Module reviews for AY18/19 Semester 1

I stepped up the level of my modules this semester with just one at level-1000 and including a level-3000 one. It wasn't too bad. It was manageable.

As usual, here are the modules I took and my review of each one.

EL2102: Sound Patterns in Language

MCs: 4 - essential major module for English Language majors and Unrestricted Elective for others, provided you have passed EL1101E

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, during which the lecturer will pose a series of diabolically difficult questions to the class and students must discuss among themselves and vote for their preferred answers, before the lecturer goes on to reveal the answer and deliver a mini-lecture on the key concepts needed to understand the solution

Assessment:

Weekly reading quiz, serving as a clever way of attendance-taking using the clickers, which takes place at the start of each seminar and will ask straightforward questions whose answers are plainly visible in the textbook = 10%
Class participation, measured by how many times you press your clicker = 10%
Midterm, a closed-book test covering articulatory phonetics such as the mechanisms involved in producing the voiced bilabial implosive [ɓ] = 40%
Final, covering phonology, but it is open-book so referring to charts, books, and notes is permitted = 40%

Lecturer: Dr Leslie Lee - 9/10

He encourages his students to call him Leslie. He also giggles a lot, after which he will dissolve into a furious coughing fit. He uses clickers, which are remote controls that you can use to answer MCQs, in his classes. And he's a multiple award-winning educator. These are all part of Leslie's potent reputation among FASS students, among whom he is extremely popular. It's plain to see why, too. He clearly cares a lot about his students. When students have problems, he is always ready to respond on the IVLE forums and through email. His explanations are generally clear and understandable, and he is very patient in helping those who take a little longer to grasp the concepts. I felt that one improvement he could've made was during the phonology part of the module. Phonology involves coming up with rules to explain certain observations about the way sounds are organised in a language. For those who, like me, are poor at pattern recognition and daunted by large data sets, phonology can be quite distressing. It would be useful to give students a bit more of an organised step-by-step breakdown of how to conduct a phonological analysis, for instance in the form of a flowchart. Click here for a preview of the content! Special mention for students with disabilities: The care that Leslie has for his students extends to those with special needs too. You just need to be open and communicative about the help you require and he will be happy to discuss it further with you.

Module: 8/10

I became so interested in some of the module content that I started observing phonetics and phonology at work during everyday occurrences. For example, I happened to catch an episode of the kids' cartoon Sofia the First which was being screened just before the live telecast of a football game I wanted to watch on the same channel. The story was about a knight called Sir Oliver who was aspiring to be bestowed the title of First Knight, so he went in search of the legendary Ice Fire Shield. It did not escape my notice that in both "First Knight" and "Ice Fire Shield", the stress was on the words "First" and "Ice" respectively. I attributed this observation to the Compound Stress Rule, which states that the stress is to be placed as far to the left as possible in compounds. Compounds are strings of words that group together to refer to a specific thing. So both the title "First Knight" and object name "Ice Fire Shield" are compounds. In another example, I started to mentally transcribe my family members' Chinese dialect speech into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) with added Chao Tone Letters. These fun little party tricks were somewhat dampened by the part of the module about conducting phonological analyses, which I didn't enjoy because I'm terrible at spotting trends in a mass of data, which phonology entails.

EL2151: Social Variation in English

MCs: 4 - essential major module for English Language majors and Unrestricted Elective for others, provided you have passed EL1101E

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 1-hour tutorial

Assessment:

Attendance and participation = 15%
Group project, requiring you to record a speaker in two different situations and analyse the differences in the way they speak = 25%
Midterm = 20%, all MCQ
Final = 40%, one compulsory structured question worth 40 marks, and three-choose-two essay questions worth 30 marks each, all topics from the entire semester may appear

Lecturer: Associate Professor Joseph Park - 10/10

Anybody who's been through the local education system within the last 20 years will be familiar with the PEEL structure: Point, Explain, Example, Link. A/P Joseph is a master at it. His lectures are all very well-organised in this manner, and he gives ample examples to illustrate each concept so that they become relatable and easy to understand despite the abstract and theoretical nature of the subject area. It's obvious that he puts in the effort to find relevant and up-to-date examples to put into his lecture slides. For example, he included a mention of the highly anticipated locally produced zombie movie Zombiepura in a lecture that took place around the time it was due to be released in cinemas. Even the final exam contained a transcript from a recent sitting of parliament. As a student, this is something I greatly appreciate because many professors take the easy way out by recycling the same old slides and exam questions year after year without refreshing them. They resort to doing that because they want to spend more time on research to boost their academic credentials and, in turn, their career. But A/P Joseph shows that it's possible to do both well, as his papers have been widely cited by other linguists writing about language ideology. Oh, one more thing: His voice is maddeningly sexy. I envy his wife who gets to hear it every day. If you're female and reading this, consider yourself warned! He's quite the "oppa". Click here for a preview of the content! Special mention for students with disabilities: A/P Joseph is as good as his word in arranging for any special accommodations you might need for your tests and exams.

