NUS AY 2024/25 Semester 2 Course Review (Y2)

 

My review follows the order outlined above, so feel free to scroll to the section you're interested in! My reviews tend to be a lot more personal and reflective, so I apologise for my rambles LOL.

Like the last review, my criteria for rating the courses are as follows: 

1. Learning Outcome (1 - Useless 🙄 / 5 - Enlightened 🤯) 
2. Workload (1 - Dying 😵 /  5 - Manageable 😌) 
3. Personal anticipation/dread for attending class 🧍

Below each review, I will provide individual ratings (out of 5) for the first two criteria: (1) Learning Outcome and (2) Workload. The third criterion, (3) Personal anticipation/dread for attending class, is super subjective and influenced by personal biases, so I won't explicitly rate it. However, it will greatly influence the Overall Rating (out of 10). 

Introduction:

Yo... this is super long overdue. I'm already five weeks into the first semester of my third year. On that note, I was reading my past reviews and realised how constipated I sounded. Like WHY was I using formal english for an informal blog... get a grip... From now on, I'm gonna try to writing more with own voice 🙏. 

 

PH2208: Applied Ethics (FASS, Lecture/Tutorial Style) 

Lecturer & Tutor: Dr Abelard Podgorski

One of the more enjoyable courses this semester! This course looks at the many popular ethical dilemmas of today. The texts are very contemporary and not difficult to understand at all. After stalking Prof. Abelard's NUS page, I found that he explains his three teaching philosophies, and how they shape his classes, much better than I can:

1. Treating contemporary issues directly from the start, and not always against the backdrop of some comprehensive moral theory.
2. Emphasising readings that are short and written in clear, contemporary prose.
3. Evaluating students based on more frequent, short, targeted tasks designed to train specific writing and dialectical abilities, including evaluating and responding to the work of others.

To the left you’ll find all the topics Prof covered in the course. He did mention, though, that the topics change every course iteration. At the start of the course, he makes students take a survey, rating different issues on a scale of 1–10 for whether they’re morally acceptable or not. That survey probably influences which topics he chooses. For instance, Prof noted that when he first taught this course, homosexual sex was a lot more controversial—but now almost everyone in class views it as morally permissible. What is also pretty neat is that Prof tries to make it a point to cover both sides of a topic. For example, he dedicates a week to anti-abortion arguments, and another week to pro-abortion arguments. 

Learning value wise, I like that course forces you to challenge your moral compass. Most people walk in with firm views about what they consider morally permissible. For instance, many believe eating factory-farmed meat is fine, and that abortion is fine. But the arguments these philosophers present against these claims are often just as convincing as those supporting them. To reject a claim, you have to reject one of its premises. Yet, the premises presented often overlap with your own moral stance, it's often real hard to reject them.

Take Singer, who argues there’s no morally relevant difference between refusing to save a drowning child to avoid ruining your clothes, and spending money on luxuries instead of saving a poor child’s life. Or Norcross, who claims there’s no morally relevant difference between Fred torturing puppies in his basement and eating factory-farmed meat. These might sound crazy, but the philosophers defend them with such sound-sounding premises that you end up seriously questioning your assumptions!

I'll now turn to the assignments. 

Participation (Tutorial/Forum): 15% 

We had to contribute to the Canvas discussion board at least 7 times throughout the semester, with 3 posts due before recess week (though I might be remembering the numbers wrong). It wasn’t very difficult... most people were just waffling anyway. With regards to tutorials, one thing I'd say is that you can't expect to take a course on ethics and expect people not to have hot (moral) takes, so you gotta have a kind of tolerance to these things... but honestly it's quite entertaining to hear. 

Weekly Online Quizzes: 15%

This was really just to make sure we did the readings. It's 2-3 questions.

Argument Hunt Project: 20%

We had to find an opinion piece, blog post, or Reddit thread where someone expressed a "hot (moral) take" and then reconstruct the argument in premise-conclusion form. The point was to practice logical reasoning and to distinguish between moral and non-moral claims. You also had to identify the weakest premise and explain how you'd object to it. You can find my work attached here.

