Just student things

I have completed four academic semesters of my undergraduate studies. Coupled with the one semester's exemption that I get for holding a diploma from a local polytechnic, and I am just one semester away from being eligible to graduate with a three-year Bachelor of Arts degree. I will spend that one semester on a full-time internship. But when I get back to school after the internship, I won't be graduating just yet. I don't want a three-year Bachelor of Arts. I want a four-year Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours). So I will spend one more year in school, studying advanced modules in my major, Communications and New Media, before graduating at the end of the 2020 calendar year.

Right now, it can be said that I'm at a bit of a milestone. I have finished studying all the academic modules I need to study as an undergraduate in my programme. I just need to complete my internship, then I can move on to the extra one year of studies for my Honours degree.

I think there's no time like the present to look back on my academic modules and see how I've done since entering the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Full listing of grades

I have no reason to hide my grades. They are nothing to be shy about, but they are nothing to be modest about either. They are good, definitely, but not mindblowing. And they certainly don't form any part of my SingPass password, so if you're a scammer looking for personal information to hack my account, look harder.

Here's a full inventory of the modules I have done, and my performance in each of them.

August 2017 to December 2017

January 2018 to May 2018

August 2018 to December 2018

January 2019 to May 2019

My cumulative average point (CAP) stands at 4.78 out of 5.

Comments on each semester

August 2017 to December 2017

My first semester in NUS was fun. The modules were not too difficult as they were all introductory-level, and I felt very learned because I was exposed to a lot of cool stuff that I had never seen before. For example, I fell in love with linguistics in EL1101E, and was so interested and motivated that I got an A+ despite most of the concepts being alien to me. The only part of linguistics that I had encountered before was phonetics as I had studied a little about it in poly. Also in poly, I had studied psychology as that was my diploma, so taking the basic psychology module PL1101E here helped me get another easy A+. I did use one of my Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory options (S/U) on GER1000 to remove the B I got, which would otherwise have tanked my CAP badly. I just couldn't understand the concepts in that module for the life of me.

January 2018 to May 2018

This was my lightest semester in terms of workload. My timetable was so neat that I only needed to go to school on two out of the five weekdays. Even though two of the modules were at level-2000, I got A+ in both. NM2103 was easy for me because my psychology background had equipped me with plenty of rigorous training and skills in quantitative research and statistical analysis. And I thoroughly enjoyed NM2220, so my motivation to do well in it was sky-high, which duly manifested in the result. Two of the modules were Completed Satisfactorily/Completed Unsatisfactorily (CS/CU), which meant that I didn't need to study so hard and just needed to do the assignments on time in order to pass and get the CS, which has no impact on my CAP. I did not use any of my S/Us. My target CAP is 4.00, the equivalent of a second-upper Honours score, so my policy is to keep all A-range grades as they are worth at least 4.50 points each, helping to pull my CAP above 4.00.

August 2018 to December 2018

I was a little nervous about this semester before it began, as I was doing two level-2000 modules and one level-3000 module and worried that it would be difficult. Looking back on it now, it wasn't that bad. My love of linguistics spurred me to take EL2102 and EL2151 and excel in them. I also aced NM2101, the compulsory theory module of my major. These three modules were of the intensive "swallow the textbook" sort. Providing balance were the project-based GEH1014 and NM3217. I ate a B+ for NM3217 but I'm not too worried because a B+ is still worth 4.00 points so it doesn't drag my CAP below my target. Anyway, level-3000 modules are ineligible for S/U, so I couldn't get rid of the B+ even if I wanted to.

