Shameless person re-selling my notes on carousell

It has come to my attention that Christopher Chen from NUS Engineering (I believe he was class of 2019) is reselling my notes for GET1004, GEH1049 and CS1010E which I worked hard to compile. He even had the cheek to price it higher than mine, claiming it as an A+ package which I did not even score A+ for.

This blatant misrepresentation and dishonest act disgusts me.

He controls 3 Carousell accounts as far as I know:

• atlasfree233 (used to resell)
• limpe5567 (used to buy the notes)
• nus_packages (2nd account used to resell)

Please avoid these carousell accounts, they are duplicates of my notes.

NUS Cap Calculator

Know what grade to aim for to achieve your first class honours or desired CAP. Remember your aim by exporting to a spreadsheet or a custom-link made specially for your modules.

Export to a spreadsheet (Copy and paste)

Export to a custom-link

(Optional) MCs yet to achieve: (Optional) Target CAP:

(Optional) Module Code	Weightage (MC)	Grade Obtained

Buddymeter Cheat

While surfing facebook, I had come across many friends posting their buddymeter quizzes. As a person who likes to test the system, I decided to poke around to see how "professional" this website was done up and immediately hit the shortcut "ctr+u". Apparently it was done in a very simplified manner, and the answers to the quiz was simply stored in a variable.

The source file of the buddy quizzes seemed to be obfuscated by this website - the first link in google when you search "javascript obfuscator". This was also the same obfuscator I used to protect my CAP calculator source code.

How to use the cheat:

Step 1:
(Firefox) Right click the link below and select "Bookmark this link".
(Chrome) Press Ctr+Shift+B to open the bookmarks toolbar. Click and drag the link onto the bookmark toolbar
(Safari) Click (hold) and drag the link below to the "Bookmarks" bar

BM Reveal - by lifeofabioengineer.blogspot.com


Step 2:
Open your friend's quiz, and click on the bookmark you've just added. The answers will be revealed

Why don't you test it out right here on a sample quiz I've created.
https://buddymeter.com/quiz.html?q=n4qdFMX


I have a feeling once buddymeter discovered this post, it would change its code. Do drop a comment below to notify me when it stops working!

A guide to easily score that elusive A / A+ in NUS

How to do well in NUS? How to score that A grade?

I've never performed well in secondary school and JC. My prelim grades back then almost spelt "success" (got grades like Subpasses, U's, C's and E's).  However, in NUS, I graduated with a first class honors degree. I was even nominated as the reserve valedictorian during the commencement ceremony.

As you can see, my CAP had been on the rise after year 1, partly because I got to select the electives of my choice, and partly because I mastered the technique to doing well in NUS examinations in my later years. I hereby debunk the myth of some who say that NUS semesters get tougher as the years go by. Let me share with you my techniques with I had learnt over the years, on how to easily score an A grade in NUS.

But first, let me state the things I see students do which I personally feel do not help at all. Let me call them placebos.


The placebos to doing well

Disclaimer: This section contains many of my personal opinions and you may not share the same opinion as I do. If you disagree with me at any point of time, feel free to comment below and I will be in contact with you shortly.

1. Buying all recommended textbooks by the lecturer

Personally, I feel that textbooks are useless, and they suck away your time and resources just trying to demarcate the portions which are in the scope of the module and which are outside the syllabus. Look, lecturers will not test anything outside what they have taught. They won't teach you to fish and test you to cook. Rather, they would teach you to fish for a small fish, and they would test you on how to fish for a big one. You just apply the same concepts which they have taught you on a bigger problem. That is what examinations are all about.

I once bought a textbook during my first semester for an open-book examination. Guess what, the examination required me to know all my concepts well, I did not even have the time to open a book and read any chapter. But I won't say the textbook for that module was completely useless. Having that textbook sitting on my table made me a tad calmer knowing that I have all the information I needed sitting right here on my desk. What a placebo that was.

What I recommend instead is to print out the lecturer's notes, and make additional notes on them. Take note especially when the lecturer mentions of certain "more important" topics, these are hints for you.

