pretty much no biggie then the remaining 3 are coding assignments but most of it u would have the pseudocode to do the same he explains it in lectures then u just kind of code it out the final one being more ml driven so if you’ve done ml before u wont struggle much anyway. Else can just google the source code its always p much the same plug and pull easy game. The finals though...........

(minute of silence)

its a written paper so u kind of sit down for 2h doing the problems for the final week (w13) the prof will go through finals questions from previous sems if u revised it then ur gtg u can expect about the same. But i didnt plan my time well plus confused by the requirements (choose all that apply for mcqs) and the answer fields being in a table of boxes from q1 to 20  do i really put e.g. a,b,c within one box for one question?? and the option d is a whole ‘all above’ really got me second guessing myself until idk anymore if i rmb correctly the format was 20 MCQs, 4 short answer questions (not really short but compared to the longer ones behind), 1 long ass question with many subparts that tests computation i.e. stats stuff and the matrices stuff

Anyways grades please be nice to me crying i lost too many marks because id dint have the time (for the first time if im being honest) Theres also one group project but no news from the prof until very late into the sem maybe week 8? 9?  they had to finalise some sutff like if our blogs were indexed (most of it was not) so it became a project plan write up kind of thing how u plan to conduct the experiment to test out whether changing up some things affect the seo ranking instead of actually executing it out (profs original intention) might differ next sem tell me about it then

This is a sem 1 only mod and i think u should definitely take this up if the module title intrigues you because out of all the bt mods ive taken most barely even correspond to the module title T_T but this one surprisingly does a good job at it as for workload wise i think its pretty manageable just got to expect a little more than nothing in the later half of the sem

BT4222 Mining Web Data for Business Insights

Professor Wang Q.H.

Weightage

Assignment 1 (10%)

Quiz 1 (10%)

Assignment 2 (10%)

Project proposal submission and presentation (5%)

Assignment 3 (10%)

Quiz 2 (10%)

Project deliverables (40%)

Attendance class participation (5%)

Content

ML intro, web scraping, feature engineering, regularisation, NLP, classification methods, linear/logistic regression, bayesian learning/ svm, decision tree, ensemble learning and random forests, neural nets and deep learning, word embedding, convolutional neural net recurrent neural net and other DNN and explainability

Review

This is one of the more popular pes because it  coincides for a few specs or sth im sure its also why i thought this should be one of the more useful  ones granted it aligns for more than 1 spec.. Anyway what im saying is that most bza students would have taken this mod. And sure enough i think the prof this sem wang qh did a really good job covering this mod cant say the same for zhao yl for last sem.. u all really.. Anyways once again like many bt mods its a very ML focused one so u get to explore the various ML models if you like doing that. The prof also provide source codes so its very helpful when you need to refer in future and stuff. Nothing much to say ba its quite good theres class part so maybe half way through the lecture she will put up the attendance gforms then u fill it in on the spot usually during the break i.e. 1h 10m into the lecture (she sets alarm for this to make sure she doesnt go over v cute) Other than that theres 2 tests (quizzes) held on examplify usually max max 30 mcq but these mcq are tricky as hell sometimes with 5/6 options so really ganbare. For the assignments its coding based and also very structured with guidelines in the ipynb plus u got all the source code so no problem ba mb just 1/2 question will be q hard but other than that no biggie ive always been the last minute so maybe allocate about a week should be enough. Then theres also a project that you can work on throughout the sem, yes as you learn more ml models through the week the problem statement is really up to you and your group and how u want to achieve it also very open ended... (jsut like the BT4221 i took) except u already know theres this project at the start of the sem i.e. more time to work on it unlike bt4221....... just need to submit project proposal at the start of the sem then ur report findings, codes and stuff at the end with a presentation for proposal (cancelled for us due to no time) and a presentation in w13 (can be 1/2 person presenting for the group) there will be a lot fo groups presenting and then we have a gforms to rate their projects as part of the evaluation no finals for this (yay) bc she thinks the doing is more importatn (getting down to prep the data, actual model implementation basically the practical stuff compared to content content stuff (WHICH SHOULD BE THE WAY TO GOOO) very practically speaking all the theory is all google-able whether u can do it is something else entirely

#y4s1

[livingbutamireally]

hey there! i'm a new nus BZA freshman :D I was wondering if you still happen to have your notes and class stuff for the modules you took? would really appreciate any help i can get :'-) hope to hear from you soon!

relax...U will need it

#asks #im not the best person to ask TBH iw oudlnt trust me

[livingbutamireally]

Hi, was your internship for an MNC/SMC/government agency? And what kind of role was it that it did not require much coding? fellow BZA student here!

mnc dashboarding

#asks #its nto very useful i will be honest

[livingbutamireally]

hellooo im the same anon who asked about bt4012, tbh the reason why i asked that was bc during 4222 we consulted zhao yiliang and he asked us to do some graph thing (like cs2040 graph theory) and we were speechless. (Also i wanted to ask if you would like to be friends, im too shy to even make friends with bza people, but since you play genshin maybe we can just chat in game or smth idk T_T you can ignore this if it weirds you out)

omg sorry i really only come on here nearing the end of a sem so replies are p late... i think he was really out of it that sem...and thats from what i heard....hope hes doing better rn

absolutely no words about the graph theory thing....he was p chill in 4012 for my sem and also p sure 4222 doesnt cover any thing on graphs!?? or at least for my sem.. how did it go for u

now that i think about am glad my groups dont do consutls or not shooting ourselves in our feet or not we never really know

and ofc sure thing nwnw about that i think my dms are open alwaystho i dont really play it anymroe sadly i play honkai more not really actly but more... are you from bza? from the way u phrased ;;

#asks

[livingbutamireally]

AY2021/2022 Y3S2 Module Reviews

Atap sem saur pretty chill i took only one mod together with the internship. Maybe i will talk about the internship a little too. 

Anyway now that i’m back here feels surreal that IVE GOT TO DRAG MY ASS BACK DOWN TO SCHOOL AGAIN after what. two years. Not having to study for half a year feels too good its going to be so hard to get the grind back again I dont even wanna think

Overview

IS4228 Information Technologies in Financial Services

BT4101 Industry Experience Requirement (ATAP)

IS4228 Information Technologies in Financial Services

Lecturer: Prof. Carter, Keith Barrett

Weightages

Individual assignments (5 * 7% = 35%)

Mid term test (30%)

Group project (35%)

To take a class during your atap, you need express approval from both your manager and the professor i think. And at most 2 too. You are responsible for being able to manage your time well between work and acad so please take the time to consider if its for you workload wise etc.

Lectures are held online on Zoom, compulsory attendance 630-930pm aka after office hours so its safe for the interns. I requested for wfh on Tuesday to make it for the class bc travelling takes too long or if its wfo then i leave earlier. No tutorials for this but if i remember correctly you are placed in breakout rooms to for some mini hands-on group work.

This module is my actual first foray into the Financial aspect of my specialisation track i think BT4012 is also the same basket but not so much financial in content? Needless to say all the financial stuff was hard to grasp from the get-go. 

Here you learn about stuff like concept of Money, terms like ROE, NIM, NII, fiddling with APIs, bonds, forex, traditional/digital banking etc, stocks - candlesticks, equities, portfolio management, assets, cryptocurrency. I would say the mod strikes a good balance between both the tech and the theory side because you would deal with some basic coding and at the same time understand the math aspect (calculating financial related stats). However personally I was new to FIN it could get a little messy (you dont need financial knowledge to take this module!) just that you probably need more time to get some adjusting to.

The assignments were spread throughout the semester the pace was pretty okay and I didnt really have to spend too much time outside of class to complete them, except for the final one that was coding out a RPA with UiPath, to automate some stock pulling process. At least 2 of these assignments were making slides on the content learnt. Other than that you really learn all the fin terms and stuff from what i remember, and those you would need for the midterms but overall its a p chill mod.

ATAP

Six month internship - pass/fail 

Deliverables

Monthly report

Interim report (after 3 months)

Final report 

Final presentation

I will try not to divulge too much about my internship lest i expose myself but anyways my internship was pretty chill i guess. The role wasnt heavy on coding so its both a good thing and bad thing. Good because i dont have to wring my brain juice dry but bad because i didnt had to put myself out there (character Growth -1000), i still learn stuff and definitely had a more holistic understanding where i am and where i can put my strengths to use. Anyways definitely please go through glassdoor reviews when you are choosing your offers. I almost ended up somewhere with staff mistreatment, really go find out whether a certain work culture is for you or not.. and ofc dont be afraid to voice out to the school if you feel something is wrong. Dont overwork yourself!! 

Final presentation is online with your assigned prof mine was quite chill i think the only time i was stumped when they asked how what i was doing was bringing any benefit to the company but like... maybe it was clear to me but i didnt make it clear enough to them? Other than that my final report wasn’t too much different from my interim.

