Module reviews for AY20/21 Semester 1: The end is here

 After studying for 16-and-a-half years, I have finally got it.

The piece of paper that marks the end of the Singapore education journey: the degree.

My last semester ran from August to November 2020 and was held completely online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Keep that fact in mind as you read these module reviews.

NM4223: New Media and Organisations

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar

Assessment:

Individual thought leadership assignment, where you will write three articles on LinkedIn about empirical research related to the module and a reflection essay based on your experience doing this assignment = 30%

Group webinar presentation, where your group will deliver a webinar on a topic related to the module with interactive elements to engage the audience = 30%

Open-book midterm test on LumiNUS, consisting of four open-ended questions = 20%

Participation = 20%

Lecturer: Dr Suwichit (Sean) Chaidaroon - 11/10

By far the most student-centric, kind, and encouraging lecturer I had this semester, Dr Sean has a very nurturing character that makes him an excellent educator. He was always generous with his words of affirmation towards students' work, and gentle with his criticisms. I was also mightily impressed with the thought process behind how he designed the assessments for the module. He explained that he wanted the assessments to have practical value to us as we started on our career journey. For example, the individual thought leadership assignment was intended to boost our profile on LinkedIn, the platform which professionals like us use to network and improve their career prospects. The group webinar presentation was intended to give us hands-on experience in delivering webinars in the role of subject-matter experts, which we might eventually do as part of our jobs in the communications industry. Furthermore, he also wanted to give students with various strengths the chance to showcase their skills: the individual thought leadership assignment was where those who are good at writing could excel, while the group webinar presentation was where those who are good at speaking could shine. I felt this showed that Dr Sean really cares about designing his module in a way that all students would benefit from it, which earns him bonus marks and hence this high score.

Module: 9/10

The content of the module is very relevant to real life, which is always appreciated. Essentially, it deals with a wide range of issues regarding the use of technology in the corporate world. For example, it examines how technology can be used for nefarious deeds such as cyberbullying among employees, the pros and cons of telework, and even dealing with workplace romances. One area that could be improved is tying the weekly themes together into a coherent narrative. Currently, it seems like the topics that are discussed week-by-week are rather disparate and do not really fit into a sort of big picture framework. If they could be organised in such a fashion, it would be ideal. But this is just a suggestion and by no means a deal-breaker. I highly recommend this module to anyone who will eventually work in a corporate environment, which is basically all of us.

NM4228: Crisis Communication

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar

Assessment:

Concept assignments, which are relatively short tasks, with two done individually and one done as a group = 40%

Group project, which involves constructing a full crisis communication plan = 30%

Participation = 30%

Lecturer: Ms Bhavani Krishnasamy - 7/10

Ms Bhavani was teaching for the first time, so naturally it did not go as smoothly as it would have with a more experienced lecturer. She would sometimes change her mind about assignments and seemed to be making them up as she went along, and even wanted to allow up to ten students to do the group project together before eventually settling on a maximum of six. I also felt that she missed out on capitalising upon one of the key strengths of a practitioner-educator (as opposed to the usual academic researchers who teach most university modules), which is using their industry experience to illustrate their lessons and bring them to life through anecdotes. Perhaps she thought that university modules are supposed to conform to the standard "do your readings and discuss them" formula, but this is not the case, as other practitioner-educators like Mr Lim Wei Yi, Dr Tan Ee Lyn, and Mr Adrian Heng (more on him below) have shown.

Module: 7/10

The module turned out to be so much more theoretical than I expected. I had heard that it was a very industry-oriented, real-world module under the previous lecturer Mr Adrian Heng, which I had believed because I had taken another one of his modules and found that this was indeed the case. Unfortunately, he is no longer with the department. The reworked version of the module is now full of conceptual stuff but lacking in the nitty-gritty of how to go about communicating during a crisis. For example, I remember that Mr Heng dedicated a lecture during his other module that I took, which was actually about social media management, to crisis communications and he gave us very detailed information such as who should comprise the crisis communications team and the roles that each person should play, how to set up a media centre (and a pro tip: it should be as far away from the holding room for family and friends of victims as possible, because it is a bad idea to let the press take lots of photographs of grieving people or interview them as they will be emotionally unstable and may say some very damaging things against your company), and how to organise a press conference. I would have liked more of these practical pointers in this module instead of just more theories. I get more than my fill of those from other modules already.

NM4230: Communication for Social Change

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar

Assessment:

Individual paper, in which you reflect on your learning points from the module = 20%

Group project, in which your group will come up with a solution to a social issue = 55%: 20% strategic report, 15% tactic report, 10% presentation, 10% peer review

Leading group discussions, in which your group will deliver a presentation on the lecture topic for the week and start a discussion with the rest of the class = 10%

Participation and attendance = 15%

Lecturer: Dr Asha Rathina Pandi - 8/10

Dr Pandi is... well, enthusiastic to a fault. She shouts shrilly and excitedly into the microphone every single lesson. Her passion for the subject is never in question. But sometimes this passion causes her to ramble too much about one topic or veer off on a tangent, which is not an ideal thing to do in any lesson but especially a fully online one where attention is a precious commodity. To her credit though, her interactions with students were always nurturing and jovial, never toxic or negative. And she followed up regularly on the progress of the group projects to keep everyone on track, an effort which is much appreciated.

Module: 7/10

Too much "what" and not enough "how". That is the way I would describe the weakness of this module. I took away a lot of broad concepts like "participatory approach" and fancy terms like "epistemological", but I thought that at times, these simply served to overcomplicate matters. For example, "participatory approach" is actually a simple idea: when we want to help a certain group of people, we should consult them and work with them when coming up with interventions, rather than imposing on them a solution that we think is best. The module has a lot of big notions like this, but is fairly light on specific details. How do we go about working with target populations to design effective solutions to help meet their needs? In other words, the module suffers from the problem of leaving more questions than it answers. Which is fine if you like this sort of philosophical and reflective style, I suppose, but it is not something I personally enjoy.

NM4240 : Risk Perception and Communication

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar

Assessment:

2 x individual paper, the first evaluating a health risk from a scientific perspective and the second evaluating how the risk is portrayed in the media = 2 x 20% = 40%

Individual leading discussion, in which you are assigned a research paper to read and evaluate for its strengths and weaknesses = 10%

Group project, in which your group will analyse existing risk communication efforts around a topic of your choice and propose your own to address any shortcomings you identified = 30%

Participation and attendance = 20%

Lecturer: Dr Hong Soo Jung - 9/10

Dr Hong is very patient and encouraging, rarely having negative things to say to students. I like this because sometimes I feel like educators make use of their positions of power over students to bully students and make their lives difficult for no other reason than sadistic pleasure, so I always look favourably on educators who treat their students nicely instead. Dr Hong also does a fairly decent job of breaking down a dry, theoretical subject into nuggets that students are better able to process. But I did feel that at times, she would get carried away expounding at great length about some topic or other, and I would get lost and subsequently tune out. Keeping her lecture delivery concise and to-the-point would help greatly in this regard.

