Review: NUS GE3204 - Cities And Regions: Planning For Change

GE3204 - Cities And Regions: Planning For Change

10% Class participation

10% Class Quiz

30% Project

50% Closed-book Finals

The module was taught by Dr Sheela Prasad, I think she's a visiting prof.

My opinion may be biased, but I really really hated this mod. This mod made me feel as if I was back in primary school.

First off, for class participation, Dr Prasad made it such that we each have to speak for at least 5 minutes at least, every single tutorial. I really don't get the rationale, because how can you expect something original and thoughtful on the same topic with like 20 plus people speaking, there's bound to be repetitions. 

The class quiz was fill in the blanks, so primary school omg. This means that there is no way you can smoke through, there are no multiple choices to increase the probability of you getting the question right. If you don't know the answer, if you don't know one out of the two or three words, there goes your mark. And to top it off, you have to go see her in her office to get your marks. 

On top of all of that, maybe because she is a visiting prof, she does things very differently from the usual profs, and her instructions were often unclear (at least to me la). Had such a hard time figuring what she wants for the project, and even then it was too broad to fit into the 3000-4000 words she assigned. And when you have to fit so much things into one single report, you have to sacrifice a lot on depth.

This was just one tedious mod, and I didn't like the way things were done. 

Review: NUS GEK2005 Introduction to Urban Planning

GEK2005 Introduction to Urban Planning

15% Class Participation
20% Tutorial Participation (2x)
15% Group project
50% Open-book Finals

This modules is taught by Dr Ng Siau Yong. Took this thinking that it's very similar to my human geog mods, but it became more technical in the end. But there were a lot, a lot of geog majors in this mod.

The workload is quite heavy for a GEM mod, with two presentations (10% each) and a group project. These are not things that you can finish in a day, but required some research and thinking.

The class participation part is especially important. This is one of those mods where you get a tick for every time you speak, so the more you speak the more ticks on the file. But then because of that you also get quite a lot of people talking for the sake of talking, with nothing substantial to contribute.

This mod was my worst mod this sem, and to top it off I don't have anymore S/U left.  :\  Not that it was particularly difficult, but I think the competition was very intense so the bell curve may have been very steep.

But on the whole it was still worth it I think. I really enjoyed taking this module and Dr Ng was damn entertaining throughout. This is one module where you shouldn't skip the lectures because he was that hilarious.

NUS GE3228 Geographies of Business Organisations [ Module Review ]

NUS GE3228 Geographies of Business Organisations is taught by Prog Godfrey Yeung. 

The assessment criteria is broken down into :

Tutorial presentation (10%) - You sign up for a slot to present a discussion of the readings, and an article that you're supposed to find. Oddly, tutorial attendance and participation is not taken into account, so you should really try your best to score for this.

Group project (30%) - We're supposed to do up a business proposal for a product of your choice that is supposed to be manufactured. Then you're supposed to critique whether it is feasible using current theories and case studies. This is the part where we stumbled a bit, because we weren't sure how a business proposal is supposed to look like and how much it should deviate from our usual geography report format. We were encouraged to team up with exchange students "for a fresh perspective", but honestly we ended up having to do most of the work ourselves, because they just have to pass anyway. The top two projects will get bonus points of 3% and 1% each.

Closed book final examination (60%) - You have to answer two questions, one in Section A and one in Section B. The percentage for this is quite high for a level 3000 module, so I'll say try to write as much and as coherent as you can because this will be your major determinant in your final grade. 

Prof Yeung is a very friendly and approachable prof, and really goes out of his way to explain things to you when you ask him a question. But sadly, I found his accent a tad hard to understand, so I ended up skipping 90% of the lectures anyway. The lecture notes were also too brief with too much abbreviations, so I'd say it works better if you just do the readings on your own.

The class is really small, with the majority of them being exchange students, and some from other faculties. I think you can count the number of local Geography students with two hands. There were only about 6 students for my tutorial slot, and I was the only local geog major there. But the exchange students are really outspoken and they tend to speak up a lot in class. Maybe it's because of the small class size, the tutorials tend to end after about an hour or so despite it being a two-hour tutorial (hooray for us!! : D  )

But end of the day, I'll say, just do this mod. The bell curve works in your benefits with so much exchange students there. 

