I'll be beginning my journey as a Year 2 student in FASS once school re-opens in a few weeks. Since it's going to be bidding season soon, thought I should finally get round to giving reviews of the modules I've taken so far! Since I took them some time back, I'm not going to be giving super detailed reviews, but hopefully they're adequate enough for you to help you make your decisions as to which modules to take :)
AY2016/2017 Year 1 Semester 1
FMA1204C (Saving Face: Freshmen Seminar)
Super enjoyed this module. Protip, freshmen seminars can be taken to replace FAS1101 as a module, and I've heard dreary/very sian reviews about FAS1101. I think freshmen seminars are so much more worth it-- no tutorials because all you have are 3 hour long seminars every week. TBH, I much rather have seminars than do the usual lecture-tutorial style, because seminars feel much more intimate and relaxed. My seminar only had 10 students (including me) in it, so meeting every week made us get to know each other pretty well over the semester. My tutor was Ms Judy, who is suuuper cute and bubbly and lively and sooo fun to have discussions with. One of our seminar sessions even had her taking us out on a lunch date to The Royals Bistro in UTown where we exchanged our essay drafts with our peers over lunch and gave comments while we ate our lunch. And yes, the lunch was free!!! HAHAHA.
Anyway, the concepts were easy to understand, and very interesting. I was initially skeptical of how interesting the content could be because "saving face" as an idea sounded so abstract and out-there to me, but then I realised that it actually was very applicable in everyday life. Plus, we study how people of different cultures/backgrounds interact with different "face-saving" techniques, and it really helped me understand why sometimes misunderstandings occurred due to miscommunication.
Oh yeah, and this module has no exam, just small tasks e.g. forum postings to be completed every other week. Despite the almost weekly tasks though, I never felt they were a chore at all. So the whole module to me was very chill and enjoyable. I quickly recommended my friends to take Freshmen Seminars, after this experience -- I think you'd enjoy taking a seminar over FAS1101 any day. Plus, it's only available to freshmen for a reason! The tutors all know we are freshmen so they take care to ease us into uni life :)
Final Grade: A-
I believe I did well in all my components except for the final essay we had to submit, in which I believe I got something like... 69? Due to the way I structured it. I was rather disappointed with my final essay result, but I got to learn and improve from it anyway.
Workload: Very manageable.
Verdict: Would take again if I needed it to clear another requirement, highly recommend.
GES1028 (Singapore Society)
I still have no idea why I chose to take this GES over the other GESes (which, now looking at them, they seem so much more interesting) but I guess I saw that this Singapore Society mod was offered by the Sociology department so I thought it'd be more relevant to my major. TBH, lectures were pretty dry, and the prof (Adelyn Lim) just read off the slides, so you could have survived not attending any lecture at all. I still went for every one though, because I study easier when I've sat through a lecture on it. Also, I happened to be taking SC1101E this semester, and the topics they taught in these 2 mods every week were largely the same. E.g. if this week they were talking about Race in Singapore Society, they were also teaching about Race in SC1101E lecture that week. Idk why they were so similar but that really helped re-enforce concepts for me, haha. Also made studying a whole lot easier. But because this was a GES mod, they didn't make the content too sociological. So it was all quite factual to me, like studying from a social studies textbook or something (we learned about programmes the government put in place to help with e.g. encouraging birth rate and such)
The mod was quite chill to me, just one mid-term (closed book, timed) essay, one pair/group presentation, and final closed book examinations (they give you a few essay qns, you have to choose 2 to write on type). I did relatively well for my mid-terms and pair presentation (I think I got A+ for both of these components) but I mis-read one of the essay questions for my final closed book examinations and I believe that jeopardised my eventual A+.
My tutor was Shane Pereira and I really enjoyed his tutorials! Basically we just sat around and discussed the tutorial qns and... that was it. Just really fruitful tutorial discussions, no whiteboard, no nothing. Except for the fact that I got an 8am tutorial slot because I had no other choices, so... yeah, that sucked. Still, I made it for every tutorial except for one time where I woke up late and came in at 8.30.