January 2019 to May 2019

Some students use their S/Us like machine gun bullets, spraying them around in their very first semester and running out of "ammunition" almost immediately. Starting with five, I used only one, and lost another when I ended my second semester because we are only allowed to bring three with us beyond our first calendar year. I'm glad I adopted this conservative approach early on, because this semester was hellish and my results took a hit. I almost bit off more than I could chew, taking six 4MC modules, two each at levels 1000, 2000, and 3000. The reason I did this was so that I could finish up all my academic graduation requirements for the base three-year degree programme, allowing me to focus fully on my upcoming internship. The alternative would have been to take just five modules and make up the shortfall by doing an online module during the internship period. I didn't want to do this because it would have been too tiring for me. When I come home after work, and on weekends, I want to rest, not study. But my brave decision came at a price: my diluted attention produced B+ in JS1101E and NM2203, as well as NM3219. Although B+ doesn't threaten to drag my CAP below my target as explained previously, it's still a bummer in a semester where three of them appear together and counteract the euphoria of me getting a highly unexpected A+ in NM2104 despite me going through that entire module in a haze of confusion. My CAP nosedived to 4.69 from where it stood at a healthy 4.81 the previous semester. Don't misunderstand: 4.69 is still a fantastic score, within first-class Honours territory and way above my target of 4.00. But I knew that it could be higher if I got rid of the B+ grades. Out came the S/Us and the B+ grades for JS1101E and NM2203 disappeared. My CAP shot back up to 4.78, where it now stands, safely beyond the first-class Honours threshold of 4.50.

What's next?

When I return from my internship stint, I will have a dilemma to deal with. Barring any major disaster, namely failing my internship, I should start my Honours year with my CAP in first-class territory. I will have to decide whether or not to do a thesis.

On one hand, it will be a huge pity if I don't do the thesis because if I finish with a CAP above 4.50 without the thesis, I will only get a second-upper-class Honours even though my CAP is in the first-class range. To have any shot at getting a first-class Honours, I have to do a thesis.

On the other hand, three things are holding me back from doing the thesis:

1. I don't know what to write about. It has to be a research study and related to communications or new media, and I will need to find a professor in the department to be my supervisor so the topic I write about will have to match one of their research interests. But I frankly have no inkling of what I want to research on! Research has always been something I do because I have to for the sake of academics. It's not something I'm really passionate about.
2. There are so many interesting level-4000 modules being offered by my department that I want to take. The modules teach relevant and practical industry knowledge and skills such as crisis communications, campaign management, financial communications, media law and ethics, risk management, social change communication, and social media. Doing the thesis will mean taking three fewer of these modules. I'm not sure if I'm willing to sacrifice learning a variety of interesting things for doing a lengthy piece of research on a single topic. Honestly, it sounds boring.
3. I'm not confident in doing well for the thesis. Besides, it is worth a whopping 15MC, so its impact on my CAP will be huge. What happens if I get a bad grade for it, and as a result my CAP slips below 4.50? The whole purpose of doing the thesis is to be able to get first-class Honours, but I won't get it anyway if my CAP is less than 4.50, thesis or no.

I hate having to make earth-shattering decisions like this! Sometimes I can't even decide what I want from McDonald's. I'll just sit in front of the counter staring blankly at the menu board, sweating profusely in fear, the eyes of the entire world boring into my skull as it impatiently awaits my order.

But whatever decision I eventually make, it certainly won't be as daft as the one my mother made when she was a student at NUS in the 1980s. Offered the chance to do Honours in both of her majors, English and Sociology, she turned them both down because she had already secured a highly sought-after job at a large local bank. Wait, that's not the stupid part. The stupid part is this. She had letters from NUS stating that she was offered the chance to do Honours. These letters were documentary evidence of her academic prowess. But after deciding that she wasn't going to do the Honours, she casually threw away the letters! In effect, she trashed the only material proof she had that she was in fact qualified to be an Honours student and that her lack of an Honours degree was a conscious choice. To this day, she rues her foolishness.

And after that?

It strikes me that the end of my life as a student draws near. I'm terrified, because being a student is the only thing I've ever known and it's also something I've proven to be good at. I don't know if I'll be able to have similar success in the big, bad world out there.

Sometimes I toy with the idea of engaging in delaying tactics by remaining a student a little bit longer. I have my eye on a one-year Master's in English Language offered by my current faculty. It's coursework-based so there's no research thesis, which is a huge plus for me. And the fact that it's offered by my current faculty means that I won't have to adjust to a new physical and cultural environment. That's always comforting.

