This marks the end of Year 1 Sem 1, and I have to say that it was really difficult to get through – maybe because it was hard to adjust to the pace of uni life, and the continual assessment nature of the grading system. For most of the mods in FASS, they require you to do consistent work (i.e. doing your readings diligently, for the most part, and paying attention during lectures and tutorials). Which is not to say that you won’t be able to catch up if you slack in the first few weeks, but then the stress starts to build up over time and things start to get out of control by the time you hit Week 4 or so… Therefore, not quite a good idea to slack off in the early part of the semester.
Here is a review of the modules I took this sem:
SC1101E: Introduction to Sociology
When I first started out, I really didn’t enjoy Soci at all, and I didn’t keep up with my readings or the textbook. I honestly had no idea what was going on, and it showed in my assignment, which I didn’t do too well in (I did it in one night). Afterwards, for the midterm test, I decided to work harder by reading the textbook and the readings, and my results jumped by two whole grades – a testament to the power of the textbook, and actually trying to understand what you’re studying. In fact, the more I studied Soci, the more I had a grudging appreciation for it, because it really does make sense when applied to the world around us, and it wasn’t as nonsensical and ‘fluffy’ as I initially thought it was.
Most of the time I don’t go for Soci lectures, but I do the webcast afterwards. I feel that the webcast really helps much more than going for lecture, because I can take things slow and pause to scribble down something the lecturer said. Of course, if you’re someone who doesn’t like to listen to a video recording for 1 h and 35 min straight, or you’re easily distracted, then chances are you will be better off in the lecture, and you can still use the webcast to catch on specific slides of content you missed out.
The readings (to me) are absolutely useless, at the least the ones for the first few weeks, although I read them to try and catch up for the midterms. After that, however, I just didn’t bother to keep up with them because they were quite random and the amount of time I took to extract anything useful was disproportionate to the time I spent reading the whole thing. Seniors tell me that you do need to read the Soci readings in order to get your examples, but I feel that the textbook has sufficient examples (in fact, maybe a tad too many) for you already. If you’re really passionate about Soci, or you enjoy doing the readings (although I really didn’t like them at all), then you’ll probably look at the readings, but if you’re not that interested, then I think it’s alright to skip out on it.
Assessment: There’s normally an assignment (15%), a midterm (25%) and finals (50%), as well as class participation (10%). I really regretted not speaking up in class more, because it appears that the teachers actually do know who you are, roughly, and they do keep watch to see who’s been talking (sense) and who’s been keeping quiet. For the assignment, you should probably go with the basic theories (Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Merton) – I tried Parks’ Ecological Theory based on one day’s worth of rushing and it didn’t end up well. For the midterms and finals, they have a tendency of combining two or even three topics, so it is best not to spot too much. Usually, power features heavily in both exams, and deviance always comes out for finals (whether or not the question is doable, however, depends on your year). I find that culture is my pet topic, but I still studied everything for the finals except Aging/Elderly, and did Class and Stratification as quickly as I could. Whether it’s easy to score in, I think once you get the hang of the Soci style, it’s much easier to churn out a decent essay. Basically, come up with some broad points that answer the question, GP-style, but then follow up with these thesis statements by using theories to analyse the phenomenon that you have raised, so that you’ll avoid sinking into the trap of writing a wholly GP-ish essay.
Workload: Generally, it’s not actually that bad. You definitely have to be very sure about what’s going on during the lectures, particularly the theories, and you really should follow the textbook. But I won’t say that Soci is a particularly heavy mod, especially not in comparison to others. As for whether I’d take Soci again, I probably would say yes, but I’ll also have started earlier and made sure that I knew what was going on in the first few lectures so that I wouldn’t have been so lost for the essay assignment.
PS1101E/GEK1003: Introduction to Politics
I’m very sure that every review on PS1101E that you come across will end up extolling the virtues of Prof Yoshi, who has won the Teaching Excellence Award for many years in a row. He is extremely clear in conveying the concepts, and he even repeats them sometimes in order to help you remember. I think part of the reason why his teaching style is so effective is because he is very systematic in explaining the flow of the theories and the concepts; he even puts funny pictures and speech bubbles, as well as ridiculous analogies, in order to make things more understandable. He is most possibly the best lecturer in Political Science (according to some seniors), and he is widely known by even the non-PS students as well for being a great lecturer.
I found the content for PS1101E very interesting for the most part, and the readings as well were difficult but I liked reading them (with the exception of some). However, I think trying to cram the content into my head in a few days before the exam was really difficult and it didn’t help that I didn’t start earlier as well. I would say that it is a relatively content-heavy mod, but it’s worth it because the concepts that he teaches you are valuable in interpreting the world’s politics around you.
