Module reviews for AY17/18 Semester 2

Well, how time flies. I'm only a year into my university education and already I'm halfway to a B.A. degree, thanks to polytechnic exemptions. I got into the meat of my chosen major, Communications and New Media, this semester, and am confident that I picked the right one. This semester was also notable because I took two modules in which my batch was the pioneering cohort, CFG2001 and GET1031A.

Here are the module reviews for this semester. I noticed that the academic-related posts on my blog seem to far outperform all the other types of posts. It's probably an #Asian thing. We do take our schooling very seriously! Nevertheless, I'm a little bit sad that hardly anyone reads my other posts which are so chockfull of my trademark sharp wit and candour. Never mind, I'll import said sharp wit and candour into these module reviews instead! Get ready for a laugh a minute as you go through the rest of this piece, but rest assured that everything I've written is totally true and I didn't make anything up.

CFG2001: Career Catalyst

MCs: 2 for Unrestricted Elective

Delivery:

2 face-to-face workshops, in Week 1 and Week 8
6 e-seminar videos

Assessment:

Attend the two workshops and watch all six videos on IVLE (yes, they can track this) = 15%
Reflective learning essay in which you complete some personality tests and attend two career-related events organised by CFG and think about what you have gained from these experiences = 35%
Your resume, cover letter, and interview pitch = 30%
Career roadmap which is essentially an overview of your takeaways from the module = 20%

Overall rating: 8/10

General comments:

This was the first run of this module and it even made the news. Compared to CFG1010 Roots and Wings, which was kind of fluffy, Career Catalyst is much more practical and teaches actual jobseeking skills like how to craft a resume and cover letter, and deal with interview questions like the dreaded "Tell me about yourself." Oh, it's graded on a CS/CU basis by the way, so your CAP will be safe. Besides, the 2MC from this module matches with the 2MC from Roots and Wings to bring your MC total back to a multiple of 4, which is easier for tracking your graduation requirements. The time commitment for this module is also really low. So instead of asking why you should take this module, you should be asking "Why not?" Note: I received an email on 22 May that seems to imply that this module is being recoded as CFG1002 Career Catalyst 2.0. If you cannot find it under the old title, try searching using this one. Note number 2: I see from the Centre for Future-Ready Graduates website that CFG1010 Roots and Wings is no more. Incoming freshmen count yourselves lucky that you won't have this weird neither-here-nor-there module rammed down your throats!

FAS1102: Public Writing and Communication

MCs: 4 - compulsory Written Expression and Communication module for FASS students

Delivery:

Weekly student notes and homework
Weekly 2-hour tutorial

Assessment:

Blog, in which three or four students write one post each about a common social issue = 35%
Presentation, 15 minutes long, done in the same group as the blog and on the same topic = 35%
Reflection letter, summary of what you have learned from the module = 10%
Participation, in tutorials and completing the homework tasks that do not have a grading component of their own = 20%

Tutor: Ms Christalla Havadjia - 8/10

She did her best given how deeply flawed the design of the module is. At times, I thought she tried a bit too hard to force an element of interactivity into the tutorials. For example, there was an exercise in which we had to rewrite sentences that were too difficult for readers to understand. Simple enough task, but she asked us to get into groups and discuss. I'm still mystified as to what there was to discuss in such a straightforward matter. But don't get me wrong. She's a nice lady with a pleasant personality.

Module: 6/10

Not everyone may agree with me but I think this is a very poorly designed module. The emphasis is so heavy on persuasion. In fact, the whole module can be summarised as "Pick a social issue, write a blog and give a presentation to convince people to support you." But this is too narrow a definition of public communication. Lots of other types of writing and speaking fall under the umbrella of communicating with the public. For example, giving instructions to a layperson or explaining a complicated process to someone who is not an expert. I would think these are equally important because at the end of the day, communication is about transmitting knowledge from one person to another. Another bugbear I have with the module is that the blog and presentation parts of the assessment together make up a huge proportion of the final grade, and they are done in a group. I have two issues with this. Firstly, given that the topic is about a social issue, I don't think it's fair to make everyone in a group work on a single issue because everyone will have different causes that they're passionate about. Secondly, the skills that are being taught and tested, writing and speaking, are individual in nature. Granted, the marking rubrics do have components where students in a group are graded separately, but the whole module should be individual, in my opinion. Can you imagine the chaos that will ensue if they made FAS1101 Writing Academically a group project?