The drawbacks? Although it's quite affordable in the context of postgraduate degrees, at about $10,000 in total, it will still put a big hole in my bank account. My parents are financing my Bachelor studies because it's considered a necessity to secure a better future for me and they can afford to support me fully, but this delaying tactic of mine is a "nice to have" or luxury item and I cannot in good faith have them pay for it. Additionally, this particular Master's adds almost zero value to my resume. I stand to gain a year's worth of fun and intrigue from the programme, but nothing more.

And even if I do the Master's, it will just put off the inevitable. I'll still eventually have to survive outside of school. I can't be a student forever. I need money.

Oh, to be young again...

A tale of two bell curves

I realised that most of my readers are students looking for information about undergraduate life. The best-performing posts on this blog are those about academics. So here's one more that should be useful to you if you're a student or soon-to-be student. It's about something quite familiar yet mysterious: the bell curve.

Most Singaporean students would have heard of the bell curve. It's a grading system that is applied at major national exams like the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) and General Certificate of Education (GCE) exams. The majority of courses at the local autonomous universities grade students on a curve too.

This has led to generations of students building a cult of mystique around the bell curve, developing time-honoured traditions like praying to the bell curve god in the hope of getting good grades. But the bell curve isn't a supernatural force. Of course it isn't: it was developed by humans like you and me. So there's no need to be overawed by its supposed power. By understanding what the bell curve is and the mechanism behind it, you will be better able to manage your anxieties surrounding it.

A few years ago, the National University of Singapore (NUS) Provost Office published a blog post attempting to demystify the bell curve grading process. The post has since become a much-cited resource when the bell curve is being discussed. You can read it here.

I want to emphasise a few key takeaways from the Provost's post.

The most important one is that the term "bell curve" refers to the shape that occurs naturally when you graph the scores. All it means is that many students score marks in the middle of the range, and few students score very high and very low marks.

Credit: Corporate Finance Institute.

The bell curve is a statistical phenomenon that occurs in almost every facet of everyday life. It was not invented for the purpose of grading students. Rather, it is a pattern that was discovered to hold true time and again across a wide variety of scenarios. If you graph the height of humans or the number of goals scored by each player in a soccer league season in a similar way, you will likely find that the shape of your graph is a bell curve. One condition that must be fulfilled is that your sample size must be large enough. Statisticians use the guideline of n = 30. In English, that means that for example, if you want to see a bell curve when you graph the number of goals scored by each player in a soccer league season, you must have data from at least 30 players. Otherwise, your graph may not have the bell curve shape. In NUS, this guideline means that for modules where the enrolment is less than 30 students, the bell curve grading system is usually not applied and the professor awards grades based on absolute performance or their discretion.

So to repeat myself, the bell curve occurs naturally. It is not something that the professors force onto the scores. They don't do anything to the raw scores. They don't need to, because the raw scores fall into the bell curve shape on their own.

What, then, do the professors do in the bell curve grading system? To help me explain, let me bring in an example from my recent semester results.

What's in a B+?

I was given a grade of B+ for the modules JS1101E Introduction to Japanese Studies and NM2203 Social Media in Communication Management.

For NM2203, I answered all of the questions during the final exam in what I thought was a comprehensive manner. I felt confident that I knew the content well. For the assignments, I handed everything in on time and all my submissions were complete and immaculate. Overall, it was an easy module.

In contrast, JS1101E was hard. The big essay assignment was an academic paper about some aspect of Japan, and I struggled. The finals, worth 50% of the total grade, was the most diabolical multiple-choice questions (MCQ) paper I have seen in my entire student life. I definitely knew the answers to a paltry 20% of the questions at best, had a good feeling about my intuitions for another 30% or so, and resorted to blind guessing for the remaining half of the paper.

I got the same grade for both modules despite having very different experiences with them, and that can be explained by the bell curve.

Let's think about each module separately.

Here is a hypothetical diagram showing the distribution of scores for JS1101E. Each icon of a person represents one student, and there are 64 of them in total arranged into a perfect bell curve shape. Hey, fictionalised textbook illustrations are always perfect, right?