Prof Yoshi only uploads his slides after the lecture, and there isn’t any webcast. Furthermore, you should really attend his lectures because occasionally, he gives a random hint of what to study. You should definitely not miss his final revision lecture, in which he basically tells you the 35 identification terms that may come out in finals (out of ten given, you pick five) as well as the possible topics that may be tested for the long essay. Studying the 35 terms is the most difficult part during preparation, but during the finals, it is most certainly the long essay that proves the greatest challenge.
Assessment: Tutorial participation makes up 20% of the grade, and the essay assignment and finals both take 40% weightage each. This means that you won’t be very busy during midterms for this mod, but that doesn’t mean you should be negligent in your readings, either. Not all the readings are important, but it is really hard to know which one will be important later for your essay assignment. Even though Prof Yoshi says that it is a think-piece and that only two references are required, it really depends on your tutor’s marking style, and thus I think it’s better to include more references (maybe five would be a safe number) – although referencing doesn’t guarantee a good score. It probably would be best to read Fukuyama’s The End of History, Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations and Political Decay, and all the Asian values debate readings (Mahbubani and Aung-Thwin, who happens to be the father of the Burmese HY1101E lecturer) at the very least. It’s also very important how you choose your essay question for both the assignment and the finals – I chose the right question for my assignment and did well, but for my finals, I picked a trickier question and ended up going off point midway.
Workload: In terms of workload, the readings are quite heavy. There’s usually one or two per week, and while you don’t need to read them all, you have to read some of them, or you’ll be left rushing the readings the week before the assignment (like me). Still, it’s good that there is very few assessments for this mod, because it minimises the time spent trying to study or write another essay. Of course, that could also be a downside because it is, to some extent, an ‘all or nothing’ situation. I think that PS1101E is generally hard to score in, but it is definitely worth the effort and the pain, and I would definitely take it if it was under Prof Yoshi.
HY1101E: Asia and the Modern World
I thought I liked History when I did it at the A Levels, and I loved SEA especially (I still do). But this mod just didn’t do it for me – it was too broad, spanning from the dynastic period to modern history, and it was mostly ‘touch and go’ for each of the different time periods. There was a vastness of regions covered – South Asia (India and Pakistan), East Asia (China, Japan and occasionally Korea/Taiwan), and Southeast Asia (Thailand, Philippines, Burma and Vietnam, mostly). It was too much for me, and I felt that the content wasn’t really organised in an understandable way. The patterns, while there, were not readily apparent, and it was very difficult to track the developments and continuities across so many regions.
I read other module reviews that said if we have taken A Level History before, this module would be not much of a problem. I have to disagree. While it is convenient to have some background information on SEA nationalism, decolonisation, political structures and economic development, as well as a knowledge of the Cold War, the module content organised these topics in a different way. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the recap, especially for the SEA region which I love, but other than that, it was all new information and I struggled with synthesising it and using it in my arguments. I really didn’t enjoy this module, but I know of a sizeable amount of people who remained ambivalent or even stayed interested throughout, and to hear my opinion regarding this subject only would be therefore quite an unrepresentative summary of what this mod is about.
Assessment: There were two midterms, each one 25%, and online forum participation was 20% (one forum session was 5%). The finals was 30%, which was a great relief because it didn’t have as high a weightage as the other mods’ finals. However, having two midterms was taxing (even though we would get the Fri lecture off in lieu of this torture) and having to remember so much information without a discernable, identifiable pattern really killed me. The forum participation is something that is required in Sem 1 – if I’m not wrong, Sem 2 may not have this component. It was amusing, if not a bit disturbing, to see everyone duking it out online with their tremendously long posts and taking up all the available points anyone could possibly conceive for a particular question. My advice to you is to start early and beat the crowd, but play fair at the same time – you can write a long post, but try to limit yourself to at most 2 points so that you’ll reserve some space for the rest to write as well. As for the finals, I wanted to die – partly because I left all the memorising to the day before the exam, which was the stupidest thing I’d done this year. The finals test all the semester’s worth of work, but I spotted identification terms from Theme 1 and 2, and thankfully was able to scribble some half-hearted words for them when they came out.
Workload: The forum participation was a pain, really – it required checking to see if anyone replied, and typing another short ‘essay’ in response to someone’s rebuttal, or adding on to their point. It took up even more time than a tutorial would have. There are readings every week, but I gave up very early on in the semester, and only read whenever it would help with the online forum post (I cited some readings for my points). I think the lectures, if you pay attention and diligently take notes, will stand you in much better stead for the exams than the readings. The content, however, is massive, and it’s hard to tell what is permissible to skip. Still, the saving grace of this mod is that they have a tendency to keep the questions at a somewhat doable level (although I would say it’s still hard) and you are probably bound to recognise a few of the ID terms that you have to do if you put in enough effort into at least scoping out the topic in general. I think, though, I would have been better off not taking this mod, especially with my poor time management and inability to memorise copious amounts of information in a short amount of time.