Tutor: Mr Christian Albert Go - 9/10

It can be a toss-up with these postgraduate-student teaching assistants. They can be quite good or downright abysmal. Fortunately, Christian is the former. He conscientiously prepares his own recap slides each week, and when he wasn't getting enough participation from the class during discussions, he adopted an online platform called Menti to encourage the students to contribute their ideas by typing them out instead. Generally his explanations were decent and he seemed to understand the content adequately, but he got flustered by several curveball questions that the unnervingly intense linguistics majors threw at him over the course of the semester. He needs to build up his confidence and ability to deal with them given that he is pursuing his doctorate and will soon have to strike out on his own as a full-fledged assistant professor, as he will no longer be able to consult with any higher-ups before answering.

Module: 9/10

It has a good balance of theory and real-life observability, ensuring that it can escape from the domain of the purely abstract into the realm of worldly relevance. In fact, it is so interesting to me personally that I find myself quoting sociolinguistic concepts to account for everyday behaviours that I see occurring around me. I even contribute my two cents' to the r/linguistics subreddit on Reddit once in a while. One such comment, on the diglossic features of Singlish, garnered about 20 positive karma. I do have a criticism about the design of the assessment though. To have an essay-type final exam for a module that is essentially a surface-level introduction to sociolinguistics is not justifiable. The module coverage presents a range of theories, facts, and terminologies, but does not expound on any of them in sufficient depth to allow for a critical discussion, which is what an academic essay calls for. At the 2000-level, the aim should be content retention of the key concepts in the field, laying the groundwork for the critical discussions at level-3000 and -4000. I think the final should consist of multiple-choice and short-answer questions instead.

GEH1014: Samurai, Geisha, Yakuza as Self or Other

MCs: 4 - General Education: Human Cultures

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 1-hour tutorial

Assessment:

Attendance and participation = 15%
Group project, in which you will choose a piece of popular media like a movie or comic portraying Japan or Japanese people and examine how it perpetuates stereotypes = 30%
Peer review of group project, in which your group will write a report about the submission of another group = 15%
Final essay, in which you must write 2000 words in response to questions assigned by the lecturer during the last lecture for submission by the last day of the instructional period = 40%

Lecturer: Associate Professor Deborah Shamoon - 7/10

Do you know what ASMR is? It's a type of sound wave that makes you feel relaxed. A/P Shamoon has an ASMR voice. Ever the attentive and hardworking student, never before in my entire life as a student had I fallen asleep in class until she came along. Her lectures became my weekly afternoon naptime with her droning voice a more effective knockout punch than anything those fighters at ONE Championship can muster. To be fair, she evidently has deep expertise in the subject area and is keen to the pass this on to the students. But boy, is she a bore!

Tutor: Ms Kania Sukotjo - 8/10

She was fairly average until the very last tutorial when she said that although we had been identifying and critiquing instances of Orientalism, which is sort of like racism but applying only to East Asians, in popular media throughout the module, it did not mean that these media are bad and we should not consume them. Orientalist media exists because it is entertaining and it is a formula that has worked time and again. There is nothing wrong with enjoying media with Orientalist stereotypes as long as we are aware of them and do not allow them to have negative effects on us. I thought this was a very balanced, sensible, and mature way of assessing the situation and my opinion of her improved greatly. There's nothing worse than a social justice warrior who boycotts something from atop their moral high horse.

Module: 7/10

This module has ruined ONE Championship for me. I cringe now whenever Michael Schiavello screams excitedly about "the bushido spirit", which he does every single occasion he goes on air. The television show "Ninja Warrior" makes my eyebrows knit together, and the lie that Singapore was a fishing village before Lee Kwan Yew turned it into a bustling metropolis elicits dry heaving. All of these are examples of invented tradition, essentially folktales that have been repeated so often that they are now accepted as fact. This is one of the interesting things I took away from this module. And I'll be brutally honest here: I didn't really care for this module at first. I had to fulfill my GEH and this module had no final exam and fit my timetable nicely, so I chose it. But I didn't plan to spend any effort on it, and was ready with an S/U to expunge the C grade I was prepared to accept. Throughout the semester, I didn't touch a single reading or film. Indeed, the weekly load, consisting of a movie of an hour and a half as well as an academic journal of around twenty pages, is quite high for a General Education module and I wasn't going to lose any sleep over trying to keep up with it. When it came to the final essay, which we were given an unreasonably paltry two days to write, I smoked my way through, packing my writing till it was chockfull of turgid expressions, passive voice, and sentences that would've stretched right around the circumference of the Earth. Lo and behold, I scored above the 75th percentile for that assignment and didn't need the S/U after all.