In this diagram, we assume that the highest total score for the module happened to be 54 and the lowest was 13. Most people scored in the middle of that range, maybe around the 30s. Like I said, it was a difficult module. The lecturer, Dr Scot Hislop, said so himself. He often related proudly a story of an exchange student from America who told him after taking the final exam a few semesters ago: "That was the hardest f*cking exam I've ever taken."

What does the professor do to apply the bell curve grading system? Basically, he draws grade boundaries. Look at the following diagram to see an example of this.

Essentially, grade boundaries are imaginary lines denoting the scores within which one must fall to get a certain grade. In our fictional JS1101E, the grade boundary for B+ is 34 to 38 and 6 students fell into this range. This means that if I were to have taken JS1101E in our fictional world, I would have scored between 34 and 38 marks in total, falling into the blue area in the diagram above.

In other words, even though I scored less than half of the total marks available, I still got a pretty decent grade. Although the exact figures I used in this illustration are made-up, the mechanism is true to real life and it is entirely plausible that I could indeed have failed in terms of absolute score but passed thanks to the bell curve. That's why it's often said that the bell curve takes into account cohort performance when determining grades. Even if the entire cohort scores less than 50%, not everyone will fail. The top scorers will still be duly rewarded with the coveted A+, those slightly further down will be awarded A's and A-'s, and so on. This is the situation that people sometimes describe as "the bell curve shifting to the left".

Contrast this to NM2203, an easy module. Everyone loves easy modules and everyone does well in absolute terms. The raw scores are high, and as a result, "the bell curve shifts to the right". It literally does. Compare the diagram below with those above and you'll see that all the little people are now gathered on the right side rather than the left.

In our fictional NM2203, let's say the scores range between 68 and 91, with most people scoring in the high 70s and low 80s. The professor might draw the grade boundaries as follows.

To get B+ in our fictional world, I must have scored between 82 and 84, as demarcated by the blue box.

In other words, even though my final grade for the two modules was the same, they mean quite different things. I had to score a lot higher to qualify for a B+ in NM2203, and would have had to score higher still to get an A. Moral of the story: Easy modules aren't necessarily easy to excel in! It's that much harder to be outstanding when everyone else is doing the same.

One thing to note: In my hypothetical examples, I only drew 64 students and arranged them in perfect symmetry. This caused the grade boundaries for A+ and D to contain only one student each. In reality, multiple students may get A+ and D, especially for modules with more than 100 students.

How are grade boundaries determined?

So we've seen that when professors "curve the grades", what they do is decide where the grade boundaries go, and then look at who falls within the various categories and give out the corresponding grades.

But what is the art or science behind that decision? The truth is: there isn't a strict procedure.

In NUS, there is a recommended grade distribution that advises professors how many A's, B's, C's, and D's they should be giving out. The actual distribution is secret but there is a hypothetical one given in the blog post by the Provost.

It's likely that professors adhere to this recommended distribution quite closely when drawing the grade boundaries. For example, if the recommended distribution says that no more than 25% of students shall get A-range grades (i.e., A+, A, and A-), and a professor has 200 students in his module, he might give A+'s to the top 10 scorers, A's to the next 15, and A-'s to the following 25 for a total of 50 students, or 25% of the total enrolment, with A-range grades. So setting the grade boundaries for the module would simply be an exercise in ranking the students in order of their scores, using the grade distribution to award the grades in the manner demonstrated above, then noting the highest and lowest score that was awarded a certain grade such as B-. Note that in the example, more students are given A-'s than A's, and more students are given A's than A+'s. This follows the bell curve pattern: A+ is right at the far right side of the curve where there are fewer people, while A- is closer to the middle of the curve where the bulk of the people are massed.

But the recommended grade distribution is exactly that: a recommendation. It is not a hard-and-fast rule. Professors are free to use their judgement to adjust the grade boundaries accordingly, as long as they can justify their actions to the university management.

Press F to pay respects

A last point I wanted to make is about failing. This isn't in the Provost blog. It's something I've learned directly from lecturers and seniors, fleshed out by a bit of common sense.

