Musings from someone bored

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.

 

 

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... :(

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!!! 🥳🥳🥳

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.

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! 

Difficulty: 5/5

Workload: 5/5

Teaching staff: 4/5

Overall: 2/5

Lecture Quizzes (2.5% + 2.5%)

Laboratory (10% + 10%)

Test 1 (12.5%) 

Test 2 (12.5%) 

Final Exam (50%)

Introduction 

It is a 3 MC core module (EE2029) and wasn't mandatory for previous batches. The syllabus should be similar but with a slight reduction in content and its always conducted by either Prof Jimmy, Sahoo or Sangit. Given that the coronavirus measures will probably apply to 20/21 Sem 1 students, same parts pertaining to it maybe useful. 

Compared to other EE outercores, this module has the best lesson format. The pre-COVID-19 format is 3 hours of lectures cum tutorials once every week. And it's recorded too. Due to the coronavirus, the format of the module changed drastically. The original midterm and the two class tests were converted to Luminus quizzes (20%) and one homework assignment (5%) respectively. A lecture test (5%) did take place though. The final paper became an open book MCQ exam (50%). The laboratory component (10%) and the research paper on renewable energy (10%) still stands. I think we are kinda lucky as this module does not usually allow cheatsheet and have many formulas to memorise. Thanks to the open book format, it made our lives significantly easier. I must admit, I partially neglected this module because lessons were recorded and HBL really does make me lazy. I left everything to the last few days but managed to pull through. I will say this module is probably the easiest out of all the level 3000 outer core modules offered and majority of EE students will take it. One interesting history is it was previously a core module as EE2022 for many years and became optional with my batch. And now it's going to be a core module again and re-branded as EE2029. 

There are two parts to this module. Part one is taught by Dr Sangit. He practices flipped classroom format, so you have to watch pre-recorded videos before attending the live lectures. The first topic is an introduction of how Singapore's energy market work (i.e. open electricity market etc) and how electricity bills are calculated. This may seem trivial, but these has appeared in past exams. After that is where the real fun begins. You learn about reactive and complex power, AC power, three phase systems and renewable energy systems. The topic on power will be confusing as there are many twists and they all seems similar. The rest were manageable as long you practice in tutorials. You will have to write a short paper on either wind or solar power and its peer graded. 

We had a class test (5%) that took place before the coronavirus pandemic exploded. The test covered the first three topics. Regrettably, I did not revise much and blanked out during the test, so I wrote off the 5% as a donation. :( There was another class test scheduled, but thanks to the coronavirus, it was converted to a take home assignment (5%). There were two questions which was randomised based on the matriculation number so no two students will have the same answers.

The second part is taught by Dr Sahoo and the content is easier. He took last year's physical lecture recordings and repackaged it as video lessons. There are live QnA and tutorial sessions where students can attend to clear doubts. Topics include transmission lines, transformers and induction motor. Transformers and induction motors are analogous in nature, so they are kind of similar.

The lab (10%) was on transformers and it was a mad rush as we were required to submit the report on the spot. Due to the time constrains, none of us could finish it on time. But again, thanks to coronavirus, the lab format was changed midway to reading the measurement data and leaving the lab ASAP due to the small lab size and safe distancing measures in place. We were allowed to submit our lab report online. 

For finals, there are many formulas out there, so you need to be clear on which ones to use. Under normal circumstances, no cheat sheets are allowed and no formula list is provided, so according to seniors, a lot of memory work is required. But due to the coronavirus, everything is now open book, open internet. Though finals were MCQs, you need to write your workings down and upload it online. For True/False questions, you need provided an explanation for your answers. Despite being MCQs, some questions were challenging given the time constraint. I randomly chose answers for difficult questions. Many of my friends also struggled to finish everything. However, results day was a pleasant surprise. The bell curve wasn't as steep I guess and was very satisfied with my final grade. :) 

Difficulty: 2.5/5

Workload: 2/5

Teaching staff: 4/5 

Overall: 4/5

This module is mathematically intensive. If you're allergic to calculus, you may struggle. However contrary to what others may say, I find this module significantly easier than EE2028/PC2020 and you will definitely score if you spam practice paper. 

In the signals part, the first few lessons focuses on proofs for Fourier transform properties. Honestly, it's fine if you get lost. I personally find little use to fully grasp the proofs. A superficial understand will suffice. Afterwards, the focus is shifted on how to apply the Fourier transform properties to convert the signal from t to f domains and vice versa. To score well, it is important to master the exam formula sheet. What I did was to print out the formula sheet (not referring it from the laptop screen) and use it for all the tutorials, assignments and past year questions. Another tip is to continuously practice the replication, convolution and sampling properties in tutorials and past year papers as these are guaranteed questions that will appear in examinations. The systems part is more complicated. You can think systems as a processing box that takes in an input, transforms it and output something else. Instead of using Fourier transform, it's now Laplace transform to transform functions from t to s domain. There are many plots to master in this part. The most annoying ones are the bode diagram. There are also 1st and 2nd order systems with different types of damping and their respective responses.

Many students will struggle with this module. To be ahead of others, the key is to do well in midterms as others will stumble. The midterm weighs 25% and only focuses on signals. Practising past midterms will help a lot. You will see a "pattern" where the same few questions are repeated. For my batch, the midterm paper was easier compared to previous semesters. Despite that, the average marks were kinda low (imo) and this was an opportunity to get a head start in terms of raw marks. There is also a 15% graded assignment on the systems part. Given that it's a take home assignment, most students will get close to full marks. Like the midterms, the key to score for finals is to spam past year papers. To directly quote from the lecturer's final exam feedback: 

Unlike midterm, answer for final papers were not given. Because my Prof runs extra lessons during weekends and evenings, many students will be queuing with past year's questions for him to go through during the examination period. If you are resourceful enough, you will know where to find the answer keys even if it's not provided. :)

 

The only major change we have because of COVID-19 (other than E-lessons) was the change to an E-exam. Our midterms weren’t affected. As it's impossible to fully proctor through Zoom, the exam was made open book. I think the phrase "open book" can ignite the excitement of some students, but what is important is not to fall into the trap of printing all the notes and not organising it. You will lose precious time during exam and it may come back to bite you. Or worse still, is to have the mentality that because its open book, there's no need to revise and just print out the tutorial solutions. That's the path to failure. They also made sure everyone's answers are different by randomising the questions based on our matric number.

To conclude, while this module is indeed intense, you need to consistent, continuously be on task and clear your doubts with the Profs to do well. Good luck.