AY2019/20 Semester 1 Module Reviews

25/01/20

I realize this is probably very risky to do here. I also don’t know why I am even doing this. Considering that I don’t intend to write anything objective and it will be just me rambling on about my worries and feelings about the modules. And ranting about very irrelevant stuff which I, hopefully, commented out. Here goes nothing.

CS1101S Programming Methodology

MCs: 4

Expected Grade: B+/A-

Actual Grade: A

Workload: too damn much

Assessments: 30% Finals, 70% CA

Profs: Martin Henz, Low Kok Lim

The introduction to programming module, compulsory for all first year Computer Science students. It is more of a problem-solving module, with an introduction to the various fields of computer science, rather than focusing on the actual coding. It is taught in a language called Source which is a derivative of JavaScript.

For the continual assessments it consists of around 20% of graded homework called missions which were some coding problems often with a backstory. These were manageable enough to score close to full marks in if you were doing them with friends or if you already had experience in coding. I tried doing these alone and it was pure torture, I would spend many nights staring at the questions and going nowhere, 10/10 would not repeat. Whereas once I sat down with friends and discussed the questions, we were able to solve them within a few hours. So even though these are individual assignments, and coding is popularly portrayed as an activity done alone, it is like, totally necessary to work with friends if you want to do well in this module.

Over 10% of grades were from attendance, so this was like free marks. Also, this module is not bell curved, so these free marks really helped to add up to a good grade. There were also 2 Reading Assessments which were 6% each and a Midterm which was 12%. Practical Assessment was also 12%.

I felt that the perceived difficulty of the module and the content went down as the semester progressed. This was due to a less steep learning curve as I began to get used to the rigors of coding. This was quite good news for me as it meant that I was able to do quite well in the PA and Finals which was still quite a huge percentage of the scores.

Overall a pretty fun module even though it caused me many sleepless nights and lots of headaches thinking about how to solve the code. The assignments were fun and gave me a strong sense of achievement whenever I was able to successfully code something that actually ran in the compiler. Even though sometimes I had to resort to copying taking inspiration from my friends’ code.

However due to the high workload I would not recommend anyone who do not have this as a compulsory module to take it.

CS1231S Discrete Structures

MCs: 4

Expected Grade: A

Actual Grade: A

Workload: moderate

Assessments: 50% Finals, 25% Midterms, 20% Assignments, 5% Attendance

Profs: Aaron Tan, Tan Kai Meng

This is another core module for CS students. It is said to be a very challenging module by many, including my TAs, seniors, and peers. I can see why they may think it to be so. Personally, I feel it was manageable, mainly dealing with logic and lots of math.

I feel that the content of this module is fun and interesting to learn. However, I slept through most of the lectures as the professor’s voice was soothing and like a lullaby, to be honest. But the times when I was listening, the things that he said were quite useful and he teaches quite well.

Topics include Mathematical Proofs, Logic, Sets, a large chunk on Functions and Relations which I do not understand why it is there, Number Theory and the Discrete Math stuff, some Statistics, and a bit of Graphs and Trees at the end. There, all very interesting and math-y topics that I enjoy learning about. Though I must admit that these are kinda difficult to grasp if you do not go into lectures like a sponge.

Did quite well for midterms and was rather confident of getting an A of sorts, was a bit overconfident for finals and ended up getting wrecked quite badly, to the point of thinking that I may fail because finals were 50%. But bless the bell curve because others screwed up finals more than I did, and I was able to do relatively well enough to get an A. I am pretty sure everyone failed or barely passed finals. That’s how difficult the paper was. In comparison to that, Midterms was deceptively easy with the median being something like 70% or even higher.

Favorite topic was graphs and trees. Overall this module is quite enjoyable. Even the tutorials were enjoyable to do because they stretch your mind and make you think hard and long. (which may become annoying if you have a lot of other things to do…) Number Theory has me staring at the questions for hours on end and not being able to write anything down because it is mind-boggling. But it turns out to be mere application of the formulas, which I only learnt while doing the assignments.

This would, perhaps will be even more enjoyable if I payed attention in class rather than sleeping through all the lectures, or, as my friend says, “doing anything and everything but 1231 during 1231.” I don’t know why, it is extremely easy to get distracted during CS1231 lessons. I once spent an entire tutorial trying to program a programme that will prime factorize a number. (because my tutor said it could be done) I couldn’t do it. And till now I still can’t do it. And it is bothering me a lot. Send help. Please.