You will notice that I didn't include F grades in all my examples above. This was a deliberate decision. In NUS, it's almost impossible to get an F grade unless you're the kind of student who really deserves it: you don't turn up for class, you don't submit your assignments, and you don't turn up for exams. Lecturers have to consciously decide to give someone an F, and they are expected to produce documented justifications written in black and white when they do so. That means they have more work to do, which they will obviously try to avoid as far as possible.

So you need not be afraid of the letter F appearing on your transcript if you put in effort to your studies. What you do need to fear is the D grade. If you don't have a good understanding of the module content, get help quickly because otherwise it's entirely plausible that a D grade is in your near future. Lecturers don't have to write justifications for D grades and it's left up to the bell curve to decide who gets the D's. That's right: someone, or a few someones, always gets D. Don't let yourself get on the wrong end of the bell curve, which is the left side when you draw it out as per the diagrams above, because then you'll be that someone.

And D's are treated like failures in NUS. When you apply the Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) option to a D grade, it gets converted to a U grade, meaning Unsatisfactory, rather than an S for Satisfactory. This means the modular credits from the module you got a D in will not be counted towards your graduation requirements. Getting a D will also immediately disqualify you from most special programmes such as overseas exchanges.

Further reading

If you're looking for more information about undergraduate academics in NUS, do read my other posts.

This one will teach you how to stay on the right side of the bell curve, literally as well as figuratively: https://jonathansjunkyard.blogspot.com/2019/02/surviving-university-how-to-stay-sane.html.

This one will help you make sense of the FASS curriculum and some of the NUS schemes like the S/U system: https://jonathansjunkyard.blogspot.com/2018/07/majors-unrestricted-electives-and.html.

All of my posts that are to do with academics in NUS are collected here: https://jonathansjunkyard.blogspot.com/search/label/NUS.

Enjoy reading them, and do share them with your friends too.

Module reviews for AY18/19 Semester 2: Goodbye NUS (for now)!

This is it. I'm finally done with academics for the foreseeable future. I may very well have taken the last exam I'll ever take, as Honours modules usually don't have formal final exams.

Am I relieved? Happy? Somewhat. Academics is starting to get a little boring. But I'm also apprehensive, because life as a student is the only thing I've ever known in my 21 years of existence on this planet. I don't know what's next for me.

But enough of that. First, I've got a bunch of module reviews to share with you. Here they are. This semester was the most stressful and busy one yet, as I decided to take six modules rather than the recommended five, because I wanted to clear all my outstanding non-Honours graduation requirements before embarking on my six-month compulsory internship.

GES1035: Singapore: Imagining the Next 50 Years

MCs: 4 - General Education: Singapore Studies

Delivery:

Weekly e-lectures, each pair of weeks is about one topic, e.g., economy, defence, and there are six topics in total
2-hour tutorials on odd weeks, one group will present one of the topics from the lecture series and the whole class will discuss based on the presentation

Assessment:

Open-book class test with 15 MCQs and 5 short-answer questions covering lecture content and compulsory readings from the entire semester = 30%
Group presentation and tutorial participation = 30%
Reflection paper to one of the expert interviews shown as part of the e-lectures = 20%
Respond to each compulsory reading by creating a discussion question about it and picking out two of your favourite quotes from it = 20%

Tutor: Mr Chong Yen Kiat - 8/10

Being a former social worker, Mr Chong could relate some real-life experiences during discussions on economic and social issues, particularly with regard to poverty, income inequality, and the affordability of healthcare. I enjoyed this aspect of the tutorials as it always helps to have illustrative examples. He should work on his confidence, as he often came across as being nervous and unsure of himself, leading to the tutorials being littered with periods of awkward silence.

Module: 9/10

Any self-respecting Singaporean will know that out-of-bounds markers exist in sociopolitical discourse in Singapore. There are some things we shouldn't say if we don't want to get in trouble. This module tries to expand upon controversial issues and introduce views by prominent critics of the establishment such as Dr Donald Low and Dr Teo You Yenn while working within the out-of-bounds markers, and for this noble effort it should be commended. The fact that it is pass-fail is also a plus, because without the pressure of having to chase down every last mark in order to climb to a higher grade, students won't obsess so much over memorising every theory in sight and can devote their attention to actually participating in the discussions and raising good arguments, leading to more fruitful tutorials in which everyone ends up learning more.

