As its name suggests, GES1028/GESS1020 covers various aspects of Singapore Society, including areas of:
Politics, Government and Civil Society
Stratification and Social Class
“Race” and Ethnicity
Gender
Sexuality
Education
Deviance and Crime
Religion
Media
ngl, i feel like i was having some deja-vu moments because some of the content covered were really similar to GES1041 Everyday Ethics in Singapore, bc I was just relearning the same concepts etc, meritocracy, race & ethnicity.
Grading components are as follows:
Tutorial Participation (20%)
I think I was really fortunate to have a really nice tutor and also a class mixed with various exchange students so it was kinda interesting to hear from various perspectives/insights outside of Singapore (even though its technically a mod that focuses on SG… haha) There wasn’t really a system where we have to raise hand to cp, and pretty much everyone were involved in small group discussions~ I wouldn’t say this was a very stressful component, but if you are taking this module, it’s best if you do some readings in preparation for the tutorial classes so you would have something to value add to the discussion.
2. Group Presentation (30%)
Starting from the second tutorial onwards, each group will prepare a 20-mins presentation based on one of the tutorial questions. Personally, I feel like this component was rather chill too, and hahahaa like I mentioned above, I already took GES1041, so some of the tutorial questions were pretty much the same/I have already gone through the readings LOL.
But aiya, I feel like this component was also very chill, there wasn’t really a strict marking guide, and we are free to explore or even go beyond the tutorial questions (with permission from the TA/prof). For my tutorial group, there wasn’t really a Q&A session too, and everyone didn’t bother to memorise their script and just read from their phones, so tbh if you are taking this module, you don’t really have to stress about this
3. Midterm Essay (25%):
I believe this was assigned before recess week, and we had around 1 month to complete the mid-term essay. This was open book, and we were basically told to reflect upon a news article. For my batch, the article was related to heteronormativity and the follow up question was regarding whether Singapore is a heteronormative society.
Tbh, there wasn’t actually a cohort feedback for the mid-term essay, but i did receive my mid-term grade and did pretty well hahaah, so maybe I can provide some tips:
properly defining the terms in your essay. When doing the essay, assume that whoever is reading it has zero clue about the terms, such as heteronormativity, hegemonic masculinity, etc. Make sure that you define and cite relevant sources when explaining such terms in your essay.
ensure that you cite sufficient relevant sources and go beyond the news article. I like to use Google Scholar or NUS Libraries to find other scholarly articles that can provide me with greater insights into the topic. I think this also enhances the credibility of your essay.
Also, a mistake that I made when writing the essay was being too personal: etc, including words like “I posit” or “I reckon that Singapore is a heteronormative society etc.” It’s best to exclude such pronouns in your essay.
4. Final Essay (25%):
This was also of similar format to the mid-term essay. Though I was expecting the topic to be more relevant to Weeks 7 onwards, I was quite surprised to see that the final essay question was in fact the same as the tutorial question in Week 1. The topic and news article was on the idea of gestural politics. I did not receive any feedback/grade for the final essay (they are probably still marking the paper tbh), but the tips for mid-term essays still applies.
Overall:
Tbh, i feel like i don’t really have a lot of impression about this module? I feel like I was just cruising along week by week. Also because this module was online, and we were told that the lecture will be recorded, I got lazier and lazier every week and ended up skipping the lectures entirely. I feel like after Week 8 I stopped watching the lecture videos too (lmaoooooo, don’t be like me). At the start of the semester, I was also actively taking down notes on the readings, but towards the end of the semester, I didn’t even download/read the readings anymore :p . It also helped that there is no actual mid-terms/finals, cuz the assessments were open book, and I had like an entire month to do the essay so I didn’t really have to study for it too lol.
I think I got pretty sian because I really felt like I was learning the same thing as GES1041, but disclaimer ah, this is just my personal experience!! Maybe it would have been different if I had taken this module first opps. But regardless, because I took a similar module before, I feel like the content/tutorial questions were ezpz, I don’t think I struggled a lot in this module?? The only thing I struggled with is procrastination because I was lazy to watch the videos and get started on the essays??? (But lmaooo this feels like an universal experience xD) I will actually recommend this module due to how chill it was, but pls don’t expect too much from it, cuz the content can get really dry and sometimes boring.. But tbh, i feel like thats all GES modules lol (oof dont come after me…) If you are just looking for some modules to clear your UEs (like me), or if you just want a chill final year/sem (also me xD), you can consider taking this module!!
This was another random GE module that I took to clear my UEs. As its title suggests, we learn about Chinese music from PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore in the different eras. I would like to caution that we do not just learn about modern or current music (etc mandopop), we get to explore (and hear) different musical styles, such as cantopop, rock music etc. Therefore, this is a PSA that its not just listening to Jay Chou’s songs (though some of his songs were indeed explored in 1 or 2 lectures/tutorials), so if that’s your only intention to take this module, maybe this isn’t right for you!!
Anyway, we also got to explore songs in movies (such as 我的少女时代), which will be relevant in the group project as elaborated below. The later part of the lectures and tutorials (near Week 10 onwards) focus on Chinese poems (also from different dynasties).
Some degree of Chinese proficiency will be good but tbh not very necessary as most song lyrics shown are translated into English.
The grading components are as follows:
Individual Essay (45%)
This essay was actually due after recess week, and we were expected to write a ~1200 word topic on one of the popular Chinese singers and one of the songs explored in the lecture. This includes:
Zhou Xuan
Teresa Teng
Cui Jian
Sam Hui
Jay Chou
tbh, all of us just received the grading feedback for our essay, so perhaps i shall focus more on the tips to score well for this component.
Firstly, make sure you have an adequate and balanced coverage of the required content. For my batch, there were two parts to the essay, (a) significance of the chosen singer, and (b) one song discussed by that singer. It’s not sufficient to gloss over the singer’s influence in just a couple of lines.
Secondly, APA citation is important. I was absolutely roasted for my atrocious reference list (oof), because i did not know that there are different APA citation styles for different publications (apparently citing style for journal papers are different for theses or books or videos) And yeah… marks are deducted for lousy citations (sigh)
Thirdly, credibilityof sources used in essay. I feel like this was already repeatedly emphasized by the prof, but apparently some students still rely on sketchy blogposts, forums, or even links from wikipedia when doing the essay (pls do not do this!!) One tip I have is to just find academic papers from NUS Libraries, or Google Scholar. Theres actually a lot of free scholarly papers on the internet!
Fourthly, having a good understanding of the song chosen. The lyrics of the song chosen might be different from what is portrayed in the MV.
Fifthly, just a disclaimer ah, this is my own personal opinion, but if you take this module with the intention of getting an A, pls don’t choose Jay Chou as the topic AHAHA. I MEAN, im not saying that you cant score well if you choose to write about him, but majority of the cohort chose to write about him and his songs, and theres not much you really can do to stand out?? But this is just my opinion ah, if you are a super megafan of Jay Chou and want to write about your idol then go ahead lor but just try to be more unique?
2. Group Project (35%)
This was randomly assigned in your tutorial groups. Basically, we choose one movie to analyze and identify the songs used in the movie (whether they are diegetic or non-diegetic).
I also just received the feedback for this, so let me also focus on the tips to score well for this component.
Firstly, also make sure that you have a balanced coverage of the required content in the project. You need to give a short brief of the movie chosen, and also explore the songs in the movie itself. Most groups typically chose 2-3 songs and clips in the presentation.
Secondly, there is strict timekeeping, so make sure that you do not exceed the 15 mins allocated per group. Also, this presentation was done online, so try to make sure there’s no technical difficulty, or your presentation slides/videos don’t lag.
Thirdly, this is also my opinion ah, if you want to get A, I think its better to choose movies that are more niche? There were so many groups in my tutorial that chose ‘You Are the Apple of My Eye‘, and ngl, my groupmates and I were kinda sian hearing the same presentation and songs over and over again AHAHA.
3. Tutorial Attendance/Participation (20%)
I think this is pretty self explanatory bah, just show up for tutorial, raise hand and answer questions. We get to prepare the questions before tutorials, so its just a matter of ‘fastest hands’, because some people in my tutorial group were really onz. The tutor was really strict with recording what we said so if you give some lousy/ fluff answers, you might get called out LOL. Tbh, I think if you take this module, you can pretty much get by without reading any of the course readings because most of the tutorial questions are less about the theory, but more about your opinion about certain topics (etc your favourite poem explored in lecture?)