GEQ1000: Asking Questions

MCs: 4 - compulsory General Education

Delivery:

E-lectures, every two-week block is dedicated to one topic and there are six topics in total
2-hour tutorials on alternate weeks

Assessment:

Quizzes on IVLE based on the e-lectures and required readings = 29%
Post smart-sounding comments on the forum at least six times spread throughout the semester = 14%
Engineering short paper = 6%
Design a wallet = 6%
Fold a piece of origami involving at least 30 steps = 1% (yes, 1, not 10, this is not a typo)
Final paper to reflect on everything you have learned = 14%
Attend and participate in the five face-to-face tutorials = 30%

Tutor: Mr Daryl Li - 8/10

Not a bad tutor. He makes his own slides to help us break down the important concepts from each lecture segment, and comes up with his own tutorial activities which are sometimes better than the template ones given by the professors. He also knows what's important and doesn't harp on individual facts or big words like "phenomenology", but rather focuses on the key life lessons behind them like being open to having your beliefs shattered by contradictory evidence so as not to be stuck with faulty worldviews propped up by the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to seek evidence in favour of your point and reject all opposing evidence. I think he can afford to be a little more aggressive in calling out the less participative members of the class during discussions. Some people just need that extra push to speak up.

Module: 7/10

One look at the assessment components listed above and you can immediately tell that this module is the result of a methamphetamine-fuelled schizophrenic chihuahua puppy's fever dream. The module is supposed to teach you about asking questions and it certainly succeeds as you'll be asking yourself again and again: "What the hell am I actually doing?" The multidisciplinary nature of the module also poses some difficulties for the tutors. Everyone can only be an expert in one area, so when it comes to the tutorials for the other fields, those who are not trained in them will struggle. For example, my tutor has a Master's degree in philosophy. When the economics segment rolled around and he was trying to explain the pitfalls in social science research, he promptly put his foot in his mouth by saying "halo effect" when he really meant "social desirability effect". And who can blame him? They don't talk about such things in philosophy, I'm sure. But that's not to say the module isn't enjoyable. The learning activities can be pretty fun and the workload is manageable. Things move along at a nice, sedate pace and there's no need to chase every last point or mark because the grading is CS/CU, meaning that your CAP is not at risk for this module.

GET1031A: Computational Thinking

MCs: 4 - compulsory General Education for FASS students because we are no good at logic and will soon be replaced by the robots

Delivery:

Weekly e-lectures
2-hour tutorials on alternate weeks, prepare your responses to the questions uploaded about a few days before class

Assessment:

Quizzes on IVLE based on the e-lectures = 15%
Individual assignments = 3 x 5%
Essays = 3 x 5%
Group project = 40%
Tutorial participation = 15%

Tutor: Mr Leon Lim - 8/10

A shaggy and scruffy young fellow, who wouldn't be out of place as the lead character in a theatrical production about a retired Asian Santa Claus. He is jovial and easygoing, which endears him to the students. One area he needs to work on is explaining the tutorial solutions in a clearer way as they are quite complex sometimes.