Cool module to take, but a better alternative would be to take CS1231 which has a less steep (but still very competitive) bell curve, since it is taken by students who are not Infosec or CS majors.

MA1101R Linear Algebra I

MCs: 4

Expected Grade: A-/A

Actual Grade: A

Workload: moderate

Assessments: 60% Finals, 20% Midterms, 20% CA

Profs: Wang Fei, Victor Tan

It is a pretty typical math module, or, since this is the first and perhaps one of the last math modules I will be taking in NUS, it is what I expect of a math module, and it is disappointing yet not disappointing. It is a math requirement for CS.

IMO having a good lecturer is important for understanding this module. I was quite lost at the beginning as I couldn’t understand the lecturer’s accent. Thus, for the second half or the second half of the semester I addended the other lecture group and was able to understand the material well enough.

There is a recommended textbook which the lessons follow very closely, especially for Victor Tan’s lectures. Probably because he co-authored the textbook. The textbook has topical exercises which the tutorial sets uses, hence it is necessary to obtain the book in order to do the tutorials. However, digital copies are readily available on the internet and I did not have to buy the book.

I felt that the tutorial questions are too difficult, and it is not necessary to be able to do those questions, or even understand them, since it is beyond the difficulty of what is tested for the exams. To prepare for the exams, it was more important to practice using the past year papers, which have questions that are more like the actual exam questions. These are often rather basic and doable and are much less tedious.

However, accuracy is very important when doing these questions, since one wrong calculation can cause the entire question to be wrong. And ever if there are method marks given, having a wrong value for one of the entries in the matrices can lead to the entire question becoming undoable as the matrix will contain multiple large fractions and massive numbers that I would not want to deal with.

Topics go from basic matrix manipulation and solving linear equation systems, to abstract concepts such as vectors and linear transformation using matrices.

I heard that Linear Algebra may become quite important in future CS modules, especially if I want to specialize in graphics or machine learning. However, what is learnt here is not applicable now and it can feel quite pointless to be calculating the various matrix properties and dealing with matrices which are just a bunch of numbers written to resemble a square.

LSM1301 General Biology

MCs: 4

Expected Grade: B+/A-

Actual Grade: A+

Workload: light, some mugging before finals

Assessments: 30% Finals, 70% CA

Profs: Seow Teck Keong, Zeehan Jaafar

This module is praised for having an open book MCQ finals, yet notorious for having a steep bell curve. I took this module to fulfill the Science requirement for the CS curriculum, also to test-water in Life Science/Biology because I have unrealistic expectations of Biology and I wish to do a double degree with Life Science.

I did not take Biology in A Levels, hence was eligible to take this module. This module covers most of the A level curriculum, I think, except that it is extremely condensed and there is no need to memorize anything or write long essays, since the exam is in an open book MCQ format, and we are given almost 1 week to submit each lab assignment.

Even though the content is supposedly new, a lot of it feels quite familiar to what I have already learned in Sec 3/4 Biology. Which can be deceptive and is quite bad since I assume that I already know what is being taught and start to zone out.

For the first half of the semester, there was in-class quizzes which was basically attendance marking. We also had these Class Discussion groups, which were groups of 3 people and we were supposed to sit together in class and discuss the quiz questions. My group was number 25, CD25. We were able to form our own groups, and when I knew about this, I immediately approached Mic, whom I took this module with. This may turn out to be my BEST and WORST decision in this entire Fall’19 semester. Because I met Spy. Taking LSM in my first semester of NUS, was an utter wreckage which ends with me falling into a pile of feathers, not knowing if I will be asphyxiated by it.

/* That I took LSM, I planned it with Mic. Who makes friends like how a whore catches STDs? So naturally she knew at least 2 other people in the module. And, well, if I didn’t ask her at the time that I did, I would have been left without a group and been forced to group with Randoms. In the end, I was in the same CD as Mic and Spy. After lectures, we often went for dinner together with Mic’s other friend. So now me and Spy are quite close, and gaining a friend is why LSM might be my best decision. I also lost a friend, Mic, due to Mic’s intolerance and her being intolerable, and longstanding issues which ended with me finally being tired of bearing the brunt of toxicity and deciding to rage back. Hence losing a friend makes LSM the worst decision. */

Now on to important stuff. Lecture notes are given in a PDF slides format, and one of the lecturers has the habit of splitting each lecture/topic into multiple files, which makes it tricky to find information that I need. And since the exam was “open-computer”, we needed to have our notes readily accessible to ctrl-c ctrl-v the terms in the question. Hence, we had to compile the notes into one file. There was something like 12 topics, which was too much for one person to do if they did not want to spend 2 weeks just doing it. Mic, as always assuming the role of group leader, creates a google document, and four of us collaborated to compile the notes. Gil, Spy, Mic, and another girl. Who are all CS majors yet could not be more different?