JS1101E: Introduction to Japanese Studies

MCs: 4 - FASS students can use this to clear the Asian Studies basket or as Unrestricted Elective

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 1-hour tutorial, discussion questions will be uploaded a couple of days before

Assessment:

MCQ final exam consisting of 50 questions = 50%
Research paper about anything Japanese to be written in groups, topic to be decided by students themselves = 30%
IVLE forum posting, posts judged by quantity and quality = 10%
Tutorial participation = 10%

Lecturer: Dr Scot Andrew Hislop - 7/10

No doubt he has a fantastic attitude towards teaching. He puts in a lot of effort when writing his lectures and it shows in the fluency with which he delivers them. Sometimes he also tells jokes to try to liven up the dreary atmosphere, which I appreciate. These boosted the marks I gave him. But I also took away some marks for two weaknesses he has. First, he refers to his family members a lot. Not a single lecture went by without him talking about how awesome his wife is or how strict his father was. I get that he was trying to use personal anecdotes to keep students interested, but I felt that it was irrelevant, excessive, and time-wasting. Second, he chose to focus on topics which, in my opinion, were dry and not very useful. He talked at great length about No drama, kabuki plays, Buddhism, female authors, and other such eccentricities that I struggled to relate to. Wouldn't it have been better to focus on more contemporary issues such as the global rise of the Japanese entertainment industry, Japanese cuisine, and the role that Japan plays in the modern geopolitical arena?

Tutor: Mr Gao Ming - 8/10

Soft-spoken and kind, the soon-to-be Dr Gao Ming was a decent tutor who carried out the tutorials exactly as he was supposed to: using the stimulus questions posed by Dr Hislop, he initiated roundtable discussions where every student got a chance to speak and rack up those all-important participation marks. I don't ask for much more than that.

Module: 6/10

I'm not an otaku. I'm not even sure what that is. Is it a spicy barbequed fish fillet that belongs to me? (An otah is a Malay snack of a mackerel fillet covered in spice paste and roasted over an open flame; the suffix -ku in Malay means "mine", e.g., dadaku means "my chest".) So I found it a bit of a chore to study this module, seeing as my interest in Japanese culture extends only as far as stuffing my face with raw seafood. The content about Japanese history, literature, religion, and theatre could not hold my interest, and I'll readily admit to doing other, more exciting things on my laptop during lectures. At the finals, I found myself guessing wildly for most of the questions, so you can imagine my surprise when I emerged with a B+ grade. The bell curve saved my skin. But I S/Ued this module anyway because it was pulling down my CAP.

NM2104: Qualitative Communication Research Methods

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

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 1-hour tutorial focusing on consulting the tutor and classmates about your group research project

Assessment:

Final exam consisting of short-answer questions that the lecturer strongly hints at during the last lecture of the semester = 30%
Midterm test consisting of short-answer questions = 20%
Group research project, a full research study that must employ qualitative methods = 35%
Participation in lecture e-activities and tutorials = 15%

Lecturer: Dr Jinna Tay - 7/10

Towards the end of the semester, Dr Tay got panned in an anonymous post on NUSWhispers. The writer claimed that Dr Tay knew nothing about qualitative methods, a statement that is manifestly untrue. Dr Tay has done extensive research throughout her career in academia using almost solely qualitative methods such as interviews. She definitely knows her qualitative methods concepts. What she does lack is delivery skills. Her lectures are disorganised, messy and confusing, and she tends to ramble incoherently. But I give her the benefit of the doubt since this was the first time she was teaching this module in NUS. Hopefully she improves after a few runs of the module.

Tutor: Dr Jinna Tay - 6/10

I really want to give a higher mark, but we did so little during tutorials that I can't justify anything more than this. Every week, she basically got us to report back on the progress of our research projects, and she would give her inputs. That was literally it. There didn't seem to be a proper tutorial lesson plan for the semester or anything like that. Like I said above, maybe she needs time to settle down in NUS and remodel this module to her liking.