Overall opinion:
Tbh, I kinda enjoyed this module?? I think a lot of people may disagree with me HAAHHAHA but I personally enjoyed listening to all the different songs in the different eras and different countries. Yeah they are not really conventional songs that you hear nowadays, but i think its pretty cool to hear how the songs have changed over the years. Ok la, maybe i just share some of the songs that we explored throughout the semester, and you can decide whether you want to take this module!! 😀 Note that the list is not exhaustive, i only picked some of my favourites hehe xD
So yeah, as you can see above, its not just listening to Jay Chou’s songs, but we get to explore different variety of songs from different singers!
I feel like overall, this module is pretty chill too cuz theres no exam, and you don’t really have to take down notes because they are not really tested? And honestly, I kinda stopped watching the lecture after Week 11, because tutorials are pretty much over. While there are significant number of readings in this module, like i mentioned above, I personally got by without really reading any of them (ahahahahahah sorry i was lazy).
I would totally recommend this module, but i wouldn’t say that this is my favourite GEH module (heheh sorry BUT I STILL ENJOYED THIS MODULE OKAY). I think I can actually be in the position to say this cuz i actually took a total of 3 GEH modules (the other 2 being GEH1074 Luck and GEH1056 Cultural Diversity in Contemporary World). But I still think this module (GEH1006) is still pretty good if you are genuinely interested to learn more about chinese music (beyond just mandopop and jay chou), and I also think its pretty easy to score well as long as you put in the effort in both your project and individual report!!
And yeah as usual, pls don’t ask me for notes cuz i won’t be entertaining such comments 😀 lemme know if you have any questions, and i can try to answer 😀 (no promises tho)
This is a random 4k module that i took with my friend! fun fact, this was my first time taking a mno module since mno2705 😀 ngl, i was pretty afraid bc ive mostly been studying economics and marketing, which is totally not linked to any hr concepts or theories lol. nevertheless, this was the only 4k module that caught my eye, and tbh as a last year last sem student, i thought it will also be good to know/ have some tips about some hr practices since i’ll be going for interviews/ applying for jobs throughout the sem.
but haha i ended up getting abit siked because it was mostly learning about the theories behind the different selection decisions, validity and reliability rather than tips hahaa. Nevertheless i still think its pretty useful, the prof is pretty nice, and the class is really chill so i don’t really have any regrets taking this class (other than having to wake up every week for an 830am class💀) but i shall elaborate this at the end
I think this was the easiest component to score, as this was entirely marked based on your individual forum contributions. (*cheers from introverts*🎉) Every week, there will be a case study (which will be presented by different groups). Students who are not presenting can post up to 5 contribution posts by answering the questions in the case study. Your posts may be credited by the presenting team/used during their presentation. 1 post = 1 mark, so technically, we could all clear this within the first four weeks to get the full marks for this component!! I personally think this was really easy to score cuz we just had to read the case study and answer the questions, so i wasn’t surprised to see that pretty much almost everyone scored full marks for this component.
btw haha, if you are taking this module, pls adhere to the dateline for forum contribution strictly, there was one student who was late by like 3mins and it was considered ‘late’ 💀. ngl i felt really so bad for him/her… but welp at least can still catch up in the later weeks
2. Group Study & Presentation (20%)
as mentioned above, there will be a group that will be presenting on a particular topic for the later half of the class (in the last hour). this was randomly assigned, and we could form our own groups! the case studies were extracted from news articles/websites online, and it basically covers the hr concepts for a particular company for that particular week. i think my only complaint was that the questions every week differs?? Kinda unfair how some groups only had to do 2-3 questions, but some other groups had to cover 5-6 questions… And there were only 15 mins to present (ok tbf he didn’t really keep track of the time), but its still a mad rush cuz we had to tackle all questions, and still had to keep the presentation interesting (with skits, audience engagement etc).
Anyway, I was one of the last few groups to present, so we kinda procrastinated until like one week before the presentation to start doing the slides LOL. Luckily there wasn’t a report due, and tbh, the questions were like pretty straightforward so its easy to tackle, but i wouldn’t recommend leaving it til so last minute (tbh my groupmates were really chill, i was like the only one stressing out.💀)
3. Individual MCQ Test (30%)
This was conducted in Week 12, and we only had to come to school to take an one-hour closed book test. The topics tested included content covered from Weeks 1 – 10 and was in MCQ format.
I actually think the MCQ questions were pretty tricky? I went in and did the entire paper so confidently… but sike i still ended up getting a few questions wrong. p.s. the median was around 21/22 marks out of 30 marks!
if you are taking this module, just skip the slides and read the transcripts!! A lot of minor details in the transcripts were tested, and some of them are not even covered in the slides. i think if you have been following the lectures consistently and reading the notes consistently, you should be able to do well for this component.
4. Individual Project (Application of Concepts & Practices)
This was conducted in Week 13 (which i like to call the hell week 🔥 cuz i have literally so many assignments and presentation due that week 🥲). Nevertheless, we were given one week to complete the case study, which is of similar format to our group study cases.
I think this was a good reflection of whatever we have learnt in the past semester, cuz we were expected to list any 6 relevant concepts and link it into the case study. But aiya, i think this component is also quite easy to score as long as you have been actively contributing in the class forum and you know your content! (but ok la tbh even if you don’t know, you can always refer to the transcripts since its open book)
Overall
fun fact, this was the only 4k module i took this semester (the rest were 1k modules), but this was like the chillest (legit) module out of all. I feel like i was stressing out more for my 1k module than for this mno mod??
Tbh, the only thing i don’t like about this class was that its in the morning (but thats a me problem🤡), and i honestly felt really sleepy in his class (again… it’s my problem, i blame my revenge bedtime procrastination, i always attend this class with only 3 hours of sleep AHAAHAHA 🥲). I think it helps that there wasn’t class participation in class, so i was able to feel more relaxed and less stressed. Also, because theres no actual class attendance (well, we did have to sign the attendance sheet but it does not constitute any of our marks), its funny to see how the number of ppl in class decreases every week (but those fakers ask their friends to sign their attendance i see u 😤). I would say that as a marketing student, this class wasn’t as intimidating as i initially thought, tbh its feel very beginner-friendly and the prof is really friendly and nice! However, i have to caution that the content can be a little bit boring and dry, tbh im not really sure if it ended up helping my job search (i don’t think it did actually HAHAHA) but i would totally recommend this module if you are looking for something more chill!
Took this tgt with MKT4720 – Product Experience Management, thinking that there will be some degree of overlapping, but there actually isn’t, bc this module explores more on the ‘Customer’ (duhhh not the ‘Product’). Content (and concepts) taught in MKT4720 and this module (MKT4723) is totally different. In fact, MKT4723’s content was more similar to Services Marketing (MKT3711), prob because this was taught by the same Prof (etc, things like Atmospherics model were already taught in MKT3711, but its a nice recap in this mod). This prof is still as chill as I remembered and I actually really liked her teaching style because she likes to teach her classes by applying concepts to real-life examples (such as DisneyLand, Sephora etc) so it can be quite relevant.
Grading components are as explored:
Individual Assignment 1A (25%)
This was due in Week 6. We were supposed to think from the perspective of a customer and apply the CX knowledge to a real commercial setting (for a B2C business: such as tech, fast fashion, F&B etc). There wasn’t very strict requirements on the chosen company, but we had to at least choose a company that has both online and onsite presence. Bc we had to use the same company for Assignment 1B, one should actually look at the 1B requirements so that we can easily apply the concepts and come up with recommendations later. Some concepts we were supposed to explore include topics taught in the first half of the sem:
a) Brand identity of the organization (Marketing Strategies and Branding explored in the recent 5-10 years), so one can actually do an on-site recce, or just browse through their social media/online site to make an analysis.
b) Describe our customer experience with the organization (Good to do an on-site recce, and see how the service staff interact with the customer (you). We were supposed to frame this in the 3 stages of consumption.
c) Critique organization’s CX efforts using frameworks taught in class (such as Sensory System, Value Constellation, Customer Value Framework etc)
I think this was quite simple to do, and we were only expected to write up to 1.5K words for this.