NUS EN3261/EU3217 EUROPEAN LITERATURE I [Module Review]

NUS EN3261/EU3217 European Literature 1 is taught by Prof Turner, a really eccentric but amicable guy.

The assessment criteria is broken down into the following:

In class quiz (7%) - very short answer questions that you either know or don't know. The quiz only lasted for about 20 minutes with 20 (or might be 25, I forgot) questions. But you can complete it within 10, because the questions are those that does not actually allow you to smoke through. E.g. where did A and B go for honeymoon in the book C? 

2 short essays (40%; i.e. 20% each) - 2 short essays at 1000 words each, really manageable if I would say so myself, for a level 3000 module. There will be a range of topics for you to choose from, so it's quite unlikely that you will have nothing to write at all.

Class participation (13%) - this is the part I hated most. The class is broken into 4 to 5 small groups and there will be at least an hour for discussion and presentation every week. Being a non-literature major, I always feel like I got nothing much valuable to input whenever we break into small groups for discussion. It makes me feel quite useless and noob compared to the people who are so eloquent and can just squeeze water out of rocks kind. I guess I just lack the ability to really deep read.

Final closed book examination (40%) - you get a choice for a compulsory question in section A, and another question in section B. It requires you to discuss the question in relation to two, or three texts. You're allowed to repeat the books discussed, but not the materials.

I would say that this module is manageable, but I didn't enjoy it as much as EN3234/AS3234 Asian American Literature. The books used in this module is (in my opinion) more boring, so I had a hard time getting through some of the books because they were so dry and out of the usual genre that I enjoy. I think out of the 6 or 7 books, there were only about 2 or 3 that I remotely enjoy and didn't dread reading. 

Hopefully my next literature module choice will see more interesting books.

NUS GE2215 Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) [Module Review]

GE2215 Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has got to be THE mod I most regret taking this sem.

The content is so dry it can give you split ends like no other. The whole module is so damn freaking technical I almost died every time we had to complete our lab sessions. My friend commented that this semester's GIS seems much harder than previous batches, not sure how true was that, but I'm full of angst for this mod.

6 lab sessions (60%)

class partcipation (10% - not sure how this was counted since in my opinion there wasn't actually any class participation involved?)

closed book finals MCQ and short answers (30%)

I took it thinking that I have a slight advantage since I have my friend's noted from the previous batches. But they were NO help at all because they completely revamped all the questions.

The lab sessions weren't really a come-I-guide-you-along kind of learning. It was more like a nah-you-should-get-this-answer kind. So you were left to fumble around on your own. The technicians are there to help during the lab tutorials, but ONLY during that time. And you'll have to go back quite a few times on your own before you can complete each lab, so I was struggling throughout.

Exam questions were tough (in my opinion la) as well. I left right on the dot at the one hour mark because I didnt know how to do and didn't feel like sitting there stoning and making myself depressed further.

I'm so glad this module is over. Take this module at your own risk.

NUS GE3201 The Service Economy (Module Review)

GE3201 The Service Economy is taught by Dr Karen Lai this sem. I took her Economy and Space module the semester before and really liked it, so I was quite looking forward to attending another module taught by her.

Dr Lai's lessons are really interesting because she uses a lot of real life examples that you can actually relate to. In fact, I would say that it is my most enjoyable module I took this sem. Her tutorials are interactive but not intimidating. And she has a really nice accent.

The assessment is broken down into 10% class participation, 35% group project (3 people per group), an individual film review for 15%, and finally an open book finals at 40%.

The previous batch watched Slumdog Millionaire for their film review, while for us this sem, we did The Pursuit of Happyness. She listed out several topics that we can explore, which was quite helpful in formulating the essay. The film review was marked by the TA though.

The group project was to compare two business organisations in the service industry, so for example, you can compare ZUJI.COM with CHAN BROTHERS. 

This will definitely be one of the modules that I recommend if you're inclined towards human geog.

NUS GE3237 Geographies of Migration (Module Review)

For the past two semesters, I've been reviewing all five modules that I took at one go. This sem, I decided to do it a bit differently, so my module reviews will be separated into individual posts instead.

This module is for NUS GE3237 Geographies of Migration.

This sem's GE3237 is taught by Dr Brenda Yeoh. he's a very interesting lecturer, and very very approachable. Even though she's the dean, she doesn't put on any airs. A plus point is that migration is one of her research areas, so she knows the topic very very well.