#y3s2

[livingbutamireally]

In your opinion, what are some must-take programme electives for bza students?

hi i think for must-take thats just the core mods isnt it haha maybe im not really getting it... the rest depends on what interests you more... since again bza is so diverse

okay i realised what you meant.... not in school for too long brain fr rotted okay i got u for pes its 6 mods for our year right i only can vouch for those i have taken plus im not done with them too... i think another deciding factor would be your spec.. but for those ive taken id say 4012 and 4221 which shows up in both specs for fin and ml... and 4222 too since it appears in all 3 specs...

#asks #i hope this answers your question

[livingbutamireally]

Hi! I'm also a fellow y3 bza student, wanted to ask for the lit review in bt4012, did yall have to come up with any code on your own or was it more of like tweaking the code from the research paper? I'm currently taking bt4222 under Zhao Yiliang too and he's honestly q scary :") not sure if i shld take bt4012 next sem

im assuming you took bt4222 in AY21/22 sem 2 how was the workload~ it wasnt compulsory to come up with the code tbh more of running it? and identifying areas of improvement in the original paper (which is funny considering how much we dont know). imo it will be ridiculous to expect u to code sth from scratch since the paper likely covers content youd have never touched before e.g. graph neural nets well unless...

and forgot if i mentioned in the review but the research paper of your choice CAN come with code, its your choice whether you want to do a paper that comes with code or without. 4012 TBH was more manageable at least for me even tho i flopped my indiv assignment and also bc chapters alternated between zhao yiliang and zhao rui it was okayish... maybe he was stressed or sumn last sem

#asks

[livingbutamireally]

AY2020/2021 Y3S1 Module Reviews

This sem went by quite quickly I would say. Good thing now is that there are no longer CS mods I am freeeeeeeeeee. Despite the other mods or faculties already requesting for in-person classes I still had a total of *drum roll please* one *crowd cheers* physical class per week. 

Tbh i must say i adjusted too fast to online classes, sleeping in, skipping on lectures getting distracted from doing actual work wastign my time away in the name of selfcare distorted sense of time ive truly experienced it all. At least physical classes make me ykyk make good use of my time spent travelling, i mean at least be there not necessarily mentally but it helps kinda when you have friends around you all studying but nah now we just on our own in our beds doing jackshit. 

Other than that I dont have anything else to add on so without further ado the

Overview

BT4221 Big Data Techniques and Technologies

BT3103 Application Systems Development for Business Analytics

BT4012 Fraud Analytics

IS3103 Information Systems Leadership and Communication

IS3240 Digital Platform Strategy and Architecture

BT4012 Fraud Analytics

Lecturer: Zhao Rui, Zhao Yiliang

Syllabus

Weightages

Individual Assignments (35%)

Midterm Examination (25%)

Group Project (30%)

Individual Assignments (35%)

There will be two homeworks, centered around working on a fraud detection problem using appropriate machine learning techniques. The deliverables are code implementations and concise answers to related questions. Details of the assignments will be announced later.

Midterm Examination (25%)

Students are expected to attend the Midterm Examination. It will focus on the understanding of basic concepts and application of the materials covered in class. The mode of the delivery of the examination will be determined and announced later.

Group Project (30%)

You are required to form a project group with 1-2 members. Your task is to do a literature review on methods for fraud detection. You will write a maximum 5 page review (Arial, 11, single spacing) of papers excluding Appendix and references. You will need to do a presentation on the review. You are highly recommended to propose new ideas based on the review. Reviews should be done in a critical and rigorous manner.

Instead of doing the literature review, with approval from the lecturers, you may also choose to do a project. Please email a brief description of the project plan to the lecturers to get approval.

The Group Project will consist of two parts: (I) Group Project Presentation (15%) and (II) Group Project Final Report (15%). More detailed instructions and the guidelines for this course project will be announced later.

(Copied off the luminus module overview its surprisingly still open)

But yeah you get it, its your typical BT module. The module itself does quite a fair bit of refreshers incase you have forgotten your BT2K and 3K mods the basics of regressions, measurables (averages and statsy stuff - cant expect me tor mb class content help) but basically the barebones and then it dives into the world of machine learning we have a few deep neural network models CNN RNN etc etc. Its very interesting. I think I really like that the profs went the extra mile to compile the codes for us theres a lot of compiled codes per chapter so its the barebones implementation u just copy and paste and get it do what u want it to do simple as that. The code structure is p much the same whichever your case is anyway so its really resourceful not so much the you-code-yourself-cannot-tolerate-plagiarism thing going on in CS i mean i guess it forces u to think the computational thinking is the true takeaway in those. The first IA is very easy jsut copy and tweak the kind everyone would get full marks ish the second one is a class competition  hosted on Kaggle to get you to predict anomalies and you are ranked according to your accuracy against private test sets. I’ll be frank and say i did so badly in the rankings i was the bottom few. But i did kinda okay ish?? when i got my grades back so dont worry lmao theres the report thing u gotta write after the competition about what methods you used, and your justifications etc basically you explaining your process of finetuning your model to get the best accuracy.  The Lit Review portion of weightage is just a fancy term to coin a 5-6 pager reflections based on a research paper of your choice related to the content taught so e.g. use of CNN/ other NNs in anomaly detection under any context/industry better to reflect what you have learnt or describe your inputs on areas of improvments/ pointers that may have been overlooked in the research paper. Of course, more marks are awarded with more effort and this quite chill one you have all the time to do after the midterms since technically chapters after midterms are not tested. Frogot to mention, class part is graded even tho its not here there are quizes scattered across the weeks and you need to be present to submit all of them in time during like 5 mins of the lecture so unless you have a friend who to tell u theres pop quiz then i recommedn not to skip. personally i dont pay much attention in class as much as the announcment of the quiz i just rewatch lectures after.

BT4221 Big Data Techniques and Technologies

Lecturer: Um Sungyong

Weightages:

Exams (30%)

Projects (40%)

Assignment (20%)

Peer evaluation (5%)

Class participation (5%)

There is no tutorials for this class just the lecture itself once per week held over zooms and recordings can be found on Luminus. Pace was okay. I get mixed reactions when it comes to the profs teaching but to me its fine, his baby cries sometimes in the background which is cute. Other than that at the start of the sem, he goes through some of the theory that you will need in this course such as the RDD and how it all comes together regarded hwo data are spliced and stored differently in Hadoop vs Spark. But we use Spark more since Spark is based off Hadoop and it helps in increasing the efficiency of data processing. To me a lot of it feels kind of like the aggregations used in MySQL or the streams part of CS2040. He provides base codes as well and we just change things from there. During the half way mark aka recess week theres one optional week to learn about data streams from Twitter. This ones not tested in the finals so i didnt pay much attention. You will need a developers account if you want to follow along the tutorial, which require some time for Twitter staffs to approve as well as your reasons for opening a dev account. Theres also some bit of AWS at the start of the sem as well, on using S3 etc but I didnt pay that much heed (Regret?) and since it is not compulsory for us to use AWS as cloud storage for the project and since we did not have to use it for the project we chose then.... But heads up about the project he will land you a final blow to tell you SURPRISE you have a project due near week 8ish that leaves you about a month to W13..... which everyone knows will be busy.... Come on he could have told us snice the start for us to prep. Its kind of a big scale project? From sourcing data to determining how you want to include the things that are taught over the weeks Id recommend for you guys to mental prep early bc it took very long for my group to decide on one topic to do. We all had our own ideas, and we were going to incorporate everything we decided, only to slowly slowly rule out one after another which again is a lot of wasted effort. I guess in the end its fine since he drags out the due date to some weeks after reading week 2/3 weeks later. So for that project you need to submit 1. project report 2. codes? 3. presentation recording.

He also allow for in person presentations durnig the final class nd may award you higher scores but he also assures us that people who do not present real time aka submit via recordings are not at too much a disadvantage he will be fair and stuff even tho hes very open to giving out scores (?) if that makes sense. Like he just want to see you progress and award you for the effort kind very chill prof. Go for the consults!! He will offer invaluable advice as to what he wants to see kind of guide u abit in case u losted and most importantly he will remember you exist AHHAHA. He throws extra credits for that too.

For the assignment its about 6 of them all spread across the content delivery with a few weeks in between and its not very hard (doesnt take you very long) just use the codes he realised tweak a bit then you submit the code either in pynb or doc. Submissions are not exactly graded for its correctness but rather just to ensure that you do your work? I think i had some issues and did not manage to upload in time he was nice about it to open the deadlines for me to submit and kept asking me not to worry about it nice accommodating understanding. 

After the twitter optional class, he goes on into neural networks which ties in really well with my other module BT4012 a good refresher for each other. But the NN part more important since it will be the base of your project. Project question is up to you to decide for yourself the theme setting everything, as and whne after he release the project details he will ask for one pager to see your ideas and stuff so its a project proposal kind of thing, to see your project through from the start so good to start early about how you come up with your topic and what you have tried so you can include these experiences or findings in your final project report. 

