AY13/14 Sem 1

Oh wow. I just realised that there does not seem to be much module reviews about ESE modules (environmental engineering). Also tried googling engineering and accountancy, to no avail. Hopefully my comments are of some use to prospective NUS students who are considering to take environmental engineering, or DDP in that.

Here are the comments for AY13/14 Semester 1:

General: I took a total of 6 modules (24MCs) this semester, 5 engineering and 1 biz/acc module. Overall, it was still manageable; did not have much project for this semester. The only time-consuming module was LSM1401 Fundamentals of Biochemistry, while rest of the time was spent doing and submitting weekly assignments required for each of the module.

CE2134- Hydraulics
This is by right one of the harder modules I had in terms of the academic rigour and concepts. For the first half of the module, it was taught by Dr Bai Wei and covers fluid statics (such as calculating hydrodynamic forces, stability of floating objects, Bernoulli's equation and conservation of mass-continuity equation). He went through a lot of derivations for the formulas, which are good for understanding purposes but not necessary for examination's sake. He has a unique accent which may not be easy to understand, and there is no webcast for his portion, so the content may not be easy to catch and there is a tendency for students to fall asleep. Content-wise for his portion, it is necessary to understand how to calculate forces acting on an object submerged in water and that of floating bodies as well, application of Bernoulli's equation for hydraulic systems, and good mastery of physics (such as force and equilibrium analysis as encountered in EG1109) is required. As for the second half, it is taught by Prof Cheong and covers in depth laminar and turbulent flow, boundary layer, flow separation and the wake, frictional and form drag. The last part covers similitude and dimensional analysis (which was not examinable for my cohort). Prof Cheong is one of the best lecturer in that he really explains the supposedly complicated concepts in a very easy-to-understand manner. He provides effective and concise summaries of his lesson and can write and draw neat diagrams for students to visualise the abstract concepts that he is teaching. For the assessment, it consists of 10% tutorial submission, 10% lab report, 15% x 2 for two quizzes (one for each half), and 50% finals. In my opinion, it is important to do well for the CAs as the finals tend to be hard. As for my year, the finals were relatively easier than previous years though. Before you take each test (be it quiz or finals), be sure to understand how to apply the concepts to solving problems rather than blindly practising on questions or memorising the answers. Do not merely just mug the past year questions because understanding of concepts is key to scoring for this module, and most likely past year questions will not come out again. As for the lab, carrying out the practical is not a problem (just doing recordings of piezometric heights, etc) and report-writing would be easier if you have a senior's report (I did not have one though).

CE2155- Structural Mechanics and Materials
This is actually a pretty interesting module. It is somewhat an extension of EG1109, with an additional part on materials. The first half of the module is taught by A/P Zhang, who speaks fluent english despite her nationality (no offence). Her part is all about concrete, from properties to composition which in my opinion are pure swallowing of content and not much understanding is required (really boring in my opinion). For her lab, it is actually quite interesting and involves creating and mixing concrete (with necessary calculations performed beforehand) and then monitoring the curing and measuring the strength at end of each time period. For the second half, it is all about structural mechanics and covers similar content to that of EG1109, except that there are slightly more advanced concepts taught such as shear stress calculations, buckling, eccentric loading, stress and strain transformation (Mohr's circle), failure models (Von Mises/Treska Criterion). Content-wise, it is manageable and the finals is an open-book exam, so as long as you understand the concepts and can apply them, you should have no problem in the finals. For the lab, it involves the construction of an I-beam (or other possible designs like an hollow box) and calculating/estimating the predicted failure load. Criteria for grading includes how efficient your beam is (i.e. load that it can take before failure per unit weight of aluminium used), accuracy in terms of predicting the failure load, calculations, etc. A picture for which the beam created by my group was subjected to the loading test is shown here:

After some calculations as taught in beam loading in EG1109, my team predicted the failure load to be 12kN (after factoring in a safety factor of 1.33), and to our surprise, the beam failed at around 11kN! Quite lucky I would say. As for the finals, 40% of the paper is on materials (concrete + steel) and it is important to do the past year papers as the questions are really similar (first on concrete-making similar to that done in the concrete lab) and second question is 10 MCQs). 60% is on mechanics, which was pretty much a killer especially for the buckling question for my batch. I thought I screwed up that 25 mark question, but still managed to do well (guess physics papers like this usually have a friendlier bell curve). Overall, I would say that this module is a good one, with both experiential learning and manageable content. However, the downside to this module is that environmental engineering students do not really need to take this module as it is not really helpful for our FYPs (as compared to LSM1401/CM2142).