NM2101: Theories of Communications and New Media

MCs: 4 - essential major module for CNM majors, and Unrestricted Elective for others

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 1-hour tutorial

Assessment:

Attendance and participation = 10%
Personal media memoir, a short 500-word reflection on a media object in your life and how it perpetuates unequal relations of power in the world = 5%
Individual essay, in which you apply a theory you learned during the semester to a real-life example = 20%
Midterm = 30%, 20 MCQ worth 3 marks each, 10 True/False worth 2 marks each, and three-choose-two short-answer questions worth 10 marks each
Final = 35%, same format as midterms covering only content taught after midterms

Lecturer: Dr Renyi Hong - 10/10

It is obvious that he thoroughly prepares himself for every single lecture including those whose topics are not within his personal area of expertise, as he delivered his lessons extremely fluently and confidently. He brought in many examples based on things that are currently happening in the real world to draw links between the theoretical and the concrete, and this rescued the module from what could have otherwise been a hideously dreary affair. It is lecturers like Dr Hong that demonstrate that it is possible to strike a balance between teaching theories and imparting knowledge that is actually useful in real life. For example, he used the case study of content moderation on platforms like YouTube and Facebook to show how the iron curtain works: we as users assume that when we report an offensive post, it goes into some artificial intelligence algorithm which magically decides whether or not to ban the post, when in fact the action is usually taken by a human being, possibly sitting in a third-world country being paid a minimum wage. Click here for a preview of the content! Special mention for students with disabilities: Dr Hong is supremely kind and caring. He bothered to find out what help I need, and made sure I got it. As I take my tests and exams in a separate venue, my existence often gets forgotten by the professors who tend to stay with the main body of students, so the cockles of my heart were warmed when he appeared in my room to check in on me before my midterm paper and at the end of my final exam.

Tutor: Ms Samra Irfan - 7/10

Not bad, but nothing outstanding either. She recaps the concepts well enough and that's all I need from a tutor.

Module: 10/10

It was not as textbook-ish as I feared it would be. The concepts are easy to understand and apply to everyday life. And seeing the real-world manifestations of the theories are incredibly rewarding. For example, have you noticed that the Singapore government likes to say things like "The society is not ready for the repeal of Section 377A"? They fill the newspapers with this kind of reasoning for their decisions: "7 out of 10 Singaporeans are in favour of such-and-such a policy", "Most Singaporeans agree that", and so on. They do this to take advantage of the spiral of silence. Those who have dissenting opinions are made to feel like they are in the minority, and they are more likely to keep their views to themselves for fear of being ostracised by the mainstream. This is how the government maintains social control and suppresses criticisms against itself without resorting to outright censorship.

NM3217: Design for Strategic Communications

MCs: 4 - elective major module for CNM majors, and Unrestricted Elective for others

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 2-hour computer laboratory session for hands-on training in the use of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Dreamweaver

Assessment:

Attendance and participation, including putting up your assigned blog entry on the class blog during the semester = 10%
Organisational research report, detailing the client you have chosen to work on and analysing its public relations needs = 20%
Create a flier within two hours in the computer lab = 10%
Create a simple website using HTML code = 15%
Create a brochure = 25%
Class quiz = 20%, a motley collection of MCQ, True/False, and short-answer questions covering all lecture content

Lecturer: Ms Jan Chen Shizhao - 7/10

Ms Jan is a current practitioner in the design industry who is teaching on the side, so she knows her stuff as far as design principles are concerned. I do like having practitioners come into the university to teach when the module is an applied one like this because they have a wealth of hands-on experience to tap on which enables them to enrich their lessons with personal anecdotes. But, and this is a big "but", Ms Jan seemed to think of her students as beneath her. She appeared to take great pleasure in insulting past batches of students and passing snide remarks about the present one. She also told stories casting her clients, colleagues, the interior designer who made a mistake when renovating her flat, and even her own father and brother in a negative light. This supreme arrogance was fairly grating on the nerves as it occurred week in and week out. Special mention for students with disabilities: Ms Jan is accommodating towards students with special needs. She made a special version of the class quiz question paper for me by turning it into a PDF form, as I do all of my tests and exams in softcopy on a computer. Due to the visual nature of the subject matter, visually impaired students may encounter some challenges that even Ms Jan may not be able to help with. I would advise such students to think twice before signing up for this module.

Tutor: Mr Aaron Ng Yi Kai - 10/10

Aaron is a very patient and nurturing tutor who guided us through the use of the Adobe software slowly and in a step-by-step manner that was easy to follow. This ensured that I, having had no prior exposure to the software, did not get lost and was able to grasp how to use it adequately enough that I could do the assignments with little difficulty technology-wise. He is also highly approachable and answers questions in a kind and caring fashion. As a PhD student himself, Aaron is juggling his own workload and pressures but he still finds it in him to treat us with dignity and respect, helping us along without criticising us unfairly, and giving us plenty of detailed written feedback on our design pieces. He is a fantastic example of what an educator at the tertiary level should be.