Other than that theres one exams which is the finals (bitch you thought) they dont tell you that in NUSMods. But the topics are fine i think in general the content is p manageable. This mod is fine. 

BT3103 Application Systems Development for Business Analytics

Lecturer: Shashank

Weightages

Class part (15%)

Quiz and individual assignments (30%)

Mid sem project submission (20%)

Final project submission (35%)

Assessments

Mid Sem Project Submission (W7)

Final Project Submission (W13)

Intermediate Assessments aka Quiz (W3,5,8)

For this mod we learnt the very basics of HTML CSS and Javascript keyword basics really just minimal syntax here and there for us to move on to the bulk of the content that uses nodejs npm to build a website the language is somewhat an addition to HTML/CSS and quite easy to play around with in terms of containers and getting it to do what you will it to. It can be slightly difficult to grasp from the get go but trust me you will get better over time. Apparently they teach this vuejs thing bc its easier? but for me at the start i felt going back to the conventional html css was much more easier but i guess its easier to do certain things in vuejs. You get to learn a bit about Waterfall and AGILE which are methodologies used in the workplace when it comes to having a framework to base a project on from the start ideation etc requirements gathering, to the development, continuous improvement and alignment and release of the final product etc etc. Some other things of note is that (disclaimer personal experience) despite this general consensus among us students that he is actually q chill and laidback as a prof.... please dont trust what you see. So for the final project which is to develop this web app for our chosen problems statement, tehre were other classmates who will consult him of their own volition like our group didnt know so we didnt.. but there are and he probably will be able to better gauge how ur group has improved over the trials that you faced compared to when you just show the final thing duirng the presentation in the last week. Other than that, we had this mini consult thing in class the week after submitting our mid sem project proposal but he didnt have much to say in fact none about our proposal. And not to be biased or anything but my groupmates and I didnt feel like theres any better that we could do? I mean we had like 40 over requirements analysis thats really overdoing it plus we made sure to detail the manual of our webapp very specifically in terms of every elemetn and what it does so our guide was pretty comprehensive. Yet when the grades from luminus was in it didnt feel like it matched the effort we put in? I had more grievances about him not telling us where we could improve on when he gave us such a underperforming (below average) score.. Other than that jiayou seems like he likes very hitech kind of stuff the other groups used APIs with inbuilt zoom functionalities (Crazy i know... for the amount of content he covered.... which is very minimal) and thtt kind of adds on to his overbearing expectations for our cohort compared to what was taught. and like he likes very innovative stuff so good luck on that..... For our sem despite already being in our 3rd year of covid, so many of the other groups perhaps (90%) had problem statements revolving around covid LIKEEEE yoo dont we all have adapted enough but anyway might also be that our problem was not based on covid..... that we kind of lost marks to man idk. But anyway i think our ui is decent and in general we all worked hard on this give in our all its just a bit sad la har.

P.S. side note i actually finished up this portion but forgot to save it and when i came back its gone.... 

P.S.S PLEASE APPEAR FOR THE QUIZZES COS EVERYONE WILL FULL MARK THAT DONT BE LIKE ME i missed by a few minutes he didnt bother re-opening it for me.... had like 2 grades difference with my project mate....and the quizes are damn ezpz plus even if dk.... if i can do u cfm can... can google and is like those damn simple google questions they also got give ans i think he also google for the questions cut and paste

IS3103 Information Systems Leadership and Communication

Lecturer: OLB, Tutorial: Yurni

Weightages

Tutorial engagement (10%)

Simulation game (10%)

In lecture survey participation (5%)

Recitation engagement & contribution (20%) - Pitch 10%, Engagement 10%

Reflective Learning Journal (15%)

Digital Transformation Proposal Project (40%) - Proposal report writing 20%, Oral presentation 20%

Omg guys.... i hate every single module put out by c*lc.... censoring in case someone comes for my head.... its a pattern..... Ok time for me to go in depth.

Cant remember but for my sem its about 7 recitations starting week 3, somewhere nearing the recess week theres a break for 2 weeks ish then 3 more recits after. Guys.... why does this mod even exist...

Okay so basically for lecture can pretty much skip unless like you are really into the hierarchies and stuff of how IT roles work in the workplace CXOs all that but like really no interest. but Then sometimes theres pop quizes so if u can find a friend that is ncie enough to tell u theres quiz that week then thats nice.. but i just open it usually and just wait for 730pm (usually thats when he puts out the link for the survey) and this goes to your no3 in lecture survey participation.  He talks about history of leadership and stuff like that very dry and thw way he talks also is very dry. There are weekly quizes in mcq form on luminus for this but can just ctrl f the slides for the answers and if u get wrong u can just put in the correct answer on ur next try. So go get full marks for this. The part where it is the most dreadful is the recitations. I have nothing against olb but the recitations omg.

Recitations are physical btw i think 2 of them are graded pitches, one is sometime before recess week i think maybe w5? then the last one for the project pitch nearing the end. Okay first few recits are fine basically every week u go to school for 3 hours and prior to the class u got to prep some presentation at the first few will be your takeaways from the links they provided then after which is some group presentations to teach the class about what u have learnt from links... which is damn stupid if u think about it. if u can learn about communication just by reading links wow sugoi amazing bravo spectacular daebak phenomenal and like some of the classes we just sit in 3 hours to read SOME links to soem fot heir chosen articles.. man we pay 800 for this.... to read LINKS to learn about comms..... and we also prep our slides according to what we learnt from the links split across the groups so like uh... but this is compulsory so bobian got to suck thumb and those more serious presentations were roleplays.. role play that u are getting hired for an interview and in that interview u are presenting to ur hirers how you will communicate with your to-be subordinates ??? which is very? to me like which interview will make u go roleplay being a leader like uhh and the way they kept drilling us to include personal stories to make it more relatable its very.... sometimes its not very appropriate la i would say... take for example u first time leading a team somehow have to have past experience to share?? either that or u have to forcefully weave in some grandmother story that is kind of unrelated just to bag that scores for audience centricness in terms of relatability? theres one even weirder prompt which was giving a 5 min pitch about one abstract item which can be anything so they dont shwo u and on that day they flash an image on the spot and ur group has like 10 mins to prepare how u plan to pitch that to ur audience but alos in a way that is not very venture capitalistic.. think shark tank thats the opposite of what they want... even now idk what they want.... and sorry lor ppl like me not much story sia... much less sth that fits those absurd prompts that is like 2000% unrealistic asked my parents nad there were like WHAT did they make u do now 

tldr very bad experience 2000/10 do not recommend anyways u know who bitched about this during the mod reviews so yup apparently they had went through a few revamps and lesser in person recits from previous.... it used ot be much more time consuming but it is still p time consuming now..... and for naught....

IS3240 Digital Platform Strategy and Architecture

Lecturer: Anand

Weightages

Case Analyses (25%)

Individual Exercises (20%)

Final Exam (30%)

Final Case Analyses (25%)

I know you here bc there aint many reviews for this out there except for the one on nusmods probs so sit tight. First the schedule. Across the weeks, 1 group will present and other groups (about 3 groups of 4-5 ea per timeslot) will be the audience for each tutorial timeslot. Fixed groups for that particualr timeslot which makes sense. Theres a total of 4 case studies that each group will need to present. It gets incredibly harder partially because of the cases getting more grandeur in nature, the scopes of which to think about, as well as content covered in lectures. Content is q interesting. Lectures will cover the content you need but its also on you to think of novel ways... take on novel mindsets in approaching those business problems. more of a thinking class than anything else rather than presenting the msot generic solution which ofc will fare u not so well. Cant just present something based on your the most common knowledge (As though youve never taken the mod ebfore) but if you have determined groupmates that will be nice.. We spend more time in our own groups on our own time to discuss the case studies, debate our points, draft up solutions refining them, thinking of how people can fault our solutions and countering those potential pitholes to have an all-bases-covered holistic solution that would be the best. So after u are done presenting the other teams will start their Q&A which is usually a anal battle of any problems ur solution might have or like understanding the rationale in comparison to say another viable alternative... resources constraints and other factors.. Q&A participation is graded btw haha so every member needs to ask like at least one question not the clarifying content kinds but actually contribute to the discussion in terms of making everyone all think as well. its a very refreshing move tbh. after which the audiences will fill up this questionaire to rate your groups presentation, q&a skills and give their comments this too is graded. oh and if u are not presenting that week u will also need to answer like 2 brief questions on the case study to make sure u have read through and are prepared for the discussion prior to attending the tutorial. for the presenting group only need to prep the presentation u confirm need to read the material... oh ya and the case study need to ownself buy one.... he wont provide our sem one person buys each weeks case study and distributes to everyone and we all pay like a few cents. cant rmb but about $5 per issue so one copy for ten weeks ish and the cost split across all the students. Final exam is 2 case studies, one of which is one of the case studies you have seen and the other isnt, questions are long answer type can write as much as you want on luminus quiz. final case will be the same for all groups aka Case H and that one the scope also quite huge la ofc... and at the start presentations go from 10mins.,. the next few to 20 mins ish all that to prep for the final one which can go up to 1h ish confirm by that time a lot of things to input about so have to be selective and choose the points wiht higher priority? yee thats about it. i know nusmods review person said v fluff v low workload but no eh my group spent a lot of time in prep work discussing non stop revisting points made and revising our slides even up till the very end we spent a lot of time on it la which we were rewarded for bc of the quality in terms of depth research and ensuring few vulnerabilities for attacks by the audiecne (having substantial counters for those) i suppose

