Musings from someone bored

1. to create a little dairy for myself so I can remember my NUS days in the future
2. to defeat boredom (don't really have a life outside 😓 )
3. to help my juniors in NUS EE to know what they can expect. I could not find any recent NUS EE reviews when I was a freshie and I hope this will be helpful

Have fun reading this site! The reviews here are genuine I think. When things are bad, I say it as it is and vice versa when it's good. If you're an average student, I'm sure many of what I share will be relatable. I will try to remain a level of anonymity because I don't wish to be identified. But if you can somehow decipher who am I, please dm me. 😖 With so many online sagas involving NUS students who had their future destroyed, I think it's better just to stay safe. But don't worry, there's nothing malicious here! Everything here is kids friendly!

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions! 

Introduction 

This module is compulsory for all NUS undergrads, so we didn't have much choice in this. To describe it, it's statistical math that is heavily watered down. You will be learning about probabilities, rates and reliability, validity of experiments; all at the surface level. There's a lot of theory embedded as well. Getting a good tutor is important to secure a good grade. No physical lectures but replacing it were e-lectures which of course I didn't bother. Just skim through the PDF transcript and you should be fine. Tutorials were held fortnightly and I was seated with pre-allocated project partners (yes, you CANNOT choose project mates!!). During the first few tutorials, we tried our best to ignore each other's presence (introverted group) but unfortunately, we eventually needed to communicate for our group project.

Weekly quizzes on IVLE where the best of 8 out of 10 quizzes were taken to calculate your final 20%. Kinda surprised that they were peers who were constantly not getting full marks for the quizzes despite the open nature of it. Good for the bell curve, I guess. 

The group project took a lot of time and many meetups. We were tasked to choose one existing statistical study out of five they provided. We then had to come out with a paper to critique the existing study and prepare for two presentations! But fret not, it's was an "informal" presentation. My tutor told us that she doesn’t give a f if we wore shorts and or slippers and said we could read slides from cards or the projector. She is only concerned about the content. For our final paper, everything was done last minute, and it was in a huge mess. Hours before the deadline and we were still making major changes but somehow managed to hastily glue different parts together and submit it minutes before the deadline! 

The finals was doable but tricky. They are obviously trying to screw us up by giving ambiguous but similar sounding options to choose from, sometimes I feel, overly technical, not in the spirit of being a module for all majors... You need to read very carefully. You will have more than enough time to do the 28 MCQ questions. Sometimes when checking your answers, you may turn indecisive after re-reading the questions. It's just mental torture.. That's why many just leave the exam hall after the first hour. Just be confident with what you have done, leave and study for your other modules!!  (FYI, GER1000 is usually the very first exam in NUS exam schedule). 

This module felt half-baked. It attempts to teach different techniques like dealing with first and second order ordinary differential equations and Laplace Transform to assist you in differentiating things you normally can't. It also awkwardly adds random topics like population modelling and half-life decay in an attempt to make your MA1512 life more ‘exciting’. The content of this module isn't difficult, but if you struggle with math or hate calculus, you will suffer. 

Lessons are conducted in the flip classroom methodology, where you're supposed to watch some videos before coming to lectures. Similar to MA1511, some majors like EE, CEG have their lessons conducted in small group seminar style, while others have it in mass lectures. The official "notes" (it's already a discount calling it notes!) totalled hundreds of pages and felt like a storybook from hell. Less than 5% of characters are numbers! The instructors got lazy and re-used the notes from other modules. In fact, some pages still had "MA1506" printed on it. Tutorial questions are not relevant to the notes and the "math educational videos" you expect from MA1511 were just old lecture recordings of someone else teaching. Seniors warned that this module was terrible, and it turned out to be worse! Gave up doing tutorials and watching the stupid videos. The only saving grace was my tutor, where her own notes and solutions were miles ahead compared to the official ones. Attendance isn't graded, and there's no class tests unlike MA1511 and MA1508E, so feel free to AWOL as you wish. 

Given that this module is 2 MCs and compressed into six weeks of hell, there isn't much time to waste. As soon as I realised the official notes and tutorials weren't useful in prepping me for finals, I threw away everything and just spammed past year papers. This is a new module, so you need to look for alternative resources out there (hint: MA1506). Thankfully, written solutions for past year papers are readily available if you know where to look for them (unlike EE modules which refuses to provide solutions). 