Module: 8/10

To be honest, this module is rather heavy-going as it is packed with plenty of models and theories, all attempting to explain how people view the concept of risk. If, like me, theories are not quite your cup of tea, you will struggle to keep your attention focused during lectures. But I gave this module more marks because the assessments are well-designed. The individual papers are scaffolded nicely, with plenty of guiding questions given to help you come up with content to write. The second paper also builds upon the first so you do not have to start it from scratch. Similarly, the group project consists of the abstract stage, the literature review stage, and the final report stage, with submissions required at each stage. This allows the lecturer to keep tabs on your progress and provide feedback to ensure you are on the right track. All this means that even if you have a hard time following the finer details of the lessons, you will probably still be able to survive the assessments.

This is the last set of module reviews I will ever write! I never thought I would be saying that so soon but the years have just whizzed by so fast. I started doing these reviews when I started university in 2017 because I noticed it was a common practice among Singaporean university students who had blogs so I simply carried on the tradition. But I know that over the years, my reviews have helped many of my juniors because some have sent me messages to thank me for writing them. This was very encouraging so I was motivated to continue pushing these out after every semester.

Now my job is done and it is time for the next generation to take over. So if you are a junior and you are reading this, do write your own module reviews for future batches of students to benefit from!

And if you have been reading and enjoying my academics-related blog content through the years, thank you for your support! Such content was a major focus of this blog and now that I am no longer a student, I am not sure what the future of this blog is going to be. I will still post here every now and then, but it will probably have a slightly greater emphasis on my favourite computer game, RuneScape. But there will also be posts on rather whimsical and disparate topics, depending on what catches my fancy at a particular time. So I hope you will continue to find things you enjoy here!

The finish line: My last semester is here (AY2020/21 Semester 1)

This is it. After 16 years of studying, the endgame is in sight. The piece of paper I have been working towards my entire life is finally within reach.

I am half a year away from graduating with my degree.

And it could potentially be a higher class of degree than expected, thanks to the coronavirus. The requirement of an Honours Thesis has been waived for the award of Honours with Highest Distinction for this year, because many students who were writing their theses were encountering difficulties in gathering their research data due to social distancing measures.

Given that my cumulative average point is well within the range for Honours with Highest Distinction, I could end up benefitting from this waiver. Previously, I would not have been able to get an Honours with Highest Distinction because an Honours Thesis was mandatory. I would have had to settle for Honours with Distinction.

Now, as long as I don't start picking up C's and D's all of a sudden, I will be able to get Honours with Highest Distinction after all.

That's cool!

So what are the modules standing between me and my coveted piece of paper?

Note: All modules are worth 5MCs, graded with standard letter grades, and delivered through weekly three-hour seminars, held through Zoom this semester due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Regular students can acquire them on the ModReg system, with priority given to CNM majors in SOC4. I was preallocated my modules by the Dean's Office due to my status as a disabled student.

NM4223: New Media and Organizations

This module seems pretty cool because it's about working in corporations and how new media technologies have an impact on such companies. It appears to blend in some HR aspects as well, such as emotions and relationships at the workplace. Given that I'll be working in a large company when I graduate, and having interned in that company for quite a long time last year, I think this module will be interesting because it will contain useful observations and insights into everyday life at such workplaces.

NM4228: Crisis Communication

The lecturer for this module is Ms Bhavani Krishnasamy, one of the most famous communications practitioners in Singapore. She was involved in many of the most momentous occasions in Singapore's history like the terrorist takeover of flight SQ117, the mysterious crashing of SilkAir flight MI185, and the SARS and H1N1 pandemics. I also found this article from The Guardian which mentions her and the fact that her name made it from the little red dot all the way to the United Kingdom says it all. It's indeed very exciting to have the opportunity to hear from someone at the top of the field!

NM4230: Communication for Social Change

Pushing for change is an important human activity, in my opinion. Whether it's to overhaul an oppressive political system or get fair treatment for a group of underprivileged people, activism and lobbying are crucial in bringing about desirable changes to the world we live in. And having a concerted communication effort behind a social change campaign can be the difference between success and failure, since social change can only happen with enough public support. This module will draw on many examples of social change communications from various parts of the world to show how tools like social media and blogs can be used for activism.

NM4240: Risk Perception and Communication

So many people are out and about, heedless of the dangers posed by the coronavirus that is still lurking around. In other words, they are taking risks with their health and safety. When I was studying psychology in polytechnic, I was exposed to the works of Gerd Gigerenzer and enjoyed learning about his thoughts on how we perceive risk. I look forward to exploring this topic in greater depth because I believe we can easily see its effects in our lives, especially with the ongoing pandemic.

I'm happy to be wrapping up the educational phase of my life because it's getting a little stale and I want to go on to do other things already. There's a whole new world of experiences waiting for me out there!

 

That's all for now. Look out for my last set of module reviews ever  (!), out in January 2021.

 

Until then, stay at home as much as possible and wear a mask at all times when you're out of the house!

Module reviews for AY19/20 Semester 2: I hope I still remember how to do this...

It has literally been a year since my last module review on this blog, barring the internship review I published in January, which was for only one special module.

But I'm back in school now, to finish my Honours degree! Having had such a good time at my internship worksite (you can read all about it at the link above), I was a little sad at the resumption of life as a student, mainly because I feared for my bank balance without the steady stream of income I had gotten used to over the preceding few months.

It's hard to justify buying a jumbo pack of trash bags that your family has totally no use for (I legit did this during my internship because Gobbler visited GIC and sold the trash bags dirt cheap) when your account has very few digits in its total.

Anyway, something happened just before the semester started that sweetened the deal and made me happier to return to the academic life. I covered it here, but in short, a research methods module which was previously a graduation requirement was made optional for those who don't write a thesis. That's great for me, because I hate research and wasn't going to write a thesis.

So I could take modules that were more interesting and appealing to me. Let's review what they were and how they turned out.

NM4238: Software Studies

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, come prepared to discuss weekly assigned readings

Assessment:

One midterm essay and one final essay of roughly 3000 words each, broad topic will be defined but students are free to write anything within those boundaries = 55%
Weekly blog entries reflecting on the assigned readings + class participation = 45%

Lecturer: Associate Professor Lonce Wyse - 6/10

I think A/P Wyse knows his stuff. His fields of expertise are neural nets and artificial intelligence-generated art, and he can talk at length about them. He clearly loves them very much, which is kinda cute to be honest. Unfortunately, he's a real scatterbrain. I'm not sure if he even had a plan for the semester or was just making stuff up week by week. The assignments were quite free-and-easy, which was cool, but what was not cool was that the entire module felt so free-and-easy that it lacked structure and was just chaotic. His classroom management also left a lot to be desired. He aims for an open discussion-style of teaching, but instead lessons are filled with awkward pauses. Given that he's been in NUS like forever, he should know that we're not the most talkative bunch. We are far from those American chatterboxes you see on shows like High School Musical. It's up to our lecturers to manage our reticence and devise clever schemes to engage with us. That's why they're paid the big bucks. But he didn't do this.