#y3s1

[livingbutamireally]

Hi! I’m a BZA freshie and I’ve read all your modules (omg I’m not ready for the suffering for the modules) but one of the modules I think you forgot to review and it’s BT2102 (data visualization, management etc.) could you lmk how it ishm? The workload etc. bc I wanted to see if it’s a good match to go with CS2030 :)

hello hope i am not too late oh no i didnt see this earlier

BT2102 is mostly a chill mod bc the prof himself is chill and ahem lazy mine was a covid sem and his lectures were all recorded from past sems? so we didnt really get to see his face in real time neither did he teach for that sem (so free) until the exams there are 3 main components:

1 - drawing out some relational map for databases q easy and slotting in the primary key attributes/entities

2 - exams 10mins to do 5ish sql questions not too sure the format but he will announce this one i just practice like crazy can spam the practice questions

3 - data visualisation with tableau he doesnt teach tableau btw so your on your own ;) jk google is your best friend i think tableau p user friendly not to worry we present given a case study and after doign visualisations come up with the appropriate insights and recommend solutions to the business owner

1 and 3 are groupwork so should be p manageable

the whole mod is all fluff and chill compared to the atrocity that is bt2101 and bt3102 /j maybe not so /j

but i heard from a friend that he kind of upped his game a bit? the next sem and they had to host some website thing with python (i am equally confused) an addition to the groupwork or sth its no longer as easy as when i took it

no worries on the workload with cs2030 imo and atb!

#asks

[livingbutamireally]

hello! hope you’ll continue with the reviews cause they’re rly informative and detailed! jiayous for cs2040! - fellow bza student

hello!! np at all~ sorry i only see this now i never think people actually would be able to search this blog through the huge stack known as the internet but glad to be of help and atb with ur bza journey~

#asks

[livingbutamireally]

AY2020/2021 Y2S2 Module Reviews

Another covid sem all over again. Motivation has been at my all time low at this point. 

Overview

CS2040 Data Structures and Algorithms

BT3102 Computational Methods for Business Analytics

GET1022 Understanding Your Brain

IS2101 Business and Technical Communication

PLS8002 Cultivating the Self

PLS8005 Elevating Interpersonal Communication

CFG1002 Career Catalyst

CS2040 Data Structures and Algorithms

Lecturer: Prof. Chong Ket Fah

Weightages

Tutorial attendance/ participation - 3%

Lab attendance - 2%

In-lab assignments -15%

Take home assignments (4) - 12%

Online quiz (2) - 8%

Midterm - 40%

Finals - 40%

Assessments are all open-book but not open-internet, meaning we can refer to our notes offline pdf and onenote etc. Content wise not as demanding as CS2030 man that was disastrous. And the practical part of this module wasnt as rigorous as CS2030, however it is understanding the algorithms and complexity thinking the most efficient solution to solve a problem that was thoroughly tested here in this mod and also the most trying portion. Having the 4 THA spread out across the semester was a nice refreshing move from the one-shot project, split into two parts the other having to completely revamp the original solution over in CS2030. However the THA are pretty challenging as well, two weeks is definitely needed per THA. Each THA consists of 2 problems to be done on Kattis. One day lab assignments are also done on Kattis and are not as challenging as THAs unsurprisingly given the deadlines allocated for us to finish it. Lab TAs also go through some hints that will guide you along whereas THA tips are not very helpful.. Really helps to be diligent and not wait till the last minute to digest the content for this. However I’ve many other commitments like Hackathons etc so I didnt have much time to focus on CS despite the pressing need to... My grades.....

Median for midterms was around 55ish and i got a 30 which is probably the bottom 20%. I hope I can make it fine this time Sobs... Didnt have time to finish all the questions in finals and I didn’t get full marks for the online quiz which everyone would get full marks for. Man... 

Expected grade: B- (PLS i just need to pass grades are out tomorrow i will cry)

BT3102 Computational Methods in Business Analytics

Lecturer: Prof. Chen Nan

Weightages

Problem sets (30%)

Individual performance (10%)

Midterm (20%)

Finals (40%)

I believe is a step-up from BT2101? As much as the professor forewarn us about how the learning curve will be steep and content is hard to grasp and stuff (I was worried for myself honestly), it wasnt that bad?? Apparently the previous semesters was a lot harder, about 6/7 projects while us had only 3?? And the content for theirs, I doubt I would have lived to tell the tale sadly... I love Chen Nan he has a very happy go lucky relaxed and easy to approach vibe and the TAs too did a very good job Yuting, Yiming, Xudong in teaching the content material. Especially Yuting her tutorials are the best, easiest to digest and I grasp the idea so quickly!! Her notes are also so concise and straight forward. Chen Nan’s slides are simpler than I’ve ever been used to among all the BT mods I’ve ever taken. He drills the basics and makes sure our fundamentals are built well in the way he tests in our exams.. Really just stripped BT down to its core and emphasises on the crux of it all. I love this module and the profs so much. We get to learn a bunch of skills such as pricings and dynamic programming in terms of stockpiling what we should do when faced with many objective functions etc. And just drilled OLS such that we understand its assumptions and the implications it bring about in terms of causal inferences and identification and its interpretation. No words can describe how thankful I am to the teaching team. Thank you, this is the most elegantly put together BT mod I dare say. 

Midterm and finals are open internet as the prof isn’t a fan of rote learning type of teaching that emphasises on memorising and regurgitation much like our education system has instilled in us since young (I support this). All are MCQs and theres a field where you can include your explanations to prevent cheating in case of suspicions. Both midterms and finals was held on Luminus Quiz purely online module, and the TAs have very flexible timing, all over the week. 3 types of tutorials: teaching tutorial (most important), pre-recorded (summary), and Q&A just a consultation slot to clarify your doubts. All lectures and tutorials are recorded and uploaded for us to catch up to anytime.

IS2101 Business and Technical Communication

What else can I say but A COMPLETE WASTE OF MY TIME!!!!!!!

This is a damn waste of time, does little to help us much in this area? Yes it is not easy to teach an abstract subject like communication but I really walked out of this module feeling like I did so much work only to get nothing out of it. Business correspondence ta like to talk about our lack of audience-centricness when addressing our staffs in times of covid (context of the question) I took every effort to address that and still got a shitty grade despite the feedback frmo TA having no mention about lack of audience centric ness... Like what the hell its what you emphasised previous sem and again now, so I took care to avoid tht and still got a 60 just like everyone else with audience centric problems. Feels like they just give 60 to everyone without reading lmao. IDC anymore. It was irritating enough that we had to have so many presentations I mean great does help to train us well in public speaking.. Thank god they have not resumed physical classes I literally will not be able to do it. Last sem they had to go back for 3 sessions and this sem surprisingly just 1 session for consultations about our proposal.. God bless I am OUT.

Weightage

Business Correspondence (Email) 

Written Proposal

Pitch Presentation

360 degree appraisal

GET1022 Understanding Your Brain

Lecturer: Andrew Tan, Eyleen Goh, Wong Boon Seng

Weightages

Midterms 40%

Finals 60%

Its all about brains. 

Midterms was online open book and content was up to where Andrew has left. Finals tests us from Eyleen onwards, guest lectures are not tested but aids in our understanding from what the profs said. Finals closed-book no cheatsheets and physical face to face written OAS exam with 2 short questions. Mind you, they said short. HA!! They had 5 long questions waiting for us. Full pages long each question, each about 3-4m ish. Really just pray what you have studied is what they will ultimately test you lmao. Panicked and mind blanked when they talked about basal ganglia. Couldnt for the life recall what the heck it does... and so there goes my GE..... my free mod to pull up my GPA.... sayonara~ 

Really need to spend time memorising for finals no way out cos no cheatsheet nothing.. But i bailed out after BT finals and relaxed on youtube instead of cramming for GET... Regrets??

PLS8002 Cultivating the Self

Psych module about being happy in the second half, cant remember what the first half was on. All we needed to watch the 2 prerecorded lectures (recorded in previous sems) and for tutorials show up and pass the Kahoot Quizzes in class and you get your marks. We were needed to prepare a small slides 2 pages about our favourite thing?? or somehting we are grateful for cant remember but I talked about genshin impact and its impact on my life lmao. Everyone had cheesy slides about their friends, family, or pets and here I am.