Module: 6/10

I'm biased. My background in psychology, which mainly employs statistical analyses of data collected through surveys and experiments, has made me more comfortable and familiar with quantitative methods and I can't deny that sometimes, I wonder if qualitative research is even scientific or rigorous. So the low mark I have awarded is probably coloured by my personal preference. But it's true that I personally didn't enjoy the module and didn't take very much away from it, my shockingly amazing A+ grade notwithstanding. I also feel that making students do a full-scale qualitative research project in one semester for 35% of the total grade is unjustifiably onerous. This is due to the nature of qualitative research. Interviews are time-consuming to conduct, and even finding participants in the first place can be a hassle. But the trouble doesn't stop there. Interview recordings have to be painstakingly transcribed. Then, the transcripts have to be analysed, and this can only be done by going over every word with a fine-toothed comb. The commitment required is disproportionately enormous for the amount of marks on offer, especially given that the module is mandatory for CNM majors and pitched at only level 2000. The quantitative research methods module NM2103 can get away with having a full-scale research project because quantitative methods for student projects can be done more or less on autopilot: once the e-survey is created, students just need to spray the link to as many people as possible until they get the number of responses they need; then, bung the collected data into SPSS and let the computer do the rest. Students just need to take care of the initial literature review and final explanation of the findings based on theories. The workload is fairer.

NM2203: Social Media in Communication Management

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

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
2-hour tutorials on alternate weeks

Assessment:

Final exam consisting of 10 short-answer questions = 30%
LinkedIn assignment, create a LinkedIn profile for yourself, use the social network effectively, gain 175 connections, and write a reflection paper on the experience = 20%
Facebook page group project, make a pretend-Facebook page for a company, post good content on it regularly, deliver a presentation and write a report on it = 30%
Participation = 20%

Lecturer: Mr Adrian Heng - 9/10

Mr Heng has solid credentials. He is an accredited member of the Institute of Public Relations of Singapore, which is official recognition of the fact that he has done lots of good work in the field of public relations. He is the chairperson of the CNM Industry Advisory Council and vice-president at Booqed, a technology start-up. So when he says something during lecture, it's informed by years of practical experience and you'd better believe it. All students who want to be public relations practitioners in future should fight tooth and nail to take at least one module taught by Mr Heng before they die graduate. He was slotted to teach this particular module for the first time this semester after the faculty member who was previously in charge of it quit, so it's not certain if the department will give it to him permanently or hire someone new to take over. But Mr Heng does have other modules, such as NM4228 Crisis Communication and NM4883G Financial Communications.

Tutor: Mr Adrian Heng - 8/10

The tutorials came across to me as if they were made up from week to week, as Mr Heng would simply turn up with a sparse set of recap slides and hold a chill two-hour chat session tangentially related to them. But looking past that, they were pretty useful in the sense that Mr Heng would share more nuggets of wisdom from his life as a public relations practitioner. It's not the typical kind of serious tutorial that we're accustomed to in NUS, but I'm willing to forego that because I like this type of tutorial better.

Module: 9/10

I'm not a fan of this social media thing. I mean, obviously I do use it, but I don't feel like it should be taking over the world as it seems to be doing. Even when it comes to public relations, I'm a lot happier writing a press release than a Facebook post. Facebook posts are really hard to write well. They must be short and attention-grabbing yet carry the intended message. But at least, having taken this module, I know what are the important elements to put into a social media campaign. And the LinkedIn assignment got me to give much-needed love and care to my LinkedIn profile, which will be beneficial to my professional image. When Mr Heng was given this module to teach, he threw out everything from the older version of this module because it was too theoretical and not useful in real life. He essentially rebuilt the entire module from scratch, and I'm glad he did.

