[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: EC1101E

Dear Readers,

I'm back with module reviews for my first sem ever in NUS!

Modules taken: 

1. EC1101E
2. LSM1301
3. EL1101E
4. SSA2204
5. EC2104

I am going to dedicate this post purely for EC1101E 

An exposure module for Economics.

Overall: You might have read other reviews that it is very similar to A level Economics content, however, I would say everything in A levels including some new concepts like the prisoner's dilemma was included. Class is very big, but the 3 hour lecture (which started only in my Y1 Sem1) was a very bad idea.

Lectures: I would think it is important to listen in the lectures, as it allows easier comprehension of the topics. Although I have to agree, 3 hours is really crazy, Dr Ong Ee Cheng was really nice and she always had at least one video/ animation for lecture. It helped a lot, both to wake up me up and keeping me entertained in class, as well as for understanding the topic she was on that day. Dr Ong taught the first half of the semester, while the other guy (I can't remember his name), taught the second half. 

Dr Ong covered Microeconomics, while the other male lecturer taught Macroeconomics. I personally preferred the micro part as it was more similar to A level Econs. Macro on the other hand, involved more calculation like calculating the GDP deflator, CPI, Inflation rate, etc. Furthermore, the lecturer wasn't as good as Dr Ong. (I think he tried to hard to be funny and crack really lame jobs- that hardly anyone ever laughs at). (OH I REMEMBERED HIS NAME, Mr Chan Kok Hoe)

Lecture content was manageable (if you paid attention). Dr Ong kept emphasizing that the Textbook: Principles of Economics by Mankiw was very important and urged us to get the latest edition which was published in 2014. I obviously didn't as I felt it was a waste of money. Thankfully my friend gave me the ebook, and I had the older version in hardcopy (blue and white copy) since my cousin passed hers to mine. I referred more to the hardcopy one as I didn't like reading from the ebook (I suspect I'm a detractor of technology)

The textbook was really good and useful! A must get and it was useful for the weekly quizzes (ungraded) before each week's lecture. 

Tutorials: I think the tutorials were ok. At the start the tutorial questions were rather manageable, but towards the end of the semester, I struggled a little with the questions and had blanks when i attended tutorials. My tutor was a young lady, Clarissa Ooi, and she made everyone present their answers on the board (based on a rotation basis). However, her explanations were not clear and she doesn't know much about EC1101E content as often she said that she will check back with the prof and email back the questions we posed. Also, she often ended tutorials late (instead of the usual 45min, it became exactly 1hour), therefore there were some people who would leave class earlier to head for their next lesson). 

I heard that the other tutors provided very clear explanation to every single question especially those questions that were common mistakes and provided tips on how to avoid those mistakes. It was a pity I did not get those better tutors which meant I needed to work harder on my own.

Conclusion: EC1101E is not hard to score, but you have to put in a lot of hard work to get at least an A as the midterms and finals were not too tough. They were manageable. So long as you have studied well, memorising and understanding the logic behind the graphs, how to explain shift in demand and supply, how taxes and subsidies affects the curves, how to compute GDP deflator, etc., you should do just fine for this module!

On a side note, for my semester, Dr Ong made us get The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford as well as the Undercover Economist Strikes Back. I got only the former book, and read it diligently (although it was purely optional, I felt that it was a very interesting book to read which strengthened and helped in understanding the concepts, and why certain people make certain decision (eg. in businesses)

I did decently well, although I expected a higher grade. I guess this module was really competitive and especially since it was a large cohort, the distribution of grades were more bell-curved and follows approximately a normal distribution. (I heard one of my RI friends attended only one lecture and slept in tutorials got an A for the module in the end)

Hope the review helps!

Cheers,
Rachel