Module: 6/10

I absolutely hated the first half of the module. It was full of philosophical mumbo-jumbo about software being a metaphor for the police and justice system, and programmers as being sexually deviant wizards (yes, the Harry Potter kind) who have fetishes for code instead of genitalia. I kid you not. Hand on heart, that's what I took away from the first few weeks of the semester, though I'll admit this is probably a big misunderstanding. The second half of the semester was much better, earning some marks from me and rescuing the module from a failing score. It was about ethical issues surrounding artificial intelligence as well as technological arts. At least those made sense to me. I mean, I can imagine why it's bad to let the government know your every movement through tracking your phone, and I can see how an artwork created by a machine learning algorithm is different from one that was created by a human.

NM4239: Digital Propaganda and Public Opinion

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, come prepared to discuss weekly assigned readings

Assessment:

Midterm take-home essay exam, questions are released on a specified date and students are given two days to submit a response = 20%
Propaganda in my life, individual assignment where you reflect on where you personally encounter propaganda, what kinds of propaganda you encounter, and how propaganda affects you = 15%
Leading discussion, pairs of students are assigned one of that week's readings to summarise and lead the class to discuss and engage with critically = 15%
Group project, a qualitative study using the in-depth interview method on how people perceive propaganda = 35%
Class attendance and participation = 15%

Lecturer: Assistant Professor Taberez Neyazi - 7/10

Dr Taberez could deliver his lessons smoothly and with little difficulty, though at times he would get a little too excited over what is clearly his pet topic and ramble on incoherently for longer than the average undergraduate's attention span at 9 o'clock in the morning. Re-read that sentence to get a feel of what I mean. His classroom management can also be improved. Specifically, if he would like students to have a lively discussion, he needs to figure out how to spark such a discussion into life beyond just begging people to say something or threatening to deduct participation marks. Otherwise there's just a lot of silence and shifty sidelong glances, followed by a reluctant throwaway point raised by one of the less apathetic members of the class.

Module: 8/10

The words "despair" and "hopeless" are what I would use to describe my feelings after learning about propaganda from this module. Propaganda is everywhere. It's an unstoppable force, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Basically, it's not a problem that can be fixed. The reason we study it is so that we, as individuals, can try to inoculate ourselves against it as best we can so that we don't end up being that Boomer who forwards "drink disinfectant to cure coronavirus" to 200 people on WhatsApp. I dunno if that's the effect we're supposed to experience after learning about propaganda, and somehow I don't think it is, but that's what it did for me, making my innards roil with confusion and conflict. But don't misunderstand: this module is certainly enlightening as it will open your eyes to the many forms propaganda can take, both online and offline. And that's certainly knowledge worth arming yourself with, especially in this terribly complex world we find ourselves in.

NM4247: Creative Writing in the Marketplace

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, broken down into about 1 hour of lecture and 2 hours of hands-on writing work and peer critique

Assessment:

Two micro-essays of around 500 words each, telling a personal story about a topic that will be given = 5% per micro-essay = 10%
Narrative arcs assignment, watch some videos and break the stories down into their essential components = 5%
Personal essay, telling a personal story of about 1000 words on any topic you want = 5% for a pitch, to be written like an email to an editor in which you try to convince them to publish your story + 20% for the story proper + 5% for three proposed Instagram posts telling the story in more social media-friendly form = 30%
Group project, write a script for a video advertisement = 30%
Class attendance and participation = 25%

Lecturer: Ms Jinny Koh - 8/10

As the published author of a full-length novel, Ms Koh has the right to teach this creative writing class. It's clear that she knows the nuts and bolts of a good story, and she was fairly capable of imparting that knowledge to us students, especially given that teaching isn't her real job and she was taking the class as a side gig. I felt she took the "workshopping" idea, where students were supposed to work on writing tasks in class and then comment on one another's products, a little too seriously at times. I much prefer the style where the instructor themself is the one to walk around the room and give personalised feedback to each individual student as they work on the writing tasks independently, as my NM2220 instructor did. Writing is a solo endeavour and doesn't quite lend itself to group activities, at least in my opinion.

Module: 8/10

I can see the value in having this module. Storytelling is an important part of the public relations toolbox. Indeed, it can be said that the entire act of public relations is telling a story. Certainly, a good story can be a powerful way to bring across a point. Just think of public awareness campaigns that have stuck with you: chances are, you remember them because they told you a story that resonated with you. This module succeeded in conveying the key lessons we need to know about storytelling, such as the structure of a narrative. We also had the chance to apply what we had learned through the video script assignment, which had us write a script for an advertisement promoting a brand or cause. This is a pretty good simulation of what storytelling will be used for in a real company. But a large chunk of time was spent on the personal essay assignment, which essentially got us to write a short story about an incident from our life. The relevance of this portion of the module to the industry wasn't clear enough.

NM4881A: Topics in Media Studies: Social Media

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, read weekly readings for some discussion but lecturer also includes other ad-hoc activities too

Assessment:

Two in-class quizzes = 10% + 15% = 25%
Forum posting, make 3 original posts (students will sign up for the weeks they will post on to avoid bunching) and 2 replies on the LumiNUS discussion forum based on the assigned readings = 20%
Leading discussion, each student group will choose two research articles outside the assigned readings to present and lead a class discussion on = 20%
Social media audit, each student group will pick an organisation to conduct a social media audit on and prepare a slide deck as if to present their findings to the organisation itself = 15%
Final paper and presentation, each student group will write a paper and give a presentation on any topic of their choice that is related to social media = 20%

Lecturer: Dr Kokil Jaidka - 9/10

Dr Jaidka is a newly minted academic. This was the first class she had ever taught as a full-time faculty member. I believe in rewarding effort and attitude, which is why she has received such high marks from me. Her teaching was not perfect. For one, she was disorganised. Assessment components were changing throughout the semester, and even during her weekly lessons, there were times when she seemed to lose her train of thought or not have a clear idea of what she wanted to do or say. But her heart is in the right place, as the cliché goes. Her communication with students was always open and honest. Indeed, one of the reasons why assessment components were changed frequently was because she was responding to student feedback in real time. I think when she was planning the module, she got carried away and went overboard with the amount of work she wanted to assign because she lacked the experience to have a sense of what load students can handle. But full credit to her for remedying the situation mid-course by lightening some of the requirements and being flexible with deadlines. She was also caring towards all her students. When the coronavirus situation started to turn threatening, she promptly and proactively took her lessons online to be delivered through Zoom, weeks before the university mandated it. Decisiveness like this is what will win the war against the pandemic. Her enthusiasm is also admirable and a pleasant change from her jaded senior colleagues. I enjoyed her random emails which showcased a sense of humour that I had previously thought only I possessed.

