[School] NUS Module Review AY15/16 Sem 1: EC3322 Industrial Organisation I

Hey Readers!

Back with module reviews again! Have received an overwhelming response for level 3000 module reviews so I have decided to do a review for EC3322 Industrial Organisation I which I have taken in AY15/16 Sem 1.

Professor/ Lecturer: Dr Eric Fesselmeyer

Lecturer Rating: 4.5/5

Tutor: Hai Long

Tutor Rating: 3/5

Lectures:

Lectures were good. Prof Eric has been teaching this module for quite a period of time so he is very clear and is a master of the content covered. Content covered is very mathematical. However, a downside is that Prof Eric tends to skip alot of steps in his lecture slides which makes us really lost IF you do not read the slides and attempt the solve the sums beforehand. 

Content covered is very interesting. First half of semester has lighter workload than 2nd half. So try to do well for midterms as paper was alot easier due to lesser content in first half of semester.

TIP: Read his slides both before and after the lecture. You'll have an advantage over other students.

Tutorials:

Attendance sometimes were self-marked (attendance sheet passed around the class) while other times marked by the tutor. Along with the attendance sheet would be the tutorial presentation sheet where you can tick next to which questions you want to present. However, this doesn't mean you'll 100% cfm get to present. If demand is high for that particular question, the tutor will just randomly pick one to present that question, which also means only that 1 person gets the tutorial participation points. 

If you can do the tough question sets, then I would recommend you volunteer to present for those questions because certain questions are considered bonus and will give you double points.

Hai Long is Vietnamese so his accent was really strong and sometimes I could not understand him well as pronunciation of certain words was not clear. This wasn't too big a problem as he is very friendly and willing to help even after class hours. He tend to show us other examples and how certain questions can be tweaked and this means tutorials usually took the full hour, and we often had the next tutorial class chasing us out. 

I had an occasion where Hai Long could not make it and Prof took my class instead. It was quite scary but a good experience having Prof as your tutor. Prof made sure that when you present, you knew how to get the answers. He would question every single step you took to derive the answer

Midterms:

Content was easier than finals as only first half of the syllabus was tested and content was easy to understand. I had several careless mistakes and ended up doing very badly for midterms which pulled down my final grade in the end. Bell curve for Midterms was pretty steep and I was at the end of the bell-curve (25th percentile bottom) which made it hard to pull up my final grade.

TIP: Try to score for Midterms, I had friends getting 80+/100.

Finals:

Cumulative finals meant alot more content was tested. As much as the content interest me a lot, it was quite a handful of content to revise for finals although I enjoyed reading the content. Slightly tougher content for 2nd half as a variety of questions can be tested. 

Finals was challenging compared to midterms and I regretted not checking my paper thoroughly for midterms. 

Overall:

I believed my finals pulled my grade up but my midterm performance was disappointing. I will recommend this module to all as content covered is interesting and pretty applicable to real life. If you're good in math, this would be an advantage too. 

If there are any queries, pls feel free to comment below and subscribe to be updated for more module reviews. 

Love,

Rachel

[School] Is Economics at the University level really for you?

Dear Readers,

I decided to do a post which targets tertiary students still contemplating if Economics is really what you want to pursue in University! Many of my guy friends entering Uni this year actually started texting to ask me what exactly Economics is about at the University level.

I believe, many of you A levels and Poly graduates out there might be wondering, is Economics like in the A levels where it is all about drawing demand and supply curves, identifying deadweight losses in market failure graphs and writing and explaining policies essays after essays?

Unfortunately not, my dear readers! Economics at the Uni level is not about essay writing. Yes, it might have been an Arts subject at the A levels but in Uni, it is very mathematical and it is a social science subject, although in the Arts and Social Sciences Faculty. However, you will need to draw SS and DD curves too, especially in Macroeconomics, but there will be a lot of other graphs you will need to know and learn about too!

What do I mean by Economics being a very mathematical subject? It involves data analysis, many regressions and knowing how to interpret coefficients of the regression results. Integration and differentiation do come into picture for certain modules, so if you're thinking you can escape all that math, then you should reconsider. Also, microeconomics covers quite a bit on Game Theory, so if you enjoy topics like the Prisoner's Dilemma, you might enjoy Economics quite a bit.

Economics is actually one of the biggest major cohort in NUS FASS. What does this imply? Very competitive when it comes to grading of the modules. Since it is all about math and application, many math geniuses out there including Chinese scholars excel in Economics modules.

Sometimes, these geniuses even scores full marks for their midterms, when the mean is 70-75 out of 100. Try to aim and get at least the Average or Median score to secure a decent grade.

Also, some tips on selecting what modules to take in the first semester:
1. Try to clear all your compulsory FASS baskets first (especially the Asian Studies basket)
2. For EC majors who are more or less cfm on EC as their major, take EC2104 and EC1101E together (Make full use of your S/Us)
3. Do something you think you might not be able to score well, and don't want to risk getting B- and below.


Some tips for potential Economics Majors before concluding on this post:
1. Read your textbook! They are very important sources of information and practice questions.
2. Attempt the questions and exercises in the Textbook (especially if the Prof even issues which questions to attempt in his/her lecture notes)
3. Read your lecture notes and remember key details (some Prof enjoy torturing students by testing specific contents in the lecture notes)
4. Most importantly, DO CONSTANT REVISION!!

I think these tips are general for all students, not necessarily Econs majors.

Hope you guys make the right decision to pursue something you enjoy doing, and feel free to drop me a comment if you guys need to clarify anything about Econs.

