AY2023/2024 Sem 2

Below are the list of courses that I have taken for AY2023/2024 Sem 2 in NUS. I have provided my honest opinions on them and whether i recommend taking them or not. Please take my reviews with a pinch of salt and do fact checking as well as my experience is only based on what I went through and syllabus may have changed etc.

IS2218 Digital Platforms for Business

Module Credits: 4

Professor Biography:

Prof Vivek Sundar Magash. Prof Vivek is a great teacher who backups his lectures with many real-life examples for students to better appreciate and understand the lecture content. When it comes to assignments, he was also flexible by extending assignment deadlines as he understood the busy schedule of students who might have simultaneous exams going on (however, this is more of a privilege).

General Description (What to expect):
This module gives an overview of the various digital platforms and their success stories, as well as certain business and marketing knowledge that is crucial in the context for these businesses that uses a platform-approach model. Some sucesses for instance are shoppee and amazon. For computing students, you would typically take this module to clear one of your Interdisciplinary requirements.

Workload: 5/10. Felt like a very chill 4MC mod to me, yes there were 4 assignments but they could be relatively done easily and midterms and finals did not come with any surprises.|

General Tips:
1.  I am not sure if this applies to semester 1, but typically for semester 2, 2218 offers both online zoom and live lecture as an option. If the zoom recordings are provided, review them to better appreicate and understand the content. It can be quite easy to forget especially the dry marketing knowledge part.

2. Make the best use of the 1 A4 size paper u can bring in for midterms and finals helpsheet. This helpsheet where you basically squeeze content will be a lifesaver in terms of theoretical questions or formulas. This module is pretty high bell curve so 1 or 2 mark can be a differential in grade.

 Course Breakdown:

Midterm covers topics up from Week 1 to 6.

Final Test covers topics up from Week 7 to 12.

 

Assignments: 40% MidTerms: 30% Final Quiz: 30%

Recommendation: 8/10 👍

In my opinion, this was a pretty decently structured module for 4MCs. Concepts taught were generally clear and prof was pretty reasonable. If you have some accounting background, this might be even easier to you as only basic accounting concepts are taught (even less than ACC1701x), with the exception that the some of it are based on US accounting such as US taxes.

If I had to find 1 fault with this module it would be that it is extremely competitive and bell curve tends to be high, so you really cannot afford to be making careless mistakes. Otherwise, assignments and tests aside were pretty straightforward and lecture content were delivered well. Also, this module has no tutorial at all so additional time to focus on other modules 😆

Expected Grade: B+/A-
Actual Grade: A (Somehow bell curve rode in my favour this time finally)

BT2102 Data Management and Visualisation

Module Credits: 4

Professor Biography: 

Prof Danny Koo. Prof Danny was the main coordinator for this module. Fun fact, he mentioned that he was involved in the department that first introduced business analytics as a major to NUS. He has been teaching in NUS for many years and definitely knows his stuff. In my opinion, Prof Danny is a very dedicated teacher where he often responded promptly to students queries via email and even attended zoom meetings with us after office hours (again this is a privilege, so don't abuse it). If I had one complain, I would argue that assignments and the final quiz could be set better, because sometimes the english use is not clear or straightforward enough, which led to students having to email in the first place.

General Description (What to expect):

This module gives an overview of the data visualisation and database management as a whole. You would be given an introduction to the various types of databases around, with relational database as the focus of this module. You will also be introduced to the three-tier database architecture where you will learn about the external layer (user requirements with regards to the database), conceptual and logical layer (where you will learn about how to design the database - using conceptual modelling concepts like UML or Chen Notation) as well as the Physical Layer (Exposure to SQL for database development and database manipulation). Prof also touches into data visualisation techniques with Tableau and introduced lightly on NoSQL for unstructured data towards the end of the module

Workload: 5/10. I'm a bit biased on this, but this was mainly due to the amount of effort required on the assignments and final project presentation. Having prior knowledge from poly on database concepts made this module easier for me as it was sort of a refresher but assignment requirements were not very developed well and there were many things to clarify on which took up more of my time.