Module: 8/10

Given how deeply embedded into our everyday life social media is, it's useful to know some of the concepts taught in this module. For example, one of my LinkedIn connections keeps talking about this thing called the "strength of weak ties" when explaining why he accepts connection requests quite freely, but I had no idea what the "strength of weak ties" was until I took this module. Sociologist Mark Granovetter coined the theory, which encapsulates the idea that when you have many weak ties, you can receive more valuable information that is not available to those in your immediate network of close relations. In other words, weak ties act like bridges between ourselves and the outside world. You can think of a weak tie as an acquaintance or an online "friend" you've never met in real life, and a strong tie as someone you know personally. Social media is essentially a giant network connecting users together. Studying the nature of these connections forms the bulk of what social media studies is all about. This isn't a purely academic exercise: useful insights do emerge. For example, research suggests that the tactic of using influencers in marketing is not optimal. It is very rare to see any one individual influence many other people, and in fact 70% of conversations are generated by non-influential users. Many of our decisions are made when influenced by the people we are emotionally close to. So marketing should move away from using influencers, and try to tap on people's personal connections instead. As you can see, there are little nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout this module. In-class hands-on exercises also have students play with tools such as sentiment analysis algorithms and keyword monitoring programmes. These are practical skills which communications practitioners should probably have some experience with, especially those who are working in social media marketing jobs in the future. Why didn't this module get more marks from me? I felt there were too many assessment components. Removing one and redistributing its weightage among the others would restore balance. I would suggest scrapping the final group paper and presentation, then allocating 5% more to the social media audit to make it worth 20%, 10% more to the leading discussion component to bring it up to 30%, and 5% more to the first quiz to make both equivalent to 15% for a total of 30%.

This semester hasn't been a highlight of my university life, but it wasn't bad either. Amid the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, I'd say that all things considered, this semester went as decently as could reasonably be expected: just average, not outstanding for the right or wrong reasons. In the end, I utilised 5 out of the 10 modular credits of the special Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory allowance given by the university to cushion students against the psychological impact of the pandemic, by erasing the A- grade I got for NM4881A. As all my other module grades for the semester were either A's or A+'s, my cumulative average point inched up by 0.02 and now sits at 4.85, well above my graduation target of 4.00 upon 5 for an Honours with Distinction.

And there goes my second-last set of module reviews ever! Next semester will be my final one before I venture into the working world for good, which means the next set of module reviews, which should be up on this blog in the new year, will also be the last of their kind.

Doing the Honours: Returning to school to start my Honours Year in AY2019/20 Semester 2

I'm into my final year of formal education now. On 13 January 2020, I will begin my second-last semester as an NUS FASS student.

My ex-boss, who is also my boss-to-be come 2021 when I join the sovereign wealth fund GIC after graduation, has this advice for picking modules: learn how the world works.

Don't go learn how to write. Go learn about the world, do interesting things, read hard subjects, and then communicate about the world through your writing. Stop wasting time on Journalism School and Communications School, but if you're already knee-deep in it, then learn all the other hard and weird stuff on the side that will animate your writing.

~ Jason Leow, former journalist at The Straits Times and current managing director of communications at GIC and chairman of the Speak Good English Movement. For the record, he did not study journalism at university. He majored in literature at NUS.

So with this in mind, I set about picking modules for the new semester that are more conceptual and worldly rather than vocational and specific. At the same time, I don't like modules that deal with topics that are too abstract. I like to be able to see the relevance of what I am learning in class to reality. I think I managed to strike a good balance with this selection of modules.

Note: All modules are worth 5MCs, graded with standard letter grades, and delivered through weekly three-hour seminars. Regular students can acquire them on the ModReg system, with priority given to CNM majors in SOC4. I was preallocated my modules by the Dean's Office due to my status as a disabled student.

NM4239: Digital Propaganda and Public Opinion
This is one of the "conceptual and worldly" modules. Others were available too, such as one about racial representation in the media and another about sex in the media. But those are not really interesting to me, being confined to niche activists' areas of concern. This module is more interesting because it deals with social and political affairs, which are current, particularly with the General Election around the corner, and affect all of us. Informed citizens should have some understanding of how external parties, especially in this day and age of social media, influence our decisions on hot-button issues and maybe even change our minds without us knowing.

NM4247: Creative Writing in the Marketplace
According to the description on LumiNUS, this module teaches students "the importance of narratives and the techniques of crafting them through personal essays" as well as how to "apply what they have learnt to a narrative video script for a brand or cause". In other words, it's about storytelling, not for the sake of spinning fairytales but for strategic brand-building. This is my indulgence as it is not quite the "conceptual and worldly" module that I should be taking if I follow Jason's advice strictly, but I chose it because I think I will like it and have fun with it.

NM4881A: Topics in Media Studies: Social Media
Another "conceptual and worldly" module I picked for this semester is what I would call the "dark" (or Darth, if you're a Star Wars fan) NM2203. Where NM2203 is all about how you can use social media effectively to build your brand, NM4881A is stuffed with weighty, and at times depressing, observations about how social media impacts, and is in turn impacted by, us as individuals and, on a larger scale, the world around us. In other words, it is about the effects of social media on people and society. With social media being part of our everyday lives, I can see why this knowledge is important and relevant.

NM4238: Software Studies
This is a "conceptual and worldly" module from the realm of computational social science. Rather than looking at software from a technological perspective, such as analysing how a programme or application is coded, it examines the impact of technological developments and computerisation, such as remote working, Bitcoin, and the increasingly powerful devices we carry in our pockets, on people and society through the lens of the humanities and social sciences. Ultimately, human beings are the consumers and end-users of technology, so it is vital to be aware of the possible implications of such technology on human health, happiness, and relationships.

My CAP stands at 4.82. The highest Honours class I can obtain is Distinction (formerly known as Second Upper Class), because I decided against writing a thesis and as a result am barred from obtaining Highest Distinction (formerly known as First Class). It was a trade-off I made willingly because I abhor research and couldn't fathom spending a year of my short life slaving away over some inconsequential manuscript whose only destiny is to lie in a corner somewhere collecting dust. What sweetened the deal was the recent announcement that effective from my cohort (Cohort 2017) onwards, NM4102: Advanced Communications & New Media Research is no longer a graduation requirement for all CNM Honours students. It is now compulsory only for those writing an Honours thesis or, restated in formal terms, NM4102 is a pre- and co-requisite for NM4401 Honours Thesis. What that means for me is that I can escape from doing research completely and still get my Honours! Several senior colleagues at my internship worksite assured me that there's not much difference to employers between a Highest Distinction and a Distinction, so I went ahead and threw out both NM4401 and NM4102 from my considerations.