Final Grade: B+
Workload: Manageable.
Verdict: Take if you're interested in studying Singapore society from a sociological perspective. Quite dry TBH, but I guess very do-able, and I guess my 8am tutorials didn't help. I think there are better/far more interesting GES mods out there, plus there are ones out there with no examinations at all. But I think it was relatively easy to score in this mod if you're good with essays and pure memory work. I'm still quite sad over ruining my finals :(
SC1101E (Making Sense of Society)
I wanted to major in Sociology, so of course I had to take this module hahaha. Everyone around me (including friends who wanted to/are majoring in Sociology) mutually agreed that the intro mod for Sociology sucks. Like, it turns you right off from Sociology... or to even consider it as a major. No offence to the profs. Saroja and Lou were the two lecturers for this sem, they were both pretty interesting individually (Saroja liked to give personal recounts, Lou liked to crack lame jokes that had the entire lecture hall go deadpan and cricket lol). Still, I think the intro mod serves to give you a basic idea of what Sociology is about, so if you find yourself not interested in the lectures, you probably shouldn't major in Sociology, haha.
My tutor was Ms Ritz (short for Ritsuko), a Japanese masters student who was sooo cute. I really enjoyed her tutorials, she gave Japanese perspectives of every topic we discussed about. We were expected to do readings beforehand and discuss tutorial questions in class, so we would get into groups and share our opinions etc. Ms Ritz was really helpful and answered whatever questions we had after class too.
Mid-term was fairly easy, just short answer questions. Other than that, we had to submit a response piece on a piece of literature we read, and then we had final closed book examinations. Sociology exams are always just verbal diarrhoea to be honest. As long as you can form concrete arguments with all the memorising you did, you'll do fine.
Final Grade: A+
Workload: Manageable.
Verdict: Possible to score well if you put effort in studying. Helps if you have an actual interest in Sociology, otherwise I've seen friends who did poorly in the mod just because it bored them and they were still trying to decide on their majors. Take if you want to know what majoring in Sociology might be like.
SC2101 (Methods of Social Research)
A required mod to take if you want to major in Soci. Despite that, it's one of my fav mods to take this sem even though I'm not a mathematical person. At all. But Dr Feng is possibly one of my most fav profs ever. He taught this mod with Dr Tan, who is interesting in his own right, but Dr Feng really takes the cake lol. He's sooo funny and always tells us over and over again, "Many students tell me, 'Dr Feng, I don't understand why it's calculated like this'. But it's fine if you don't understand this calculation. You don't have to force yourself to. Just blindly memorise and do it like this". Hahaha. I love his cute China accent when he speaks in English too, so endearing!
I took a research method mod back in poly in Mass Comm and I hated it, but this mod was infinitely better and was sooo much easier. We had to use the SPSS program in the computer labs (again, I learned it back in Mass Comm too) but Dr Feng guided us every step of the way and so even though I felt lost a few times, he always answered our questions promptly and helped us through it :)
Final Grade: A-
Workload: Super manageable. The first assignment was critiquing a literature review, followed by a qualitative interview on someone you find interesting (I did it on my own dad haha), and then a quantitative assignment on two areas you found interesting (I think I did on Gender & Politics?).
Verdict: If you're not a math person, make sure to ask many questions! I somehow managed to attain an A- even though I think I did the least studying for this mod (I uh, failed to plan my studying schedule properly and left the least time for this mod, oops. Probably because it was half math?). I'd like to believe that Dr Feng inspired me to try my best for finals even though I didn't particularly enjoy statistics haha. Having a good prof really works miracles. He did make sure to emphasise that he didn't want to turn any of us off from statistics this early on in our academic life lol.