2. Individual Assignment 1B (25%)
This is a continuation of Assignment 1A, just that we were supposed to apply concepts taught in the later half of the semester, and apply them to the same organization explored in 1A.
In Part 1B, we were now expected to act as the CX manager of the chosen organization, and in that perspective, analyze the organization’s CX effort and submit a short report (2k words). We were expected to explore:
a) The physical store (Through the creation of a service blueprint, which I did on Miro) and then identify risk points and provide corresponding recommendations to better manage them.
b) Explore the physical store and critique using the Atmospheric model, , Customer Perception (in terms of cognitive, emotional, physiological and social interaction) and provide corresponding recommendations to improve the experience
c) The online platform (Explore the organization’s online presence in terms of social media, app, website) and provide recommendations through the use of technology to add value to customers.
I think 1B is harder because we had to come up with recommendations for almost all the above parts, so its better to choose a company that is more novel and unknown (and maybe not as developed), as compared to a huge organization (who is doing well physically and online) else its harder to give recommendations.
3. Group Presentation and Report (30%)
For the group project, we were supposed to act as external CX consultants and explore an organization (that one of us has worked/interned in) and examine the following areas.
a) General overview of the organization (Mission, Vision, Branding) and whether it is aligned with target audience and the CX experience.
b) Current leadership and corporate culture (Using frameworks taught in class)
c) Appraisal on people management
d) Short-term interim plan to improve immediate current position
e) Long-term plan to transition into 360 degree customer-centric organization.
Report was around 4k words, but since we were grouped in 6-7, the report can be done rather quickly. I was blessed to be in a good team for this project, and we got everything done super quickly in Week 11. Afterward, we just spent the rest of the week preparing for the slides 🙂 Presentation was done physically, and Prof didn’t really ask any questions yay
4. Class Participation (20%)
A mix of forum posts on padlet and in-class participation. Prof is quite understanding that some students may be more introverted, so she allow students to type up forum posts (yay).
Conclusion
I would totally recommend this module, bc I really liked the content and the prof was really nice. There is no exam (yay), and though theres a lot of report to be written, Prof gives us a lot of time to get them done (etc there was no classes in Week 10 and 11). I think it helped that there was a bit of overlapping content in MKT3711, so I kinda knew the concepts alr so its easy to apply them in the assignment. If you are looking for a marketing mod to take, pls take this under Prof Lilian!!
Others
Lecturer: Prof Lilian Ho
Readings: 1-3 readings a week (but I have never read any cuz it wasn’t tested opps)
This was a 4K module that I took to clear my marketing specialization. In fact, I bidded for this module bc I heard from a senior that we get to fold paper aeroplanes in class (AHAHAHHAHAHAHA+ its true yall) and managed to drag my friend to take the same class tgt LOOOL. Prof Guo Lei was really nice, and though the content can get really dry, theres interesting Design Thinking Workshop almost every week, so we get to do a lot of hands-on activities (flying paper aeroplane was one of them AHAHHAA).
Grading components are as follows:
Quiz (2×10%)
Just 10 questions: involving a mix of MCQ, T/F, Problem Solving (Matching) questions done on LumiNUS. Open-book, but tbh didn’t even need to refer to notes because whatever was asked in the quiz was not found in the lecture notes. 🤡 A lot of application questions, and a lot of the concepts that were briefly mentioned by Prof in class, but were not explicitly written in the notes, were actually tested. So one must actually pay attention in class, and actively take down notes cuz thats the part that will be tested. A good thing about this module is that there is no textbook, or readings every week, so to prepare for class, one just gotta read her notes 😀
2. Individual Assignment (20%)
For this component, we were supposed to choose 3 examples of human-centred product experience design in our daily lives, which can be a physical product, digital product, or even some services. Prof didn’t really restrict us in the examples, but encouraged us to explore more novel examples (aka she was sick of Spotify, but liked examples such as mahjong table haha).
This was a max 10-page paper, and we were supposed to describe the product that we have chosen according to the Design Principles (and whether it follows the Learnable, Memorable, Error-Free, Efficient, Engaging) to evaluate the product design. We were supposed to put pictures of the product (+ even better if it shows us using it??), so I literally spammed more than 10 pages of pictures in the appendix.
Wasn’t really sure how well I scored, but I probably didn’t do well because my examples were rather common (gg, yes I am one of the many who wrote Spotify yikes)
3. Team Project (Part 1 20%, Part II 30%)
For the first part of the project, it involves a Campus Experience Design.
This project was focused on NUS, and we were supposed to identify a target group in the NUS community: e.g. international students, freshmen, visitors. For Part I, it was rather simple as we just needed to conduct primary research (in the form of interviews, contextual inquiry, Field observation) to understand their experience. Through which, we had to gather pain points from the field and discover if there were any unmet needs. For the mini presentation (it was on zoom), we had to draft out a design persona and 2-3 customer journey mapping.
I think the bulk of the work for Part I was just doing the field observation and the presentation slides, so my team managed to get this pretty done quickly (albeit quite last minute in one week lol). During the presentation, we were supposed to identify the relevant pain points of our target user group (and wayfinding around NUS was raised up by more than half the groups oof so there were many groups who were exploring the same topic).
For Part 2, this happened after recess week. We received some feedback from the prof, and thereafter worked on designing a functioning physical or digital prototype for our target user to enhance their campus experience by tackling the pain point raised in Project Part I. We were required to have 2 prototype (either a low/mid fidelity prototype, which can be handwritten (drawn), or use digital wireframes, as well as a final HIGH fidelity prototype – which she suggests using WIX, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Figma, any other 3D modelling software, or a physical prototype). We also needed to get user testings analysis (basically letting our target audience try out both the prototypes and get relevant feedback), so we needed to quickly churn out the prototypes for testing so as to improve our product design for submission. Thankfully, there was no written report, and we just had to submit supporting documents (for the user testing), links to the prototype (digital – if any), and also do up the presentation slides.
I think Part 2 was the toughest part of the project, cuz not many people knew how to design a high-fidelity prototype using a software, and I ended up tanking the high-fidelity prototype and had to design a website on WIX and Vectary…. (shag). NGL, I got a bit triggered at some of my groupmates for not pulling their weight in the project, cuz some don’t even bother attending our internal group meetings, or get their user testing report done (how hard can this be sia…) So I just ended up peer evaluating them hmph. 😤
4. Class Participation (10%)
Comprises of attendance, case study discussion and LumiNUS Forum Discussions. Prof doesn’t really ask a lot of questions in class, so I guess class participation marks mostly comes from the case study discussions (in the form of Design Thinking Workshops – where we gather in teams and take part in some hands-on activity) and LumiNUS Forum Discussions (honestly, nb really posted).
For the Design Thinking Workshop:
Basically, Prof will allocate the last 1 hour of the class for us to get into our group project teams, and we work on some activities relating to the lecture content. Etc, in one class, we were told to create a customer journey mapping and persona according to a specific scenario. Etc, in another class we were told to build 3 paper aeroplanes, and we even had a challenge to see how many of them can fly more than 2m looool. (that was fun)
Conclusion:
TLDR, there are fun components of this module (design thinking workshops), content can be sometimes dry but at least Prof is really nice (we get Ferrero chocos in some weeks and shes super chill and easy to talk to), project can be really TOUGH if you/your groupmates don’t know how to use softwares (but aiya, u can always learn 🙂 , best to just form groups with people who know how to do it… ), and this was not mentioned above, but we got a chance to explore softwares, such as Orange Data Mining (wasn’t tested but cool to know)!! Perhaps due to my bad project experience, the fun aspects of the module was diminished LOL bc I was just stressing about the project prototype after recess week zzzzz. I would prob recommend taking this module but finding good groupmates :’)
*Blog is unedited 🙂 Pardon any mistakes
Others
Lecturer/Tutor: Prof Guo Lei
Readings: NIL, some readings can be found on the course syllabus, but I have personally not read any of them.