2. Getting hold of senior's notes

This is prevalent among the freshmen who rampantly obtain and share seniors' notes with their OG mates. At times, I feel that this behavior may be to earn acceptance points from your fellow OG mates or just to farm "thank you's" from others. While senior's notes may be useful to some extent (you get to know the lecture slides a few weeks earlier provided you read ahead, or some past year solutions which may aid you in your revision), I would rather you remain cautious because of the following:

First, the syllabus may change. In many modules, lecturers for semester 1 and semester 2 for the same module may be different. Even so, they may make revision to the course syllabus over the years as technology and information changes. So in my opinion, the lecture notes provided by your current lecturer in the IVLE workbin will be sufficient and are the most updated versions you can ever have.

Second, your senior may not always be correct. Please take those annotations and scribbles with a pinch of salt. Don't absorb it like a sponge, or before you know it, you'll be committing the same mistakes as your senior had done.

Having said that, look out for the past year solutions or masteringphysics answer keys in your seniors' notes package as that would be the most valuable things you can get from them.

3. Forming study groups

Okay, this section will be very very subjective. It is possible to benefit from study groups, provided your study group do not have any of the following toxic characteristics.

First, a toxic study group is one that digresses too much. A little small talk to keep yourselves from falling asleep is sufficient, but if conversations take up more than 10% of the time, you might just be wasting your time.

Second, if your study group comprises students from a huge range of capabilities, the brighter students may actually find themselves answering questions which are already too basic for them. This results in a one-sided benefit.

Rather, I would recommend you to form small study groups of students with similar capabilities. This would result in an insightful discussion.

The 4 golden rules to do well in NUS

1. Understand your assessor

This is the probably the most important skill to pick up. During the first lecture, the professor will usually go through the grading criteria and how the module is assessed. Take note of this.

During the course of the module, take note of the following with regards to your assessor:

• Does your assessor pay attention to detail?
• For project presentations, does your assessor prefer technical details or the presentation towards the audience
• For fluffy modules, does your assessor like 
• In general, what do you think your assessor wants?

Allow me to illustrate my point with actual personal experiences.

During my module HR2002, Prof Lowe mentioned during the first lecture that 100% of the assessments will be graded by our tutors. Hence during every tutorial session, I attempted to find out the style of my tutor - Mr Yao. From the tutorial sessions, I found out that Mr Yao preferred novel ideas, arguments which were not conventional and challenged the 'normal textbook answers'. Furthermore, when I did past year questions and emailed Mr Yao for his feedback, I could tell from his feedback that he preferred examples as illustrations instead of proving a point. Hence from the various clues I gathered during the entire semester, I knew exactly the style of my essay to write during my finals.

Engineering professors in general tend to like graphs, figures and data. Therefore when I wrote reports for engineering design modules such as BN2203 or BN3101, I tried to perform a greater variety of experiments to generate more graphs, figures and data. These data should also be presented in a consistent (colours, font, size) and neat manner across your report.

Some professors are particularly fond on references. For example, during my module GEH1049 / GEK1900, I found this to be true when the lecturers kept emphasizing the importance of references to boost credibility. The moment I realized this, I started throwing in more references to cite, even if it were citing things which were already well known during the weekly group reports. Anything citeable was referenced and I started to notice the improvement in grades of the weekly reports.

Aesthetics is important to all types of assessors. Ensure that your reports are formatted nicely and consistently. The flow in your report should be smooth with nicely categorized sections. Your presentation slides should not be too wordy but to highlight important points. (Engineering professors tend to prefer more details and words, but keep them concise).

Note that these are just general criteria and does not apply across all modules. To summarize this whole section:

Give your assessor an answer in a way you think he likes it to be.

2. Having sufficient practice

As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. As cliche as it sounds, this is very true. I learnt it the hard way during my module MA1506. I never really liked mathematics, and studying this pure mathematics module was a nightmare to me. Looking at the confusing mathematical symbols just made my head spin. Getting straight to the point, while studying for the finals for this module, I simply just looked through the tutorial questions and the answers. Yes I understood the methods and I agreed with the sample solutions. I felt good after that as everything just seemed so familiar. However during the finals, I got stuck at many parts, simply because I've forgotten many simple concepts like the "completing the square" concept.

Yes it was easy to see the solutions and agree with the method, but it was a completely different thing being presented with the question and me coming up with the solution. The entire thought process is different. For essay-based examinations, it is good to still practice past year questions even though those questions will not be tested again. This is to practice your thought process and essay planning engines.