PLS8005 Elevating Interpersonal Communication

TA was Joanne and its quite a nothing module. Little to no workload besides the reflection to be done and uploaded one week after the seminar style tutorial (Zoom). Theres only 3 classes and you can choose to have them before or after the reading week, in alternate weeks i.e. odd or even weeks.

CFG1002 Career Catalyst

Weightage:

TalentConnect Profile

I cant rmb this one...

VMock Resume

Again a very nothing module, except it provides excellent resources on refining and marketing yourself as a potential employee. Really good tips you cant find as well, the staffs are willing to sit you down to go through your resumes and CV letters with you as well though I have yet to go for a consultation slot to discuss mine.. Might be why i still have yet to secure an internship yet.

#y2s2

[livingbutamireally]

AY2020/2021 Y2S1 Module Reviews

This semester proved to be a pain as expected. Said pain coming mostly from BT2101 and CS2030. Everything was conducted online with the exception of the weekly lab sessions for CS2030 so I only had to go to school for 1 day. F2F CS2030 recitations were optional so I gave up and just watched the recorded zoom session instead of going to school just for a class half way through the semester. I usually miss the live zoom sessions because mine was at 1pm and I am almost always still having lunch at that time and not ready at all. Also i missed about half of my BT2102 tutorials because I simply forgot I had tutorials at that time (2-4pm). They still awarded me nicely for participation much to my surprise (7/10).

BT2101 Decision Making Methods and Tools

BT2102 Data Management and Visualisation

CS2030 Programming Methodology II

GEQ1000 Asking Questions

IS1103 Ethics in Computing

CS2030: Programming Methodology II in Java

Prof: Dr Henry Chia, A.P. Terrence Sim

Weightage:

Weekly labs (5%)

Individual project (15%)

Practical assessment #1 in week 7 (15%)

Practical assessment #2 in week 12 (20%)

Class participation (5%) : includes lab participation, piazza discussions and peer learning activities

Final exam (40%)

CS2030 proved to be intensive not only in the aspect of planning code design but also the actual implementation itself.. (thinking about how to solve the problem and/or get the expected outputs)..  Really struggled my way through the start although that really was only the tip of the iceberg because I had no prior experience in Java and the introductory Winter Workshops were reserved exclusively for freshmen or I missed the deadlines can’t remember.. The first few lectures got us familiar with Java Programming before diving deep into Functional Programming which is a lot harder to grasp vs Object-Oriented Programming which was introduced to us in CS1010S already. The hardest part comes with Streams but honestly after learning streams so many processes can be coded so much more efficiently as compared to OOP, really simplifies some of the tasks when using FP rather than OOP. Interesting to note that this streams part ties in well with BT2102′s coding part where we learnt aggregation pipelines in MongoDB and MySQL i believe the concepts felt similar??

Weekly Labs

Pretty manageable imo , compared to the project ofc (rolls eyes)

This semester they changed things up a bit and shifted all the weekly labs deadlines to finals so we had more control in terms of time management and our progress in the labs. Naturally we are expected to do them every week but say we are busy in a certain week for other modules we can always come back on another. I was always behind by like a month compared to my friends who were more on task.

Individual Project

Project part 1 was still okay for the Discrete Event Simulator (DES) basically designing a system for customers to queue and be served and recording the relevant work done at the appropriate times using OOP.

The hardest part was project part 2 where you had to rewrite the whole chunk in part 1 FP style and also they added a lot of more complex simulations and cases which I really just gave up entirely after completing level 2.

It was so hard it was traumatic. Level 3 had something to do with importing a random number generator and the test cases only get more confusing and long i just really had no brain cells left for the work worth only 7% before deducting late submissions penalty (bc brain slow LOL) and the code design criteria and checkstyles. I was so mad that it takes up so much time and effort just to be worth a petty 7% that I gave up entirely didnt even finish reading the questions (which was also pretty darn long). Sorry i am dumb. Please be proud of me I am trying my best.

I have zero idea who in the department decided to rig the difficulty of this project by so much up compared to previous semesters. They really expected too much out of us i am so sorry to disappoint.

Practical Assessments 

Basically similar to weekly lab exercises but you have to do it within the time frame during a lab session. You get to take home and re-edit the code to get the full marks and are moderated according to the changes you made compared to the one submitted during the PA itself. That also means if you do not submit the correct full marks version of the code in a week, you do not get moderated and will be awarded with the marks scored in lab which is obviously 0 for me I had over 70 compilation errors and you might be thinking how. But trust me i am too, confused how. Most people will score around 0-2m in lab but taking it home and refining the whole code with minimal changes and will be graded according to the amount of changes made to get the final code. Tests you how close you can get to the correct outputs within the time frame whether you already had it in your head.

Final Exam

Comes in MCQs, a few case questions consisting of subparts if i remembered correctly some of which required you to write out a possible code (2-3 lines) converting oop to streams, synchronous to asynchronous etc. There are plenty resources (pyps) floating around in the gc so you can use them well for revision.

Theoretical content was tested i dont really know how to put in words but you may be able to code well even though you may have some of the concepts wrong

We only did pure coding work in labs, projects and practical assessments so this really reinforces your understanding of the material

Considering I didnt finish project part 2 this is quite a decent grade already really thankful i dont have to go through this ordeal again. See you never.

BT2101: Decision Making Methods and Tools

Professor: Rudy Sentiono, A.P. Huang Zhiyong

Weightage:

Group project (20%)

Written assignments - 3x 5% (15%)

Tutorial participation (5%)

Midterm - open book (20%)

Finals - open book (40%)

This is the second module that I have been struggling with since the start of the semester. Tutor changed after the first session, the former tutor was much better and clearer in her explanations. This is quite a math-intensive course and requires some knowledge of linear algrebra and thus the pre-requisities. Maths has never been my strong suit (well except in primary school) so I struggled hard with this module. Nearing the end we learnt about deep learning neural networks which was pretty interesting and really broadened my perspectives on the future of machine learning. The pace was okay, but the lecturer seems to just repeat the words on the lecture slides in his lectures. The lectures were seemingly simplified from the reference texts he used but is nevertheless still daunting to look at to revise. Project was a 4-5 people groupwork where we had to conduct all the stages of data analytics from data exploration, cleaning of data to data mining, conclusions etc. There were an additional 3 assignments that we had to do together with our groupmates by the stipulated deadlines. This module requires a lot of work and preparation. Am glad to be able to pass.

BT2102: Data Management and Visualisation

Weightage:

Assignment 1 (Group):  25 marks

Assignment 2 (Individual): 35 marks

Assignment 3 (Group):  30 marks

Class Participation: 10 marks (Participation in Tutorials and Group Assignment Discussions)

IS1103: Ethics in Computing

Weightage:

FPAQ (50%)

Missions (50%)

Expected Grade: B+

Final Grade: A-

For this module, all 13 missions are to be done by the last date of submission for finals which was a 300 question quiz held on LumiNUS. Missions are assigned weekly where we go to the WordPress website the professor has built, a server that he regularly does maintenance on and in it he uses a tracker to track our progress through clicking links and submitting short answer questions sometimes. Most of them were done by clicking of links and we were told to disable our Adblockers if any to prevent interruptions or his system not capturing our data. We were encouraged to do it weekly although the deadline was the end of the semester. One of the missions included us doing some Linux practice penetration questions on Kali, it was a bit tough but other than that the other missions were pretty simple and straightforward. After every mission done we were to do a practice PAQ which is not graded and upon submission would give us the model answers to study in preparation for FPAQ the final week submission. PAQ consists of 5 themes * 7 questions = 35 questions, whereas FPAQ has 300 over questions to be done over the span of a week, the reading week. Carpal tunnel.

GEQ1000: Asking Questions

Weightage: 

Tutorial attendance/participation (36%)

Forum participation - forum 1 and 2 (14%)

MCQ quiz (36%)

Final paper (14%)

This is a general education module everyone in NUS is required to take. I dont think I learned much so I am really only there to go through the motion. There are a few pillars that the department touches on mainly Physics, Engineering, Design, etc to show how the different disciplinary courses are interconnected and how/why is questioning important. Really low maintenance course, we do a 6 or 10 MCQ quiz every week prior to the lecture for that pillar. Tutorial was online via zoom and really low workload in general. Final week was on design and we had to make a wallet for our partner and explain why or how we chose the designs, and also submitting a word essay on our reflections of things we learned.

Update. I only pray to hover above or maintain at this current CAP lemao PLEASE YOU NEED TO

[livingbutamireally]

AY2019/2020 Y1S2 Module Reviews

AY2019/2020 year 1 semester 2 review

Wew this semester was more of a honeymoon period for me still since I cant advance past CS1010S - this is only the first CS mod i have to take big oof. First half of the sem was spent mostly on (re)doing CS1010S AFAST and the rest went to catching up on other modules that are of relatively lower intensities compared to modules i imagine i will have to take next semester? The most challenging mods this sem goes to CS1010S, EC1301 and also.. ST2334? About half of the semester was done at home though due to the COVID-19 pandemic and so the never-ending heap of online lectures to review (for which i am always behind on unfortunately). I have no need to S/U any module this sem fortunately but that also means I might have effectively wasted my last COVID S/Us. I’m also the kind that is happy enough just to pass.