As I was on internship for the past half-year, I haven't had to do academic work for quite a while now. Strangely, I kind of miss it because it has been a constant feature in my life and I am the type of person who prefers the familiar. I look forward to the new semester and all the interesting modules I'll be taking with great excitement!

Module review for AY19/20 Semester 1: NM3550Y Communications & New Media Internship

From 22 July 2019 to 6 December 2019, I was an intern at GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, as part of the Compulsory Internship Programme (CIP), a graduation requirement for all students majoring in Communications & New Media (CNM). I was posted to the Human Resource & Organization Department (HROD) for 10 weeks and the Corporate Affairs & Communications (CAC) department for 10 weeks. My work in HROD mainly involved generating content for internal communication. At CAC, I supported routine news monitoring tasks and created posts and feature articles for the company intranet and LinkedIn page.

Life was busy enough that I was constantly patting myself on the back for having the foresight to clear all my other graduation requirements by the end of the preceding semester, freeing myself to focus solely on the internship. If I hadn't bitten the bullet and taken six modules, one more than the recommended five, in a few previous semesters to rack up the credits, I would've had to take iBLOCs (Internal Blended Learning Online Courses) to ensure that I would be able to graduate on time. That would have added lots of stress and I would probably not have had such a good time during my internship.

As it stands, I took just the internship module this semester. Here's the usual review.

NM3550Y: Communications & New Media Internship

MCs: 12 - mandatory for all CNM majors, to be taken in ARS3

Delivery:

20 weeks of full-time employment at an external organisation, doing work that is relevant to CNM

Assessment:

Pre-departure online multiple-choice quiz based on a series of short lecture videos about the internship programme = 5%
Preliminary report introducing the employer, job scope, and expectations for the internship = 10%
Mid-semester portfolio reflecting on the values of the organisation and soft skills required to thrive in the job = 25%
Final report consolidating the content from the preliminary and mid-semester reports and new insights, learning points, and reflections + presentation slides summarising the final report with photos, illustrations, and diagrams + fill up the module survey sent by the CIP team to gather student feedback = 40%
Worksite supervisor's feedback = 20%

Module: 9/10

This is a very important module in the context of CNM. Communications and interactive media are very "active" disciplines. Practitioners don't sit around all day talking theories. They get down and dirty, hammering out products that are real, tangible, and can be perceived by other people. For example, public relations professionals write news releases and generate media coverage for their clients. User interface designers create applications that are easy for laypeople to use. An internship is an invaluable opportunity for CNM students to get on-the-job training and learn practical hard and soft skills that they wouldn't be able to in a classroom. For this reason alone, the CIP is well worth having as an integral part of the CNM curriculum.

One area for improvement is in the assessment components. I find it very inexplicable that as interns, we faithfully plug away at our jobs day in and day out, but can only get recognised for our work performance with a possible maximum of 20% of our total grade. This means that even if an intern does everything right and the supervisor is very happy, the intern can score only up to 20% of the total marks available for the module. The other 80% is determined by three written reports. I'm not doubting the importance of reflecting on one's learning experiences, but I think the weightages of the various components can be tweaked a bit. The supervisor's feedback should account for 40%, and the preliminary report can be removed and the weightage for the mid-semester report brought down to 20%. The final report can stay at 40%, as it guides the interns to consolidate everything they have gleaned from the internship. My principle behind this rearrangement is that interns are out there to learn in a real world setting, so they should be rewarded accordingly for good performance in that real world setting. When these interns are back in school and take on the role of being students again, they have plenty of opportunities to write reports. There's no need to place such a heavy emphasis on report-writing in this practice-oriented, experiential module.

My worksite: 10/10

The rest of this post will recap my personal journey as I embarked on my 20-week stint in GIC. GIC is Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, which basically means it invests money that the government has saved over the years. The aim is to grow these government savings, which are actually called the reserves, so that there will be enough money for the future.

Obviously, I am not trained in investment or finance, so I didn't do any of the actual moneymaking. Instead, I worked in the corporate services side of the company, which supports the investment side by taking care of things like recruitment, wellbeing, technology, and communication with the public and other stakeholders. I was rotated among three teams.

First, I helped the Graduate Recruitment team draft new materials for their outreach activities. The Graduate Recruitment team, a part of HROD, is in charge of attracting interns and fresh graduates to join the company. They administer three main programmes:

• GIC Scholarship Programme (full-term and mid-term): offers sponsorship for undergraduate degree courses and internship and mentorship opportunities with GIC
• GIC Internship Programme: a 10-week summer internship for undergraduates which also serves as a selection method for potential GIC Scholarship holders and/or full-time employees after graduation
• GIC Professionals Programme: fresh graduates can join the company under this programme, where they will be given intensive training and rotation through three departments in the company to identify the area in which they can contribute the most (other companies have similar programmes, often called "management associate" or "management trainee" programmes)

More details HERE.

Second, I assisted the Rewards & Engagement team, another part of HROD, in their employee engagement efforts. My favourite project was writing features on employees with interesting stories to tell. For example, there were some who were juggling between work commitments and taking care of their ageing parents. I interviewed them to find out more about their lives, and wrote about their experiences and reflections in a short series of articles for the rest of the company to read. I was humbled and inspired by the realisation that behind every single one of the colleagues I saw each day was a person I didn't see: a dedicated parent, a filial child, a loving spouse. And I then saw the logic behind many of the pro-family policies that GIC offers its staff. For example, staff can use the flexible work arrangements to fulfill both family care duties and job commitments. Working mothers who need to carry out minor child-minding errands outside the office can do so throughout the day whenever they need to, without having to waste entire days of their annual leave.

My third rotation was with CAC, the department which deals with all of GIC's communications with external parties such as the news media and directly with Singaporeans through social media. CAC also supports internal communications efforts, for instance by administering the company intranet and producing interesting features for employees to watch or read.

This was my longest and most intensive rotation because it was most directly related to my course of study. I learned many things during this part of my internship.

For one, I developed a sense of responsibility. Every morning, I had to push out the daily news monitoring report to the senior management of the company which compiled and summarised the important news stories about the company that had been published during the preceding 24 hours. This is considered a basic, entry-level skill in the corporate communications world (the industry name for this process is "media monitoring"). But nonetheless, screwing up and incurring the wrath of any of the head honchos, such as if they had noticed that I had missed out on an important piece of news, would've been tremendously embarrassing for me, my bosses, and the department as a whole as that daily report is one of the key products of the department. It was a nerve-racking burden at first, but I gradually grew into the role and by the end, I felt a sense of ownership over it and was sad to relinquish it. I learned to trust in the system that had been built to facilitate the process, my colleagues who were supervising the process, and most importantly myself to execute my part of the process correctly.

My work also required me to correspond with people from all levels of the company, including managing directors. On one occasion, I even exchanged comments on Yammer, a Facebook-like platform for enterprises, with the Chief Executive Officer himself! From these experiences, I learned not to be intimidated by rank and to view everyone as humans first and foremost.