CE2409- Engineering & Uncertainty Analyses
This module is split into two halves: the first is on learning numerical methods (e.g. iterative) for solving algebraic and differential equations. Some of the iterative methods include Gaussian Elimination, Gauss-Seidel, Jacobi and SOR, as well as finite difference methods. It was taught by A/P Kevin Kuang, who is pretty much a good lecturer who tries to make his lessons more interesting for the students. The second half deals with probability, statistics and some use of the matlab software to solve the tutorial questions. The lecturer was A/P Jason Cohen. He started off teaching the second half of the module pretty well and was pretty engaging, but fails to keep up with the standard as he sidetracks from his main lesson plan and pretty much waste a lot of time during the lecture. Assessment-wise, first part consist of a mid term quiz (10%), second part consists of two on-the-spot quizzes (5% x 2) and tutorial submission (10% total), with finals taking 70% of the overall grade. In terms of difficulty, this was by far one of the friendlier modules both in the content and bell curve aspects. Just do consistently well for the CAs and practise on the past year papers, get a general gist and understanding of concepts, and you should be able to do well.

ESE2001- Environmental Processes
In my opinion, ESE modules are usually not difficult to understand in terms of academic rigour. However, somehow I always can't do very well for them. Anyway, the module is taught by two lecturers: first half is by A/P Paul Chen, and content taught by him include fundamentals such as parameters, chemical equilibria (calculation of pH of complex systems), while second half is by Prof Bala, focusing more on transport processes such as advection, diffusion, settling, interfacial mass transfer and partitioning. Paul Chen appears to be rather slack and somewhat eccentric in my opinion. Prof Bala appears to be rather passionate but limited by his accent, so overall I actually didn't really find both of them effective in their teaching. Assessment includes a mid term (20%), 2 group lab report (10% x 2), group project + presentation (10%), homework (5%), and finals (45%)- approximately, as I kind of forgotten the actual weightage. As the lab report is group work with perhaps too many people in a group, many ended up slacking and waiting for others to do the job- somewhat like "bystander effect" in which the more the no. of bystanders, the less each of them will help. As per usual, most people would have done well for the mid terms, with finals being the tie-breaker. Thought I did well for the finals, but just not good enough to get an A (got an A-).

LSM1401- Fundamentals of Biochemistry
This is perhaps the most time-consuming module, at least for this semester. A lot of time is spent in preparation of the CAs (3 in total, 30% each), and 3 lab sessions (a total of 10%). The good thing is that there is no finals, which somewhat alleviates the stress during the finals period. Topics covered are similar to that of H2 Biology (which I never took in JC), covering structures and functions of proteins, lipids and carbohydrates, enzymes and application in drug use, membranes and bilayer, to the harder topics of signal transduction and regulatory systems. Lab involves the extraction of enzymes from a leaf, testing for proteins using spectrophotometry and Lambert's Law, with the results tabulated in a book to be submitted at the end of each ~4 hour lab session. Just need to focus on doing consistently well for each of the three rather heavy quizzes to score a good overall grade. The cohort is usually with chemical engineering / pharmacy majors, so expect a steep bell curve for each of the quizzes.

DSC2006- Operations Management
In my opinion, this is somewhat a fluffy module which did not really value-add. However, it is one of the slackest biz module in that the assessment is 15% class part, 35% mid terms and 50% finals (all MCQs). Topics covered include process layouts (and terms like Little's Law), capacity, queuing theory, inventory management, and also involves some basic knowledge of statistics such as probability, modelling (e.g. newsboy model), with the last part of the module touching on lean manufacturing, JIT, and brief introduction of supply chain management. As with business modules, you have to prepare adequately for your tutorials and "fight" for a chance to present your answers. Finals and mid terms are pretty similar and manageable. This is pretty much an ideal 6th module for people who wishes to overload in their semester.

Overall, I did very well this semester though I was not satisfied with ESE2001. But academic success is not always guaranteed, as you shall see in the next semester ;'(