Assessment consisted of 6 online tutorials with two partnering universities (25%), a group project and a presentation (30%), a 600 words box story (15%), and finals (30%). So as you can see, the percentage is quite evenly spread out across all the different sections.

This mod has the heaviest weightage on tutorials that I'v encountered so far. There were 6 online tutorials in total, but the first one is more like a self-introduction session so it wasn't counted. This means that the 25% was distributed across 5 e-tutorials, 5% each. This is considered really heavy because normally you only have like 10 to 15% for tutorial participation. We were supposed to make 2 posts each week, 300 words each. It wasn't very hard since the word limit is so little, but the difficult part is sounding intelligent with so little words. But it really feels super good to not have to be physically present in school for tutorials.

For the group project, the written report takes up 70% of the 30%. The group consist of 4 to 5 people, and 2 of them will be presenting while the rest will have to answer questions posted by Dr Brenda Yeoh. I really think that there's too little weightage given to this part. 4000 words for like 20% (70% of the 30%) is just too much work for too little marks I feel. The topic was on cosmopolitan possibilities of migrants in Singapore. Quite broad and fun to do. But I kind of feel like Dr Yeoh is too nice. Because the topic is so broad, we couldn't make up our mind on what to do at first. We came up with some suggestions and asked her for comments but I feel like nothing concrete or fruitful came out of the consultation. It's like, she'll keep telling you it's feasible and you should go with what you like, but she didn't actually criticise anything and I feel that in this case, telling us what she DIDN'T like would have pointed us to a clearer path. We had to come back on a Saturday for the presentations but no complains there since we didn't have actual tutorials.

The lectures were held at AS7, this is the part that I really disliked. The classroom was so small and cramped! If you're late, you'll end up sitting in the front row and then the whole lesson you have to keep straining your neck to read off the projector slides. It doesn't help that there were quite a few sessions were she uploaded the notes really late (like before the lesson kind of late), and I ended up going to class without notes. They should seriously get a bigger venue.

Exam questions were quite straightforward, helps that past year papers were available also.

NUS module reviews, Year 2 Sem 2

This post came two months later than I expected, but I was taking a shower just now and thinking back about the sem and I just felt the inspiration to write something.

It's gonna be really content-heavy because I'm kind of in a lazy mood so searching for pictures takes too much effort.

Surprisingly I did really well this sem, I don't know if it's because I finally picked up the proper skills for studying, better time management, less distractions and drama in my life, or what, but my results really picked up. I was quite panicky when I was staying in hall because my results really took a toll. Seems like staying in PGP is really beneficial to me.

GE2206 Life & Death

This was one crazy mod. I had so much ups and downs during this mod I can't even describe. Took this with my usual Geog group plus two new friends that we made along the way. The grading consisted of one individual essay central-ed around your group project, and a group project. So essentially you're kind of doing the same thing, but it also means that the competition is really stiff and concentrated among your team members as every group will be touching on different topics. And since they're basically on the same thing the submission for your individual essays and the eventual presentation is only about two weeks apart.

Prof Elaine Ho mentioned in lecture that she was doing research on Indian surrogate mothers and we took a gamble even though we expected a lot of other groups to be doing on the same topic. I was really really really lost during the project discussion. I missed a few lectures and I had no fracking idea what was expected. The group was going on and on about governmentality and biopolitics and the likes and I just went blank. But somehow somewhat my individual essay did really well. I got my first A+ in my whole NUS life. I think it helps if your essay is very organised, I divided mine into sections as well under several headings.

We did a skit for our presentation because the prof wanted something out of the box and creative. There were groups doing podcast, news telecast and so on. We did not bad for that even though we were quite messed up for a while because we confused the slides and then we kept clicking back and forth. I didn't speak up at all during all 5 tutorials and I still did better than a friend who participated a lot, so I guess the speaking part doesn't constitute a very high percentage to your overall marks.

The finals were pretty straight forward and if you tried the past year questions, you would be fine. Overall, I did really well for this mod and so, of course I'll recommend taking this! :)

GE2202 Economy & Space

I took this module alone because none of my friends were interested, ended up I didn't turn up for any of the lectures nor watched the webcast. But I guess it's suitable if you're taking alone as everything is individual-based, there was a movie review and an individual essay. I did really badly for the movie review, I couldn't see any link between the movie and the concepts that we're supposed to be learning so I was smoking almost the entire time. For the individual essay, I did it on surrogate mothers as well because the essay submission for this and Life & Death was only like one hour apart and I had too much shit on to do research for an entirely new essay. I did pretty okay for it though, well above my expectation. I was expecting like a C or something.

