Y1S2 review

Ended my Freshman Year. In this post I review the semester + end off with my summer plans and some life updates.

This semester was tougher and passed by much faster compared to semester 1. I wanted to perform better but considering how tough the semester was, I am contented with the outcome.

I didnt score during the first half of the semester, and I did a deep dive during recess week to thoroughly assess my performance. I rectified my study method to revolve around active recall and deliberate practice, and used timeblocks for my daily scheduling instead. This bet paid off and I was able to recover from a poor first-half.

Course	Difficulty	Target Grade	Mid-sem expected Grade	Attained Grade
IS112 Data Management	Medium	A	A-	A
IS113 Web Application Development 1	Easy	A+	A-	A
COR3001 Big Questions	Easy	A+	A+	A
COR2100 Economics and Societies	Difficult	A-	B+/A-	A
COR1100 Writing and Reasoning	Difficult	A	B+	B+

I will reflect on each course, giving (1) a short intro followed by (2) what went well and wrong, concluding with (3) future steps for improvement / how to score better and (4) my personal take.

I was not born gifted and I have average IQ. I studied very hard since day 1 of the semester, and I averaged about 8 - 12 hours of work every single day including weekends, and slowly tapered down my hours as the semester went by. As I am not as smart as my peers, I had to put in almost 1.5-2x more effort. I strongly believe that majority of the people who perform poorly do so because of a (a) wrong study methodology, (b) lack of hard work / discipline, and (c) not planning a study strategy for each course.

Everything in life is a sacrifice, and you need to sacrifice certain things to attain other things.

IS112 Data Management

This course teaches conceptualizing a DB based on business rules, to turning it into a logical / relational model, and finally converting the model into SQL. I was taught by Professor Kyriakos, and he was an excellent professor, 8/10. He was boring at the start (monotonous), but other than that he was very knowledgeble and I was happy.

I managed to score well for group projects + midterms, and finals were so-so done. I didnt do well in the labtest (coding test) due to exam panic (yes I experience it as well you’re not alone).

To score, one needs to have very strong fundamentals in drawing ER diagrams, and also needs to put in alot of practice in SQL. Future improvements would be to do more ER diagram practices, and understand why the DB is architectured in such a way. ERD + Relational mapping were the toughest portions of the course and one must focus on these to score since many components are largely dependent on these 2 components.

Overall, the course was informational and I enjoyed it.

IS113 Web Application Development 1

WAD 1 teaches the basics of html and PHP, with the content only scratching the surface of Web Development. I was taught by Professor Shar, and he was a great professor. 8.5/10 as his class was very relaxed and he was nice + knowledgeble.

I mangaed to score for class participation and finals (A+ for both), and hence they pulled up my labtests as I only managed an A- for both of them.

To score for this course, its not exactly web development but more of algorithmic thinking. One needs to have very strong algo fundamentals and if time permits, grinding some leetcode would be ideal. For labtests, the aim is to score for the first 2/3 questions before the last question, and to also do all the coding practices given. Deliberate practice is very important for this module, and I spent most of my time doing practices.

The course was great as an intro course, but it doesnt come close to actual web development and is more of a ‘get used to PHP’ kind of course. Its not very helpful in real life but it is what is is. It was some fun times with Jie Peng, Shao Wei, and my TA friends Dao Yong and Jacob. I thank DY alot for always helping me answer my questions, and I enjoyed meeting Jie Peng and his constant help in making class more fun. Im also thankful to Qi Hui and her group of friends cause they saved me day 1. I was a clown and could not connect to the wifi, and they really took the time to help a stranger like me. It was nice talking to them from time to time and I wished that we would have talked more.

COR3001 Big Questions

BQ is an excellent course which gives a quick dive into Philosophy, linking back the ideas to modern day society. My professor was Christine Rodman Henderson, and she was 10/10. Absolutely great to be, I thoroughly enjoyed each and every class of hers. She is open to all forms of discussion and she cares alot for all her students.

Everything mostly went well for the class, except for midterms where I hoped to have gotten an A/A+ instead of an A-.

The greatest improvement which allowed me to score was the introduction of a ‘sources excel sheet’, and taken from Cal Newport, where I recorded my sources and analysis in. This greatly assissted in organising my final essay and I think I did well for that. To really score, one needs to digest the texts and have a solid grasp of the contents in which they are talking about. A strong foundation in English would be immensely helpful. One neat trick is to google ‘dumbed-down’ versions of these texts where scholars re-explain the text in digestable terms and help you to understand the big picture e.g Natural Law, the laws of Athens, Antigone.