Content: Can be rather dry… But i guess there’s some useful concepts etc Agile Thinking
Recommend?: On the fence for this… I don’t really like the content and the project component (the latter is q tough cuz we need to make a working prototype, feels like PW 2.0). But the class and prof is v chill.
This was a 2 MC module that I took to clear my extra UEs 😀 Heard many good reviews about this mod, and since it is a CS/CU mod, I went ahead to bid for it. True enough, ALS1010 is legit a super chill class that I will recommend for future batches. (I think bc its an online module HAHA). A good thing about this module is that theres only classes on specific weeks (e.g. Weeks 2-5 and Weeks 8-11) so we got time to grind for our mid terms and finals 🤡
When I took ALS1010, it was taught by Prof Kamei ( a super chill prof from YLL School of Medicine 😮 ) and Dr Magdeline (also super chill (supposedly) librarian ??) And there was a bunch of TAs that helped facilitated the session and made every class super interactive (theres music playing, kahoot, guest speakers, pollev, miro, group discussions).
Here’s the grading components:
Attendance and Participation (30%)
Since this was an online class, we were expected to turn on our cameras, but thankfully, mute ourselves (unless we want to speak up, but theres almost little chance to do so because theres like 200+ ppl in the same zoom call). There’s also alternative forms of participation, aka everyone spamming the zoom chat hahaa. The TAs frequently post discussion questions in the zoom chat to facilitate participation.
Other forms of participation, as mentioned above, includes PollEv quizzes. In almost every class, Prof activates a PollEv quiz with some simple questions (relating to the topic), to track attendance and to facilitate class discussions.
On some weeks, we split into group (aka being randomly assigned to a breakout room) to be involved in some form of group discussions on Miro. Honestly, I think the effort was appreciated, but at least in my group, when we all went into the breakout room, all of us turned our camera off and it was just 20 mins of awkward silence cuz nobody (me too) wanted to lead the discussion HHAHAAH
2. Completion of Surveys (20%)
At the start of the course, we were expect to do like 1-2 surveys (basically to understand more about you), and then theres a follow up survey thats disseminated at the end of the course ( I guess its to track like before-after progress, and whether you have learnt anything from the course??) Tbh, I don’t really remember what the survey questions were on oof paiseh, and I didn’t even know this was graded until i’m writing this review now gg 🤡
3. Learning Draft (first draft) (15%)
We had to submit the first version of our learning draft, which comprises of the following:
a) Aspiration Goals
b) SMART Learning Tasks / Behaviours
c) Some table on Metacognitive Learning Cycle/ Self-Regulation/ Health & Wellbeing
d) Template Learning Calendar
Basically, we had to link the concepts taught in class, and then write it in our learning draft. Honestly, I didn’t really know how to fill in the learning draft, esp the table, but we were told that we just had to fill in half of the table and leave the Implementing and Evaluating for later, so I just filled in a) and b), and submitting it accordingly. Thankfully, the department did upload like a sample learning draft plan, so we could always refer if we didn’t know how to fill in the document.
4. Updated Learning Draft(15%)
I thought we were supposed to get some feedback from our first draft, but I didn’t get any??? So I was super confused about this, I ended up just modifying my document and resubmitting the same doc with like more specific goals, and also added the Implementing and Evaluating portion of the table.
5. Course Reflection Slide(20%)
This was basically just a one-page, A4 slide, where we write about some key takeaways from the course and reflection. Etc some questions that they kindly provided include:
• What are some changes in your behaviour (if any) after taking this course? • What are some real-life examples you can think of which involve applying the learning strategies you have learnt? • How do these strategies fit into the Holistic Learning Framework?
• What was your background of ‘status’ of learning before enrolling for this module? • What are your learning gains and (renewed) sources of motivation? • What aspects of your life do you see yourself applying what you have learnt? • Are there any surprises which you have around your learning/how we learn?
There was some suggested word count (etc around 300 words for reflection, 50-100 words per takeaway), and specific font size, but honestly its so hard to fit all the words in a single slide lmao. I ended up writing so much and had to ignore the font size requirements just to fit everything into the slide. P.S. Canva has really nice slides, so i basically used a template from there :D.
Conclusion:
That’s all for the ALS1010 review!! Sorry it’s kinda short, tbh…. I don’t really remember what I have learnt from this course (oof), I wouldn’t say that I learnt nothing (Holistic Learning Framework and Chunking methods were kinda cool) but I wouldn’t say that I learnt a lot too (I keep seeing SMART framework everywhere). But I guess if you are looking to clear UEs, or if you are looking to overload on a semester, I think that ALS1010 is chill enough cuz it has a manageable workload. However, ALS1010 is not really offered every semester, so if you get the chance to take it, just hurry up take and clear it hhahhaa.
P.S. Theres actually another mod called ALS1020 Learning to Choose Better – which sounds rather cool too, but heard its not offered this entire academic year oof sad
Others
Lecturer: Prof Kamei and Dr Magdeline
Readings: NIL
Content: Can be rather dry… But can expose you to different concepts and frameworks, etc different studying methods.
Recommend?: If you have extra UEs, sure. (controversial opinion, but I wouldn’t say that I loved this mod bc I just took this to clear my UEs…) Workload is LOW and module is CS/CU.
I took this module to clear my extra UEs 🙂 In fact, I had already cleared all my GE pillars, so I took this module for fun! I actually heard about this module from my friend who took this module under Prof Georgiou… and I was like why does his name sound so familiar?? 🧐 turns out I had taken his GET1023 – Thinking Like An Economist module in Year 1, and I remembered enjoying it so much hehehe so I went ahead to bid for GEH1074 this semester!!
BTW, despite being a Y4 student, I had so much difficulty bidding for this mod, I failed to get into the module in Round 2 and 3, and could only get in via APPEAL :> Whoever dropped out and left that extra spot thanks so much ya haahaha.
This is a very very interesting module, in fact, one that I enjoyed the most this semester, because we got to explore how luck affects almost every area of our lives – from our name, the time and month when we are born, the place we are born in, free will and determinism, blah blah and more. In the later half of the semester, there was more emphasis on how to counter (bad) luck – etc buying insurance, migration, taxation policies, intelligent design etc.
I really recommend this module, cuz Prof Georgiou (or as we like to call him ggman) is a very engaging professor, and his content is legit very interesting. Though he still keeps his habits of randomly shouting in the lecture hall (ahhahaaha same as GET1023, to keep us all awake ig..), he frequently walks around the lecture hall, and attempts to engage us (usually by approaching the exchange students and asking them questions and getting them to share their experience LOL ).
Heres the topic that were covered every week:
Luck and Art
Luck and Evolution
Luck and circumstances at birth A (Place & Time)
Luck and circumstances at birth B (Other Chance events)
Luck and Social Mobility
Luck and Free Will
Luck and Causality
Luck and Marketplace
Harnessing Luck A (Collective Financial Part)
Harnessing Luck B (Individual Financial Part)
Harnessing Luck C (The Existential Part)
Are you lucky?
Lemme jump straight into the grading component:
Tutorial (10%)
Self-explanatory, theres a 1-hour physical tutorial every week, starting from Week 3. Basically covers the content that he taught the previous week, and theres some weekly discussion questions that you can attempt to do before class. I actually got ggman as our tutor, so our tutorial was mainly 20 mins of internal group discussions (where we were split into groups of 3, and each group takes 1 question). Afterward, we will all type our discussion answers into a consolidated shared document. Afterward, a representative from each group will go to the front of the class to present his/her answer for the question that the group was allocated.
And because this was a module on Luck, I vividly remembered going for my first tutorial in Week 3, and we did scissors-paper-stone in our internal group to decide who will present, AND I WAS THE UNLUCKY ONE WHO LOST 3 TIMES IN A ROW, so I had to went up to present LOOOL. But it was quite chill, because it wasn’t really a formal presentation, so there wasn’t a lot of stress about this component. Just try to speak up once in a while.
2. Lecture polls (10%)
This was the same format as GET1023, basically, for ggman to track our lecture attendance, and to make sure that we go for his lecture, we have to do some weekly lecture polls that he activates via pollev, during his lecture classes. The pollev is just some discussion quizzes with no right or wrong answer, so we can just pick the option that best resonate with us.