Ensure that you practice by re-doing the tutorial problems without looking at the answers. Work your answers out on pen and paper and literally simulate the "examination conditions" of working on the problems. If you practice diligently (every single tutorial question and past year questions), I can guarantee that you will never fall below a B+ grade.

3. Attending the lectures

Attend every lecture and pay attention to your lecturers. Do not care if your friends are talking, surfing facebook, or discussing the latest KPop news. The very reason you came for the lecture was to listen to the lecturer. If you aren't interested in the lecture, then you should not be there in the first place.

Sometimes, listening to the lecturers can give an insight into their field of interest and the topics which they are passionate about. Note them down as these will undoubtedly appear in your examinations! An example would be during my module BN4203. I could tell from Dr Yu's lectures that he was especially passionate when he talked about the benefits which exoskeletons could bring about to humans. Hence, I made it a point to study the benefits of exoskeletons, their pros and cons and yes, it was tested in the final examinations.

At times, lecturers also do drop hints by letting us know what would definitely be tested. Note all these down as well.

4. Have a study plan

Everyone has minimally a week to study thanks to our good ol reading week. I recommend studying for the latest subjects first. For example, if your final examinations are in the order A, B, C, D, then study subject D first and A the last. This will ensure that the things which you studied for remains fresh in your mind with minimum distractions from other modules.

The way I study is to do the following for each module (in chronological order)

1. Read through the lecture notes once. If the notes contains examples, just read through the solutions to the examples. Mentally take note of the thought process on solving these examples.
2. Re-do your tutorials. Do not look at the answers while doing. Any unfamiliar concepts or your weak topics should surface at this point. Go back to the notes for these topics and study them especially well.
3. Do past year papers. By now, you should be confident with your general concepts and ready to take on the past year papers.
4. (Optional) For the extra nerds who aims to score a better grade than an A+ or the weaklings who need extra practice, search online for related questions and work on them. Just FYI, I never achieved this step, ever.

This entire process should take you 2-4 days depending on how much time you have per module. Plan this well!

Conclusion

To be frank, the process would not be easy. But if you follow this guide, I can guarantee you with 95% assurance that you will receive your preferred grade. (Tips: Use S/U wisely and have a positive attitude)

Found this guide useful? Why not share it so that your friends may benefit too!

GES1021 / SSS1207 - Natural Heritage of Singapore

Type: Singapore Studies

Difficulty: Easy

Workload: High
Lecturer(s): Dr Amy Choong & Dr Ng Ngan Kee

Assessment: 30% midterms, 25% poster project, 5% forum participation, 40% finals

This module was extremely popular for the past couple of years, with at least 800 bid-points required to take this module. I was really surprised when I managed to secure this module with just 1 bid point. Why is it so popular? Well, it's the only Singapore Studies module with an Open-Book MCQ examination. No essays required! I chose this module partly because of this, not having to write any essays, and also because I found plants and animals more interesting than history (I never liked history since Secondary school days).

This is the only NUS module whereby a textbook was actually helpful (or rather, necessary).

The lecturers for this module seemed really passionate about what they do, and also they strongly believe in what the teach, about conservation of Singapore's wildlife biodiversity. And if conservation is not possible, the 2nd best way is to at least plant trees and parks and gardens.

For the poster project, we had to design a poster which spreads the message of conservation. We had to also include 3 native animals and 3 native plants found in a chosen habitat. The poster is done in groups between 2-6 people of your choice. Plagiarism is taken really seriously so all photos have to be taken by ourselves. If we wanted to use photos taken from the internet, we had to have written permission by the author.

The field trips recommended by the lecturers are not necessary to doing well, they are simply for personal appreciation of nature.

Scoring in this module was no easy feat though. The midterms and finals were similar in nature.