GER1000 (Quantitative Reasoning)
A required stats mod for all NUS students. I had no choice in this. ;( This was totally different from the Soci stats mod above, and I didn't enjoy GER1000 very much because... to put it plainly... I am not a math person. I got lost quite a bit, it always takes me a while to understand mathematical concepts. I believe I tried my best but for mid-terms I just passed with a 7/14 LOL. I didn't even understand where I went wrong because I thought my calculations were right! So I was freaking out about my finals, but I heard that the group project REALLY helps to pull up your grade. I was even googling about the possibility of having to re-take GER1000 coz I was THAT scared, lmao!!!
My group project was relatively smooth, thanks to good groupmates. I took my GER1000 at an Engineering block (all because my friend said that it'd be good to take it with Engineering people wtf) sooo it helped that 3 of my groupmates were Engineering students? The other 1 was majoring in Architecture, haha. Anyway, just coz I wasn't good at stats doesn't mean I didn't contribute, ok. I did help contribute 1/3 of the questions we submitted + I stepped up to design the poster, lololol. (desperately wants to feel useful for this stats mod)
Final Grade: B- (but I S/Ued it)
Workload: Manageable in the sense that if you understand the concepts then the tutorials shouldn't be hard for you, I guess. LOL. I was pretty much lost a lot of the times so the tutorials were really difficult for me?
Verdict: We have no choice in this matter but to take it, sooo... suck it up and try to understand as much as possible. Do well for your group project, usually tutors will help us with our group project score to give us a higher grade overall :)
AY2016/2017 Year 1 Semester 2
EN1101E (Intro to Literary Studies)
I also really enjoyed my tutorials, my tutor was Mr Tan (Teck Heng) and he really tried to make the most out of our 45 tutorials every week :) It was usually just tutorial group discussions based on the questions he prepared for us. I enjoyed his enthusiasm and helpfulness!
Final Grade: A+
I actually ran out of time in my finals and missed out on answering a 4m short answered question, wtf. Finals was MCQ + short answer + 1 essay qn. Still, I think my A+ for my timed mid-term essay + my paper done on TGG (I wrote about the emancipation of women in the 1920s) helped salvage that.
Workload: Manageable. I actually read the books pretty late and I never actually finished reading Waiting for Godot, but as long as you have a good idea of what it's about I guess you're good to go? I read a lot of sparks notes equivalent type of websites haha.
Verdict: You'll do well if you have an interest in literature.
GET1035 (Critical Perspectives in Advertising)
Tutorials were just watching a lot of advertisements (since everyone took turns to share their favourite advertisements), so that was fun. Try to participate in class because I think Ms Dazzelyn appreciates that - my class was damn quiet so I ended up speaking up a lot every other week haha. I think she noticed coz all of us had participation cards where we had to grade our participation for every class, and when I gave myself three stars she would often add two more stars and be like, "thanks for participating!!!" Hahaha so cute.
Final Grade: A
Mid-term was electronic MCQ + short ans quiz, I think I was the first one to finish the quiz lol. I was even wondering why no one was leaving the lecture theatre yet because we had an hour+ to do it but I think I took like half an hour? Anyway, I think I scored pretty well for it in the end.
There was also individual presentation (present on your favourite advertisement and why) + group project/presentation (you guys have to choose another favourite advertisement related to the topic you chose... mine was Globalisation and New Media). My groupmates were really chill, they knew everyone had their own commitments and I think we finished our project in less than a week, hahaha. Granted, we're only given about 1-2 weeks to prepare for our group project from the moment it is announced.
The final exam was electronic MCQ + short ans + 1 essay qn. Very do-able as long as you study/memorise the relevant concepts and apply them accordingly to the advertisements given to you.
Workload: Super manageable. I never had to prepare anything for class! I didn't even do my readings, haha.
Verdict: Take this if you want a chill GET. Plus you get to sit in an air-conditioned room and watch advertisements for 45 minutes each week lol.