And that to me was my biggest takeaway from this internship: confidence. In the context of work-related tasks, this refers to the ability to say "Yes, I can" and mean it. I can write articles that people enjoy reading. I can analyse a piece of text, catch mistakes, and make it better. As a disabled person, realising that there are things I can do well is an empowering feeling. It sounds cliched but it's true.

In the context of interpersonal relations, confidence means the courage to interact and talk to people I'm not familiar with. Because if I don't interact and talk to people I'm not familiar with, I'll never become familiar with them, right? My colleagues in CAC and HROD started off as strangers to me, but through a combination of their warm and welcoming nature and my own determination to overcome my initial shyness, I eventually opened up to them and now consider them friends.

To end off this post, let me just say that I will be returning to the CAC department at GIC on a permanent, full-time basis in 2021 after I graduate from NUS. It was an easy decision for me to accept their offer. The employment terms they offered me were fair and I appreciated that they didn't try to (pardon my coarseness) screw me over with a lowball salary just because I'm disabled. Just as they did during my internship, they treated me no differently from a normal staff member. Never was I made to feel like merely an intern, or worse, a disabled intern. I was allowed to contribute my fair share, and was in turn given my fair share of rewards and recognition. I got along well with my CAC teammates, so truly, there was no compelling reason not to agree to go back.

My result for the module: A+

A very unusual AY2019/20 Semester 1: I won't be on campus at all

As per my usual practice, this post is to look ahead to the coming semester.

But there are two differences this time.

First, this post has appeared a bit earlier than its predecessors. Previously I would write a post like this a few days before the start of the semester. The coming semester starts in August. I'm a month early!

Actually I'm not. The coming "semester" for me starts next Monday, 22 July. I'll be reporting for my first day of work at my internship worksite, where I'll be spending the next six months.

Second, this post would usually contain a preview of the modules I have secured for the coming semester through bidding or pre-allocation. But there's no more bidding, that system having been scrapped in favour of an algorithmic allocation system starting from the coming semester.

Besides, there's nothing much to preview in terms of modules. There's just the one:

NM3550Y: Communications & New Media Internship
Number of MCs: 12
Grading: Standard letter grades, not eligible for S/U due to being level-3000

This module represents the compulsory internship that all Communications & New Media (CNM) students must complete in order to graduate. It is not registered for in ModReg. Rather, the department will send out a survey midway through every semester, and students who want to go on the internship the following semester must indicate their intention to do so in the survey form. The department will then hold a briefing to guide students on securing a worksite for the internship. Assessment is conducted through the submission of three written reports via LumiNUS at various points during the internship. There is also a component where the intern is assessed by their supervisor.

My internship worksite is GIC, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore. Oh no, I know next to nothing about economics and finance! But it's okay. I will mostly be doing work in human resources and communications, which are support functions that have little to do with business. Besides, if I don't understand some business concept that I need to know in order to do my job, I can always ask. I'm there to learn, after all.

Although I'm nervous about whether I'll be able to adapt to and cope with a new environment, culture, and set of expectations, I take solace in the fact that I had wisdom and foresight when I opted to overload my previous semester so that I don't have to take evening modules during my internship just to keep up with my graduation schedule. I made sure that I have enough credits to graduate (if I want the basic degree) after completing this internship, so I only have to devote my full attention to this internship and I'll be all set (but I will stay on to complete the extra set of requirements for the Honours degree).

This blog

Like in previous semesters, I have written posts in advance which will be released automatically according to a schedule set by me. From 16 August onwards, a post will be published every fortnight. Each post will break down one chapter from The Singlish Controversy by Professor Lionel Wee, my favourite nonfiction book of all time.

I have two parents

This may come as a shock to people who only have a hi-bye relationship with me. After all, they only ever lay eyes upon my father, who is always with me as he is my full-time caregiver.

But it's true: I have a mother too.

In other words, my family is not an atypical one.

Read that sentence again so you fully understand it.

I had to structure it in such a mangled way so as to avoid being labelled insensitive towards people who grew up in single-parent families or orphans.

That's the political correctness movement for you. It's troublesome for everyone.

Anyway, I decided to make a post on this just to clear the air and make sure people don't get the wrong impression of the kind of family I have.

Okay, there's actually another reason: My mother has had a very interesting life and I want to tell some of her stories here.

No, I didn't ask for her permission. When she sees this post, she will get an unpleasant surprise at the violation of her privacy. Then she will frown and growl at me, two seconds after which all will be forgotten. So no worries, all's well that ends well.

Story #1: One person's trash...

I followed in my mother's footsteps when I decided on getting my degree from the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS).

A testament to how disgustingly old the FASS buildings are is the fact that they are in exactly the same state as they were when she was studying there in the 1500s1980s. They have not been refurbished at all. Even the doors haven't changed. The ones along the third floor corridor in the first block still have their trademark oval windows and counterintuitive handles that unlock only when you pull them up instead of pushing them down.

My mother majored in English and Sociology. Obviously she no longer has the faintest idea what either of them are. I learned some linguistics in FASS but was disappointed when I mentioned concepts like "Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness" to her and was met with glassy eyes. When I complained that these are basic sociolinguistic theories that she should know if she had been any kind of decent student, she retorted that those concepts didn't exist during her time. Yeah, right.

If I have made my mother appear like somewhat of a dullard, I do apologise. Actually, no I don't. Because the fact is that she is a dullard. No better anecdote illustrates this than the tale of the Honours fiasco.

The story goes that she was offered the chance to take up an extra one-year Honours programme which would have allowed her to upgrade her basic Bachelor's degree to a Bachelor with Honours, a symbol of academic prowess which goes some way in impressing employers, friends, and the neighbourhood stray.

She received a letter inviting her to opt in. After careful consideration which consisted solely of an unquestioning acceptance of my father's (who was then just some random guy from the same church) two cents, she declined the university's offer in favour of graduating immediately to begin what she thought would be a glorious career as a banker. (No, not the type that makes a lot of money. Don't be daft! How can an Arts graduate get that kind of job? We're lucky if we don't end up in McDonald's. In this case, the word "banker" simply refers to someone who works in a bank. My mother was one of those poor sods who sit behind the counter and talk to whiny customers all day for a living.)

Most people would hesitate at this juncture, gripping onto the offer letter from the university with white-knuckled fists and second-guessing themselves. Even if they didn't eventually change their minds about not doing the Honours programme, they would probably keep the offer letter for posterity. Not everyone got the chance to enroll in the Honours programme after all, so it was kind of a big deal for those who did.

But my mother is a remarkably unflappable woman. Having made her decision to go into banking, she casually folded the offer letter into a neat little square, dropped it into the nearest dustbin, and sauntered off without a care in the world. No second thoughts, no looking back. It took her decades to realise that she should have kept that offer letter so she could prove to employers that her lack of Honours was by choice and not because she couldn't make it into the programme. But of course by then there was nothing she could do about it. The paper probably decomposed years before her epiphany.