Module: 10/10

I'm a big fan of modules that teach practical skills so I look upon this one with favour. I had the chance to learn the entry-level technicalities of Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Dreamweaver, which are useful in many industries but especially in communications. Now I can list them on my resume, enhancing my skillset. And when I need to do minor repairs to a publication, I won't need to call in a specialist graphic designer as I can make the changes myself. The workload was heavy but fair for a level-3000 module. CNM majors, especially those who are gearing up for a career in public relations, should strongly consider taking this module, especially if the lecturer for that semester is Aaron.

How time flies, I'm already in Year 3! The next set of module reviews, coming in June 2019, will be the last for a while as I will be on internship during the second half of the year. I hope this set has been useful for you! As usual, the comments section below is open if you have any questions or suggestions.

Boys and their toys

Feminists look away now! Stereotypes incoming!

There are a few truths in this world that are self-evident. For one, women like makeup and hairdos. And men like gizmos and gadgets.

Being male, I am no exception. I do love cool stuff.

So when Mr Dennis Viau, an American YouTube influencer I follow (and previously wrote about here and here), bought himself a new Vitamix heavy-duty blender and started using it in his videos, I was captivated by its amazing Bluetooth app smart control feature.

SmoothieTube

His new channel SmoothieTube teaches viewers how to make smoothies, which are supposedly healthy yet delicious drinks. If he were Singaporean he could go tie up with the Health Promotion Board and take a lot of money from the government but sadly the sleepy backwater of Santa Barbara, Southern California has no such government body. No offence to people with links to that place! A couple of my professors were from the University of California, Santa Barbara and they are lovely.

Anyway, I found his new blender endlessly intriguing as it comes with the capability to pair with an Android tablet through Bluetooth. An app called Perfect Blend, when installed on the tablet, can give users step-by-step instructions on how to assemble various recipes. This is done using a special weighing scale which detects the amount of a certain ingredient the user has added and triggers the tablet to make a sound when there is enough of the ingredient in the container. Once all the ingredients are in, the user transfers the container onto the blender which then blends the smoothie together, automatically adjusting the duration and speed of the blending without any input from the user at all.

This video shows the process in action.

If that is not the height of awesomeness then what is?

Dead spot be gone

The master bedroom in my house had long suffered from poor WiFi coverage as the radio waves were unable to make the sharp 90-degree turn from their origin in the living room router.

As a result, everybody's phones would lose the signal once they passed the doorway of the bedroom. For my parents, it was a minor inconvenience that they could simply solve by leaving the room. But I like to relax on that bed and play a bit of Old School RuneScape Mobile before sleeping. So the situation was unacceptable and I decided to do something about it.

Enter Lazada. My mother is very experienced in using that online shopping platform, having bought innumerable useless ornamental items off the site. I, on the other hand, was an online-shopping virgin. I did not, and still do not, have any means of e-payment to my name whatsoever, because I am a child.

But I work around this obstacle by using my mother's PayPal and Lazada accounts to make purchases, after which I reimburse her with good, old cash. The government wants to go cashless, and I want to spit on their face. Give me hard money that I can see and touch any day, rather than some digits on a screen that, for all intents and purposes, do not even exist in the real world.

So to get rid of the pesky problem of the WiFi dead spot once and for all, I went onto Lazada during the 11/11 sale and got a TP-LINK RE650/AC2600 WiFi Range Extender at about 25% discount. Including delivery, it cost just under $110.

The RE650 is one of the more expensive TP-LINK extenders but it is rated for up to 2600Mbps, which means that it can relay the full speed of your WiFi signals if your incoming internet connection speed is within 2600Mbps. Given that the standard fibre broadband speed in Singapore is 1Gbps and some choose to pay extra for the 2Gbps connection, the RE650 can smoothly handle all these connections without bottlenecking. If you get a cheaper model, it may not be able to relay the WiFi signals fast enough and you will lose some of the speed that you are paying your internet service provider for.

Setting up my new extender was easy. All I had to do was follow the instructions in the manual. Once I had it up and running, the master bedroom was bathed in the rich glow of glorious WiFi, and all was right with the world.

Now me and my parents can use our phones while relaxing in bed, with a strong and stable internet connection!

Roaming robots

A decade ago, it was almost unheard of to have autonomous cybernetic beings roaming freely amongst humans. The robots that shuttle file cabinets and meal trolleys around the KK Women's and Children's Hospital were cutting-edge technology back then.

We are far from reaching the advanced sophistry of C3PO, the protocol droid in Star Wars who was designed to facilitate human-cyborg relations and could translate between more than seven million forms of communication, but our progress over the past few years has nonetheless been quite remarkable. Now we have robots acting as porters in hotels, delivering items directly to guests in their rooms upon request, as I discovered during a recent staycation at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront. These robots are packed with navigational sensors that allow them to find their way around the building independently while avoiding obstructions and humans, and wireless communication antennas that allow them to control the elevators and in-room telephones throughout the hotel.