 Course Breakdown:

I do not have the breakdown for this, so I am writing based on what I recall.

Class Part - 6% (Attend all tutorials and answer questions to get full 6%)
Assignment 1A - 20%

Assignment 1B - 20%

Assignment 2 - 24% (This is also the final project)

Final Quiz -30%

Recommendation: 7/10 👍

I recommend taking this module because I do believe that regardless of industry or major, databases remain a vital component. For instance, in healthcare industry, you need databases to store patient healthcare records. The main downside is that this is probably more for IT majors who already cleared BT1101 as a prerequisite in order to take this module, and 2ks with prerequisites cannot be S/Ued.

I would say this module is quite beginner-friendly for students who do not have any database management prior knowledge as well because the bell curve was high lol, and I am pretty sure many have not heard of SQL before this module even. Concepts were relatively easy to pick up and prof's lectures were generally straightforward except when it comes to assignments. The most off-putting point was using Tableau for the final project cuz Tableau honestly just sucks as a software since it lags so much.

Expected Grade: B+/A-
Actual Grade: A- (Bell curve worked well on me)

MA1312 Calculus with Applications

Module Credits: 4

Professor Biography:

Prof Tan Ban Pin. Prof Tan is probably one of the most dedicated math lecturer I have seen in NUS, he readily explains questions to students in class and comes up with questions on the spot to try to reinforce concepts with us in lecture. Speaking as someone who dropped from 1521 due to the extremely fast pace in my opinion as I had no H2 math background, 1312 was the perfect fit for me as it was at a way more appropriate pace.

General Description (What to expect):

This module covers 8 chapters in total, ranging from limits, differentiation, integration and finally to ODEs. There were in total 3 assignments, with each assignment testing concepts on every 2 chapters up until chapter 6, and we were given a 1 week deadline for each assignment. Chapter 7 and 8 were briefly tested in the final exam instead.

Workload: 5/10. Very chill mod but I am giving this score mainly due to the time taken for the 3 assignments. For those very strong with their concepts, they could probably give this a 3/10.

 Course Breakdown:

Recommendation: 8/10 👍

Just take this as your math core module if you major in IS like me, unless you wish to take MA1521 to leave open the option to switch to CS in future. This module is very chill on workload compared to many other math modules out there so I would recommend this for IS students who may not have a strong math foundation like me as this counts to our 4mc requirement as well. As for students who might want to take this as a UE for jokes, you could because I do think its probably quite easy to pass for S/Uing.

Expected Grade: B/B+
Actual Grade: B+ (I didn't have much time to revise concepts and left like 3-4 blank questions for finals)

CS2105 Introduction to Computer Networks

Module Credits: 4

Professor Biography:

Prof Leong Wai Kay and Jithin Vachery. Prof Leong Wai Kay is quite a good lecturer in the sense that he is able to condense a large amount of network topics into the lecture sessions, he covered the lecture topics from Week 1 to 6, However, most of the time, Prof Wai Kay's lessons were very fast-paced and I had to rewatch recorded lectures to catch certain points better. Prof Jithin's covers the lectures from Week 7 to 13, his lectures were more well-paced but since the later content was harder, it required a higher level of thinking and understanding from previous topics to truly appreciate his lectures.

General Description (What to expect):

This module covers the whole TCP/IP internet protocol stack, giving a good overall understanding on how computer networks essentially function and how the various protocols on each layer on the IP stack relate to each other, except the physical layer which was not really touched on. One thing to note was that for my batch, they removed Multimedia networking as a topic and we ended off the module with a short introduction to cybersecurity concepts such as encryption, authentication and confidentiality. There were 4 coding assignments to be done with any language of our choice, but I highly recommend using python as its the least syntax heavy and easy to pickup. There was also a midterm and finals

Workload: 6-7/10.  For a CS mod, I would argue that its on the lower-workload side of things because the coding assignments could all be done relatively well if you have some basic programming concepts knocked down. Likewise, there is a plagiarism checker involved but that does not mean you cannot go online or ask friends to get inspiration as that helped me to tackle the problems more easily.