Anyway, now that I have cleared this module, I can expose myself and share about how I exploit this loophole (lol sorry). I was initially quite onz about this module in the first half of the semester so I went for all his lectures and participated in all the lecture polls in the LT. However, nearing the end of the semester, I got super busy (and lazy) to travel to school just for a 1.5 hour lecture, so I ended up skipping his lectures (it was recorded anyway, and the content covered was quite little near the end of the semester so alls good). However, I was abit kiasu, and didn’t want to miss out the Lecture polls, so I just camped at home at the pollev page, and waited until ggman activates his quiz and then inputted my options oof.
3. LumiNUS Weekly Quizzes (15%)
Another very easy to score component. Every week, you will be assigned to some readings (~40 to 50 pages), and ggman tests some of the concepts in the readings. This is a very easy to score component, bc as long as you have read the readings, you will be able to do the quizzes. Besides, the quizzes have no time-limit, and you can basically refer to your notes as you do it.
However, since ggman uploads his readings in scanned formatting, it can be hard to ctrl+f the words and find the answer. I recommend finding a pdf version of the readings, or if you cannot find one, just scan through the readings ( i mean you have to read through anyway ), cuz all the questions are taken from the readings.
The number of questions that ggman gives per week are different, there can be as many as 9 MCQ questions, and as little as 2 MCQ questions. I guess this depends on the intensity of the readings. Nevertheless, I think I remember ggman saying that he will take only the 9 highest score out of the 10 quizzes, so you can technically skip one quiz. Like I mentioned, this is a very easy component to score, and ggman activates the grade distribution book so we can see that almost everyone score full marks for all the quizzes lol. Also, this is where I flex and say that I scored full marks for all 10 quizzez yAY 🏆
4. Midterms (30%)
Midterms comprises of 5 short answered-questions that are done on Examplify. Exam is open-book, so you don’t have to memorise all the examples in the readings + lecture notes (huzzah!!!). What I did to prepare for mid terms was to merge all my lecture notes into one pdf, and then I transferred all my readings into pdf format so that it’s also easy to find the examples.
What I learnt from ggman’s exam from GET1023 was that he expects us to quote examples from the readings, and some of the questions consist of examples from the readings rather than the lecture notes. This was the same for this module, GEH1074. If you want to score well for ggman’s exam, please make sure that you download and read all the readings + make sure that you write down enough examples bc thats where you get the marks!!
I can’t remember the exact phrasing of the questions, but i do remember that ggman actually mixes some of the topic tgt: e.g. What will free-will believers think about the idea of meritocracy? Or smth like Do hard determinists support the idea of meritocracy? (p.s. i cant remember the exact phrasing). And the answer is actually found in one of the readings, so it’s easy for one to just refer to the readings and quote the author.
The median for the mid-terms was around 22/31 marks. I only had one mid-term for this semester (excluding other class quizzes), so i basically spent my recess week just studying for GEH1074 LOL, the hard work paid off and I got close to full marks. :p
5. Finals (35%)
This was the only finals that I had for this semester, so I had close to 2 weeks to study for this one exam LOL. The format was the same as midterms, just that there were fewer questions (4 short answer questions), but they were of higher weightage (some as low as 4 marks, some as high as 20 marks). I think the overall marks was 64???? I can’t remember though.
A good thing about this module is that the content is not cumulative, so we just needed to study the content after recess week, and it was open-book so we just had to merge all the pdf, and bring everything into the exam hall. Despite there being only 4 questions, it was 2-hours of non-stop typing for me LOL because I was just spamming all the examples from the readings and lecture notes.
I think the finals was significantly harder than the mid terms.
The first question was on Piketty’s global tax on capital, its definition, some obstacles to implementation and other existing tax policies that are similar or different to Piketty’s model. I think this was rather straightforward, since this was one of the modified practise question that ggman provided, and the existing tax policies can be found in the readings.
The second question was super hard??? I didn’t understand the question at all, but it was on the topic of the fall of the cryptocurrency FTX, its bankruptcy and how Temesak Holdings (creditor) had to write down its investment?? There were three parts to this questions, and the first part was to elaborate on the predictive abilities of the creditors (like nani?? what is this), then the second and third part was just examples of existing analysts/players in the financial market and to elaborate on their successful investing abilities or smth (nani??? – i just assumed that he was asking about the example on the columnist Koppett and Bill Miller and talked about how everything was due to luck, and threw in concepts of anthropic reasoning, selection bias etc but i think im wrong LOL rip).
The third question was about factors that affect rising inequality, especially in the US and UK (other than the winner-take-all mechanism). – to which I elaborated on the finance industry (can be found in the lecture notes too :D)
I can’t seem to remember the fourth question (rip my short-term memory), so haahhahahaha i guess i shall leave this empty.
tbh I was expecting to be tested about the Sachs’ S-shaped curve, the Mediocristan vs Extremistan differences, but none of it came out. 😬 And I was stunned by the second question gg. But I spammed a lot of concepts so I guess I did relatively… okay? I hope xx
Conclusion
I think this is a really really great module, and its taught by ggman, so you can’t go wrong with this GE 😀
The only downside to this module (same for GET1023), is that theres A LOT OF READINGS every week. But nevertheless, don’t let this deter you, because i really think ggman’s classes are really interesting and i always look forward to his tutorials and content 😀
Others
Lecturer/Tutor: Prof GEORGIOU Georgios
Readings: Too many and time-consuming… 😦
Content: Interesting, but gets boring in the second half of the semester.
Recommend?: Yes, bc its taught by ggman, only downside is the readings. (p.s. got an A+ how lucky 😀 )
DYOM, aka Design-Your-Own Module is applicable for students who are keen to explore beyond their disciplines, or those who just want to clear their UEs. More information can be found here. Since I have completed 8MC worth of EDX in this semester, I am only able to provide guidance based on EDX modules that are enrolled via LUMINUS. I know that NUS is transitioning into CANVAS next semester onwards, so I am not sure how that works, and if the procedures are still the same. Nevertheless, I will my best to relay the enrolment procedures as per my experience with LumiNUS.
NUS has kindly provided a wiki guide as to how one can enrol for a module on EDX and I find it rather intuitive and clear. I will cop a few pictures from the guide and attach it here for your easy reference, but for clearer explanations, you can refer to the wiki guide here.
Step 1: Login into LumiNUS and click the ‘Module Search’ at the dashboard. Click ‘EDX Modules’.
Step 2: Click the EDX module that you want to enrol into. ONLY ENROL IN MODULES THAT HAVE THE BLUE LABEL FLAGGED AS ‘DYOM’, as these are the modules that are recognized by NUS.
Click the blue enrol button if you are interested to take this course. Please take note that doing so does not mean that you have officially enrolled into the course, you are only auditing the course. Only after you have paid for the course, gotten your certificate, and filed for reimbursement will the course be recognised as part of your EDX modules. It’s okay to enrol in this module, and change your mind later, because you can easily unenrol afterwards. (This is only if you have NOT paid for the course, if you have PAID, then you have to GET THE CERT, if not you can’t claim from NUS)
When you click the enrol button, you will be directed to this external edx page, so you just need to agree to the terms and condition, and then click ‘Yes, continue’ to confirm your enrolment. AGAIN, I REPEAT, unless you have paid for the course, it is not really an official enrolment and you are just auditing it, so you can always unenrol at the EDX page.
Step 3: After enrolment, and you have decided that this is the EDX module that you want to do, you need to get a verified certificate. To do so, you have to complete and pass the module criteria (usually. some quizzes and mini exams), but to get access to those, U NEED TO PAY FIRST.
To upgrade your course from audit mode to the verified track, you just need to click into the EDX course, and theres this ‘Upgrade now’ as shown above. After you make your payment, you can just proceed to do the course normally until you get a passing grade (or if you super onz, you can try to aim for 100% – but for me, I just get the passing grade to get the cert). The cert looks something like this: (I copped this from the wiki guide too) You can upload this cert on your LinkedIn for flexing purposes 🎉. (hahaha jk — or am i?)
P.S. If your payment fails, go to your bank acc and make sure you have enough money $$. Basically, even though the course may reflect that its USD 50, you pay close to SGD60-70 for it. If your card don’t have enough balance, then your payment may not go through
Step 4: After you get the cert, you can upload your supporting documents on EDUREC, so you can claim your money.