Module: 8/10

Technically, this is not a brand-new module as there was always a GET1031 Computational Thinking available for bidding on CORS as a General Education module. But because the President of NUS is on this big push to make computational thinking compulsory for every single student, the two old men who created the original GET1031 had to unfurl their creaky bones and figure out how to deliver the module to many times the number of people than they were used to, beginning with about 500 clueless FASS students as a warmup/pilot run for a start. The result was GET1031A, the baby of GET1031, delivered after a painful labour and showing signs of some birth defects. E-lectures were not posted online promptly, correct answers were not keyed into the system properly resulting in marking errors, and a general sense of panic was palpable among the intrepid professors and tutors who were forced to venture into this scary new world. To their credit though, they pulled off the job in a satisfactory manner, and I have no major complaints about the teaching or the content of the course itself. In fact, I think the two old men got their teaching philosophy absolutely right. Too often, teachers at all levels seem to take great joy in torturing their students with diabolically difficult test questions, but that wasn't the case here. The professors set fair quizzes which tested exactly what they talked about in the e-lectures, and even managed to inject occasional bits of humour into the questions and answer options. Their learning activities were also very engaging and helped in demystifying what computational thinking is all about. Note: Effective from the start of AY19/20, this module has been discontinued and directly replaced with GET1050.

NM2103: Quantitative Research Methods

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

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 1-hour tutorial focusing on computer skills like finding journal articles using online databases and crunching data with SPSS software

Assessment:

Group project, basically a piece of original research related to CNM done in a group of about five students = 35%
Tutorial attendance and participation = 5%
Lecture attendance and participation, recorded when the lecturer opens a quiz or survey on IVLE during the lecture and asks everyone to log in and complete it = 5%
Research participation, where you participate in 5 studies conducted by postgraduate CNM students or CNM staff = 5%
Midterm = 20%, all MCQ and True/False
Final = 30%, MCQ, True/False, and short answers

Lecturer: Dr Taberez Neyazi - 9/10

Yes, he is an Indian from India, but no, his accent is not a problem, although he does have funny ways of pronouncing certain words, like the time he said "rooster" to refer to a roster. And he does set questions in tests and exams that have awkward phrasing which may occasionally confuse and mystify. But teaching-wise, he does a fairly good job. He is able to simplify the concepts so that they are understandable to even those of us who are not scientifically and mathematically inclined. I also appreciate that he isn't particularly concerned about the memorisation of facts and formulas, of which there are many like how to calculate z-score, t-statistic, standard deviation and standard error, and so on. He always says that the computer software will do the computations for us, and we should just focus on making sure we understand the logic behind how the statistical analyses work, and the interpretation of the meaning behind the numbers the computer spits out. The questions he sets reflect this style too. Students with special educational needs will also be pleased to know that he is prompt and reliable in arranging for any necessary accommodations for midterms and finals. One more thing that I find impressive about him is his confidence and poise in front of the lecture theatre. He is actually a very junior faculty member, having received his doctorate not too long ago, but he looks like he has been doing this for decades, so seasoned he appears. And he is brave: There was one time, a suspicious character was loitering inside the lecture theatre (I suspect he was a pervert hoping to look at the many eye-candy Arts girls), and the professor brazenly walked right up to him, confronted him, and told him to get lost, which he promptly did. #respect

Tutor: Mr Chen Zhuo - 8/10

A course team made up of one Indian national and one Chinese national. Intriguing! Fortunately they both speak English well. Mr Chen (or is he Mr Zhuo?) is a decent tutor who gets his job done with minimum fuss. That's all I ask for, really.

Module: 9/10

The professor said he understood that this being compulsory for CNM majors, he had a captive audience. He was also aware that this module would have been the first experience with scientific research for some students such as those from the Arts stream in junior college. So he was careful to make everything as idiot-proof as possible, and drew numerous parallels to real life examples from the communications industry to try to get us to see the relevance of what we were learning. When it came to the part about statistics, he went extra slowly so as not to leave anyone behind, and demonstrated the use of the various analyses in a step-by-step manner to remove our fear of the unknown. All these efforts deserve recognition and I hope the department continues to put this professor in charge of future editions of this module. Click here for a preview of the content!

