NUS AY 13/14 Sem 2 Module Review

First posted on: 20 January 2016

EC2101: Microeconomic Analysis I

Lecture (2h) every week (webcasted); tutorial (1h) every week

Individual assignment: Graded problem sets

Midterms. Finals.

Lecturer: Zhang Yang

Prof Zhang is a good lecturer. Her lecture slides are clear and rather easy to understand, with many examples to help with the understanding of the course material. She tends to speak rather quickly though. Her questions can be rather tricky, so it is very important to minimise any careless mistakes for assignments and exams.

Ec2102: Macroeconomic Analysis II

Lecture (2h) every week (not webcasted); tutorial (1h) every week

Midterms. Finals.

Lecturer: Ho Kong Weng (*no longer lecturing at NUS)

Macroeconomics is somehow always harder for me to understand. We are taught the classical and neoclassical models used for macroeconomic analysis. Basically, you can't run away from graphs; neither can you run away from weird symbols and equations. Tutorials were quite challenging and quite an amount of time needs to be spent to think and understand what was being asked.

Ec2303: Foundations for Econometrics

Lecture (2h) every week; tutorial (1h) every week

Graded Problem Sets (iirc). Midterms. Finals. (Our semester had individual tutorial presentations where we had to come up with questions from newspaper articles).

Lecturer: Emily Beam

Professor Beam is quite an enthusiastic lecturer. She tries to keep her lectures interesting and she explains well. However, there have been instances where she was careless/made some mistakes on the lecture slides that had to be edited. The content taught nearer to the end of the semester was quite difficult and could be confusing at times. Her midterm and final papers were not easy, and can be quite tricky.

SE2210: Popular Culture in Southeast Asia

Lecture (2h) every week; tutorial (1.5h) even/odd week

Assessment: 2 individual essays

Group project: Film a video on anything related to course material, it would be good to make linkages to the readings for the module

No midterms. Finals (essay)

This is one of the modules with a lighter workload overall. The lecture topics covered were quite interesting, one of the lectures covered the global Kpop phenomenon. Readings were also manageable. However, the group video was the only component that was heavy. It was very time-consuming to film the video, and edit it later on. I will never take a module that involves any filming of video ever again because it just eats up too much time. I only received an average grade for both my individual essays because I didn't really get what the lecturer really wanted. Finals was manageable, but I felt that it was hard for me to do well.

LSM1301: General Biology

Lecture (2h) every week (not webcasted); Lab (2h) once every two weeks

Assessment: Lab assignments (x5) (there may not be lab sessions for AY15/16), open book MCQ finals

Lecturers: Two lecturers, one of them was Professor Wu Jin Lu

This is one of my favourite modules that I have taken. The lecturers who taught the module then (I don’t think the same profs teach the module anymore) were very passionate and made the lectures interesting. This was especially so for the lecturer who took the first half of the lessons, he never failed to bring stuff to class so that it would enhance our learning. I still vividly remember that one lecture when he actually brought in leaves of varying shapes and sizes – one leaf was so ginormous I couldn’t believe he actually managed to get it to class. Another lecture I remember is the time when he brought many stuffed toys to help illustrate the content taught. The way lectures were conducted were starkly different from the normal arts module I was usually accustomed to – it was entirely new experience that I would never forget.

The second lecturer also brought in things to help facilitate our learning. He also brought in a microscope so that he could show the class how a piece of wood looked like when examined under a microscope and I think he also brought some materials to demonstrate a chemical reaction in class.

Content-wise, a person like me who has not touched biology since lower secondary – found it to be manageable. Granted, there will be instances where more time needs to be devoted to understanding certain concepts, but my interest for biology kept me going and I enjoyed taking this module. Lab sessions were also pretty fun, and usually don’t require any crazy experiments. The first lab experiment was just learning how to use a microscope to examine and measure cells from a leaf specimen. Biology labs reminded me of my secondary school lab days where learning was more fun, and less stressful as compared to JC lab days. Unfortunately, the labs I took did not have kimchi-making, but the experiments were fun nonetheless. The last experiment was DNA extraction, which was really cool too. Finals were MCQ and open-book.