And we are even allowing robots into our very own inner sanctums: robotic vacuum cleaners, which are basically vacuum cleaners that move around by themselves using artificial intelligence, are now fairly commonplace. They keep our house floors clean without us having to get off our lazy backsides, bringing much relief to overworked mums everywhere.

My mum is one such poor overworked soul. In addition to her day job, she does all the usual household chores that women do, and takes care of the house rabbits too. To help lighten her load, and because I was flush with success from my purchase of the WiFi extender, I decided to buy a robotic vacuum cleaner for the house.

As usual with technology products, my family is late to the game. The majority of middle-class Singapore families already own a robotic vacuum cleaner. So I had plenty of people to consult about buying one. One friend even took a video specially for me, to show me how it does not pose a threat to pet rabbits, which she also has. Hers was a Xiaomi Roborock 1, and she was satisfied with its performance.

I went onto Lazada again, and compared the various robotic vacuum cleaners on offer. The Xiaomi Roborock 2 impressed me greatly as it packed the most amount of features yet went for the lowest price. Anybody who is familiar with the smartphone market will know that this is typical of Xiaomi. My phone is a Xiaomi and it is badass!

But I still had slight reservations. Even though it was relatively cheap, and this year has been a bumper harvest for me economically due to my earnings from freelance writing plus the SG Bonus, it was still going to cost me a few hundred dollars. Then one day I went downstairs on the way to the car for an exam on campus and saw, in the trash heap, an empty Xiaomi Roborock cardboard box that someone else in my block must have discarded the previous day. And I was sold. Like I said to the abovementioned friend: "It must be a message from the gods!" And, perhaps a little annoyed by my incessant pestering, she replied: "Just buy it lah!" (Note: lah is an expression in Singapore English which is added to the ends of sentences to make them more emphatic.)

So when the 12/12 sale started on 10 December, I ordered the Xiaomi Roborock 2 in a combo deal that included refill packs and accessories for the various protuberances on the device. The machine itself was at a markdown, buying the accessories as a bundle came with some small discounts, and I instantly earned and redeemed a $10 voucher for spending above $500 in a single transaction, so I saved about $50 in total. Including delivery, I spent roughly $550.

Unlike my friend's Xiaomi Roborock 1, which is an older model, my Xiaomi Roborock 2 has an additional water tank so not only can it vacuum away dust, it can also mop the floor! All you have to do is fill up the water tank and slot it, and the cloth attachment, into the robot. The robot finds its way around your home on its own and is even able to detect cliff edges and stop itself from falling. One of the steps in my house is of an odd height which is too low for the robot to detect as a problematic drop, but too high for the robot to climb back up once it has fallen. But the designers thought of that too, and created some magnetic tape that you can stick to demarcate forbidden zones that you do not want the robot to enter. And when its battery is low, it will return to the docking station by itself, where it will recharge before going back to the spot where it left off and resuming its work from there! It truly is a "fire and forget" solution to your cleaning needs.

You control the robot's settings using the Mi Home app which you must install onto your smartphone. The first time you use the robot, you will have to use Bluetooth on your phone to communicate with the vacuum cleaner to get it to connect to your home WiFi network. Subsequently it will detect your home WiFi network automatically. Once the robot and your phone both have internet connections, you can use the Mi Home app to issue instructions to the robot, such as telling it to clean the whole house or just a specific area. The robot uses lasers like an insect uses its feelers to map out its surroundings, and will bump gently against obstacles to see if they are solid like the side of a bed or can be passed through like a curtain. It draws out this map live as it moves around your house and you can see the map, which looks like a radar plot, being created right in front of your eyes on the app. You can use the app to schedule regular cleanups too, meaning that the robot will activate itself at specific times of your choosing, and return to the docking station to recharge once it has finished its rounds. Through the app, you can also adjust the mode of the vacuum, such as making it quieter but sacrificing suction power, or stronger but noisier; or set it to use the mop function. When the robot has something to tell you, like "Finished cleaning. Going back to the dock.", it will verbalise the message in its default female English voice, but you can change the voice pack in the app too. There are options for Spanish, German, Italian, French, and many cartoon-inspired Chinese ones.

The yellow dot shows the position of the robot in real time. The green lightning symbol shows the location of the docking station, which is where the robot automatically returns to when it is idle.

How does the robot perform at its function of keeping the floor clean? Marvellously well. One round of my house by my robot produces a ball of fluff in the dustbin roughly the size of an adult's fist. The mopping ability is handy too, but it does run out of water fairly quickly and you will have to keep an eye on it and top up the water when needed. It also does not do as thorough a job when mopping as it does when vacuuming, so it cannot totally replace a woman with a stick.