NM3219: Writing for Communication Management

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

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 2-hour tutorial

Assessment:

Choose a company facing a public relations situation and develop a communications plan for it = 30%
Take over and run the social media for a real small business for about one month = 30%
Write a press release = 10%
Write a thought leadership blog piece = 10%
Answer pop quizzes given out during lecture = 10%
Participation = 10%

Lecturer: Mr Lim Wei Yi - 8/10

Mr Lim was a part-time lecturer whose main job was running his own tuition centre. He was formerly a Bloomberg and Dow Jones reporter. Reporters are to public relations practitioners what knives are to forks. They work hand-in-hand. Public relations practitioners need reporters to carry their messages to the masses, while reporters need public relations practitioners to feed them information. So it's useful to have a reporter's perspective on things like press releases and media pitches, as reporters are the consumers of such tactics and are in the best position to tell us what works and what doesn't. Mr Lim has the added advantage of being a small business owner. Small businesses don't have the marketing budget to embark on advertising campaigns, so they need to generate free publicity in order to attract customers. Mr Lim told us many stories of how he went about this for his own tuition centre, even getting himself in the newspapers and on radio. He dropped the ball a bit, though, in the design of the module. I will explain this further under the Module section below.

Tutor: Mr Lim Wei Yi - 7/10

His tutorials ran as follows. The first thirty to forty minutes would consist of him talking about some examples of how public relations played a role in recent news events. He would then set up a scenario and give us some time to write a press release, blog article, or social media post in response. The rest of the time would be for him to flash each student's work on the screen and give his critiques. Because of time constraints, he would often rush through this part, which I feel is the most important. He should have cut out the first section of the tutorials where he talked about current affairs, because such discussions are better suited for lectures. The time saved could have been reallocated to giving each student more personalised feedback.

Module: 7/10

This module is called Writing for Communication Management, but it became more like an "introduction to public relations tactics" module. Mr Lim was enthusiastic about giving us practical experience when he threw out the old version of this module and rebuilt it from scratch, and I appreciate that because I'm also a firm believer in the value of practice-based education. But somewhere along the way he lost sight of the central theme of the module: writing. Look at the assessment criteria: the press release, which is the backbone of public relations, is only given a 10% weightage with another 10% being given to a thought leadership article; meanwhile, running a social media account and creating a public relations plan are together worth 60% even though they have little to do with writing. For me, the module didn't quite deliver what was advertised. But it was saved by the fact that the assignments, even though they were irrelevant to the module itself, were useful in the grander scheme of public relations and I largely found them enjoyable.

NM3232: Strategic Communication: Concepts

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

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, with a lecture for the first 1.5 hours about the topic of the week, followed by two student group presentations about the topic of the week

Assessment:

Midterm test, consisting of MCQs and short-answer questions covering content from the first half of the semester = 25%
Group presentation, where you will pick an organisation and analyse its communications = 15%
Participation = 20%
Essay test in the last week, during which you will be given a case study and asked to craft a full public relations plan using the concepts you have learnt throughout the semester = 40%

Lecturer: Dr Asha Rathina Pandi - 8/10

Dr Asha was good at explaining the concepts written in the textbook, but not so good at giving illustrative examples which, as you should be able to tell if you've read my blogs for long enough, are important to me. This is not surprising given that, like almost all the full-time staff in the CNM department, she lacks real-world experience in communications. Most of them are lifelong academics who are most at home with tabletop exercises. But Dr Asha does deliver enough that the assessments aren't a problem, and students take away everything they need to know about strategic communications to survive in their first practical encounters with public relations work.

Module: 9/10

Based on feedback from students that NM2219, NM3232, and NM3233 are too similar in terms of coverage, the department will be scrapping all three modules and launching a new one to combine them all together into one definitive strategic communications module. Given the importance of understanding strategic communications in public relations, I strongly advise all CNM students who are interested in public relations to take the replacement module when it is released.

That's the last module review I will be doing for a while. It's also the last that will feature undergraduate modules. The next one, which should release at this time next year, will feature purely Honours modules. Before that, you can look forward to my standalone post on the module NM3550Y Compulsory Internship Programme, which is the only one I will be taking next semester. I will talk about this unique six-month fulltime internship for all CNM students, and my own experience in my internship worksite GIC, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore. That post will be published just after the turn of the decade.

In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions or feedback about these modules and reviews. You can leave a comment below, or drop me a private message on Twitter or Reddit. Click the Contact tab on the menu bar of this blog to find out how. A few readers have sent me their compliments and appreciation for these blog posts. If you are one of them, thank you! I hope you will continue to enjoy my writing.