For this mod, you must must must do prior preparation before turning up for the tutorials. You're expected to group into small groups (which you have signed up for before each tutorial) and then do a presentation on your topic at the end. And unless you've brought your laptop along, it's not easy to crap out something intellectual in such a short time.

SSA2202/GEK2001 Changing Landscapes

This mod is easy, but really really competitive. And because the information is so readily-available and straight-forward, it boils down to an English-ability fight. It's like a race to see who can twist and present the information more beautifully so every single mark you get, be it mid terms, finals, class part or project, is really really crucial. There's webcast but ended up I also didn't go for any lectures nor watched the webcast. It's pretty self-explanatory and everything is in the textbook. You get several lecturers, but some are really boring.


I did my project on Mount Sophia Old School under Prof TC Chang and he has really been a great help. We went to the consultation (each group gets one) without any clue of what to do, and he practically led us right where we want to be, and we came up with the essay topic, the research guideline and everything. He was really very informative and helpful, and the best part is he leads you there instead of spoon feeding you. And I was so touched by the constant follow-ups that he gave us even though he's such a busy man.


SSB2216 Employee Management in Singapore


This was one of the most fun mods that I took this sem. I took it with one other friend under Prof Winston Lee, while my two other friends took it under a different (female) prof. There's a total of five profs and I recommend that you really go and find out who you want to be under because ultimately, the profs mark back their own class papers. My friend and I didn't know this and she just chose the first slot that was available and I blindly followed, but it was really a blessing in disguise.


The class was really fun, there were only like four biz students and the rest were from a mix of faculties. We ended up doing our project with four guys sitting near us and they were really nice and fun people. The project progress was also quite efficient, which is a major plus point.

Prof Lee is a really friendly and nice person. He comes across as a very nice grandpa, but he tends to be soft and forgetful sometimes. It was so funny when he asked us the same few questions or gave the same examples week after week. But he tends to be more conservative and I think it'll really help your case if your work is not too controversial or bends and challenges the traditions. We went along with this theory and did our project on non-profit organisations instead of private companies. He also doesn't like people to print in black and white, especially the NUS logo, and projects should be properly binded/filed. I guess the nice impression gives you an added advantage la. But we never got back our marks so I can't tell for sure if we did well. I was also perpetually half an hour late though since it's like an early 9am class.

This was my first biz mod and I did quite well for it, so I might just take another biz mod for my breadth.

LAK2201 Korean 2

I did the lousiest for this mod. It was soooo hard and competitive. The amount of people taking this is really considerably lesser, with only four classes. But I like my lecturer a lot better too because she's more lively and bubbly, whereas my level 1 teacher came across as very motherly. There were so much things to be covered in the syllabus, and I did a check on NUS extension, one mod equates to three levels there omgggg.

I was struggling with the grammars and vocabs since there was so much to remember, but it was better and easier compared to level 1 in terms of techniques, because you're more or less used to the word forms by then.

I flunked really badly during the oral, so much so that my tutor pretended to cry and I walked out feeling so dejected. I'm just grateful I didn't fail in the end. And with this mod, I've used my third S/U option. -.- spent all 3 S/U options on language mods. But I guess learning Korean did pay off somewhat, my boyf is Korean and at least now I can carry some basic conversation with his dad. Of course, half the time I'm guessing what he means instead of knowing for sure, but knowing more vocab and grammar does help. I mean, it's better than nothing right.

Module reviews

K went to work and I'm stuck celebrating the last day of my exams with my laptop. Yeah I know, I'm like super lazy. I wanted to go out at first but my paper ended at 7 plus so after dinner I just wanted to laze around doing nothing.

Since I've been checking out module reviews pretty often to help me decide on what mods to take, I thought I'll return the favour. And at least I can look back and recall the things I've been doing to while away time.

So here it goes!

EN3234/AS3234 Asian American Literature

Well, I can't help much if you're a literature major, because I'm not. And I had a really horrible time in this module basically because I felt that it was incredibly boring, On top of the four compulsory books (shown above), you have like tons and tons of short stories/articles to read. And some of them are extremely dry. I am a reader and I enjoy reading but seriously, the books/stories chosen for this mod is really not my thing. The only book that I enjoyed (and liked) was M Butterfly. Lectures are boring too, I missed like at least 4 or 5 of them.