Short Essay: 30%   

The idea was to write an essay defending one of your “hot takes," using convincing premises to support your conclusion and putting it all together as a coherent essay. Prof didn’t set a maximum word limit, so I kind of went ham and wrote almost 5k words.

Test: 20%

IIRC it was a closed-book, short-answer exam with about 5 questions, each broken into 2-4 parts. You had to memorise different philosophers’ views and the key premises behind them. It sounds scary, but honestly it was much more doable than expected because the arguments are generally pretty memorable.

The tricky part was identifying which views were complementary and which were contradictory across philosophers. For example, Marquis argues that killing is wrong because it deprives someone of a valuable future. But Benatar, though agreeing that killing is wrong, rejects that reasoning, since he believes life itself isn’t valuable, so there’s no “valuable future” to lose. It’s this kind of consistency and inconsistency you need to keep track of. Accepting one view often means having to accept or reject others too.

Learning Outcome: 4.5/5 

Workload: 3/5 (manageable) 

Overall Rating: 9/10 

Final Grade: A+

NHS2090: Reality: Social, Virtual, Alternate or Otherwise (NUSC, Seminar Style) 

Dr. Gabriel Tusinski

We basically explored different types of realities, and questioned whether they even count as realities at all. The course drew on works from philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, etc. (details are in the syllabus to the left).

I might have dementia because I can hardly remember what was taught in this course. I just recall feeling very concerned and confused most of the time. 

Workload-wise, it was pretty light compared to other NUSC courses I’ve taken? The reading reflection and response component was 20%, and it wasn’t demanding at alllll. The reflection was something you posted on Canvas, which then fed into a short group facilitation on the topic. The response was even simpler—you just replied to someone else’s reflection. Both were really short too, around 300 words if I remember correctly.

The mid-term assignment was to answer a question from a pool of essay questions. I don't remember the rest, but the one I picked was "Choose one of the following “social constructs”: race, gender, age, beauty, nationality. Explain how photographic and/or cinematic images help objectify and internalize this “social construct” in Singapore. How 'real' are these constructs? Use at least 3 readings as evidence to support your position." I chose to write on nationality, specifically, SG Secure’s advertising campaigns. 

The final assignment was to produce a 20-minute video examining how a technology has altered our understanding of reality. I focused on the Monument Mythos, a YouTube analog horror series that reimagines U.S. history by exposing sinister secrets behind monuments and landmarks. It challenges viewers to question government secrecy, power structures, and human behaviour through a very uniquely 20th-century, analog style of documentary recording. 

I think my biggest complaint about this course is that Prof takes forever to return assignments. I remember getting my midterm feedback only a couple of days before the final assignment was due. And even then, the grade wasn’t even included?? So I had no idea whether I was on the right track until the very end 😑😭😭. Prof did explain that he had a family emergency which affected him a lot, and I’m sympathetic to that, but still… there were fewer than 10 people in the class, and the midterms were only 1.5k words each. Surely it shouldn’t have taken that long?

There was also very little class discussion because most of us honestly didn’t know what to say because the material was kinda too abstract for many of us (reminded me of my NTW2037 class). 

Learning Outcome: 3.5/5 

Workload: 3/5 (manageable) 

Overall Rating: 6.5/10 

Final Grade: A

HY3260: Chinese Migrations in World History (FASS, Lecture/Tutorial Style) 

Lecturer & Tutor: Dr. Seng Guo-Quan

I always enjoy my token history courses because of the companionship (my history friends!). If I were taking this alone, I’d probably rate it lower because I’d feel sad. I’ve attached the syllabus to the left. 

Prof Seng is very mellow and chill. Over my time at uni, I’ve realised there’s an archetype of Profs who can take whatever nonsense students are waffling and somehow turn it into something coherent. Prof Seng is definitely not one of them, and I say this non-derogatorily. Whenever someone says something he isn’t looking for, he’ll just stare and go, “Okay… anyway” 😂.

