Here goes my mod reviews for my very first semester.
I wanted to give back to 'society' because I find the mods review avail quite useful in my 'research' haha. By the way, I'm planning to major in Psych! -Crosses fingers-
PL1101E
Expected Grade: C+
Actual Grade: B
This module can be summarized in one word: MEMORIZE. As long as you have good memory, you are good to go! This is a mod that is necessary if you are planning to major in psych. The CAs were 75MCQS (Closed-bk, duh) and a take-home assignment of 5 short-essay questions.
I screwed up the SEQs quite badly, I only had a score of 15/25 but the mean was 20/25..So I tried really hard to make up for the loss for my final exams, which consists of 75MCQS and 5 SEQs (closed-bk). And GUESS WHAT - It worked out! I was very sure I was in the back half of the bell curve but my finals must have really pulled me up to achieve a B in the end! :) John Elliot was the main lecturer and he is a really nice lecturer, but to be honest, the lecture content is just a regurgitation of what is in the textbook. However, there are times when he gives additional info that is not in the TB. Basically, I skipped most of the lectures BUT I watched the webcasts, so as not to miss out out on any additional info ;)
Tutorials take place once every 2weeks, and I have to say this mod's tutorials are my FAVOURITE. There is nothing to prepare, just be present to watch vids and do some simple discussions within our groups. Awesome or awesome? In fact, if you miss out tutorials, I guess it does not matter much because nearing the exams, the nice lecturers will send a summary of the main points of each tutorial, yay! :)
Pl2131
Expected Grade: B+
Actual Grade: B-
I have to start off by saying how FANTASTIC the lecturer, Dr Stephen Lim is!! He is indeed the best leturer out of all of my mods! I have no idea how, but he manages to find time to go find out the names of as many students as he can from the WHOLE LT and tries to remember each one indiv. How sweet! :) It is really lucky to be able to have him as my lecturer :)
The exams are open-book! Yay! Nothing much to memorise but it is important to know the concepts well. The bell curve is reaaally steep for this module! (What to do?) This mod is more qualitative than quantitative and it is mainly focused on hypo testing.
Tutorials are used to teach us how to use this SPSS programme and we have an assignment where we must use this programme. Just discuss it with friends and it won't be difficult to score well. (Which is also a problem in itself, bellcurve remember?)
On a side note, I missed out the last page of the exam paper for finals. Argh, stupid me. The question was worth 15 marks and I believed if I have done it my grades would have went up. Thankfully I manged to scrape past and get a B- and I'm definitely going to s/u it. Such a waste :(
SC1101E
Expected Grade: B+
Actual Grade: B-
The content for this mod is really interesting, and even though the lecturers emphasise on how this mod is NOT like GP, I can't help but keep thinking if I knew all this info when I was taking GP in JC, I can definitely score better for GP, pfft.
Personally, I regret taking this mod as I just can't view situations with a 'sociological perspective' which is required in this mod to score well. I just try my best to memorise all the theories from the lecture notes and TB. Oh, and the readings can range from very interesting to horribly-sleep-inducing, certain readings can be just skimmed through as I feel they did not aid me much in gaining that 'sociological perspective'.
As for the tutorials, I think it is crucial that you speak up and just voice out your thoughts to gain class part. marks. However, I did not even speak a single word in my tutorial hahahaha cause I really have nothing of value to add. Oh well.
SN1101E
Expected Grade: A-
Actual Grade: B
Personally, I took this mod because the bidding points for SEA was too high, so I just opted for this mod to clear my Asian studies basket. Even though many people who take this mod claim it is the worst mod they have ever taken, I personally find this mod quite interesting cause I have really learnt a lot about South Asia! General knowledge whoooo.
There were two lecturers, Dr Jayati Bhattacharya & Dr Rahul Mukherji. Dr J is also my tutor! I find Dr J's lecture topics more interesting as Dr R's topics are economic-related which is really not my area of interest. Of course, it varies from indiv to indiv as I have friends who prefer Dr R's lecture topics. For mid-terms it was MCQs and a short note(close-bk). I guess it was okay, but I do not know how I fared amongst everyone else cause the mean was not revealed. As for finals, we have to write one essay and three short notes. I think it is possible to spot topics, cause it is really impossible to memorise EVERYTHING from all the topics. If you are able to do that though, good for you man. -applaud-
As for tutorials, different groups just took their turns to present on the various topics assigned to them. No offence but one word to describe tutorials: Boring. But attendance matters, so do not skip tutorials no matter what! Just one course pack is needed for this whole mod. It varies from year to year so I advise you to buy the one assigned for that specific sem and year.
I felt that I had included a lot of relevant content in my essays in the final exams and I was quite confident. In the end it didn't turned out as well as I thought it will be. :(
EC1101E
Expected Grade: B
Actual Grade: A-
Wow my first A! :) Even though it's technically less than an actual A, let's just make-do and be more generous yea haha.
The micro part of econs is 90% similar to H2 Econs in JC, and I heard from my poly friends who took biz in the past mentioned that the content is quite similar, just that we all had much more time in the past to absorb the same amount of content as compared to in uni. Those who take H1 Econs might be at a slight disadvantage since there is quite a lot of focus in the micro part on the various market structures. However, there are also people in the cohort who have had no economics background at all in the past (which I personally think is very courageous of them to take this mod! Haha kudos to them!).
As for the macro part, I would say from my POV that it is quite different from what we learnt in JC. In uni, there is less focus on the monetary and fiscal policies type, but more focus on stocks and bonds and the calculations. Definitely more quantitative than qualitative. But the good part is that there is no need to write essays (YAY), the exam format is more like short-answer questions.
Lectures are webcasted but I still attended every single one of them because I don't think I can make myself sit through a 3hr lecture webcast. Yup, 3 hours! Technically it is 2hrs and 35mins of course, but does that 25 mins really make much difference? Hmm. As for tutorials, basically just present your answers on the board to get class part marks! Tutorials for this mod is one hour every week!
The End (For my first sem, at least)
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