I might not be the best person to answer your doubts, but I will try my best to help (which is also my purpose of setting up a blog in the first place)

Love,
Rachel

[School] NUS Module Review AY15/16 Y2S2 EC3101

Hey readers,

Am back with writing module reviews! I am going to do a review for EC3101, Microeconomic Analysis I which I have taken for AY15/16 Sem 1.

Lecturer: Timothy Wong

Lectures: Tim just completed his phD in June/July and this is the first time he is teaching EC3101. I would say he was not bad at conducting his lectures, except for always having 1hour (prematurely ended) lectures instead of 1.5hour ones and that isn't too cool since it was an 8am lecture (ok, maybe minus the 'more time for breakfast' happiness)

Tim was quite clear in his explanations (for the lectures that I attended, 3 out of all 12 or 13 lectures) but sometimes he is not clear of the content (i.e when a student poses a question, he cannot figure out how to solve it on the spot). Also, every lecture slide definitely has at least one error (which makes it troublesome if you intend to skip the lecture/ you're not paying close attention) Although most of the time he will re-upload the newly amended lecture slides, sometimes he doesn't.

All in all, not too bad for lectures as self reading works for this sem's 3101. Reading the recommended textbook should suffice. All decent except for 8am lectures!?!?! (Don't ever choose 8am lectures especially if you stay in the East)

Tutor: Song Hong

Tutorials: This tutor honestly isn't that good. I think she is knowledgeable but does not know how to share her knowledge and problem solving skills to us.

The strong Chinese accent makes it even harder to understand her in addition to her being soft spoken. She goes through the short problem sets super quickly. We once ended tutorial in about 15 minutes (so there was a guy that came in late for tutorial ended up attending tutorial for 3-5 minutes)

Tutorial problem sets' difficulty is decent. Definitely some slightly challenging questions are added in. However, questions are different from what you might encounter in the midterms and finals, which means they were not too helpful in revision.

Graded Homeworks: There were 2 graded homework. First one was similar to the tutorial questions, however the 2nd one was challenging because his instructions wasn't clear. (One moment there's U(K) the other moment there's U(x)) Both constitute 10% of final grade if I remembered correctly.

Midterms: He assumed that you still had knowledge of 2101 and tested on perfect complements which he did not cover at all in his 3101 lectures. All in all, manageable midterm difficulty.

Finals: TBH I cant remember what the finals tested on, but I only remembered that it was challenging and tested a lot on application. Not confident on my performance for finals though so I cant comment much. It wasn't at all similar to the tutorial problem sets.

Updated: Tim Wong is currently still lecturing EC3101 and is also the prof for EC3322. No longer Eric Fesselmeyer for Industrial Organisation I. Tim Wong is ok given it is his first attempt conducting a module.

Generally, if you like microeconomics, you should be able to score well. I did quite badly for 2101 but still did decently in 3101, so if you're worried, don't be. I personally felt that the content was pretty interesting.

[School] NUS AY14/15 Year 1 Semester 1 Module Review: EC2104

Hi all,

Back with module reviews again!

Many people are asking me if EC2104 should be taken in Y1S1 or Y1S2. My stand is to take it in Y1S1. When I took it in AY14/15 Y1S1, I took it without knowing what it was about. It sounded a little tough from the module description and my Econs senior was telling me that Roy Chen is a good lecturer, which was why I decided to take it in Sem 1 to make full use of my free S/Us! (Thank god for gradeless first semester!)

EC2104

Lecturer: Roy Chen, the Asian guy with really strong American accent. He was a decent lecturer, I wouldn't say he was a perfect lecturer (seriously, define perfect..)

Workload: Decent. Just the usual take home and discuss in class: problem sets. Presentation in tutorial is a must to get your participation marks. Try to discuss with your friends the answers, cos correct answers definitely help in presentation scores (although the profs always says that accuracy isn't important, its the effort that counts...)

Difficulty: Not that difficult. It might seem a little confusing if you do not read your lecturers before classes, but I usually read through beforehand to roughly know what that lecture is about. And then read through it again after lecture. Everything will make much more sense if you choose to study that way. It worked well for me.

Tutor: I forgot his name, But I felt like he totally rolled out of bed to attend tutorials. Dressed in slippers and bermudas, not that appropriate an attire for a Teaching Assistant (given the amount of pay they earn)

Textbook: Essential Economics textbook which I did not touch at all although Roy kept telling the class that the textbook has important information. My friend went for one-on-one consultation with Roy and told me that he said the textbook isn't important. Focus on lecture slides, which I have always believe is the best resource for revision.

Exams: Not that tough for midterms since it was 15 MCQs and the average was about 9/15? I got 12/15 although that was totally unexpected. If you read through the lecture slides, redo your tutorials and attempted the past midterm papers, the midterm shouldnt be a problem for most, unless you were careless.

Finals was nerve-wrecking because I only knew how to do 2 complete questions. There was this theorem in the last few parts of the lecture (which I obviously don't remember its name) which I did not understand completely, and which I was praying will not come out. Ended up, almost all questions involved the use of that formula/ theorem ): I just attempted all the questions to the best of my ability, and at least not submit an empty, non-attempted question paper although I had no idea how to use the formula/theorem.

Thankfully, I did decently well for this module and did not need to S/U it. It is a fairly manageable module and I personally feel you should take this module in Y1S1 with your economics intro module. Once you have taken this module, the later modules like EC2102 and EC2101 will have some overlapping content(:

Cheers,
Rachel