• Both tests were fully MCQ in nature
• 2 minutes per question on the average

A sample question would be:

Which of the following are true?
(i) The last tiger in Singapore was shot in Lim Chu Kang
(ii) The Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum was opened in April 2016
(iii) The mud lobster benefits the habitat by recycling nutrients in the ground, and there are 6 species of them in Singapore
(iv) The Flame-of-the-forest (Delonix regia) has scarlet flowers
(v) Mosaic crabs are commonly eaten as a delicacy

A) i, ii only
B) i, iii, v only
C) ii, iii, iv only
D) iii, iv only
E) None of the above

Learning points from the sample question:

• The questions are set to trick you. (i) is false because the answer is Chua Chu Kang. (ii) is false because the LKCNHM opened in April 2015
• Multiple facts can be tested in a single option. For example in (iii), I knew clearly that the mud lobster helps in recycling nutrients. However about the 6 species found in Singapore, is it true? I had to look that up
• The lecturer is fond of testing facts which they only mentioned verbally during lectures, for example in (iv) the colour of the flowers, ot what animals disperse its seeds, what insects pollinates its flowers etc. All these WILL come out.

Furthermore, 95% (almost all) of the questions were in this format. Hence time management is really important in this module. The correct answer is D in case you're wondering. Below, you may find some tips I believe will help you in tackling this module.

1: Manage your time well
This is the most basic tip. If you find yourself spending too much time on a question, skip it and come back to it later when you're done. Although this rarely happens because you will hardly have any time to come back to it.

2: Have a cheat sheet at hand
This is an open book examination, however you will not have time to flip your book to find your information. I had 2 cheat sheet booklets, made from all the animals extracted from the textbook and notes. One sorted by scientific names and the other sorted by common names. Here are the columns which I had in my cheat sheet:

• Common Names
• Scientific Names
• Habitat found in
• Textbook page reference
• Important traits, mostly I'll take note of the following
• Native / Endemic / Introduced (from where) ** Important!
• Flower colour
• Flower pollinator
• Seed disperser & method
• Family / Genus belonging to
• Edible / Poisonous / Venomous
• Any other characteristic information which makes it special

A preview of my cheatsheet

I had also another booklet on top of it, i call it a 'dictionary'. Any difficult terms or abbreviations in the scope of the module are explained in this dictionary, along with any references if any.

* I will not be providing my cheatsheets or my dictionaries. Good grades come with both studying smart and hard work. There is no shortcut in life.

3: Be smart in selecting your options
This is a really useful time saving hack. Simply follow the listed rules below while going through the multi-option selections (i), (ii) ...

1. If you are unsure of an option, skip it
2. If you are absolutely sure that an option (e.g. iii) is wrong, strike out all options containing (iii) in it including 'All of the above'. Go to step 4
3. If you are absolutely sure that an option (e.g. iii) is correct, strike out all options NOT containing (iii) in it including 'None of the above'. Go to step 4
4. If there is only 1 remaining option, that is your answer. If not, repeat steps 2 through 4

Often, I do not need to know everything to be able to come up with an answer. Some options may contain facts which I doubt anyone will even know.

4: Be attentive during lectures
Dr Amy Choong is fond of showing many videos during lectures. Pay attention to these videos as they will be tested as well. Also, take note of what the lecturer says. Suppose the lecturer mentions any fun facts (like flower colour, or how many leaves it has, or number of eggs it lays), write them all down, even though you don't think its important. It is important and have a high probability it will come out during your exams.

5: Read the textbook from cover to cover, and know where to find your information
The sample question option (ii) threw me off, because I simply could not remember where LKCNHM appeared in the notes or the textbook. Looking for it would take up too much time. Hence, be very clear where to lookup various topics. This is really important. I'd suggest that you read through the textbook and notes once through earliest 2 days before the test so that the information is still fresh.

Overall, this module was really enjoyable, other than the massive time input required in doing up the cheatsheets.

* A Hint: I believe I've covered this module in detail already

Expected Grade: A-

Achieved Grade: A

CS2105 - Introduction to Computer Networks

Type: Unrestricted Elective Module

Difficulty: Easy

Workload: Normal
Lecturer(s): Dr Zhou Lifeng

Assessment: 5% tutorial attendance, 4x assignments worth 25%, 15% open book midterms, 55% closed book Finals

Another easy and interesting module offered by NUS Computing. A textbook isn't necessary for this module. I've always heard of the terms HTTPS, TLS, SSL, Sockets, IPv4, IPv6 but I never truly understood what they were. Having taken this module, I now understand what all of these mean and how they work. CS2105 an introduction module to computer networking and it gives an overview on what each layer of the OSI model is about without going too technical into each layer. Hence the 'easy' difficulty.