JS1101E (Introduction to Japanese Studies)
This mod heavily relies on self-study, I think. I often had to piece together information and come up with my own notes (through the readings + what he talked about in lecture and tutorial) and I studied from my own notes. Very different from pure memory work. You have to understand what is going on.
BTW, this intro mod covers heavily on the history of Japan (all the way from the beginning of human civilisation) and the wars, etc. Many times I felt like I was studying history. I didn't mind though, it was really interesting. He did touch upon topics like feminism in Japan, but those were just 1-2 topics on their own and quite short.
Tutorials were alright, just group discussions based on the 3 tutorial qns he would upload each week. What I found quite infuriating about tutorials was that he never really gave a resolution to our discussions, and often left us hanging in the air. I get that academia never has a concrete answer, but I guess I got so used to having definite answers in general that his discussions always left me... wanting for more? Or just wanting some sort of resolution/idea lol. We would often have group discussions for 30 mins (out of our 45 minutes tutorial), discuss with the class/him for about 5-10 minutes, and then that was it. Sometimes the things he talked about didn't have relevance to our tutorial questions either, which frustrated me even more, lol.
Final Grade: A
I was actually quite surprised about this, I even entertained the thought of S/Uing this mod just incase LOL.
Workload: Quite time-consuming. You're expected to do weekly forum postings (uh, I didn't... I think I posted twice at the start of the semester and then I did 4 more in the last week of the semester). You can't just chapalang write nonsense also, must have substantial content to write about and you're expected to use sources in your forum postings. Dr. Hislop always said that those who didn't put in effort in forum postings would suffer grades-wise, so I was damn scared lol. Readings were also quite heavy tbh, I often procrastinated on them and skimmed through the non-important ones :S The group project is important too, 1000 words per member so if you're in a 4 member group you have to churn out 4000 words. It's quite heavy so every member has to play their part. My group wasn't so bad, but I wouldn't say we were very coordinated either. We ran into a couple of mishaps and so I didn't hold much hope on doing well for the group project (we eventually got graded 20/30 for it. Quite surprising because I think the average mark was 21/30 for most people).
The final exam is closed book MCQ, but as long as you've been attending every lecture and doing up your own notes, you should be fine. I was quite clear on what was the correct answer and what was not because I was so familiar with my own notes. The MCQ was not that easy though, and I was still unsure for a few questions. Dr. Hislop made sure to emphasise that no one has ever scored full marks for MCQ before, the most was 45 or 46? And even then, he said not to waste our time trying to score full marks, and instead use that effort to do forum postings or tutorial participation. I think I participated quite a bit in tutorials too and always had nice chats with Dr. Hislop before class, so I guess my participation helped me clinch an A?
Verdict: Don't take this IF you simply want to clear your basket. Honestly it has way too heavy of a workload, don't bother if you have no interest in Japanese studies (or even just slight interest). For your exams, you really have to study a shit load of content it's no joke lol. But, if you're interested in Japanese culture, then you'll probably really enjoy this module. Helps that the prof is so passionate and it's always fun to watch passionate profs conduct their lectures. Be prepared to be diligent in your readings/forum postings/tutorial participation though.
SC2217 (Sociology of Tourism)
Final Grade: B+ (I S/Ued this)
Workload: Pretty manageable. Just a reflection, a pair/group essay + presentation, and final closed book exams.
Exams were quite easy to study for. IIRC you can spot topics because she will tell you largely what topics will be coming out. Since you're only required to do 2 essay qns out of the 6, you can easily just study 2 or 3 (to be safe) topics in-depth to write your essays.
Verdict: I was quite disappointed with the mod, thankfully I was taking it with friends so at least they made lectures/tutorials more interesting and something to look forward to. I wouldn't say this mod is easy to score in, though. Think my friends got B+s as well.
FAS1102 (Public Writing and Communication)
Final Grade: A-
Hope these reviews help somehow, and do let me know if you have any questions :)