My mother certainly isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, as we have now seen. But we have also seen that she is calm by nature. She has good emotional skills, allowing her to work well with difficult human beings such as the mentally ill, barbarians, and irascible men. Perhaps this is why she has found a decent measure of success in the preschool industry, where she has been for the past twenty years and now works as a senior teacher at a very expensive childcare centre for snobbish expatriates. I, on the other hand, wouldn't last a day in a preschool. Kids are such hateful creatures that I'd probably wring one of their necks before lunchtime and get frog-marched away to jail in disgrace.

I like to think that I'm a nice blend of both of my parents. My head comes from my father and my heart comes from my mother. Sure, some bits got lost along the way. For example, I can't manage other people's emotions as well as my mother can. She can calm people down with a soothing word. In contrast, I can barely manage myself and often get into trouble because of my impulsiveness. But overall, I think I got most of the best parts from each side of my parentage.

Story #2: Guts and glory

Very few people know this, but my mother is completely devoid of reproductive organs. Wait, before you jump to conclusions, no I'm not adopted. She had reproductive organs when she made me but subsequently lost them.

You see, she had had an ovarian cyst many years ago which was supposedly treated by the surgical removal of the affected ovary. But just when Singapore was in the throes of ecstasy over its Golden Jubilee, a routine scan to check for cancer revealed cysts all over her reproductive organs. Further investigation yielded a shocking discovery: the ovary which was supposed to have been removed years ago was still there! Action had to be taken swiftly or the cysts might have mutated into cancer.

So on 9 December 2015, she underwent a laparoscopic total hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. In English, that means the surgeon made small punctures in her belly, threaded a camera on a stick through one of the holes and some small grabber arms through the others, tore my mother's cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries into manageable chunks, and yanked the pieces of viscera out through her birth canal.

Because her ovaries were abruptly removed, cutting off the supply of a very important chemical called estrogen, my mother immediately went into a critical state known to medical professionals as menopause. She began monopolising the fan at home, complaining about hot flashes which are apparently a side effect of this affliction. Given Singapore's hot and humid climate, my father and I felt the loss of the fan keenly. We each shed about 70 pounds in water weight over the few months before my mother's body restored equilibrium within itself.

This is just the most dramatic and exciting run-in out of a slew of encounters my mother has had with doctors. She drew the genetic short straw when it comes to diseases, unfortunately. Her bladder literally bleeds into her urine. There is a blood vessel in her bladder wall that, by some genetic abnormality, leaks tiny amounts of red blood cells into the bladder itself. And she has had plastic lenses embedded in both eyes because her original ones turned cloudy due to a condition called cataract and had to be replaced. She still has to go for regular eye checks though, because she has another condition called glaucoma which may lead to vision loss in old age.

I, too, have had my fair share of experiences with doctors because of my ailment. But this post isn't about me so those stories won't be found here. Maybe next time.

Before then though, let me just reiterate the most important point in this entire post:
I have a pair of parents. We are a well-adjusted little family of three. Just because you don't see the third member doesn't mean there isn't one.

My experience writing for TODAYonline

Quotable quotes

On my writing skills:
"Jonathan has a flair for writing." ~ Ms Pillai, my Primary 1 form teacher
"You have a nice voice. Don't ever lose it." ~ Mr Ong, an English teacher at my secondary school
"You have a very precious gift. You should do something with it." ~ Dr Tan, ex-university lecturer

On seizing chances for personal development as a student:
"Sometimes opportunities can appear in the most unexpected of places, like in your student inbox." ~ Ms Chia, speaker at a polytechnic scholarship ceremony

It came on 24 September 2018, the recess week of Semester 1 of the 2018/19 academic year, from the Communications and New Media (CNM) department's general office.

"Read your own articles on TODAY!" blared the subject line.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) email server is notorious for being a spam delivery service, and I delete 75% of the emails I get, but this one stopped my finger dead in its tracks before it could press the trash can button.

First, my ego shouted: "That sounds awesome! You could become famous!"

Then, my more rational side said: "This could be a good opportunity for you to practise your public writing, and have some published works to show to potential employers."

Finally, a small but insistent voice, which is the truest version of myself, nagged at me: "Got money or not?" (English translation: Will you get paid?)

Intrigued, I opened the email.

"Are you an avid writer?" it began.

Yes, I am, I thought, reminded of this blog which I love tending to.

"Do you have a story dying to be shared with the world?" it continued.

This gave me pause. I have quite a humdrum existence. Then I remembered that the whole idea of storytelling skills, the most important for communications practitioners, is to make something seem exciting even if it's not. I resolved to squeeze out a good story from somewhere.

I read on.

"TODAY wants to hear from you! As part of TODAY’s efforts to diversify its reader pool, it wants more user-generated content from youth like yourself! Put your passion for a cause – be it climate change, education, public transport, of politics – into words; raise awareness of your pet topics, and inspire action! Share with us your op-eds, commentaries, letters, or even photography and videography work which you know will resonate among fellow young readers."

Bingo. I had my story.

At that time, I was volunteering for a group that rescues rabbits. This fit the theme of "passion for a cause". I decided to write something about that.

I also decided, after much deliberation, to depart from my usual policy of not playing the disability card. Previously, I had never enjoyed highlighting the fact that I am disabled and only did so when absolutely necessary, such as to get assistance or accommodations that I really needed.

But I realised that being disabled gives me a huge leg up (figuratively, of course, since my actual legs haven't been "up" for many years now) when it comes to crafting compelling narratives.

Most of the time it's compelling because it evokes pity, which I hate. Sometimes it's compelling because people find it inspiring, which I also don't like as I explain in my fifth commentary (see below). But I'm not going to let my pet peeves get in the way of a good story. If people want to pity me or get inspired by me, they are welcome to do so as long as they read my writing and enjoy it.

With that settled, I sat down (I didn't actually do this, because I was already in a seated position) to write. A few hours later (when I am seized with writing frenzy, I can be extremely productive), I had a draft.

I sent the draft to the CNM general office. A couple of days later, I was linked up with the editor in charge of commentaries at TODAYonline.

Lineage

Let me digress a little bit here. Many years ago, before smartphones killed the radio star, TODAY used to be a printed newspaper. I used to be a loyal reader, because it was tabloid-sized and easier for me to handle compared to the broadsheet Straits Times.

Since those days, TODAY has always had very interesting and insightful op-eds. It used to run regular humour columns by Mr Brown and Neil Humphreys, two of the most popular bloggers in Singapore at that time. And I particularly loved the weekly commentaries by a Sri Lankan airline pilot called Mr Elmo (I can't remember the surname), not only because I was crazy about the Sesame Street character of the same name but also because I still harboured fanciful childhood dreams of a flying career back then and greatly enjoyed reading his anecdotes of life in the cockpit.