There are two graded components. The first is an IVLE quiz (20%) which I had no clue on how to start. Thankfully, discussions are allowed, and it probably saved me. The average for the quiz was 3.77/4. Just one question wrong and 5% of your grade is wiped off. That's how intense it is. For finals, unlike MA1511, you do have ample time to finish the paper. It was five questions with two unrelated parts. (why can't they just make it 10 questions instead?). One A4 size cheat sheet allowed. The questions are predictable as it was similar to previous years.  Despite leaving one question blank and everyone saying how manageable the paper was, I somehow managed to get a pretty decent grade (best grade this sem). For the cheatsheet, a great tip will be to put the final formulas for the logistics regression/population models/half-life decay etc at easy place for reference as this are guaranteed "give-away" questions. Also put the MF15 trigonometry formulas down. During my final paper, there was this question that required some trigo manipulation. Those who left those formulas out basically forfeited the question even if they know the approach on how to solve it. 

I must add that although I did significantly better in MA1512 than MA1511 or MA1508E, the way this module was delivered was atrocious. Thankfully it's only 2 MCs and many of my friends wrote this module off midway. The good news is, there are many resources online, like Khan Academy that teaches better. One reason why it's easier to self-learn in MA1512 than MA1511 was because the content of this module isn't dense. You can afford to skip lectures and tutorials and still get away with it. However, the most important takeaway is practicing past year papers if you want to score! 

Fun fact: If you are bored, you can search “MA1512” on NUSwhispers, and see the wonderful comments on this module. Someone mentioned that this is a famous “badly taught mod”. Couldn't agree more. Hopefully they fix it soon. On my Instagram feed, I saw peers standing outside the exam hall proudly tearing the question paper after the exam ended. I guess the intense hate for this module wasn't just from me. 

IVLE quiz - 20%

Final exam - 80%

Difficulty: 3/5

Workload: 2/5

Teaching staff: 2.5/5 

Overall: 2.5/5

This is a newly created module for engineering students where they yanked the A Level content out from the old MA1505 and repackaged it as a 2 MCs module: MA1511. The rough syllabus for this module includes multi variable calculus, partial differentiation, multi integrals, vectors and power/sequence and series. I must add, for freshies fresh out of orientation, this module will be a nasty shock. With the extreme pace and immense difficulty, you sometimes wish you were in FASS instead of here suffering. During the first lesson, the lecturer was already (jokingly??) taunting us by sharing that for math majors, they will only be learning this in year 2, but we're doing it early, compressed in just six weeks. Welcome to uni life. 😔😔😔

I have no idea why, but like MA1512, this is conducted seminar style for ECE and CEG students, and the traditional lecture-tutorials style for others. The materials provided by the course coordinator, Dr Ng were excellent. It was systematic and progressive; just like what you expect in secondary school. You watch his 'math educational video' where everything is explained + an example to cement your understanding. All tutorial questions are indexed with a related video too. It's definitely helpful for us in the who loves to be spoon-fed with everything. During the first few tutorials, it is absolutely normal to get lost, but you will get the hang of it. 

During tutorials, there are graded in-class assignments (total 35%) with two questions related to the week's content. You're supposed to attempt the assignments by yourself with no discussion. It was strictly enforced during the first tutorial, but the enforcement became lax overtime, and by the last tutorial, the class resembles a fish market. The reason why it weighs 35% is because it acts as a buffer for in case you flung finals.

For the finals, they were intentionally trying to screw us. Again, the lecturer was taunting us that the paper was set in a way that we will definitely have no time to complete it. 6 or 7 questions with 2 parts in 90 minutes and I left more than 4 questions blank and scribbled some random formulas for the others. But somehow managed to get a B+. Remember, be consistent and you should be fine. 

This module is extremely fast paced. It feels like orientation just ended and next, you're sitting for finals. :( Given that it's six chapters in six weeks, it means no breathing space for catching up if you miss anything. If you are going to slacken slightly for just one week, the domino effect will kick-in and by the time you know it, it's too late. I have seen many peers struggle because of it and they didn't do too well for finals. 

35% In-class assignments

65% Final Examination

Difficulty: 4/5

Workload: 3.5/5

Teaching staff: 4/5 

Overall: 3/5