The 5% tutorial attendance is scorable, as long as you attend all tutorial sessions and generally ask more questions than your peers, then you'll be given the above-average mark. SoC students tend to be pretty quiet during tutorials, hence use this fact to your own advantage ;)

The 4 assignments consisted of you having to program sockets, either a server or a client, and also to develop a file transfer protocol over an unreliable network which may drop or corrupt your packets at random. These assignments were programmed using Java. I had 0 prior knowledge on sockets and I found the assignments to be pretty intimidating at first glance. It was because of this fact that I spent quite a lot of time on the assignments. However, there are many senior's examples online, and stackexchange is really your good friend in these assignments. Ultimately, I still managed to score full marks for all the assignments, so it is possible for you, even when you have no clue on what a socket is.

The open book midterms was pretty okay-ish, provided that you practiced all tutorial questions as well as the 3 sample past year papers which the lecturer provided as the midterms were just variants of the above subset of questions. Nothing fantastic. This also applies to the finals as well, it was pretty easy provided that you practiced and you know your concepts.

An extra kudos to Dr Zhou, for he was really really active in the forums. If you had any queries or doubts, just post it in the IVLE forums and Dr Zhou would almost always reply within the hour. It was as though he was 'camping' at the forums 24/7. I could tell that he was really really passionate about the understanding of his students.

* A Hint: The nature of this module is very theoretical, less of formula cramping, so it is really really really important that you understand everything in this module. Also, practise every single tutorial question and sample papers which he lecturer provides and it should suffice.

Expected Grade: A

Achieved Grade: A+

BN4203 - Rehabilitation Engineering

Type: Technical Elective

Difficulty: Easy

Workload: Normal
Lecturer(s): Dr Raye Yeow & Dr Yu Haoyong

Assessment: Mini-project, term project and 40% finals

A relatively easy technical elective to take up. It is also pretty fun with the project works and the SPD visits.

The mini-project required us to 3-d print any prosthetic hands from http://enablingthefuture.org/upper-limb-prosthetics/ and making a design modification to improve the prosthesis. This was done in groups of 5-6. Afterwhich, we were required to make a video to highlight the prosthesis's improved feature and its new capabilities. There isn't a report or presentation in this segment so it was really pretty fun and stress free.

The topic choice for the term project was pretty relaxed. In the same groupings of 5-6, we had to pick any area in the field of rehabilitation engineering to research on, evaluate current methods and propose new theoretical changes. This project consisted of a report and a presentation.

Another point worth mentioning are the SPD visits. 3 lectures were held at SG Enable somewhere at lengkok barhu. There, we were exposed to many rehabilitative devices from handheld magnifiers, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices and many forms of wheelchairs - hands on! Imagine a big group of university students sitting on motorized wheelchairs travelling around the campus in a single file.

Scoring in the finals was easy, provided that you had studied properly for this module. The lecturer also dropped hints on what type of questions may appear during the finals, hence please do attend the lectures and note these hints down! They really did appear in the finals.

* A Hint: For the finals, ensure that you pay special attention to the following areas: 1) The various types of psychological deformities and gait deviation conditions 2) All the factors listed in topics: seating and postures and stroke rehabilitation 3) Prof Raye's hints

Expected Grade: A-

Achieved Grade: A

BN4101 - B.Eng. Dissertation - AKA FYP

Type: Core Module

Difficulty: Normal

Workload: Normal
Mentor: Dr Yap Choon Hwai

Assessment: Progress report 1, Progress report 2, Final Thesis and Poster presentation

In contrast to seniors complaining that FYP was stressful, time consuming and all-nighters were common to write the thesis, I felt that my FYP journey was pretty relaxed and comfortable. Perhaps this was due to the nature of my project being computational in nature, but I would attribute this to time management and a good attitude as well.

For a start, a good professor is the most important factor to your FYP. I had chosen to work under Dr Yap as I felt that he is a patient professor who is genuinely interested in his students' learning and growth rather than the results generated during the FYP. Your mentor will be the one grading your FYP, deciding the directions to the project and your learning, hence it is vital to choose a good professor.