This can be found on EDUREC > ACADEMICS > DESIGN YOUR OWN MODULE > DYOM (EDX)> NEW APPLICATION (via LumiNUS).
When you click ‘NEW APPLICATION’, the list of enrolled EDX (which you have enrolled via LumiNUS via the verified track – aka you alr paid for it), should automatically pop up. IF it doesn’t show up, don’t fret, it usually shows up 2-3 days after you have paid for the course.
Now, heres what you need:
PDF copy of the EDX Certificate that you have cleared and the corresponding certificate link.
The payment receipt (when you upgraded it to verified track, there should be a receipt for it, KEEP THAT COPY IN PDF)
A screenshot of your bank account showing the payment transaction (Need to show your account number and name, you can blur out the other unimportant details, and show only the payment for the EDX)
Basically, you just gotta submit all these three documents PER EDX MODULE, and then submit it for reimbursement. This takes around 1-2 weeks for the credits to be transferred to you, and another 1-2 weeks for the money to be reimbursed back to you. Heres the legend:
I recommend for you to submit all EDX claims in one shot (aka, if you decide to take 4 EDX courses, just submit at the same time, bc its just more convenient, and you can get your money back one shot too)
Like I mentioned above, I KNOW THAT NUS IS TRANSITIONING FROM LUMINUS TO CANVAS (and can i say… NOOOOOOO i love luminus). I am not sure when EDX will transition to CANVAS, and I am also not sure if the steps will be the same as above. NEVERTHELESS, i will just leave the above steps here as per my experience signing up for my EDX modules.
BUT ok, I know yall came onto this blog review, cuz yall want to know what EDX modules I took. Here’s the modules that I took, some of which I totally recommend, some…. not so much.
Crisis Resource Management (2MC)
This is offered by Columbia University. 10/10 course, totally recommend for yall if you are looking for an easy EDX to clear. (soz, the ss is kinda dark)
Theres no exam for this course, you just have to watch all the videos, notes, and then do an attestation (where you attest that you have completed the readings and lectures for the week) and you can get your cert!
2. Mandarin Chinese for Business (2MC)
HEAR ME OUT, I just wanted to clear an easy EDX course, and after coming to uni, my chinese speaking and writing skills has gotten SOOO RUSTY. In my last internship, i legit struggled to speak chinese to my colleagues (who communicated in chinese 99% of the time istg). So when i chanced upon this module, i thought that its good to learn some chinese catchphrase in the business context. This was offered by MandarinX. Also a 10/10 course, but I may be biased cuz I rate this as to how easily I cleared this and I did study 高级华文 (but my chi sucksss now) for a period of time lol.
I wouldn’t say that I didn’t learn anything, but I wouldn’t say that I didn’t learn a lot too LOL. I guess I learnt some 好词好句 in some business context, and some business-phrases that i didn’t know before. Midway through, I just gave up watching the videos, and just dove into doing the quizzes (many of which were 汉语拼音，听写) which were quite easy to do (imo).
3. Teaching Computational Thinking (8MC)
This is offered by University of Canterbury, quite an interesting module that teaches computational thinking in our everyday life, some aspects of user heuristics. Also 10/10, but I may be biased cuz I cleared this quite easily LOL. I wanted to take computational thinking (GET1031) but saw this, so I just cleared this as an EDX instead.
To pass this module, you need to complete a final exam, but don’t worry, there are some quizzes that provide hints, and you have done your readings/watched the lecture videos, the questions are all very easy to do.
4. Justice (2MC) This was offered by Harvard University, and I did this module because I audited this module for a while, and was quite interested in the lecture videos which explored various topics of justice: income distribution, same-sex marriages, loyalty etc. A lot of interesting insights and debates and moral dilemmas which I feel are quite applicable to our everyday life. I will rate this as a 10/10 for interesting topics, but a 1/10 for the exams 💀 cuz I died doing the questions IT WAS SO TOUGH and I STRUGGLED SO HARD TO PASS. I suggest doing this module as an audited track instead of verified track cuz the exam questions were super hard and theory-based.
AS mentioned above, I really enjoyed the topics covered in this module. There are polls dispersed throughout the lecture videos, which revolves around different dilemmas, and we can share our thoughts and what we feel is the correct action (p.s. theres actually no correct ans haha) Familiar topics, such as the trolley problems are explored in the module.
Conclusion
If you are looking for easy to pass EDX modules, I recommend taking the first 3 EDX that i suggested. The EDX module on Justice is really tough and I really struggled to pass it, but if you are interested in the topics, feel free to explore it under the Audited track (but if you decide to do the verified track then good luck to u 🤡)
P.S. I think some ppl are confused as to when you can take EDX, for me, since i wanted to count it into my Y4S1 transcript, I took my EDX in Y4S1, anytime from Week 1 til the end of the Exam Week of Semester 1. I think if you decide to do it in Winter (after exam week of sem 1) and claim your reimbursment during winter, then the credits may be transferred as part of your special term instead??? But ok dont quote me, cuz I only did mine in Semester 1 Week 9 so its reflected as part of my Y4S1, so pls check with whoever is in charge of EDX for clarification.
P.S. Not a lot of people know this, but if you actually google ‘EDX coupons’, you can get discount code (etc up to 30% off for EDX courses), which u can claim when you upgrade your course into the verified track. Yeah ik you can claim from the school anyway, but if you use these discount codes, you can potentially take more EDX courses 😀 you’re welcome
Others:
Lecturers: NIL, different DYOM have different instructors.
Readings: Quite a bit depending on the DYOM you take, but you can always skip them.
Content:
Justice (2MC) is the most interesting module out of all 4 DYOMs. But it is also the most DIFFICULT.
Crisis Resource Management (2MC) is the most chill DYOM and easiest to pass.
Mandarin Chinese for Business (2MC) was just 汉语拼音, so if you are good at that, then it’s also easy to pass.
Teaching Computational Thinking (2MC) The most applicable out of all 4 DYOMs.
Recommend?: All except Justice (bc the quiz was really tough😮💨)
This is a compulsory core module for BBA students pursuing the Honours Year. I decided to take it in Y4S1, so that I can have a more chill semester in Y4S2. [P.S. Yes, you can take it in Y3S2 too, provided that you have met the requisites!! Please refer to the guidelines provided by CJD, I believe you have to clear at least 11 out of 13 core modules.]
To protect my identity (so my groupmates, company, prof won’t hunt me down LOOOOOL), I shall not disclose my allocated FSP4003 company and allocated supervisor, but I’ll give a brief walkthrough of my experience doing a 1-semester project, starting from the very beginning:
Forming a team
Before you can even sign up for a project on the FSP portal, you need to form a team. During my batch, we were only allowed to form up to 4 people a team. However, from the latest email by CJD (Mr Chew), I heard that the minimum group members for FSP4003 has increased to 5… [I’m not sure which batch is affected by this announcement… but YALL ARE SO LUCKY :’) ]
If you don’t already know yet, FSP4003 is an 8MC module. I cannot fail to emphasise the importance of finding good groupmates!!! If you don’t want to get allocated to a (bad) team with random groupmates, just reach out to your friends and form a group [P.S. If you really don’t have any friends to group with, on the FSP portal, when you submit your project application, you can tick a box that says that “you need help finding a team” or smth like that. But… I highly discourage this because I’ve heard + I myself have experienced really bad members in a randomized team]
I managed to form a team of 3, and one of my friends invited another dude to join the team, so we managed to get a 4-person team. Anyway, the rest of us didn’t really know the 4th person too well, so we all went to grab a meal even before starting on the project LOL (#teambonding)
2. Signing up for a project on the FSP portal
Now that you have formed a team, appoint someone to be the temporary “leader”. This person will be in charge of applying for a FSP project on the FSP portal on behalf of the entire team. What the leader needs to do is to:
a) Collate everyone’s resumes
b) Do a short write-up that describes your team (ok la, everyone in the team can do this, but I remembered I ended up writing it on behalf of the team cuz nobody knows what we were supposed to write lmaooo)
c) Merge (a) and (b) together into ONE SINGLE PDF, and then upload it on the FSP portal when the leader apply for the projects (on behalf of the team).
