Introduction

Hi all. I've created this blog mainly to share about my experiences in NUS and give some of my personal opinions in terms of modules which I had taken (for the benefit of prospective students considering/taking these modules). Of course, these are just my own experiences for information purposes only and may not be representative of the actual modules. And these are not meant to ridicule the lecturers, people, bell curve or to show off; so feel free to not read on if you are those judgmental/sensitive types.

I was enrolled in the undergraduate programme of Environmental Engineering & Business Administration (Accountancy), which is a double degree programme (DDP) offered by NUS. A seemingly unrelated combination, you would say. For me, it was more for the purpose of learning more, partly because at least a sizable portion of graduates do not end up working in the area they studied. Moreover, engineering is one of the more useful degrees in my opinion, general yet specialised in a way, while biz(acc) is pretty self-explanatory in that life (and money) revolves around businesses (with accountancy as an intrinsic part). Though practically, you wouldn't need to know so much/ in depth, so my recommendation for prospective undergraduates is to either take engineering + business, or just accountancy (unless it is for your own academic interest or that you want to stay as a student longer). The DDP is a 5-year one (without honours for biz(acc)), or 5.5 years for honours in both degrees. You probably would be thinking that the curriculum would be super intense and crazy; my personal take is that it is not easy but it is possible to survive and even do well. Of course, I have only tasted 40% (2 years) of it so what lies ahead will only be known in a matter of time.

Without further ado, lets move on to the modules which I have taken over the two years in NUS:
(Note that I may not remember as well some of the past modules taken a few semesters earlier)

AY12/13 Semester 1
i) CE2409- Computer Applications in Civil Engineering
From memory, this is the shiongest module for me in Y1S1. This module is basically split into two parts: part 1 involves drawing of structures using Microstation (somewhat similar to Autocad i guess). As someone who tends to wait till finals is near before chionging, the weekly lab sessions and tutorials were pretty stressful for me, especially when the PRC tutors were not speaking effectively and also partly due to my slow learning of the software. The group project (25% of overall weightage) involves the drawing of a recreational complex, leaving students free to draw anything which they liked, which makes it more stressful with the seemingly unlimited things one could draw. Below are some of the drawings my group (me and Gordon) have drawn:

Top view of toilets

Entrance of the bowling place

Bowling 

Bowling lanes and pins

 

    Desk with a desktop and keyboard (look carefully)

An overall view of the recreational complex we drawn

Close-up of the pool balls

Tried to draw spiral/curved stairs

The spiral staircase drawn by gordon

Close-up of the bowling pins

I got most of my inspirations from Yishun Safra, which i frequent for playing pool/bowling. I had fun drawing the pool balls as well, arranging them in the formation suitable for playing already. Pretty awesome looking at these images now, but I have forgotten how to draw all of these already. Sad. Gordon was of great help in terms of compiling the final drawing and helping me with some problems in drawing.

As for the second half of the module, it involves the learning of Fortran programming language, perhaps somewhat similar to C programming. An excerpt (incomplete) found in one of my email two years ago is as follows:

PROGRAM Horner
! This program evaluates a polynomial of degree n with given values of n, coefficients of each term, and values of x, 
! using the Horner's method. 
 IMPLICIT NONE
    INTEGER, DIMENSION(:), ALLOCATABLE :: a
    INTEGER :: n, i=0, AllocateStatus
    REAL :: X, Xlow, Xhigh, Step, Cvalue
      
 DO
     PRINT *, "This program evaluates your complicated polynomial for you"
        PRINT *, "Enter value of n (degree of polynomial)"
        READ *, n
        IF (n>=1) THEN
         ALLOCATE (a(0:n), STAT = AllocateStatus)
            IF (AllocateStatus /= 0) STOP "**Program has no memory for u ;)**"
            EXIT
        END IF
        PRINT *, "U cannot key in such a value. Your mum don't run this program"
    END DO
    PRINT *, "Enter value of coefficients, starting from constant"
    READ *, a
    PRINT *, "Enter range of values of x: lower, upper, incr"
 READ *, Xlow, Xhigh, Step
 ! Initialise value of X
    X = Xlow
    DO WHILE (X <= Xhigh)
    ! Initialise value

Basically, the second half involves a quiz on coding, and a project assignment using fortran to solve a typical engineering problem. This half is relatively more manageable for me, without the weekly graded lab/ tutorial sessions exerting a constant stress on me.

Sadly, I did not do very well for this module. Got a B+ which i guess is due to the fact that I did not do exceptionally well for any of the components of  this module.

ii) ES1531 (formerly EG1413) : Critical thinking and writing
This was a slack module, used as a 'cushion' to complement other relatively more academically rigorous/tedious modules like CE2409, MA1505 and PC1431. Basically there are three components: Assignment 1 which is writing a critique essay (800 words; 20%), Position Paper (including Written Report, oral defence, etc; 35%), class participation (5%), finals (40%). The main takeaway for this module is learning how to write academic papers, proper referencing and using NUS library to find the 'proper' sources instead of just googling. If you can think and write logically, you should be able to do well for this module. I did well for assignment 1; average for Position Paper, probably somewhat well for finals as I got an A- for it.

iii) ESE1001: Environmental Engineering Fundamentals
I thought this was a pretty chill and slack module. Basically you learn everything covered in environmental engineering, somewhat briefly as it is more of an exposure module focusing on the breadth aspect. Topics that I remember in this module include microbiology, chemical kinetics, introduction to reactors (e.g. CSTR, Plug flow). Assessment-wise, it includes two quizzes, term paper (on any environmental issues), and finals. The finals for my year was somewhat a killer, unconventional open-ended questions that rendered my two double-sided cheatsheets almost useless.

iv) MA1505: Mathematics I
I actually forgot most of what was taught in this module, except that it is a pretty academically rigorous module with many abstract concepts. After looking back at my online lecture notes, topics covered include differentiation and integration, multivariate functions, series (taylor), coordinate geometry. Basically an extension of A level H2 maths with some new topics like evaluating double or triple integrals. The first test after my 2+ years of hiatus, I sort of screwed up the mid terms (10 MCQs), held in multiple MPSHs at around 8pm, with an impressive cohort size of ~1600 (all engineering students and some science students take that). The mid terms has a 20% weightage; rather significant I would say. I myself got an unimpressive 7/10; mean was around 6.5.  As for finals, I remembered using my cheatsheet effectively by copying down tutorial/past year examples during the finals. I think I did well for finals in the end to cover up for the screw-up in mid terms.

v) PC1431: Physics IE
My impression of this module is that the tutorials are super hard. Topics covered revolve around mechanics and for the later part, thermodynamics. Of particular significance is conservation of linear & angular momentum, rotational kinematics (pretty confusing sometimes), moment of inertia and center of mass, while the second half deals with internal energy, first/second law of thermodynamics, etc. For my year, the finals was hard especially for linear momentum question (something like a ball rolling over and on top of the stairs, which i skipped and gave up 6/60 of the paper which is 60% of overall grade) while thermodynamics was supposed to be the life-saver. I did well for the CA, while finals I thought I didnt do well with many uncertainties in the answer. My conclusion for this module after getting back the result and comparing it with friends: physics module tend to have an easier bell curve as it is really the unambiguous "can/cannot do" type and not really "smokable".

Shall continue the review for other semesters in the next post. (Note: As per NUS's policy of lessening the obsession with grades, I shall not reveal my grades though in general I managed to do well (for the first three semesters at least).