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!