Modules taken this semester:

CS1010S (AFAST)

GEH1031

GES1041

EC1301

ST2334

MKT1705X

CS1010S Programming Methodology (Python) – AFAST

School of Computing

Prof: Ben Leong

Exam Dates: 16 Jan (Midterm Mock - not graded) / 24 Feb (Practical Exam) / 28 Feb (Finals)

Weightage:

Coursemology – 25%

Participation – 5%

Midterm test – NA

Practical exam – 20%

Final assessment – 50%

Since i took the alternative finals i have updated the final weightage for this module (last sems CS1010S had different weightages).

As we already know, this module (or any CS modules in general) easily has the highest workload compared to other modules, except this time without needing to complete missions every week? Also since its a re-module, there were no lectures/tutorials/recitations for this module and the prof spent lesser time than the first module with us. There is just one consultation slot per week that lasts about 1.5-2h, where the TAs/ prof Ben goes through exam questions over the past years and where students get to voice any doubts they might have. Hence, a lot of self-discipline is required on our part to grind past year papers consistently and drill our brains. Not sure if i’ve mentioned this before, but it’s nice of them to provide comprehensive worked solutions for about 50 exam papers (or maybe more) the profs claimed it was the only module in NUS to be doing this. Prof mentioned he was a bit disappointed in our batch as many werent putting in considerable effort right from the start aka ponning consultation slots arranged over the holidays (in December) - which is a lot of effort coming from the professor to arrange this just for our batch (first batch of CS1010S AFAST). Just name me any prof who does this for their students, coming back over the holidays to teach unpaid. Those who were not at level 50 in Coursemology had more time now to finish the missions/side-quests needed to achieve level 50 and get the full points for Coursemology (as we were expected to in Sem 1). Things were a bit rusty after the holidays at the start but it became better with practice. Was a bit disappointed at not being able to get question 2 right during the written paper (finals) it was a bit of an IQ-ish problem solving question. Anyways winged the 4m what-did-you-learn essay question (as usual) at the end as a saving grace and passed albeit by a very bit. I improved by 2 marks ?? compared to the last semester for finals, not the nicest thing to see after so much effort being put in but still. I think I’m just better at writing essays than coding....

Results for the PE

Mean is 14. Median is also 14. Standard Deviation is 7.6. Highest grades was 30/30 Question 1 turned out to be harder than we had intended, but Q2 was quite easy and most of Q3 was doable by most, as you can see in the results. Passing mark for PE is roughly 10/30. 

Mean is 51/10, median is 53/100 and standard deviation is 14.4. Highest was 81/100. Generally, the performance was much worse than we had expected. Pass grade for Finals is roughly 40/100.

Basically, if got 10/30 for PE and 40/100 for Finals and you have done your Coursemology assignments you can expect a C grade. If not, then prepare to SU. CS1010S is not graded on a curve. We set question to test that you have mastered certain concepts and your final grade is a reflection of what you seem to have mastered as reflected by your exam performance.

This whole module was done by recess week so we have more time to focus on other mods. Honestly will be happy enough just to pass. Now, how do i survive CS23030 and CS2040 rip.

GEH1031 Understanding the Universe

Faculty of Science (Physics)

Prof: Cindy Ng

Weightage:

Term Test 1 (3 Mar) – 25%

Term Test 2 (16 Apr) – 25%

Video presentation 5 Apr – 25%

Video critiques 17 Apr – 10%

Astrophotograph 17 Apr – 10%

Quizzes – 10%

Ng is relatively a slower-paced lecturer, which is good for someone like me who cant keep up with faster-paced profs. 2x on her elearning lecture videos makes the best pace imo. Her lecture slides are concise and simple, and will suffice in revision. While she does explain more in depth especially for concepts that are harder to grasp (not many) during the lecture i love that she keeps her lecture slides straight forward to the point. Everything was in point form, short and sweet much appreciated. Also if you pay attention to her lectures, you will do well for the quizzes at the end of each chapter for sure. Though i think you get the marks for quizzes as long as you did them before each deadline like participation marks kinda (?) rather than being graded on whether you answered them correctly. I didn’t do too well for term test 2 unfortunately and I also only just found out you can display the statistics of where you place among the cohort in LUMINUS and needless to say I didn’t place too well. It’s a relatively manageable module though there’s still a lot of content. Term test 1 consisted of MCQs and about 3 2m questions which she call “essay questions” which can be misleading for some (like me!). The MCQs are very tricky and most come in the format of these options: is A/ is not A/ is B/ is not B and you have to pick the right combination (2) out of these 4 options to score 1 point, which of course means less chances of getting them correct compared to the usual 25% in a typical MCQ. Term test 2 was held on LUMINUS at home, and this time since its an e-exam there was only 10mins to do about 25 MCQ, leaving only 0.4 minutes = 24s for 1 MCQ, which proved to be really stressful for many as voiced out by other cohort mates in the forum section (so very valid). The e-exam also had an essay component, 2m per question with 4 questions under 10 minutes. The implementation of this time constraint was to prevent cheating but the duration given was (I feel) unreasonable. As for the video presentation, we had to come up with a 7 min (at most) video most of which lasts 5/6mins on a news article in 2020 regarding astronomy. We had to form groups of 3 at the start of the semester, and were told to look for members on the forums if we did not have enough members. It is not necessary to show your face so you can be creative! For my group, we had a Germany graduate exchange student to work with us which was really cool.  Our group’s theme was NASA’s discovery of exoplanets with the use of TESS which was wrapped up in March, before the deadline in April. Really thankful for him to prompt us each week for progress and have it done and over with instead of rushing it last minute when things get busy during reading week. (I think the guy was really done with us im so sorry Philipp if you are reading this.) Also since term test 2 was done by mid-April we had more time allocated for other modules to prepare for finals (swee). Video critiques were supposedly 50 words long if i remembered correctly but i didnt find out until i hit the submit button and :_D i left 1/2-liners for each. One of the criteria of this video critique was showing that you have watched the videos of other groups well but i dont rmb my critiques proving that ive watched the videos carefully though i really did. I think our group did the best in our cluster though! (based on the critiques). For the astrophotograph, we could take part in the astronomy sessions held on a Friday of every month to use the telescopes but there wasn’t any this semester sadly due to the pandemic.

GES1041 Everyday Ethics in Singapore

Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Philosophy)

Prof: Chin Chuan Fei

Weightage:

4 Journal Entries – 20%

4 Reading Quizzes – 20%

Group Report – 10%

Group Presentation – 20%

Finals – 40%

Chin’s lectures are pretty enjoyable, his voice/tone really suits lectures. He is a very approachable person too and willing to share a lot of experiences relevant to the topic at hand. He includes snippets of related videos in his slides many of which are insightful that made me share with my friends too. There is a total of 4 main themes in the module which are namely inequality, meritocracy, multiculturalism and migration and he also introduced the use of an ethical toolbox to helps us reach a more definitive thought process especially for an abstract topic like philosophy. I didn’t realise this was a philo mod when bidding for it so I was really surprised when i went for the first lecture (like bro it clearly says ETHICS what was i thinking). I also thought it would be something similar to Social Studies but was proven wrong. There are compulsory readings to do each week, about 20 pages long usually per reading and they are all chapters from books written by other Singaporean philosophers regarding the themes gone through which helped to widen my perspectives and broadened my horizons, those were some really good selection of readings. I have learned more things than I previously knew about the foreign domestic workers, migrant workers, racism in Singapore among the many topics we have dealt with.

This module is for those who are : 

Comfortable with reading a lot every week (i put a lot here because i dont usually read)

Comfortable with writing essays (journal entry) 500 words each

Proficient in English (some of the expressions used can be quite complex and may take you a much longer time to process and understand especially with the reading quizzes that tests your comprehension of the readings - really just comprehension in true GP fashion)

Have a lot of experience in this field, those under social work would have many and will be able to share relevant experiences in the journal entry

Interested about the aforementioned themes

Reading quizzes are like comprehension style questions: do your readings and the questions tests you on what you have read so you just have to look for evidence of each option, the questions will refer you to the specific page/reading that will guide you (nice of them to do so). Journal entries and reading quizzes occur on an alternative week basis so reading quizzes followed by journal then reading quiz again and so forth. Nearing the end, you will be grouped according to who you sit close with and you will work together with your group members to work on a project that will have 2 overlapping themes about any policies/ observations of Singapore. It is advisable for the scope to not be too broad. e.g. we chose to talk about offering Muslim food in school canteens vs non-Muslim food (fewer food options for Muslims) and this encompasses both the multiculturalism and inequality themes. The group report will be due before the presentation and it helps identify some main points you will then talk about later during the presentation. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the group presentation this semester was done on Microsoft Powerpoint through voice-over slides. God bless, and there goes the need to memorise scripts especially with the finals season so near. The professor was really accommodating and gave us more time to prepare the voice-over slides when he announced that it will be held on powerpoint too. Finals was 20 MCQs in 1 hour on LUMINUS, the questions were similar to the reading quizzes (5 MCQs per quiz).

