Repo link to some material I’ve made for y1s1

NUS CS y1s1

It’s about 5 hours after the end of my final exams, and oof I’ve got thoughts. Before I get to those though, I just wanna put it out there how proud I am to even reach this stage in the first place - NUS was always the goal and sometimes I feel like I’ve just got to step back and appreciate that I’m here. But hey, it doesn’t stop here.

The courses

So for my first semester I decided to get math out of the way. I took MA1522 Linear Algebra, MA1521 Calculus, CS1231S Discrete Structures, GEA1000 Quantitative Reasoning with data, and finally ES1103 English for Academic Purposes. I didn’t do too well for the Qualifying English test apparently. I was exempted from the introductory programming course CS1010s because I came through IT in polytechnic.

MA1522 Linear Algebra

This was something completely new to me. Prof Jonathan Teo is clearly passionate about what he’s teaching, though I question his “Math Cafe” timeslots. The course was pretty much self-paced, with key deadlines to hit. It’s completely online through pre-recorded lecture videos, and they’re pretty good. I had some trouble at the start understanding some concepts, but after grasping the basics the rest come easier.

For some of the later topics, it really helps to get an intuition on what exactly you’re doing. The pre-recorded lecture slides don’t really help with that, but they do link other supplemental videos (I’d classify them as required viewing, to be honest) that help. 3Blue1Brown was amazing for getting the intuitions down.

Tutorials were pretty okay, but my timeslot for tutorials essentially became completely unrelated to the tutorial questions themselves. The tutor (who was excellent) spent the hour per week going through the intuition of the concepts instead of the questions themselves. I am definitely appreciative of the tutor, but I do think that the questions should be gone through - being a mostly online course, that timeslot was the only chance I’d have to interact with someone knowledgable. While they would answer my questions after class, I feel like it simply wasn’t enough.

Finals was tough. I don’t know what grade I’m going to get, but that’s for later. I don’t like that the multiple challenging questions had essentially the same “form”: you’d have a linear system Ax=b with x and b given, but you needed to find A. x wouldn’t be invertible, so you couldn’t simply bring it to the other side. It felt very “samey” and cheap I suppose. But what do I know.

I did enjoy learning this, though.

What I would have done different

If for some godforsaken reason time went back to the start of the semester where my hairline was approximately 2cm closer to the front of my head than it is now, I’d definitely do some things different. Firstly: get on those 3Blue1Brown videos. Intuition helps learning immensely, and the slides just don’t cut it in that aspect. The visuals in 3Blue1Brown really ground the topic and make it more understandable and “real”. I think the Book would’ve helped me too.

I should’ve definitely studied the tutorial solutions more as well. I’ve got no one to blame but myself, but the solutions would come out the week after and by then I’d be focused on the content and tutorial of that week itself. I also think they should look into increasing the timeslot of the tutorials so that the tutorials could be discussed.

MA1521 Calculus for Computing

It’s calculus. This course was pretty standard with 2 lecture time slots and a hour long tutorial slot per week. I attended all lectures in-person, and the tutorials as well. It had the basics (differentiation/integration) then goes into more advanced stuff with planes ODE and stuff like that. You know, stuff.

The lectures were meh. I felt that the professor was mostly reading from the slides, with some additions here and there.

I was able to do the tutorials, they felt pretty alright. The tutor was good too, and explained the solutions clearly.

And oh boy, the finals. The finals were TOUGH. Prior to this, I wouldn’t really leave questions blank in exams. 1521 changed that. I thought I studied pretty good in reading week, but I was just not able to “link” and do it. But it seems about standard - I heard some people saying they left 4-5 questions blank in the paper. My friends left some blanks too. It was just really difficult for me.

WIWHDD

Firstly, I would’ve not gone for the in-person lectures. I would’ve read the slides and notes myself, and if I had any difficulty I would’ve come to the lecture slots. The lectures were mostly a waste of time for me.

Additionally, I would get the book and do extra questions from the book as well. I did this for the first 3 chapters, but I fell out of it. Note to self: don’t fall out of it.

CS1231S Discrete Structures

Interesting module! I definitely learned something. Prof Aaron is enthusiatic about what he’s teaching, definitely. Some of the stuff is more abstract and annoying, though. A bunch of people mention that this will be useful in the future, but I don’t see it yet.

While the content is interesting, the tests are frustrating. Some questions seem to put the actual content of the course behind, and attempts to trick you through some redirection or cheap trick of some kind. I get that they’re trying to differentiate the cohort, but the amount of frustrated sighs I hear when prof Aaron goes through some questions is very telling. And I suppose I do see the value in trying to instill that level of care when it comes to doing the questions, but you only have so much time in an exam.

GEA1000 Quantitative Reasoning with Data

This course had a pretty low workload. Tutorials occur every alternate week for 3 hours. The course teaches you about statistics and probability, which was pretty useful in CS1231s as well. Timothy teaches with a bunch of enthusiasm, and takes extra care such that students understand. I enjoyed his sessions.

Finals was very manageable, but I hear that the bell curve is steep. The group project was alright, but it really depends on who you’re paired with.

ES1103 - English for Academic Purposes

I really liked this course. I was disgruntled at first that I had to take it, but I genuinely learned a lot more about academic papers. It goes well and beyond the formal writing taught in our secondary schools, and equips you with the tools and techniques to improve your writing.

My tutor was excellent, and I enjoyed the essay projects that were assigned.

Semester 2

I’m definitely going to do some things different. Firstly, plan. My time management was admittedly horrible this semester. Sure, I finished all my things on time. But I felt like I didn’t have much time for much else. I’m going to create a timetable once the course scheduling is out - I’ll need to balance between time for studies, myself, and exercise, something I didn’t do at all. I’ll see how it goes.

I’m also going to reinforce my learning. A thing I found particularly worrying while studying during reading week is that I forget some of the things that I learnt during the earlier parts of the semester. I’d do the tutorials perfectly fine on the weeks themselves, but looking back some of them would seem alien. Clearly, I need to re-visit the things that I learn. I plan to do this on a regular basis, reviewing prior work for each module. I’ll probably link this to the timetable.

I’ll see how it goes.