 Course Breakdown:

I do not have the breakdown for this, so I am writing based on what I recall.

Class Part - 5% (Attend all tutorials and answer questions to get full 5%)
Assignment 0- 2%

Assignment 1 - 8%

Assignment 2 - 8% 

Assignment 3 - 2%

Mid-Terms - 30%

Final Quiz -50%

Recommendation: 6-7/10 👍

For my semester, our batch basically got the short end of the stick because Prof Leong decided to introduce Multi-Response Questions (MRQ) as part of the grading scheme for the mid-terms and finals instead of MCQ as it has been done in past sems. In my opinion, this change in grading skewed the bell-curve a lot and my batch as I know had the worst median score for finals. I did many past-year practice papers which were way easier and seemed to test lecture-related stuff only but for my batch certain stuff that were not taught were tested too and that really affected my grade. I almost scored full for structured questions in finals but my grade was pulled heavily down by MRQ in midterms and finals, hence I did not achieve the grade that I wanted.

If you are a Com Science or InfoSec student, I think this is a core mod so this doesn't really apply to you, but for any others interested, Nevertheless, I would say its a good module to take to deepen your knowledge on computer networks and how the internet sends data around as a whole, but what I cannot guarantee is the grade like what past batches had in the past due to this new MRQ system. This used to be a sure A CS module, but we really got the short end of the stick here, where people who have had prior knowledge of computer networks would definitely have an advantage in terms of scoring compared to complete beginners as MRQ seemed to test things beyond what was taught. One thing to note is this requires CS2030 as a pre-requisite to be done, so this module is more likely applicable to SOC students only.

Expected Grade: B+/A-
Actual Grade: B (I got cooked by MRQ, what can I say)

ACC1701X Accounting for Decision Makers 

Module Credits: 4

Professor Biography:

Prof Deon Chan was the main lecturer for this module but I believe it has changed for the upcoming sem. Prof Deon was a very good professor in terms of relaying concepts. She tends to have short-form quizzes on PollEnv to test our understanding each lecture and attempts to make the lectures more interesting. 

General Description (What to expect):

This module gives a general overview of accounting concepts like formulating a balance sheet (SFP), income statement (SCI), t-accounts to create a trial-balance, accrual accounting, statement of cashflow and equity, financial ratios and more. As you can see, this could be a very content-heavy module for those with no prior accounting experience. However, it is in fact quite manageable as the content is watered down as this is ACC1701X, which is catered to non-business students.

Workload: 5/10. Not much workload except weekly accounting tutorials and preparing for mid-terms and exams, so time taken is more on revising concepts

 Course Breakdown:

This is what i remember:

Class Part - 20%

Mid Terms - 30%

Finals - 50%

Recommendation: 6-7/10 👍

I would recommend this module to SOC students needing to clear their Cross-disciplinary requirement simply because its a module that you do not need to pay that much attention to so you can focus on your core mods and if worst come to worst you can easily SU it as its a sure-pass.

Grades aside, this module also gives a wholistic overview on good accounting concepts that may be useful in terms of personal investing, where you will be able to get some understanding on how to read company's accounting statements to gauge whether to invest in their stocks, so it could be practical in that sense. However, why I ended up disappointed with this module is due to the high class part percentage of 20%, basically everyone was fighting to answer in tutorial just to get the full percentage, and although I raised my hand every session it was not really fair as the tutor would randomly pick people to answer, so those who were picked often would have gotten the full 20%.

Expected Grade: A/A+

Actual Grade: B+ (I was actually shocked, I scored above median for midterms and somehow I got a B+ despite being super confident in my answers for finals, the bell curve in this module hit me hard I think everyone scored very well)

⮘ AY23/24 S1