Module Review: PC2020 Electromagnetics for Electrical Engineers

Introduction 

You probably have heard stories on PC2020. Are these rumours true? Or are these just exaggerations by loud and disgruntled students?? Spoiler: these rumours are real. So real that many students went to Hanyang Summer School just to specifically clear this and in response the department, without warning, went to explicitly ban the mapping of this module!!! the department knows which modules students are struggling in and rather we suffer in NUS!!! Arseholes🤬!! Honestly, if you think you survived EE2028, this is on another level.

PC2020 is taught by both the ECE and Physics department from FoS. You will get a piercing headache if you take a peek at week 0 notes. You are immediately thrown into a sea of equations; poison and laplace transforms and more. Seriously... Then you may think these are just mathematical proofs that you will never use. But when you attempt the first tutorial, you discover otherwise and decide to simply give up... And pray to the Bell Curve God. Oh yes, there are two separate midterms as well, the second one during week 13. Oh gosh...!! That's PC2020 in a summary.

 

 

A little glimpse of hell (This is just chapter 1!!) 

 

First part by Physics Department

The first part is by the Department of Physics and deals with electric fields, electrostatic and magnetostatic. These are really abstract theories and mathematically intensive! You need to brush up on MA1512 skills because you will heavily use them. To sort of summarise part 1; you will deal with Maxwell Equations, manipulate it, by differentiating, integrating and apply laplace and other exciting mathematical techniques you have forgotten. And by the time you gain any sort of proficiency to solve the math behind, you remember you have neglected the theory portion and it's suddenly midterm. To add salt to the injury, the 1.5h midterm is all MCQs WITH NO CHEATSHEET and you're wondering why you didn't focus more on theory instead... :(

Second part by ECE

The other half is more EE-like I guess? With focus on transmission lines, plane waves and reflections. It's definitely easier to grasp compared to the Physics part. However, being PC2020, it is still mathematically intensive with differential equations for circuits for example. It reminds me of EE2023/EE3506C, including phasors and impedance etc. The second midterm is 50 minutes with 4 written questions (cheatsheet allowed). The midterm is definitely doable if you practice. But it became open book zoom test because of the circuit breaker!!! 🥳🥳🥳

Final paper

For finals, it's 2 hours paper with 14 questions, with marks split 50:50 between ECE and Physics. While the physics midterm is MCQ, this time, it's written and you need to be proficient with the math, including poisson equations to calculate the vectors. These 14 questions come in bits and pieces so it's either you know how to do it or the question is zero marks. Thankfully, because of the pandemic, the paper was open book and I can easily refer to tutorial solutions and notes. I have no idea how can I pass it if it's not open book!?... 

Remember, this module is divided between two departments, it will be very rushed (at least for me). Not only are there two midterms, but two lab components as well. In the first lab, you will play with sesame seeds to see the magnetic field and write a report on it. For the second lab, I have no idea what's going on and just followed the flow and got help from smarter friends.

Conclusion

In my EE2028 review I mentioned that it was a hell module, but this is worse than hell. This module feels rushed and overaaturated with content to the point absurdity. It should have been a 5 MC module instead!! But I will give credit to the lecturers from both sides. They are good and  from inference, they are aware students find this module difficult. They attempt to break down the concepts so that its less duanting.. But with zoom lessons later on, it's honestly difficult to clarify stuff and I got really lost... One of my greatest motivation when applying for SEP was to clear this shit, but because of the pandemic, I have no choice but to do it in NUS. sad.. But I got open book finals as a consolation prize (because of the virus)... Still a horrible experience and probably it tops the list of most brain draining, frustrating and demoralising module ever taken!!! Avoid! 

My rating:

Difficulty: 5/5

Workload: 5/5

Teaching staff: 4/5

Overall: 2/5

Graded components:

Lecture Quizzes (2.5% + 2.5%)

Laboratory (10% + 10%)

Test 1 (12.5%) 

Test 2 (12.5%) 

Final Exam (50%)

Expected grade: B

Final grade: B+