And oh ya, do take note that the project application for Semester 1 begins as early as June/July! I’m not so sure about Semester 2, but I believe that CJD do send reminders about the opening of the FSP portal so just keep a look out in your Outlook inbox.
For further clarification:
a) Resume – Should contain YOUR LATEST CAP (out of 5). Everyone in the team have to disclose your CAP in your resume. It’s no surprise that the higher your CAP, the easier for you to source (and get accepted) a project. What I do is that when merging the resumes, I put the resumes in descending CAP order.
b) Write Up – Basically like a cover letter, placed on the very FIRST page (before all the resumes). What I wrote on behalf of my team was:
Introduce ourselves and our various specializations (fluff abit, say why our different specialization will help in the projects = We are a versatile team, can provided all-rounded analysis yada yada)
Talk about our various skill sets (yet another fluff, basically we joined case competitions together yada yada, got experience analyzing business case studies)
Sign off with our names, emails and contact numbers (to say that the company can contact us to discuss our suitability for the project)
This write-up is a generic, standardized cover letter. We did not mention any company names, or express any interest in any available projects. The purpose of this write-up was just to introduce ourselves, and if any company is interested to take us onto the project, they can contact any of us for further discussions.
In case you are not aware, the FSP portal is open for many iterations. There are many, many rounds of applications, and CJD updates the portal with new company projects. Therefore, don’t be frustrated when you don’t get any projects in the first round of application. My team took 3 rounds before we got our project. As mentioned above, companies tend to look at the the CAP of all members when deciding to take up a group. In fact, I heard from my friends, that some groups even have to go for interviews, with the company, to see if they are suitable for the project.
Getting a company project for FSP4003 is more competitive than you think. Therefore, don’t be dejected if you fail your application for the first few rounds! JUST KEEP APPLYING when the portal opens 😀 And yes, when you apply again, you just need to submit the SAME merged documents above (c), that’s why its good to write a generic write-up (b), so you don’t need to tailor it to a specific company!
And oh ya, when you apply on the FSP portal, with the merged PDF file, you can choose your top 3 projects! More information of the projects can be seen on the FSP portal (but walao, its so hard to see the project description, and honestly, when my team and I read it, the project briefs are all so VAGUE LOL). My team and I ended up just going with our gut feel and choosing projects that we think we can all do haha. And after you choose your top 3 projects, since the leader is signing up on behalf of the team, please get your group members MATRIC NUMBER (Starts with A…….) so the system knows that you alr have a group!
To sum up, to sign up for a project, you need
a) a merged PDF containing all group members resumes (with CAP) + a short, generic write-up
b) Go the the FSP portal, uploading this merged PDF.
c) Choose your Top 3 projects (and rank them 1, 2, 3)
d) Write your groupmates matric numbers (to sign up as a team, if dh, tick the box that says you need help finding a team)
e) Submit and you wait to see if you get any of the project. (Basically, you will get a “congrats” email from CJD, and then u (or whoever applied on the team’s behalf) need to go back to the FSP portal to accept the project.
f) If you failed to get any (you will get an “unsuccessful application” email from CJD). Don’t FRET!! Repeat from a), when the FPS portal opens and apply for other projects.
P.S. I personally applied for all 1-semester projects, because I didn’t want to do FSP for 2 semesters (over december? no way).
3. After getting a project
Now that you and your team have gotten a project, congratz!! CJD will send the entire team an email, basically instructions on what you should do going forward. This is where my memory starts getting really hazy but I’m honestly too lazy to check my email, so I’ll just try my very best to recount what I remember:
a) Sign your LOU and COI forms. Basically, some Confidentiality & Non-Disclosure documents, to promise that you won’t reveal any confidential company information after the project has concluded (which is also why i can’t reveal much about my project :p ) Get everyone in the team to sign and acknowledge, then email everything to CJD.
b) Get a supervisor. (If you know any professor to supervise your team, this is when you start reaching out, get his/her approval, and let CJD know). But honestly not a very big deal if you don’t know any prof, as CJD will allocate one to you accordingly. BUT the bad thing about allocating is that my group only got our supervisor in Week 3….. so we only started our project in Week 4 :’D. (and oh thats not even the worst part of my project experience LOL read on to find out more).
c) After you get a supervisor, then you can arrange for a first-meeting with the company. This first meeting is to set expectations, for the company to provide a debrief on the project, and for you and your team to ask any questions. Like I mentioned earlier, as our team only got allocated a professor in Week 3, we couldn’t really reach out to the company (without the prof) so everything was delayed. I vividly remembered only meeting the company and the professor TOGETHER, for the first-meeting, in Week 4 :’D That was stressful.
But in the interval between getting a project, and having our first meeting with the company, here are some things that you and your team CAN do.
a) RESEARCH (secondary) for the project. Find out more about your company, what your project topic is about, questions to ask the company, ANYTHING. (P.s., my group really skipped this part, because there wasn’t a lot of information on the internet about our company and our topic were rather niched and specific to the company (so there was no information on the internet… cries)
b) Read all the documents that CJD send. I remember receiving some tips on the project, some documents on Issue Tree, Work Proposal Sample. It’s good if you and your team can attempt to fill up the Work Proposal Sample before your first meeting. Some components, such as the project budget, and timeline can be left blank, bc these are things that you need to discuss with your company. BTW, you don’t really need to submit the work proposal sample, but just to make sure everyone is on the same page, and also to avoid a potentially awkward first meeting, you can use this work proposal sample to kick start the discussion.
I remembered the entire team and I were so nervous during our first meeting with the company. It was on zoom, but we managed to get Prof to join the call too, so when all of us were very quiet (cuz got nothing to say mah), Prof ended up helping us to ask questions LOOOL. But I think most importantly, you and your team really need to set expectations for what your project is going to be about, timeline (if you intend to set up regular meetings with the company – ours is otot), budget (if any – we had no budget… ).
For us, we were really lucky that the company was a chill one, so it was quite “on-demand”, if we wanted to arrange a meeting with the in-charge, we just have to send him an email, so there wasn’t a fixed meeting timeline. We were also really lucky bc our supervisor was really supportive, and was very chill, in fact, haha we only consulted him once in the entire project ooof. I think this really depends on your own project and supervisor, the experience varies :D. But this goes to show how FSP4003 is really an independent project, you and your team really need to set expectations within the team so that nobody falls behind n you can smoothly complete the project (on time!!!)
4. Recess Week
This is really subjective, and depends on your team progress. But typically, Week 6/ Recess Week is when everyone starts focusing on the PRIMARY RESEARCH. If you are a BBA student, you will notice an influx of emails from CJD, who helps students send out FSP surveys.
I wish I could provide some advice on how this works, but due to the nature of our project, our target audience were not really students, but specific to the company employees. Therefore, we had to send our primary survey to the company in-charge, who helped us disseminate the survey to the company employees.
For my group, we realized that having a primary online survey was not very helpful and couldn’t really provide a lot of analysis to our project. Therefore, we arranged for Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with the company employees. (cuz why not). Also, this was when I CAUGHT COVID OPPS so we had to hold the FGDs online. (which in hindsight, was such a terrible idea, bc the zoom audio really sucked, and we couldn’t really hear what the participants were saying) Anyway, this was like our first time holding FGDs, and honestly, now that I reflect about it, we did a really good job preparing the questions, but we probably sucked at being the FGDs moderators (so there were a lot of awkward silence HAHAHAHAH). But oh well, I hope we do get extra points for all the effort.
5. Weeks leading up to Presentation Day
After all the primary research, we ceased meetings with the company, and instead, held lots and lots of internal meeting where the team allocate work to do, and meet up to discuss and track progress. What we did was that we choped a specific day of the week, and made sure that we met up every single week, so that we can go through all components together and discuss ideas. Thinking back now, I think we were all relatively productive??? We finished the entire report (without vetting) by Week 12, and already started on the slides on Week 13.
P.S. did you know that the final submission date stated by CJD is not really final? My group and I were so fixated on the 14th November dateline and literally chiong our project, only to realize that the final project submission (incld your ppt, report, reflection journal, peer eval) date was up to our professor. So make sure that you email your supervisor and find out when he/she wants your entire project to be done! I shall not forget getting ghosted by CJD when I tried to check with him lol.. sad..