The rabbits in my house are slowly getting used to the robot. At first they were slightly alarmed by the sound, and a little freaked out by the sight of a plastic contraption moving on its own, but now they have made an uneasy peace with it and are content to keep a wary eye on it so that they can walk away if it comes too close.

Here you can see the rabbit adopting a classic attack posture towards the robotic vacuum cleaner. It has placed its weight on its front paws to give it more power when it lunges; its ears are flared wide open and pointed directly at the target.

Speaking of the rabbits...

Bun Lightyear

These fancy pet carriers are also from Lazada, imported from China. But they were not bought by me, but by a friend as a Christmas gift.

What sets this design apart from that of a bog-standard pet carrier is that the big bubble window in front allows the animal inside to see out. It is also shaped like a backpack so instead of holding it by a handle like normal carriers, you strap it over your shoulders.

The inside is spacious enough for one rabbit to lie down comfortably, or two rabbits to stand side by side with wiggle room left over.

Perfect for a leisurely stroll in the great outdoors, when the rabbit gets some much-needed sunlight while travelling in style, and the human being carting them around gets some much-needed exercise!

Comparing between NUS CNM and NTU WKWSCI

Updated on 20 February 2020 to reflect removal of NM4102 as graduation requirement if student is not doing Honours Thesis, and addition of Cultural Studies area in CNM.

Hopefully this doesn't start a turf war. My intention is to help those who may be thinking of pursuing a communications degree clear up the confusion between the two main local institutions for such training. The views expressed here are mine alone.

First things first: I'm an NUS CNM (Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore) student. So keep that in mind as you read through this post. I've tried to be as objective as possible but my bias may creep in at times because I'm only human.

Without further ado, what's the difference between NUS CNM and NTU WKWSCI?

There isn't a straightforward answer to this, obviously. Both programmes have their own merits. We'll get to that in a bit, but before we do that, let's take a short trip back in time.

History of Communications in Singapore

Not many people know this, but the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is actually a descendant of the Department of Mass Communication at NUS. The department was started in 1991 under the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and was moved to NTU in 1992 where it evolved into WKWSCI. In 1999, NUS restarted a similar programme called Information and Communications Management, which became the Communications and New Media programme in 2006. Finally, in 2012, CNM was given full status as a department.

What this means is that Communications in NUS is actually the "parent" of Communications in NTU. If that's surprising to you, it might be because you've always had the impression that WKWSCI is the premier education provider of communications courses in Singapore with an established history and excellent track record. And you would be right. Many of the most prominent figures in the media and communications sphere are WKWSCI alumni. They've done a fantastic job in building up the reputation of WKWSCI to what it is today.

But where does that leave NUS? Is studying Communications at NUS bad? Will it leave you with no future? No, and no. You have to understand that WKWSCI and CNM function in fundamentally different ways.

One is a school, the other is a department

The S in WKWSCI stands for School. WKWSCI is a standalone school inside NTU. In contrast, CNM in NUS is a Department inside a Faculty, which is the word old people use when they mean School. So in terms of administrative structure, CNM is less powerful than WKWSCI, because CNM in just one part of a school, while WKWSCI is a school in and of itself.

Why should you care about this semantics? This distinction has important consequences. Being subject to the whims and fancies of the various Deans and Vice-Deans of FASS, the Head of Department (HOD) of CNM has less of a say in how the programme is run. On the other hand, WKWSCI is free to operate with greater autonomy and its management can make decisions, for instance about curriculum, and have them implemented more easily.

For example, FASS is really obsessed with the idea that its students should "have broad exposure to fields of knowledge beyond their specialisation" and "develop the rhetorical knowledge, the composing practices, and the critical thinking skills that are necessary to understand and shape meaning for different audiences", because of "the inherently argumentative nature of all of the FASS disciplines". In practice, this means that you must take modules in Asian Studies, Humanities, Academic Writing, and Public Writing and Communication as part of your graduation requirements. Being a policy that applies across FASS, CNM has to respect this decree.

But Communications is a very different discipline than, say, literature or philosophy. Some would call Communications an "applied" field while the traditional arts and humanities fields are "academic". Many students pursue university courses in Communications because they aspire to join the communications industry as corporate communications executives, public relations account managers, social media content developers, website administrators, application designers, copywriters, journalists, and so on. They may have completely no interest in writing thousand-word essays arguing abstractly for the abolishment of the death penalty based on the sociological theory of anomie. But they have no choice if they are CNM majors, because they are also FASS students and have to follow FASS rules. Don't forget that the whole of NUS also has some rules in place, such as General Education and Unrestricted Elective modules, and CNM students must fulfill those too!

WKWSCI doesn't have another hierarchical layer on top of it except the university itself. So students of WKWSCI only need to follow NTU rules, such as taking the General Education and Unrestricted Elective modules, but don't need to worry about school or faculty rules, because they are themselves the school. The school, specialised as it is in producing communications practitioners, makes rules that it feels best contribute towards this goal of preparing its graduates for the communications workforce. It can do so with a lot more leeway and flexibility without having to accommodate other unrelated modules that its students are forced to take.