NM2220: Introduction to Media Writing

MCs: 4 - elective major module for CNM majors and recommended by the department for those interested in pursuing an internship in Communications Management for the NM3550Y Compulsory Internship Programme, and Unrestricted Elective for others

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 2-hour tutorial in which you will write, write, and write some more

Assessment:

Critical thinking about a topic in the news = 10%
Write your own news article with accompanying photograph and infographic = 25%
Create a one-month social media campaign in response to a given topic = 15%
Tutorial participation = 10%
Final, in which you have to produce a news article, a press release, an idea for a news photograph, and an idea for a social media post, based on information provided about one specific incident = 40%

Lecturer: Ms Tan Ee Lyn - 8/10

CNM is one of the rare university departments where someone with years of practical industry experience can get hired despite not having a doctorate. This is because communications is a very skills-based discipline so it's really valuable to hear from veterans in the field rather than pure theoreticians. Unlike, for instance, political science for which the only quality one needs is an ability to talk one's way out of a plastic bag. With over 20 years as a journalist under her belt, Ms Tan is able to bring her lectures to life with personal anecdotes from her myriad exploits across the globe including war-torn Afghanistan and disease-infested Hong Kong (my words, not hers), and it was a joy being in her class. Her lectures were by no means faultless, however. Most of them were messy affairs in which she would talk round in circles about the same point for an excruciating length of time. In my student feedback I employed the metaphor involving the perpetration of a brutal assault on a deceased equine to describe this phenomenon. She really needs to get out of that habit. Organising her thoughts beforehand might help. Additionally, I think she should streamline the course coverage a bit. Currently, social media writing, crisis communication, and advertising are all included as guest lectures as Ms Tan does not have expertise in those areas. The guest lectures were interesting and I liked them a lot but I thought they were a little out of place and didn't really fit into the overall look and feel of the module. And Ms Tan seemed to be going through the motions with the tutorials and even the examination questions for these topics. So I think she can afford to take them out. After all, the CNM department already offers modules covering those areas in greater depth: NM2203 Social Media in Communication Management, NM4228 Crisis Communication, and NM3215 Advertising Strategies respectively. Having said that, she handles cases of students requiring special educational needs assistance really well, so if you are such a student, there is no reason not to take modules with Ms Tan.

Tutor: Ms Tan Ee Lyn - 15/10

Getting the professor as your tutor is such a rare treat due to the rise of cheap foreign labour from the People's Republic of China masquerading as teaching assistants. But for this particular module, it's actually not that uncommon. Ms Tan is very hardworking and takes most of the tutorial groups herself. The remainder are taken by another reporter teaching part-time. Experiencing Ms Tan's tutorials will make you wonder if she's some kind of Jekyll and Hyde case. Unlike her muddle-headed lecturing, her tutoring is fantastic! Off the charts! She is open, communicative, and possesses a great sense of humour that is so refreshing coming from a faculty member. Tutorials mainly involve writing exercises in which she will set up a scenario and give you some background information about a topic, and then leave you to write a news article or press release based on what she has provided. She will walk around the room and give comments on your writing. In this way, everyone gets some one-on-one personalised interaction and feedback from her. And her feedback is really really useful. She'll tell you what you've done right so you know to keep doing them, and how you can improve. Over the course of the semester, I could feel my writing skills becoming sharper and sharper as the weeks went by, and this in turn grew my confidence.

Module: 11/10 (why do I even bother marking out of ten when I keep giving hyperbolic scores??)

Let me tell you what I think. I think this module should be recoded into an FAS11XX module and made compulsory for all FASS students. Too drastic? Okay, how about replacing NM1101E with it? No? Well, perhaps formalise it as a prerequisite for CNM majors pursuing Communications Management internships instead of leaving it as merely being recommended. This module is wasted languishing as just another CNM module out of the dozens available for selection. It deserves its day in the sun. Give it a bigger role please! Click here for a preview of the content!

It has been a very fun and fruitful semester for me. Based on what I've seen of CNM modules, I'm looking forward to taking more of them in the future semesters! I think I'll attempt the level 3000 ones next semester...