That said, I think Prof' very sincere. He’s meticulous in class discussions, takes the texts seriously, and gives thoughtful, timely feedback on assignments—which you really have to appreciate when other profs take two months to return yours 😃😃😃. I also remember one of our readings was one of his own works (I forget which), but it was interesting and well-written, and I was impressed! He also fed us really good pandan cake and tau sar piah in the last lesson! 

Okay but NGL, sometimes I totally spaced out in class because there were people who seemed to know everything about Chinese migrations and would just yap on and on. Meanwhile, I’d be sitting there like… I know nothing at all. I knew nothing, frfr. 

The grading components were pretty standard for a history course. I liked that the written assignments built on one another. The topic I picked felt a bit bland at first since it had been covered a lot before—nationalism and identity among the overseas Chinese in British Malaya leading up to 1911. It was kinda vague, but I eventually refined it to focus on the methodology and outcomes of mobilising middle- and lower-class overseas Chinese revolutionaries in British Malaya leading up to the 1911 Xinhai Revolution. All’s chill all’s chill.

Learning Outcome: 4/5 

Workload: 4/5 

Overall Rating: 8/10 

Final Grade: A

HY2259: The Craft of History (FASS, Lecture/Tutorial Style) 

Lecturer & Tutor: Dr Kelvin Lawrence

I really respect Prof because he pushed us to think bigger and deeper about the assumptions underlying historiography, and how we can express our work more creatively. A lot of my friends also really like and respect him. 

That said, the workload was kinda insane. The readings and class discussions were way more intense and difficult than the 3K HY course I took this semester. THIS COURSE SHOULD NOT BE A 2K. At times we even had to read full-on monographs for class... 

I wanna talk a bit about the assessments. I felt Prof doesn’t really give clear guidelines, he just verbally hints to what he wants. This was especially true for the first draft proposal of the essay. I honestly had no idea what he was looking for. When we asked, he just said something along the lines of, “convince me.” So I tried my best… and then got the shock of my life when I received a B+ 😂😭

It turns out he was grading based on whether your idea and methodology were truly original; something pretty much untouched by historians. I did manage to get an A for the second proposal after a consult, but the damage was done... It didn’t help that the first proposal was weighted more heavily than the second which was a pretty big oof.

This sounds SO foul to say, but because this was my first history course where I ended up with an A-, I sat down for like 40 minutes and reflected in my sadness (ok Idt I was sad sad, more of like a gut wrench). Hmm generally for history, I’ve found that your greatest ally in completing assignments is time. Time to read sources, time to review your drafts again and again, time to see writing tutors for feedback. I thought I put a lot of time into this course, it just didn't translate to a preferable grade. But writing this four months later… it’s truly fine. An A- isn’t a bad grade at all! My head was just too high up in the air. We live laugh learn,,

Learning Outcome: 4.5/5 

Workload: 5/5 

Overall Rating: 7/10 

Final Grade: A-

NPS2001B: Computational Problem Solving (NUSC, Seminar Style) 

Dr. Jonathan Kang

Guys… NGL, my heart really wasn’t in this class at all. I knew from the start I was going to S/U it, so I didn’t put much effort into the individual assignments. Honestly, nothing was super difficult. I did the bare minimum and still managed to pass. Prof was real nice too; you can tell he’s trying his best, and he didn’t even call me out when I was clearly doing other work during class.

There was a group project component, and since I was with my friends, I didn’t want to drag them down, so I actually tried. But one group member was so useless it was honestly hilarious. For the first submission, we prototyped on Figma, and our actual prototype was on the second tab. The first tab was just some random shoe business template. When we asked [redacted] to do her part, she referenced the first tab 😃😃😃. Like HELLO??? How do you even mess that up? It was also painfully obvious she was ChatGPT-ing everything. GIRL… even at the final presentation, my friends and I were GAGGED at the audacity of the quality of her work. Is she not embarrassed???? 

There were also class tests, which were just memory work since it was closed book.

Learning Outcome: 2.5/5 

Workload: 3/5 

Overall Rating: 5/10 

Final Grade: B- (S/U-ed)