To put it concretely, WKWSCI students take a total of 17 modules related to Communications over four years and graduate directly with a Bachelor of Communication Studies with Honours. CNM students take a total of nine Communications-related modules over three years, have to qualify for Honours based on grades, then take another eight Communications-related modules over one year before graduating with a Bachelor of Social Sciences with Honours majoring in CNM. If they graduate after three years, they get a Bachelor of Arts majoring in CNM without Honours.

What's in a name?

I don't think it matters that much that the NTU degree is a "professional" degree where the word "Communication" appears in the degree name itself while the NUS one is a "general" social science degree where the word "Communications" is tacked on at the end, seemingly an afterthought. Employers understand the concept of majors and are willing to accept that someone who majored in something should have adequate domain knowledge in that thing to do the job asked of them. But it is pertinent that WKWSCI offers a four-year direct Honours programme while CNM, again being tied down by the way the rest of FASS does things, is a 3+1 system. If you graduate with the basic three-year degree, you'll be at a huge disadvantage in your search for a job in the communications sector as your domain knowledge will be extremely shallow. At least you'll be able to impress people by telling them about the sociological theory of anomie... Not!

More importantly, let's examine the breakdown of what Communications modules a student would take at each institution.

NUS CNM:

• NM1101E Communications, New Media and Society
• NM2101 Theories of Communications and New Media
• NM2103 Quantitative Research Methods
• NM2104 Qualitative Research Methods
• five more NM-coded modules of student's choice
• if student does Honours: NM4102 Advanced Communications and New Media Research + NM4401 Honours Thesis + four more NM-coded Honours-level modules of student's choice OR any eight NM-coded Honours-level modules of student's choice

NTU WKWSCI:

• CS0209 Media law, Ethics and Policy
• CS2005 Speech and Argumentation
• CS2024 Web Design and Technologies
• CS2400 Foundation of Information Analytics
• CS0201 Foundation of Communication Studies
• CS0204 Basic Media Writing
• CS2025 Image & Sound Production OR CS2031 Creative Strategies OR CS2044 Photojournalism OR CS2403 Information Visualization & Presentation OR FL8001 Introduction to Film Studies
• five more lower-level CS-coded modules worth 3 Academic Units each of student's choice
• five more upper-level CS-coded modules worth 4 Academic Units each of student's choice

One criticism that's often levelled at CNM is that it's too theoretical, and based on this breakdown it's easy to see why. The focus of the compulsory modules is skewed heavily towards research. Students don't have many module spaces left free to explore the vital hands-on aspects of communications like public relations or visual design, particularly in their first three years. The compulsory modules at WKWSCI seem to be more helpful for future communications professionals. For example, CS0209 Media law, Ethics and Policy helps them stay out of trouble and avoid getting sued, CS2024 Web Design and Technologies is increasingly relevant given the prominence of the internet as a communicative platform, and CS0204 Basic Media Writing trains them in fundamental skills that every communications practitioner worth their salt must know.

Putting it into practice

The industry-relevance of WKWSCI's curriculum is further enhanced by its six-month Professional Internship (PI) programme as well as the Final Year Project (FYP). CNM also has a six-month Compulsory Internship Programme (CIP) but lacks the FYP.

CNM's Honours Thesis is not the equivalent of the FYP. An Honours Thesis must be a piece of academic research. But for their FYP, WKWSCI students are free to do almost anything they want. They can run a public awareness campaign, shoot a mini-movie, write a big feature story, compile a photojournal, or conduct academic research. A while back, I watched a Facebook Live stream by my friend and her groupmates from WKWSCI. It was part of their FYP and they played games in which viewers could respond in real time through the comments section and win prizes such as shopping vouchers. Honestly, I forget what their campaign was about but their tactics were really fun, enjoyable, interactive, and memorable.

Said friend is now working full-time in some boutique social media marketing agency where she runs online contests for a living similar to what her group did for their FYP. Besides that, she also produces silly graphics for social media pages. Don't scoff. Silly graphics are potent weapons in the battle for the ever-shrinking attention spans of modern consumers. They are eye-catching, easy to understand, and highly shareable content. Applied social media techniques such as these are hands-on skills that WKWSCI imparted her with, and they are now lining her pockets.

So far, it seems as if WKWSCI is the no-brainer option for anyone looking to embark on a communications career. The education is a lot more practical and industry-focused, allowing you to jump into the workplace immediately upon graduation and find your feet in your new job. Also, WKWSCI has a stronger brand name in the industry and among the wider public. They don't lose out on the academic rankings either. NUS and NTU have been swapping positions at the pinnacle of Asia for the past few years. Within the Communications discipline, CNM and WKWSCI have been playing out a similar battle at the top of the Asian league table.