There were 2 assignments, 1 marked by the tutor and one by Prof Walter Lim himself. I did okay for both, not fantastic but relatively good grades for the amount of effort. End of year was okay, you're supposed to demonstrate breadth of reading so try to mention and go into detail on as much authors/works as you can.


GE2204 Cities in Transition

This mod is taught by Prof Pow, quite interesting concepts and examples. There was a guest lecturer from URA to talk on some urban planning stuff for Marina Bay area. The lectures were quite enjoyable and the tutorials quite slack. We watched a movie for one of the tutorials. The project this year was on liveability.

Exam was alright, with most of the questions similar to those in the past year exam papers. As long as you understand the lectures you should do alright for it. Oh! And he was quite nice, we were tested on the first half of the mod during mid term, and the finals were only from lecture 7 to 13. So effectively you're studying lesser things. And he also revealed the topic (green buildings) for the compulsory. I guess I'm really a geog major after all. Much better than the American Lit mod that I took.


GE2221 Nature and Society

The most enjoyable module in NUS that I have taken so far. Ever. The lecturer was the coolest, he looked like a nerdy middle age man, but turned out to be damn spontaneous and fun. For his assignments try to do on creative issues, or topics that he like. The first assignment was a video one, so we had to find a video from Youtube and critique it using concepts we've learnt. You can use cartoons, animations and so on, not necessary to stick to documentary stuff (and not advised to otherwise he gets bored with it, you get a safe grade but wont get super good marks).

Only individual assignments for this mod, no projects, which is good especially for those taking the mod alone. No need to have awkward meetings with strangers you just met, no need to make time to rush out presentations and so on. BEWARE if you're taking this module, there's some seriously disturbing videos shown during tutorial. I almost cried watching them and turned vegan for like three days. Tutorial attendance not taken (so you can just don't go, but they ARE fun) but 10% allocated for forum participation. And the mid term test was really really cool. I came out thinking I have failed it since couldn't answer all the definition questions, but got a pretty decent grade in the end. Very very cool test, very unconventional style of questions, never enjoyed a test so much seriously.

Highly recommended for geog majors and non-major alike. Oh! And try to take this with cities in transition if you can, cos there's some overlapping parts and so you have lesser to study for.


GEK1061 Emergent Media & Multimodal Communications

This mod was held in Utown. Twice a week at an ungodly hour of 8am. I suggest unless you're one who can really wake up super early try not to take this mod, unless they change the timing. This sem was the first time they're having the mod so a lot of things were still in the experimental stage. Over the sem you see the class size decreasing because people cannot wake up and make it on time for this. My friend routinely reached the class 15 mins before the class ends. Three assignments so the mod is quite heavy, and mind you its not just writing. There's one written assignment, a video assignment and a group presentation with like 8 or 9 people in a group. So organising meetings were really hard. Mostly just went in and whacked for the presentation. The prof, Prof Jasmine, records down the presentation. She's very young (or at least she looks that way). Two movies were shown in the middle of the sem, but one of them is a completely artistic one that I didn't understand, and promptly fell asleep after the first 5 minutes.

On the other hand this mod has no finals, so for those of you who dont like end of year exams, go for it!


LAK1201 Korean 1

My second attempt at language mods. This one was much better than German 1. Maybe because I'm more interested in it, not that I'm a Kpop fan or anything. BUT, your whole class will be. The new friends I made in class bonded over Kpop starts and songs and things like that. And the examples they use include Yuna and Nickhun and so on. The whole lecture class only had 2 guys, and my tutorial class only had 1. Numerous tests and writing assignments, homework every single week, lectures twice a week and a 2 hour tutorial. No final exam but there was a oral test where you'll be having conversations with the teacher, conversations with a classmate chosen right before the test, reading timings and self dialogue, and a skit that you start preparing for three weeks before.

Although the mod was quite time-consuming, it was nonetheless enjoyable. Helps to have korean friends to correct you along the way as well. Cos the pace is really fast and the topic markers and subject markers and whatnots gets confusing after awhile.


Okay! Thats it. :) Off to watch my shows now! Lucky I downloaded alr cos Funshion undergoing maintenance now. Foresight ftw!