[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 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

[School] NUS AY/15 Year 1 Semester 1 Module Review: LSM1301

Dear Readers,

Gonna continue with module reviews for Y1S1 AY14/15!

Modules taken: 

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

This post will be purely a review for LSM1301!

LSM1301 (General Biology) was one of the most enjoyable modules I've ever taken! It had the most interactive lessons and covers very interesting contents. Furthermore, the lecturers and teaching assistants were really funny and nice people.

Lecturers: Dr Seow Teck Keong and Dr Posa

Lectures: Both lecturers are equally good, although I find Dr Seow more engaging as he often shares his personal experiences in the lectures. I remembered there was a lecture on hereditary and he placed his family photo in the lecture slides (so cute HAHA), and introduced us to his wife and daughter. Dr Seow also cracks a lot of biology jokes and causes an uproar of laughter during most of the lectures. He covered the first half of the lecture which had a lot of H1 and H2 Biology content. This module precluded anyone who have taken H2 Biology at the A levels to make it fair for everyone. I took H1 Biology at the A levels so some content wasn't unfamiliar for me. 

The second half of the semester's content was covered by Dr Posa who was really nice and patient (but I felt really bad for her, as the LT was always so noisy whenever she wants to speak). The content she covered was very new concepts like the Sponges, and concepts on Genus, Phylum, Family, Order, Species etc. I personally felt the 2nd half of the semester was tougher as the content was really complicated. 

Always print your lecture notes for lectures, or else you will be very lost! The lecturers often drop important notes during the lecturers which were tested during the exams and weekly quizzes (graded) (eg. The Golgi Apparatus is liken to be a post office) That was an MCQ question that came out in the weekly quiz and Dr Seow mentioned it during the lecture but it was not on the notes he uploaded. 

Lectures were generally ok so long as you listened in class and have your notes with you.

Lab Sessions: For my semester, we had lab sessions which commenced about 3 weeks after the 1st lecture. Lab sessions were really fun. You need not get the white lab coats as the disposable (blue-coloured surgeon looking one was provided for free). HOWEVER, although it is disposable, please do not dispose it after the 1st lab session, keep it for all your 4 lab sessions as they were provided for free only for the first lab lesson. If you happen to lose your labcoat or want to wear a new one due to hygiene purposes, you can get it for $2 at the start of the lesson. Labcoats are compulsory for lab sessions, and girls had to tie up their hair and pin up your fringe (to avoid contamination). 

During my semester, I got to dissect a flower, make kimchi, do gel electrophoresis and extract my DNA from my cheek cells too! It was really fun!! Lab sessions were 1.5hours, and I felt that it was a little short as I was having so much fun!

Do note that you have to print the practical worksheet out before the lab session and bring it for the lab lesson, if not the Prof will make you buy a hardcopy. Softcopy was allowed (you can bring your laptop for lab- but it was such a hassle having a laptop on your workspace- leaves you less space to carry out your experiments) 

Also, the practical worksheet includes questions that required you to do lab reports after each lab session and upload onto IVLE for submission. They are all graded assignments. Please discuss with your lab mates and friends as they are meant to help you. Try to get full marks for all lab reports (Google is present for a reason)! There was a given dateline which you had to follow and you must always send your report for plagiarism check! (If not there would be a penalty mark deduction imposed)

Examinations: Finals was a electronic bring your own laptop examination (BUT please note that they stopped the e-exam after my semester) What does this mean? It means you bring your laptop for the exams. Yes, instead of a piece of exam script, you submit your answers (which comprised of MCQs only) on softcopy. There was a software you had to download into your laptop (details were provided during the lectures).

There was a trial run conducted one week before the actual final exam to ensure everyone had the software on their laptops and they running just fine. This was to minimise the technical difficulties faced during the actual final exam. I didn't quite like this method of examination as it was such a hassle to bring my laptop down to school for the exams, and the trouble of having a dry run on a Saturday morning to test out the system. All these hassle could be eliminated by conducting a usual black and white test paper. 

Oh yes, during the exam, internet access to Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla FireFox would all be denied, which means you are unable to Google the answer, BUT you were allowed to refer to your softcopy notes on your laptop. Wifi purely for exam purposes was used (the router was placed at the front of the LT), as the software required internet access to submit your answers online. I opted for the school laptop as I was too lazy to bring my own and the school laptop would 99% be compatible and unlikely to have any technical difficulties. That meant I had to bring my thumbdrive with my softcopy notes and lecture slides to transfer into the school laptop before the exam. Thumbdrives were not allowed on the actual exam!

The final exams was quite tough I feel, as it tested a lot on Dr Posa's lectures, and Dr Seow's portion were tougher and more analytical questions (like antibiotic resistance in different scenarios). You had to have a good grasp of your content beforehand as there wasn't sufficient time to flip through your notes for the answers for every single questions. There were a few giveaway questions (thankfully), and also some video-based question, where you had to watch a short clip and then answer the MCQ. The videos were replay-able, so not to worry if you missed out on any part.