EC1301 Principles of Economics

Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Economics)

Prof: Ong Ee Cheng

Tutor: Devika

Weightage:

Pre/post-lecture Quizzes

Class Participation

Midterms 7 Mar

Finals 29 Apr

Can’t find the actual breakdown of scores sorry!

Bell-curve is really really steep for this one since its purely MCQ. Divided into micro and macroeconomics so first half of the sem was micro then the other half was macro. Finals was about 70% macro and 30% micro since micro was already tested for midterms. Every week, there’s a pre-lecture quiz to be done before the lecture and a post-lecture quiz due before the next lecture to reinforce your learning. There’s also supplementary readings that were given but i gave up on it by the third week. The way it is taught is a bit different from what I was used to in JC the things they focus on is also a bit different. There’s more calculations than JC whereas JC economics was more conceptual? I took only H1 economics so a lot of concepts were fresh for me like monopolism, comparative/absolute advantages, income elasticity etc. Both midterms and finals was held on Examplify with a lockdown on everything including wifi. The lecturer also provides additional practice questions in the form of quizzes nearing the exams instead of exam papers. To be honest, I felt this module was hard?? Not sure if anyone else felt the same way, it was a struggle.. I thought it was a fluff mod and boy was i very wrong about this. Also important thing to note is though this mod has MCQ-only exam, the MCQs are not 4 options but 6 options long with many tricky options and of course time constraint. Finals was 70/80 questions long in 1h iirc. Midterms was 40 questions. After the 3rd (?) tutorial, there was no more physical tutorials held just zoom tutorial sessions which only 3 ppl in my slot regularly attended. Towards the finals, a lot more zoom sessions were opened up and we could attend other TA’s zoom sessions this was a godsend thank you. My tutor wasn’t really clear in her explanations or maybe it is just me her accent came off a bit strong. I emailed her some questions but even now I have not receive any answers from her, she told me next week, and the next week became next next week and so on. I guess she must have had a lot on her plate. I didn’t think she was a good tutor. I flunked my midterms (5% percentile) so I was a bit dejected.

ST2334 Probability and Statistics

Faculty of Science (Statistics and Applied Probability)

Prof: Chan Yiu Man

Tutor: Li Shang

Weightage:

1. Quiz 1,2,3 (CA1) – 30% (?)

2. Finals – 60% (?)

Prof was really funny and friendly. Although his tutorials left me confused (my friends would care to disagree), his lectures were still pretty good. He always emphasised knowing what we are doing rather than doing the math blindly. The tutor was fast in his replies whenever I asked him questions by email. This module is an extension of statistics in JC, probability and many more probability distribution (F, chi-square, t test, z test) with terms we have never encountered before too (unless you took BT1101 but this mod focuses more on deriving the values than having a program-R calculate it for you). Ever since the outbreak, the lectures were converted to e-lecture slide style but each lesson would take 4 lectures (4h), instead of the 2 lecture per week so we had to spend more time watching the videos than usual. It is easy to be behind on videos when there is only e-lecture videos so much discipline is required to stay on task.

Finals was proctored with zoom and held on Luminus in the form of a quiz. We were expected to scan and submit a pdf with our workings after the exam. I did not have time to finish about 8 questions (a lot of marks gone) there were a total of 30 questions, spent too much time in front on the easier questions. I did study for the later questions but had no chance to utilize what I have revised (sad). I am really dead for this module i hope i dont fail this.

Update. God bless, thought i was really doomed for because i lost so many marks from not being able to finish 8/30 questions that have the most marks rewarded. Guess i really took time to make less mistakes on the previous questions.

MKT1705X Principles of Marketing

Business School (Marketing)

Prof: Regina Yeo

Tutor: Ms Canley

Weightage:

Individual Assignment – 15%

Group Assignment – 25% due in tutorials 4/5

Subject Pool – 10% *

Class Participation – 10% *

Final Exam 30 Apr – 40% *

* not too sure, checked from other reviewers

Individual assignment questions (total of 5) for tutorials 1-3 are given at the start for which the tutor will go through in the allocated weeks. We get to choose the question we want to do and if that week, the question will be discussed that week will be the deadline for our IAs. The other questions in the IA do not have to be submitted but will be discussed in class. There’s class participation for this module so people were more eager than I was used to, to answer questions in class. I had no opportunity to though in this module (halfway into the semester it became elearning), the tutor had too many hands to pick. The tutor was very accommodating and knew our difficulties and was willing to work out compromise. However, her classes were centered mainly on her experiences (which can be a bit boring) it could have been better if she went through the content. Understand that it is a fluff module that requires many examples, but would be good to relate them back to the content we are expected to master. Tutorials are held every alternate week and we are expected to do the individual questions even if we do not need to submit so that we have something at least to share in class. Subject pool was giveaway marks basically do 6 research surveys and u will get the full marks for that. Final exam comprises of 3 essay questions (40m, 30m, 30m) that you have to submit in 1.5h (i thought it was 2h during the paper rip mad rush for the end), no references/research needed but there’s a plagiarism checker by TurnItIn on luminus basically testing the application of concepts to examples.

I got a B+ for group assignment, and A- for individual assignment. I think i can only do essay styled questions, is this a sign to do arts.....

Oh the presentation was changed to a one-shot video recording (no stitching of individual videos together) instead of an actual presentation in front of your tutorial mates. I think a lot of other groups also read off their scripts but ours was really obvious. The tutor grades (structures her own bell-curve) based on those who attempted the same question to be more fair rather than comparing among all the different questions so in a way, the difficulty of the questions won’t affect your grade.

Epilogue. this is probably the last and only time i could do this well.... even if it does not fit the conventional definition of doing well......

#y1s2

[livingbutamireally]

sometime in sem 1 my friend and i came up with a cooler sounding blog name and we were telling each other if we ever open a mod review blog it had to be this one but icr it atm so for now will just go with livingbutamireally, initially wanted livingbutnotreally but it was taken

#ramblings

[livingbutamireally]

AY2019/2020 Y1S1 Module Review

AY2019/2020 year 1 semester 1 review

Started school around august after orientation camp in july, and had to study after doing nothing for months after a levels and finally had the taste of the rigour of this major.. semester 1 went by too quickly..

Modules taken this semester:

CS1010S

MA1101R

MA1521

BT1101

GER1000

CS1010S Programming Methodology (Python)

Prof: Ben Leong

Exam Dates: 2 Oct (Midterm) / 16 Nov (Practical Exam) / 27 Nov (Finals)

Weightage:

Coursemology – 25% (25%)

Participation – 5% (5%)

Midterm test – 15% (-)

Practical exam – 15% (20%)

Final assessment – 40% (50%)

(those in brackets are for those taking alternative final)

S in CS1010S is for science students, most students are either science students (DSA/ Life Science plenty) or BZA students.

Overall this module easily had the highest workload compared to other modules, having to rush missions every week, complete tutorials (this is pretty standard duh) and lecture trainings before deadlines for bonus points on a gamified platform. One could sit at their table wracking their brains for the whole day and still not be able to come up with a feasible code, or have their codes stuck with some bugs and not knowing how to continue. Really, without the help from fellow friends this module would be hard to get through. Luckily my TA was kind (and patient!) enough to explain such that my brain could get it. Ended up having to IP this module sadly… This module really requires your wholehearted devotion and really tests your patience i must say, especially for people who are not too intellectually inclined (aka me)..

They introduced a new scheme this semester aka Alternative Final, meaning you get to retake your midterm and finals by tabao-ing it into the next sem except you do your finals during the recess week instead of the finals, kinda like a half-retaking a module? Your grades for finals are IP-ed (in progress) rather than letter grades and the finals and midterms will be accounted for in the following half a semester albeit under different weightage components.

They said its a introductory module, but …………..

This year’s practical exam was particularly hard i think i had friends (even the zai ones) getting single digit marks… banked full in on the Method of Life question (Q5) of finals which is a giveaway question asking you how you can apply the concepts to other parts of your life and your main take-aways from taking this module (filled up the whole page and got full marks for it 4m) without this question i would have failed the paper..

Now i have to work hard the next sem… its kinda sad for us BZA students because CS1010S is a prerequisite for those wanting to take BT2101 and CS2030/2040 modules in the following semester (y1s2). Future students (esp BZA) please take the advice to consider this when deciding whether to IP…. because guess who didnt and regretted not thinking deeper…..