P.S. did you also know that the recommended pages for the report is also up to your supervisor? it’s ok to not stick with the suggested 30 pages, in fact, my group really exceeded this page limit cuz we had so many things to write. I think we ended up with around 140+ pages (ok la, most of it was appendix, but I think our content took up around 32-34 pages!)
P.S. When you are done with the report, pls send an e-copy to CJD.
P.S. Its not really over til its over, don’t forget to write your reflection journal (5-10 pages) too. This reflection journey just details your fsp journey, and is a literal journal where you reflect what went right and what went wrong, and for the latter, you can throw in suggestions of how it could have been improved. For myself, I made sure that I tracked down the team progress, so that i won’t miss out the details, and made sure to update my journal every week. Honestly, I wrote like 8 pages of fluff, and I felt like I was in primary school again when i was writing my 笔记本 loool . But if yall need ideas on what to write i basically sectioned my journal into
a) Introduction
b) Key takeaways
c) Working as a team
d) Working with Company [name]
e) Conclusion
And throughout I just outlined all the struggles that I (+ my team) faced
P.S. This is a formal presentation (+ to a legit company), pls don’t use slidesgo like we typically do for other mods LOL. Please go look at CBS Case library on how to design ppt:
I think I was quite particular about the slides design for my group, and couldn’t stand the (oops) ugly slides, so I ended up redoing all the slides design by referring to above 😀
6. D-Day
Please try to arrange for a presentation at least 1-2 weeks in advance!! For my team, we had to find a day where our supervising prof and the company ppl can make it. D-Day was less(?) scary that I thought it will be, cuz initially, we were told that the company CEO, CFO, and all relevant employees will be joining the zoom call, so we were all petrified…… However, on D-Day, we were told during the zoom call that the CEO and CFO weren’t able to make it (phew — opps, I meant oh no!). And yes, my presentation was held online over zoom, because we weren’t able to head down to the physical office on the presentation day.
Our presentation lasted over ~50 mins ( and omg, I had like 15mins worth of non-stop script, istg my lungs almost failed on me halfway through) and we had like over ~50 pages of slides excluding appendix and references. Q&A was supposedly after the presentation, and I think my group was just lucky because on the company side, they were quite satisfied with our project ideas, and only had one question to raise, which was coincidentally my part… so i had to answer :D. Our supervising professor did not raise any questions during the Q&A too so yayy
Conclusion
It probably sounds like my FSP journey has been quite smooth sailing, but it wasn’t. Is this where I start… ranting??? I think that were many instances where my team and I had been very frustrated, because there were many changes in the project scope and direction. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, our team had to change our project scope in the middle of the semester, so we essentially had to chiong the entire fsp components in like 7 weeks… Even though this was quite inevitable, and was beyond our control, it still felt super confusing and frustrating (and annoying :’D) as the dateline draws near, and the company just added more and more criteria to the project loool. I think it was because of this that some of us ended up being so unmotivated near week 8/9, and we just wanna yeet this project away :’D.
But nevertheless, FSP was truly a memorable (!you can interpret it however u want it to) experience and 8MC is a true representation of its workload cuz my team and I really spent many hours a week meeting, discussing and writing. The happiest day of the semester was really when we concluded our fsp presentation, and my team just went out for dinner huzzah!!!
Whoever is reading this right now, all the best for your fsp journey jiayou manz!
Others
Lecturer: NIL, have your own NUS supervisor.
Readings: Depends on your own project topic, and how heavily you want to rely on secondary research and literature reviews.
Content: Depends on your own project scope and discussion with the company.
Recommend?: if you are reading this, you don’t have a choice (unless u wanna do dissertation) 🤡 hi biz honours kids. (edit: 20 dec, btw got an A+ for FSP HUAT AH)
Caution: you are about to read a rather biased review of EC3102.
If you have read my previous reviews on EC2102, I really hated macroeconomics HAHA. In fact, I dreaded taking EC3102, knowing that I suffered with understanding (or lack thereof) from EC2102, I really couldn’t imagine surviving EC3102 when I have yet to fully grasp the concept from EC2102. It doesn’t help that I was taking EC3102 literally 1 year after EC2102 in Y2S2, so I don’t even remember anything about macroeconomics… RIP. However, this was a core module, and in fact, the last econs module I needed to fulfil my Second Major in Economics, therefore I bidded for this module… though unwillingly.. 😦
Alas, my prophecy partially came through, I in fact, did suffer through EC3102. Here are the grading criteria:
Lecture viewing, tutorial participation and tutorial assignments (15%)
I took EC3102 under Prof Vu.
Im sorry, but I felt like I was taking a Coursera module, as despite there being a lecture slot for EC3102, there wasn’t a live lecture for EC3102. We were expected to be disciplined enough to watch the recorded lectures from previous EC3102 lectures (probably recorded from few semesters ago). The lectures, were really boring and mainly repeated whatever was found on the lecture slides. I also felt that the lecturer was… quite monotonous, I had to 2x my way through the lecture videos. It did feel like I was better off reading the lecture slides on my own, though there were frequent annotations on the recorded video, I did feel like it wasn’t very important as none of it actually came out for mid terms and finals. As someone who was already disinterested in macroeconomics, this worsened my disinterest further. 😦 In fact, staring at the numerous symbols and long formula in the lecture slides, and not understanding anything made my EC3102 journey even more saddening hais.
O yeah, do take note that EC3102 revisits some of the concepts (?) thought in EC2101 like Lagrange Analysis. Etc: (cropped from the lecture slides), this was on Chapter 2
Honestly, it took me a looooooooooong time to understand and to be able to write out the above without referring to the lecture slides LOL. It does get easier once you understand the concepts but it still does look intimidating at first glance (and even now even though I’ve already completed this mod)
Tutorial participation, like any other typical economic classes, involve doing some discussion questions before class, and volunteering to present the answers on zoom. If i remember correctly, the TA was a PHD student, though her field wasn’t on macroeconomics, she did try her best to go through the tutorial questions on zoom. However, I felt like she was just reading off the answer key….
2. Midterm test (30%)
Mid terms was purely open ended questions with no MCQ. I felt like the mid term tests have the same difficulty as tutorial questions. In fact, a modified question from tutorials came out for one of the question in mid terms.
My revision for mid terms involve creating numerous cheat sheets, writing and redoing the tutorial questions, so I can bring everything into the exam hall AHAHHA. This was an open book exam, so we were allowed to bring in paper and notes. This was a relieve, because I can’t imagine having to memorise all the algebra and long formula in time for mid terms. There wasn’t really any mock papers on EC3102, and neither were there any up-to-date practise papers on the NUS BOX folder for EC3102. Therefore, what I did was to look at 1) Textbook for practise questions and 2) to Google for EC3102 materials. While I did not manage to find any free EC3102 materials online, what I found was Sanjay Chugh’s (TB author) page and some free problem sets + solutions that he uploads for his students. I REALLY RECOMMEND clicking the link and downloading all his problem sets, because they are really great practise and relevant to what was taught in EC3102. Even though the questions didn’t really come out for EC3102 mid terms/finals, they are really great materials for understanding the lecture materials + serve as additional practise papers beyond tutorials. And who knows, some of these questions might come out for your batch instead ;).
3. Finals (55%)
Finals was the same format as mid terms. Unfortunately, I can’t remember anything from the finals at the time of writing, though my advise is similar as per mid terms. Good news is that finals was also open book and content was not cumulative. I also thought that the later half of the semester were easier than the first half, so finals was still manageable.
Thoughts:
I can’t believe I made it out of EC3102 alive. Okay, admittedly, this has been quite a biased post of EC3102 fuelled by my disinterest in Macroeconomics, but I really did not enjoy this module at all. From the Coursera-style lectures and to crazy algebra in the lecture notes, I feel like EC3102 was a rather boring and uninteresting module. Regardless, as it was a core module, I did not have the choice to not take EC3102, though if given the choice, I will definitely choose EC3101 over EC3102.
Sorry if this blog posts feels one-sided, do read other reviews on EC3102 too 🙂
NUS MODULE REVIEWS 