Overall:  I would recommend students to take this module to fulfill as Unrestricted Electives. It is really interesting especially if you like Biology. The professors are really nice people, and lessons were informative and useful. I did generally well for this module, but I felt that the bell-curve was quite steep (probably because I didn't do too well for the final exams). I enjoyed this module very much!(:

Regards,

Rachel

P.S I still have my hardcopy lecture notes in coloured (printed using a laser printer) with good quality clear diagrams. Am selling it away (as a paid a lot for my coloured notes to aid my learning). Comment if you're interested!(:

[School] Post A levels to Uni- being an Economics major (NUS AY14/15 Y1)

Dear readers, Decided to make my blog alive once again. I'm such a slothful person, but I'm really keen to help people out there who really needs help and are struggling/ confused with life. I did decent for A levels in 2013. No straight As, disappointing grades for my strongest subjects, I felt that it was the end of life. How am i going to continue on my studies in a more highly respected faculty in a local university?

 My mother was exploding into madness when I told her of my results. It wasn't worth celebrating, definitely, but I think I deserved at least some sort of encouragement from her, since I wasn't in the best of mood after receiving my results. I was definitely delighted at the amazing numbers of perfect scorers in the cohort and also the number of friends who managed to head up on stage to shake Ms Lai's hands, however, inside me, I was sort of shaken at my mediocre results.

 Where am I supposed to go after the Horrifying A levels journey?

I could get into at least 2 of the major Faculties in NUS, NTU and SMU, but that didn't seem good enough for my mother, who's a very traditional parent that wants her child to be at least a doctor, lawyer, dentist, or whichever career equivalent.

I am very strong in Math and the Sciences, however, I couldnt imagine myself doing H2 Chemistry/ Biology/ Mathematics at a higher level at the University. Furthermore, I personally feel that the prospects of a Life Science major isn't as good as other more generalised majors. Probably because I still do not have a real goal in life, I wanted a major which was more flexible and general. (And I heard Math at the University level deals with 20 over levels of differentiation- and I couldnt imagine doing that for 3 or 4 years) Which was why I decided to do Economics at University. It involved Mathematics, which Im generally better at (compared to the other subjects).

My mother actually was quite insistent on sending me overseas to do Medicine, Dentistry or Law, but I kept telling her the school fees are not cheap and I have a very strong emotional attachment to both my mother and grandmother (which makes it even harder for me to leave the country for long periods of time- even a 5 day overseas trip makes me a little homesick *covers face in embarrassment*). So, NUS Economics was what I chose in the end.

Semester 1 went rather smoothly. I'll post modules reviews later on in other posts. I didnt join any CCA or external activities in school. I didn't really know how the university timetable is, so i just simply seeked the advice of my seniors who told me that I should have a 2 hour break in the middle of the day to have lunch with my friends.

I TOTALLY REGRETTED IT.

Although this time was useful for revision, I think 1hour is sufficient for lunch, especially if your previous lesson before your lunch break is a lecture (since lectures end 30minutes beforehand). I had a 4 day work week, with 2 hour lunch break everyday except Thursday where I had only 3hours of lessons (so i just placed it back-to-back). I felt it was a waste of time as I ended school (Monday-Wednesday) at 5pm!! *inserts sad face*

Sem 2 was slightly tougher and more hectic for me. It was also a demoralising semester. After learning from my 'mistakes' in timetable management from Sem 1, I decided to not have lunch breaks in between at all, and made full use of the 30 minutes after lectures to get food. This way, I managed to squeeze and pack my timetable into a 3day week, where I worked on the other 2 weekdays.

If you're thinking my plan is actually a good idea, frankly, 30 minutes is definitely NOT ENOUGH IF the timing falls between 12pm- 1pm, as this is the peak lunch hour for everyone (office staff, lecturers, profs, students). It's people mountain people sea at all eateries and canteens throughout the university compound. This is why I had to miss lunch for most of my days, and if lucky enough, get a waffle from The Deck (provided there was a short queue)

This Sem 2 was tough as it was either I understood the topics, but COULD NOT SCORE. OR, I could not understand the topics at all. OR, the module is too competitive (especially for open book examinations)

P.S If you think that open book exams are easy to score and striaghtforward, which does not require revision beforehand, then YOU'RE WRONG. I thought the answers would be straightforward, and I basically read through my lecture notes twice (to know roughly where to get the answer from), but I was stunned during the exams.

I did really badly for that midterm because:
Firstly, the lectures were not webcasted, and I often got to lecture slightly late so I probably missed some information here and there.
Secondly, the lecturer was Caucasian, and I have some difficulties understanding his accent. Thirdly, I didnt organise my notes properly (it was basically by lectures- but some topics were cross-listed!!) Lastly,, I was too lazy to search for the answers during the exams cos I had a 2cm thick notes plus cheat sheet from my friend (but still couldnt find the answers *facepalm*), which made me kinda give up nearing the end of the exam when almost 40% of the cohort have left the exam hall.

The midterms was 50%, and basically, 50% was gone- because of the reasons listed above (HAHA)

Basically, Economics is interesting as it involved models, graphs, and lots of mathematics. If you're interested to know more about the modules. Stay tuned to my reviews which I'll post really soon for Y1 Sem 1 and Y1 Sem 2 for AY14/15. Thank you for reading!

Cheers,
Rachel