And I won't lie. If you're really sure about what specific type of job within communications you want, go to WKWSCI. Do you want to be a public relations professional? An advertising strategist? A journalist? A television producer? WKWSCI is the place for you. They will give you the in-depth training you need to excel in your chosen subfield right from day one. Oh, while we're at journalists and TV producers, let me correct a misconception. WKWSCI has traditionally been seen as "that journalism school" or "that place where the Mediacorp people come from". Historically this is true, but such stereotypes are outdated. WKWSCI now offers lots more than just traditional media courses and has produced many public relations professionals who have risen to managerial and directorial rank. So if you're keen on other types of jobs in media and communications besides journalism and production, don't rule out WKWSCI.

In defence of NUS CNM

We've seen the might of WKWSCI. Is CNM a minnow in comparison? Certainly not!

The most distinct edge that CNM has over WKWSCI is the strength of its "new media" modules. It's almost as if the CNM department is the NUS School of Computing (SoC) Lite version. You can learn the computer languages of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a module on web coding, or gain fresh insights into your favourite games from a game design module. In a world that spends most of its time online, aspiring public relations professionals can enhance their skillsets by picking up skills in photography and videography, mobile application design, or storytelling through interactive media.

Coupled with the above is the bespoke nature of the FASS curriculum. You know the word "bespoke" that's so trendy nowadays? In addition to your bespoke trousers and handbags, you can now have a bespoke degree. The advantage of CNM over WKWSCI is that CNM doesn't lock you into "tracks". In WKWSCI, you choose from five possible tracks: Advertising, Broadcast & Cinema Studies, Communication Research & Information Analytics, Journalism, and Public Relations. You choose a track in your second year and receive deep instruction in it until graduation. But for those who don't want to commit to one track, CNM is a good fit. The modules in CNM are classified into three areas of interest: Communication Management, Interactive Media Design, and Media Studies. A fourth, Cultural Studies, was added in 2019. But these are just for reference and you don't have to stick to just one area. You are free to mix and match modules from across all three areas in any way you like. If you do this, you may not have as much expertise concentrated in one area, but the diverse range of knowledge and skills you possess opens up more opportunities for you across varied job functions. There's also the possibility that you might fall in love with one particular area. If that happens, you're also free to choose more modules from that area, in essence creating your own track. This almost unfettered self-determination is the strength of the FASS system. It allows you to customise the coverage of your degree to a huge extent and really make it your own.

Of course, there are other types of students who should choose CNM over WKWSCI. For example, those who like theories and research will definitely enjoy CNM more, as there are many more of such module offerings in CNM than in WKWSCI, and FASS also offers plenty of opportunities for undergraduate students to assist faculty members in carrying out academic research projects. Let's be clear, though. CNM may put more emphasis on theories and research than WKWSCI, but that doesn't mean there are no hands-on modules teaching practical skills that you can apply in your future job as a communications practitioner. There are modules to train you in press release writing, brochure design, campaign planning, and other useful stuff. You just have to consciously seek them out and opt for them, as opposed to them being fixed for you to take as compulsory modules like in WKWSCI.

Students who haven't firmly decided on Communications as their preferred field of study should also enroll into FASS because it's easy to change to a different major within the faculty if you find that Communications isn't for you after all. Just click a few buttons during the declaration period between semesters and you can morph into a major in something else. If you enter WKWSCI and don't like it, you can either tough out the four years, regretting your foolishness bitterly throughout, or bite the bullet and wade through the mountain of red tape to transfer yourself out of the school.

Still undecided?

Think about:

• What kind of learner are you? If you prefer doing projects and creating stuff, WKWSCI would be a better match for you. If you prefer reading and thinking about stuff, CNM would be a better match for you.
• Do you know exactly what job you want to do in the future? The more specific the better; for example, "public relations executive" or "video editor". If you can answer this question confidently, WKWSCI would be a better match for you. If you can't, or just answered with a vague "um, something related to communications???", CNM would be a better match for you.
• How committed are you when you make a decision? If you are firmly committed once your decision has been made, WKWSCI would be a better match for you. If you are a fickle sort of person who tends to waffle and dwell on the what-ifs, CNM would be a better match for you.
• Are you interested to explore other areas of humanities, arts, and social sciences like linguistics, culture, economics, geography, and history, while sharpening your critical thinking and argumentative skills at the same time? If no, WKWSCI would be a better match for you. If yes, CNM would be a better match for you.

And that brings us to the end of this post! If you made it to this point, congratulations and thanks for persevering through the entire lengthy article. The purpose of writing such volumes is to pack as much detail as possible into one place. I hope I've clarified some of the doubt surrounding CNM and WKWSCI, and gone a little way towards helping you to make a decision regarding your future in Communications. But if you still have questions, don't hesitate to leave a comment below, or better yet, drop me a message on Twitter or Reddit.

Best of luck for your university studies! Whether NUS or NTU, may the Bell Curve God be always in your favour.