EN1101E/GEK1000: Introduction to Literary Studies
I felt that this module could have been done much better. As someone who loves Lit, I felt that this module really emphasised a lot on the more technical aspects during the lectures, which took away the joy of Lit. Of course, I understand the necessity of understanding literary technique, and I’m all for the terminology, but I think the way that it was taught was rather dry and unfocused for the most part. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I wasn’t used to the idea of spending only 2 weeks on each Lit text, and focusing so much on poetry for the first five weeks or so. For a person who enjoys novels and plays much more than poetry, this came as a discomfort and a disappointment. My familiarity of the texts were also lacking, and I only read most of them (A Raisin in the Sun and Northanger Abbey) twice, Volpone once and Breakfast at Tiffany’s thrice (if only because I did my assignment on this book).
I think the saving grace of the module were the books – I grew to love Breakfast at Tiffany’s over time, even though I disliked it during my first reading. As for A Raisin in the Sun and Northanger Abbey, I have absolutely no objections regarding them; they are pleasant reads. Northanger is a bit long though, and I read it quite slowly because I was unaccustomed to Austen’s way of writing. I have never been a fan of Austen, but Northanger was alright and I didn’t mind it much. Volpone, however, was another story altogether. I really hated reading it, because it was written in Shakespearean style (more or less, I’m not very specific about the timeline), but the language had much less grace and elegance, and was crude when it was intended to be funny. I had difficulty understanding what was going on, and what’s worse, wasn’t very motivated to understand either. As with all books, though, everyone will definitely have their own opinions regarding a text, and each person responds to a text differently, and forms different kinds of attachments. I know someone who found Volpone rather humorous, and while I failed to see the humour, I trust her ability and taste, so each to their own.
Assessment: There is a midterm test (20%), an essay assignment (25%), tutorial participation (15%) and finals (40%). My tutor was very strict in her marking, and decimated the whole class; I did slightly above average, but not particularly outstandingly well or anything like that. The midterm test is on poetry, and I think that it would be good practice to use more poetic devices in your analysis, because that was the comment across the board given to us – that we used too little of them. (Unfortunately, having used a few, I’m not sure how much more I could have found in the poem to be analysed.) Finals is based on four sections, and you have to do three – that leaves you with only 40 min for each section, which is really terrible if you had to change your question at the last minute, like I did. There is “no repeat of material” allowed, and so you must choose your questions carefully. While it is not a must for you to study all four texts in great detail, perhaps it would be wise to at least scan through the fourth book. I didn’t do Volpone (gee, what a surprise) and I managed to escape doing it during the finals itself.
Workload: The workload is generally light. Apart from reading the texts over and over again, and reading through the lecture notes and the occasional reading, I would say that the workload is really much more comfortable than any of the other modules. However, I would caution against the mindset that taking A Level Lit is a straight guarantee for an A, because I don’t think that’s true. The cohort is generally quite good, being made up of A Level Lit students, and it may be difficult to stand out among all the good students. Still, I would definitely take this mod again, if only for the fact that I did enjoy three out of the four texts, even if it was mostly self-study.
UTCP Junior Seminar
My last module is a UTCP junior seminar. I am unable to speak for all UTCP seminars, seeing as I only took my first one this sem, but I believe that they are generally challenging in their interdisciplinary approach, and make you think harder beyond the surface. However, I think it is well worth the effort, and it also features a small class size (about 10-15 people), which allows you to bond better with your class, whom you will see twice a week. The workload varies across all UTCP modules, but all of them do not have finals, which is really fantastic.
(Intended major: Political Science)
In general, I think some tips I would give to an incoming freshman would be:
1. You have the S/U option, so use it wisely. Maybe it would be good to focus on some mods more, because it is hard to spread out your effort for everything, especially in the first sem when you’re still getting your bearings.
2. Start early. Don’t slack off on your readings in the first two weeks of just lectures, because it will eventually come back to hurt you for sure.
3. Get your friends to proof-read your work, and vice versa, if you find that your essay feels rather problematic. Help them as well in their work if they need it.
4. Enjoy uni life – maybe get a cca and try to make some friends, or talk to the person sitting next to you during lecture or tutorial. Most of them will just be cursory, ‘hi bye’ friends, but you never know whether you might find one good friend.
5. As for the freshmen camps, I have to say that it isn’t necessary to go for them. Many of us really worry if we will be unable to find anyone to hang out with in uni, but I think it is an exaggerated concern, and it is not at all ‘social suicide’ to sit alone in lectures or even tutorials. To the seniors, it is the norm, and it is acceptable and no one even bats an eyelash at it. Go for a camp or two if you would like to make friends, but let yourself not be motivated by worry.
That’s about it for this semester – here’s hoping the next semester will bring more interesting mods :)
NUS Module Reviews 