In sum, this was a very enjoyable course for me. I loved every moment of it, and I also expected myself to do better. I’m nonetheless very contented with the grade + the friends that I’ve made through this course. Kelvin was always funny to talk to in class and it was nice to constantly banter with him. Jolyn helped me read my final essay and that was wonderful because we were able to exchange essays and help each other out. Shubhash was my IS buddy and was nice to have someone to complain to whenever I was feeling down on IS. Dyanne was always the more serious one in class and she helped alot in answering my questions on Zoom when I came late for online lectures etc. Kyra was just fun to be around with and I enjoyed our bants on the train as we would talk about many different (funny) things.

COR2100 Economics and Society

This course is an intro to economics module, but on steroids. It was the course which pushed me the hardest mentally, and its extremely challenging. Take note that the content was challenging only because I was taught by Professor Giovanni Ko, who is an excellent professor. 10/10 in knowledge and humor, but also 10/10 in grilling the economic concepts out of you. We got a great overview into all of economics, from Supply and Demand, to price searchers and takers, to the labour market + unemployment and matching theory + moral Hazard problem / efficiency wages. It was unlike any other class because it was very challenging and you needed to put in loads of hours in understanding the concepts. Gio is a very smart and credible prof, so if you really want to learn and push yourself to your limits, take him up.

The group projects went very well and we scored a 19.5/20. Class participation for me was average but I excelled in Discourse (online) participation. I did decently for midterms, and I am assuming that I did well for finals because I felt the paper easy and I could answer all the questions with ease. I could have done slightly better for class participation and mid terms, probably because i was studying with the wrong methodology in mind. Lucky I swapped up my study method mid-sem.

One needs to focus on active recall for this module to score well - this is the most important point for any memory-intensive module. For Discourse and Class Part, ask interesting questions which provide new perspectives and bring the class discussion forward. Try to link different chapters together.

This course took alot out of me as it was very intensive. It requires loads of critical thinking and I had to really apply economic thinking and question the very concepts themselves. E.g What happens if we have 0 unemployment, will every firm produce at MC=MR and why? Where does the search-and-match problem really exist? I enjoyed the course and it was great for learning, even though I spent hours on this course. I had a pretty fun econs group and the law students were really smart. It was some fun group project times with Mark, XT, Lucas and Joanna.

Its a little sad that I was the only IS student in the sea of law students, and they already had their pre-defined cliques. It would have been awesome if I made more friends with them as I think they are very bright and nice people. I felt pretty alone most of the time and that might have made class a little more difficult.

COR1100 Writing and Reasoning

I felt that I learnt almost nothing from this course, and it tanked my GPA really hard. I was taught by Professor Chong Yin Teng, and she was a decent prof, 7/10. Her classes were enjoyable but I think I must have been biased against the course and thus I didnt felt as enthusiastic as compared to my other modules.

Almost everything went south and I scraped by with the B+ (luckily). I scored a poor B- for my first assessment, came back with an A- for my second assessment, and ended with a B+ for my third assessment. Overall pretty terrible grades and I was saved by my Class Part which I scored A+ in. A saving grace was that this module wasnt very in-class intensive and class was quite chill.

My biggest issue with this module is that I have almost 0 takeaways. Not sure if its because the course is poor, or the teacher doesnt teach well, but I believe that there is something deeply wrong if a student feels the way that I am feeling. I could feel myself learning from the other 4 modules but not this module, so something is really amiss.

To score, it is really about giving your prof what your prof wants, even if you feel strongly against it. I would also have done more peer reviews with people who scored well. What I really hate the most is that if someone starts off with a low grade, the course does not help that student and that student would still be clueless at the end of the day - hence no grade improvement and a waste of time. I’m glad that Jie Peng was able to help me out and it really saved me alot. I also appreciate my WR group for always helping answer my questions in class and making class more enjoyable.

Summary and summer

Twas a long semester and I’m glad that it ended. I managed to scrape by with an internship at BeLive and I’ll do a review for that once it ends. I plan to learn Vanilla JS and CSS during the summer, and I hope to accomplish a mini project with Allan, ZY (and YK hoepfully).

I got a scholarship, and I’m also one step closer to entering the CMU programme. Hopefully all goes well, even with the ups and downs that I foresee.

Thats all for now. Stay safe everyone and stay tuned.