Then smartphones came along and hardcopy advertising went out of vogue. TODAY lost a big chunk of revenue and couldn't afford to be printed anymore, so it became a digital newspaper. In the last couple of years before it discontinued the print version, it was obvious that it was in trouble as editorial standards became almost non-existent. Here's an example that I spotted and wrote about on Facebook:

So now there are no more physical copies of TODAY. It's all online. But what hasn't changed is the quality of its commentaries, which are still excellent. The fact that I have had the chance to partake in this excellence fills me with pride and gratitude.

First story

Okay, let's get back to talking about the editor. He got in touch with me and told me that my submission was okay but needed some work before it could be published. I was expecting that, because I'm not deluded enough to believe that my writing has absolutely no room for improvement.

We worked together to brush up the piece. This involved trimming it down to a length that people are willing to read all the way to the end (not like this blog entry, which is way too long), putting in elements such as key learning points that make it worth people's time to read, and eliminating clunky and awkward phrasing. Gradually, it shaped up and was published on 28 October 2018.

Through the experience, I realised that having an editor can turn a good piece of writing into a magical one. Until then I had only ever had my writing critiqued by my university instructor Dr Tan, whose quote I featured at the start of this blog post. But those were class assignments. This was real.

An analogy would be diamonds. Writers are like the miners who dig the diamonds out of the ground. The diamonds are nice, but their full value is not yet unlocked. Editors are like the craftsmen who grind and cut the diamonds until they glisten and sparkle, allowing the full value of the diamonds to be unlocked.

Stalker alert

I like to know as much as I can about new people I come across. Euphemistically, I like to borrow a piece of praise that Dr Tan once blessed me with and say "I have a nose for news", but honestly I'm just kaypoh (English translation: busybody).

As is my usual practice, I started poking around for information on this editor that I had just gotten to know. He is a hard man to track down, which is not surprising since he shares the same name as a famous fictional spy with amnesia. Apart from work-related matters like his LinkedIn page and articles by him, there were not many traces of him in cyberspace aside from an abandoned Twitter profile and a feature about his career on the website of his alma mater. One thing I did learn from an old photo I unearthed was that he is a spitting image of Donnie Yen, the action movie star best known for his role as the titular character in the Ip Man martial arts film franchise.

That's all I shall say about this. I respect him and don't want to inadvertently dox him. He obviously values his privacy. Also, he is going to read this blog post and I don't want to make him angry or he won't want to talk to me anymore.

The next story

After my first story was published, a second soon followed on 11 November 2018.

It came about because at that time, there was some debate in the media about the effectiveness of tertiary education in preparing students for work, and comparisons were being made between junior colleges, polytechnics, and universities.

Who better to contribute to the discussion than a student? Not only was I a university student, I had previously studied at a polytechnic. This was a non-traditional path, as the convention is to go from a junior college to a university. Polytechnic students are thought to be less academically inclined and not as suited to university education.

So I wanted to share my view: Polytechnic students are equally deserving of being in a university. It's not true that we cannot cope with academic rigour. Many of us get into university and thrive. And because our polytechnic background imparts us with skills that a background in junior college doesn't, enlightened employers know that we are better able to function right out of the box.

Money face

One of the most awesome things about writing for TODAYonline is getting paid. I am a freelancer with a contract that stipulates that I am paid for each published piece.

This is great for two reasons:

1. I retain full control over my life. When I have time and feel like it, I write and get paid. If I'm busy or just lazy, I have the freedom to simply not write and get no money.
2. For someone who previously had zero income other than handouts from relatives, being able to earn money is extremely empowering. It means I can go shopping, a pastime that I enjoy very much.

The third and fourth

As I mentioned, the freelance arrangement with TODAYonline allows me to slack off whenever I want to. This was what happened over the few months as 2018 made way for 2019. I didn't write anything during that period, and I didn't get paid.

But soon, I got antsy to write again. Schoolwork gets tiresome if it isn't interrupted with other activities. I can't go play sports or hang out, so writing things other than academic essays is what I turn to for leisure.

Also, it dawned on me that my internship application was drawing near. Having as many published pieces as possible might help me make a stronger case to employers.

I seized on a trending topic at the time: the rising trend of social media vigilantism. As a CNM student, I reasoned that I had the credibility to write about it.

The piece was published on 17 February 2019.

Schoolwork consumed my life over the following few months. I was trying to clear all my graduation requirements before going on the internship so I had overloaded the semester, taking more modules than normal. And I also had to juggle the task of looking for an internship placement that I liked and would accept me and my disability.

When the semester ended, I was free to go back to writing. I took a couple of weeks off to play computer games and refresh my mind first, then threw myself into the task.

My fourth piece came out on 16 June 2019. It was a blockbuster, if I say so myself. The cover photo, which my mother took using my smartphone one night upon my instructions, featured me lying in bed in my pyjamas and wearing my ventilator. Such an attention-grabbing visual was sure to attract people to click on the article, and they did so in droves. According to the editor, the article had five times more than the average view count for commentaries. The topic was death and the emotional impact meant that it was widely shared and generated quite a lot of buzz online. It even got me invited onto radio and television programmes. But I declined them because I am really, really slow on my feet and stammer a lot when talking. My best work is done in front of a computer with all the time in the world to think of what I want to say.

Playing with the big boys

Hot on the heels of the fourth was the fifth, published on 5 July 2019.

It's special to me because it was the first time I was "promoted" to the "grownups area". My previous commentaries had all been published under Sunday's Gen Y Speaks column, which features younger writers and topics that are more youth-centric such as personal reflections, travel, and entrepreneurship. But this one was published on a Friday, where non-youth commentaries like those on economics or social issues usually appear. I felt honoured that the editor saw fit to give me a place together with the adults.

The piece was about how I don't mind people calling me a "disabled/handicapped person" but dislike it when they say I'm an inspiration. It wasn't spurred by any particular person or incident, but rather a buildup of many times being told how inspiring I am, which upsets me, as well as hearing the oft-repeated exhortation from "advocates" and "experts" who are not disabled themselves to anyone who will listen not to use "disabled person" and instead use "person with disability", which I find pointless and daft.

Continuing the trend of good performance from the previous piece, this one got twice the number of views compared to the average for commentaries.

To infinity and beyond

What's next? There probably won't be as many new pieces from me in the coming months, if at all. I'll be concentrating on my internship so my weekdays will be burned. Weekends will be reserved for recuperating and dealing with the reports that I have to submit to my university as part of the internship assessment requirements.

But I will always come back to TODAYonline. It gave me a chance, and my first break into actually writing for public consumption. Besides, I like my editor very much. He's a straightforward, no-bullshit kind of guy, which I appreciate especially in this world full of snakes.

The money, of course, seals the deal!

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.