Ah one more thing to take note is the weightage is quite different for those IP/ alternative final people, theres higher weightage for the papers :_D

Ben Leong is a pretty good lecturer, hes solid in delivering concepts except my brain may be a little too slow for him.. Theres also lecture videos online that you can refer to and thousands of papers (with solutions!!) waiting for you to do.. something uncommon for many modules i heard? also, you get to see your final (scanned) paper through a website, in ben leong’s words “how cool is that?” he also uploads the mark scheme for your reference which is pretty cool imo. He’s a very interesting lecturer.

MA1521 Calculus for Computing

Prof: Leung Pui Fai

Exams: No midterms, just an online quiz (4 questions, most get full marks for), and the finals

Weightage: cant really rmb the weightage but i think its 40-60? i think tutorial attendance isnt graded..

They said this was just a repeat of H2 maths with more stuffs well boy i must say this wasnt as easy as they said.. okay maybe for me, ive always struggled with maths for a really long time. Surprisingly got a B for H2 Maths, i got a B3 for O levels really the blemish in my results. Got a B- for this module. Many people will say this is an easy module, you can trust them a little different in my shoes i guess. I didnt turn up for lectures for the half part of the semester since he talks a bit too slowly so i just watch the webcast sped up. But being a procrastinator i’m really behind on webcasts by the time the exams came.. i think i spent too much time on CS1010S and its still not enough.. if you dont have the discipline to watch them religiously at home, i would suggest you go for the lecture even though he may talk abit slowly but it forces you to not miss out on them. I dont really had the time (is it i wonder?) to do the tutorials either so i was also behind on them.. most of the time i just sat for tutorials and took the answers down to only work on them many weeks later (much regrets) so i didnt really understood what was going on as the TA went through. please dont be like me… the recess week was for sure not enough to revise/ learn all the content for all your mods for both midterms/finals so please dont be lazy like me…. this is the suffering i brought upon myself TT

Overall i think. it is not that hard a mod if you do your work consistently.. things got a little confusing towards the end i heard they dropped a whole chapter this semester glad they did.

MA1101R Linear Algebra I

Prof: Wang Fei

Weightage:

Finals (28 Nov, 2h)— 60%.

Mid-term test (4 Oct, 2h)— 20%.

3 homework assignments (4% per assignment) — 12%. 

An in-class Lab (MATLAB) quiz — 8%.

This was one of my most hardest period in my life and i say this on PERIODT. As if maths wasnt tough enough, this will really declare a survival of the fittest among your remaining brain cells. Friends told me maths came into their dreams… pls extinguish my soul. You must be thinking i am crazy for wanting to take 2 math mods in a sem right? ?

Yeahh no one really does that but it was my idea because i didnt want to do maths together with all the core core mods (BT and CS) next sem so i decided ah i should just get maths over and done with ( hAH real joke bc i couldnt clear CS1010S and i cant take 2k level mods for BT and CS and unlocked clown outfit because theres one more ST2334 core mod that involves probability and stats so much for thinking i will be over and done with for dealing with maths– someone tell me why did i choose this major again?)

Somehow along the way i realised the bell curve for this was surprisingly high i think those who chose this mod intend to delve even deeper in mathematics, mayhaps i joined the wrong major. The R in MA1101R actually stands for rigorous i didnt realise until my friend read the fine prints in the SOC Course Curriculum for BZA or sumn. Pure hell. There are 3 homework assignments (graded mind you) and most of the students get around 50++/60 i think i was the one of the rare few who flunked quite badly and always eyeballed by my TA (who is a prof for some 3k or 4k level maths, not for this mod though). I approached him for consults and for help and he was nice enough to sit me down and explain slowly. He’s pretty good at explaining slowly although he’s pretty fast in class (and most of the semester i had close to ZERO idea what was going on in class for pretty much most of the mods). Shockingly managed to pull out a C from my butt. The intellect of the students are no joke.. Homework assignments are every 3 weeks starting week 6 i think (so week 6, 9, 12) and i think are there to make sure you catch up with the work.

Oh lectures-wise, i sat for ½ of his classes, i really absorb almost nothing.. the rest of the lecture hall seem to get it though or so it seems. so i stopped attending my own lectures to watch the webcast for Prof Victor Tan too. His webcasts/lectures are really popular and it really owe it to his teaching, apparently he taught Wang Fei before and of course had over ten more years of experience. WF’s lecture turn-outs are comparatively less compared to VT. And on panopto (webcast platform) i think it was almost always 360++ views for VT as compared to a 80++/ was it 30++ for WF if i recall correctly. VT slides are also more concise and simple to understand where as WF’s ones are similar to the textbook. You are also required to purchase a textbook for this module costs around $20 from the co-op store in science and i urge you to purchase it asap when the profs announce they are made available bc they run oos quite fast.. the tutorial questions are from the textbook and the textbook is very simple and straightforward and put together by some of the lecturers/profs in school.

BT1101 Introduction to Business Analytics

Prof: Dr Sharon Tan, Desmond Ong

Weightage:

1. Online Quiz & Datacamp Assignments — 7%

Tutorial 1-4 — 8%

Tutorial 5 onwards — 15%

In-class Assessment (Written) — 10%

Practical Assessment — 20%

Final Assessment — 40%

In class assessment is held 2ish weeks after your midterms week so its kinda like your midterms?

Mm i would say this module is the most ?? its hard to put in words but if you read up the confessions page (NUSwhispers) regularly you would see many complaints that the mod is structured not as neatly as CS1010S its quite here and there everywhere and personal opinion, sometimes i dont know what i am supposed to learn but i guess its like that? The profs seem to value not wanting to spoonfeed and us learning on our own and stuff like that. I heard the mod was much harder in previous years and they simplified it a lot compared to in the past (which i really thank god) but its still a bit ?? They split it into two halves, first half of the sem is taught by Dr ST (Descriptive Analytics) and the next half by DO (Prescriptive and Predictive Analytics).

There are online videos to be watched every week even though you get lectures once every 2 weeks when Dr ST teaches and tutorials to be submitted to your TAs that are graded only after about 6/7 weeks. They leave comments (½ sentences someitmes shorter) and your marks received and thats about all so you dont really know where you went wrong since they are not marked paper and pen way. The tutorials are coding exercises for questions using the R language. They also used Datacamp to drill some of the basics of R for a headstart. Her workshop style lectures are a lot of on the spot learning how to code and stuff which i lag behind a bit because she goes a bit fast in order to cover everything. We learn new content via the online videos that we have to watch every week and theres quizzes for them too weekly iirc.

The next half by DO had no online videos (great!! and no quizzes!!) but weekly lectures and graded tutorials are due every 2 weeks(!!). There are still weekly tutorials but its only graded for every 2nd one, wow this saved me a lot of time phew. I didnt get to do the tutorials for those that are not graded but read through the questions so that i get a gist of whats going on, and somehow i really dont have the time to do it? CS1010S really absorbed a large chunk of my time cries. Finals was a oK it was not that bad i think. There are 20 MCQs and then about 4 structured questions? Closed-book with 1 A4 sheet cheatsheet.

Oh and the bad part about the tutorials are the tutors wont provide you with the model answers/codes so you’re really just on your own. You either get it or nah. :_D

GER1000 Quantitative Reasoning

Weightage:

1. Tutorial — 10%

2. 10 Weekly Quizzes — 20%

3. Project —35% (Presentation 10%, Final Report 25%)

4. Finals (28 MCQs, 2h) — 35%

No lectures so no profs, just weekly online videos and quizzes.

Tutorials are every odd/even weeks depending on the slot you chose.

Groups are arranged by the TAs beforehand.

This was pre-allocated for us so (grits teeth). Honestly a waste of time. One of the mods i neglected till the end to focus on other mods (which was worth it). The workload was manageable, of course (if not how to neglect). Every 2 week you meet together wiht your groupmates to discuss tutorial questions (each group will discuss 1 qn) and every tutorial class ended about 30min earlier. Nearing the end theres a group project report and slides to be done. Report is in the form of QnA so you just answer the questions and slides/ presentation is going through an article of a topic you chose (theres about 10) and you analyse the QR part of it what is good what can be better, etc. Theres also a bit of the stats part with probability and stuff but its a OK. Bell curve steep for finals (40 MCQ, 2h) but most finished in 1h and left the hall, i was one of the few who stayed till the end even though i was just staring at the paper into the depths of my soul for reasons unknown) It’s a lot about experiments not really the scientific/ calculations part of it but understanding about coming up with experiments, the pros and cons of carrying things out a certain way in loose terms something like the art of crafting experiments? makes you think a bit deeper how and what people think and not so dry i guess.

Epilogue

i guess thats a wrap–new semester starts soon :( i think this might be the first module/semester review tumblr blog but i hope this can be of help to anyone, to anyone at all. the owner of many of similar review blogs get really stellar results which i may be too out of league from so i hope this brings comforts to those who are doing not so well and encourage them because im not any different we exist, and we’ll survive.

CARPE DIEM 2020 LETS GEDDIT

#y1s1