/* Some examples of toxicity:

1. We had something like more than 2 weeks (?) till finals when we began compiling the notes. Which was a lot of time considering that this is not a core module and all it requires is something like 2 or 3 days of intense mugging to deal with this module. Which can be SU-ed. As an excuse for Mic, she did intend to get something like an A in this module as she was not confident in the others. So, she got really pissed because we were quite slow in completing our sections (we split the work evenly). And she said to me, something like: “I have completed 1 topic on the shared document. I am currently doing the second topic on my personal document. You all are slow and unreliable, hence I will judge whether you all are worthy of my notes, before reconsidering if I will share more notes with the group.” If it smells like a threat and talks like a threat, then it is a threat.

2. I completed two of my sections. Someone else completes a few. She proceeds to rant on social media, which I and the 2 other group members can see, that (something along the lines and vibes of) “my LSM notes group makes notes with bad formatting and are not well elaborated. Well, I can’t expect too much of them since they are not Biz students. I prefer doing projects with Biz students because they are good at presentation.” Which is just putting all of us down, plain manipulative.

3. So we had a group chat to discuss the LSM notes and stuff. Me and the other girl, a wild child with many experiences, began discussing borderline NSFW stuff that was irrelevant to Biology in the group chat. Mic woke up the next morning and raged and deleted us from the google document before proceeding to create a new document with pictures of dildos and fleshlights, in a perverted effort to “punish” us. The thing is, I wrote my part of the notes solely in the shared document and did not have a backup copy. Hence, I was extremely panicked and scared and lost and angry when I found out that the document had been removed from my google drive.

*/

IS1103 Innovations in Organizations and Society

MCs: 4

Expected Grade: B/C

Actual Grade: B (S/U-ed)

Workload: light, interspersed with submissions with a short fuse at the most inopportune timings

Assessments: 30% Final Submission, 60% RNG, 10% Free Marks

Profs: Lu Weiquan (disluw), Yang Lu

It is a compulsory module for CS students under the IT Professionalism pillar. It is known for being a fluff mod, and it still is. To be honest the workload is highly dependent on both luck, and your individual choice. It is totally possible to go through the entire module writing barely anything apart from the introductory submission and the final submission. The RNG and gamification aspect of this module wrecked me mentally. 10/10 would not repeat. I took this module in the first semester because I believed that it would be easy. Indeed, it is “easy”. But it is hardly relaxing at all. It is mental torture, especially for people like me who overthink everything.

Disluw insults students who “play” by the rules and choose the supposedly “easier” way to score points. Which is annoying and simply disrespectful to the students, which makes him a trashy module coordinator. Also likes to shout and swear during lectures which is very unprofessional.

CFG1002 Career Catalyst

MCs: 2

Expected Grade: CS

Actual Grade: CS

Workload: very light

Assessments: 10% Create an account, 40% Attendance, 50% Resume

This module was perhaps created with the intention to teach important interviewing skills and resume writing skills, which are important for getting a job. But as a Freshman who, at this point in time, still has the dream of being a self-employed day-trader, this module wasn’t very useful. I and another friend took it for the “free” 2MCs, which I later realize was a dumb decision because I have many things planned out for my MCs such as a possible double degree or hopefully a minor or two because this double degree thing doesn’t seem to be happening.

This module seems to be targeted towards Freshmen? I do not know because in my opinion Freshmen do not yet care about getting jobs and internships. But I guess there were also a significant number of Sophomores taking this module?

I did get some useful information in this module I guess, the slides were informative, and I guess I can dig up this information for reference if I need it in the near future.

It really is free 2MCs, for those who have no intention of doing any second majors or minors, it could be a good way to use up the UE requirement. Resume was easy to create, a template was given, and I simply adapted it to my information, completed within a few hours. For attendance it is recommended to go down for the lesson because the PollEv link for taking attendance seems to have changed. I didn’t go for one of the lessons due to CCA commitments and my anxiety really got the better of me, I panicked that I would be unable to get the attendance mark because I was unable to take my attendance using the previous week’s link. So, for peace of mind, just go for the lectures. It is just 4 x 2hr where you can use that time to do anything, like coding, or making that resume.