Next, the FYP topic must be something you are interested in. I was interested in programming, and therefore I chose a topic which included some elements of programming in it - Computational Fluid Dynamics. I secured my topic by arranging with my prof through email prior to the release of the available FYP topics. This guarantees your topic choice as well as your professor, and I highly recommend that you do the same. For the rest who do not do so, a list of topics will be released with their respective professors, and students would ballot for their topics of choice, ranking their choices in the process. Rumor says that the allocation is done by CAP, and you may not even be successful in the first round of balloting and have to ballot in the second round which usually contains harder projects. You will be working on the project for a year across 2 semesters, hence your project should be be something which you find meaningful.

Time planning is also important as one pursues his FYP, and this should not come as a surprise to you. However to all fellow procrastinators out there, I admit that I am one huge procrastinator too, try to set psudo deadlines before the actual deadline and trick yourself to believe in the psudo deadlines which you had set. This way, even though you missed the deadlines, you will never submit anything late.

Lastly, your attitude during the project is also very important. Throughout the project, regardless on the direction of the results, always keep this in mind:

It doesn't matter whether your results align with the hypothesis or not, what matters is that you learn and enjoy the process.

This is especially true since a Final Year Project is called FYP, not a scientific journal publication. Think of it as a secondary school project, it is not as official as releasing the results to a journal. If your results are successful, good for you. If your results are unsuccessful, you can also report it as well, alongside evaluations reasons for the failure, because now the scientific community knows that they cannot do an experiment a certain way.

Because of all of these factors, my FYP journey had been rather smooth sailing.

* A Hint: Start your reports, presentations early, manage your time well and choose a good professor and topic combination.

Expected Grade: A-

Achieved Grade: A

Module review for my Year 4 Semester 2 modules

Year 4 Semester 2

And this is it. My undergraduate life is officially over! I have already secured a job in the Cyber Security industry during the NUS career fair (sorry BME, but I realised that I had not much passion in this course). Yay graduate le!

BN4101 (B.Eng. Dissertation - AKA FYP)

BN4203 (Rehabilitation Engineering)

CS2105 (Introduction to Computer Networks)

GES1021 / SSS1207 (Natural Heritage of Singapore)

How to unsubscribe from NUS junk newsletters

Why am I receiving so many emails in my NUS account?
By default, NUS subscribes you to a ton of newsletters. These newsletters originate from various student / commercial / NUS groups.

I often find myself receiving a whole heap of newsletters which I have totally no interest in. Sometimes this may even cause you to miss important emails in the pile of junk mail. Well, let me walk you through the process on how to stop receiving these junk mail.

Step 1:
Head over to NUS groups website and login with your NUSnet ID and password.

Step 2:
Choose the various groups which you have absolutely no interest in, and wish to unsubscribe to their email blasts.

Step 3:
Hooray! You have now a cleaner inbox. Unfortunately, there are still some mail sources which you cannot unsubscribe from. (e.g. your department's email blasts, etc.)

Was this article helpful? You may share this with your friends to help them out as well!

Know your CORS module bidding results earlier

Just sharing, I just discovered a way to know whether you have managed to successfully secure a module 1 hour before the official email results from regbox.

At around 7pm, you can head over to IVLE > Refresh Modules > Select the current semester and refresh your modules. If you successfully managed to secure your modules, it will appear right there on your workspace.

All the best in your bidding!

HR2002 - Human Capital in Organizations

Type: Core Module

Difficulty: Normal

Workload: Normal
Lecturer(s): Prof Lowe Zhu Yong & Mr Yao Jingxian (Commendable Tutor)

Assessment: Class Participation, 1 Group Presentation + Report and Finals

This is a business module which all engineers are forced to take, hence it is not uncommon to hear sighs and grumbles among students during the first few lectures. I also grumbled a little, because I never did well in fluffy essay modules.

The lecturer, Prof Lowe, uploads very scant powerpoint slides. He constantly emphasizes the benefit of attending lecturers physically because 1: there is no webcast and 2: most of the explanation is done during the lecture itself. It is very true. Many concepts are pretty straightforward when explained by prof Lowe, hence I would highly recommend you to attend the lectures. Don't skip any of them.

100% of the assessment is conducted by your tutor. My tutor was Mr Yao Jingxian, and I must say he's the best tutor ever. He understands that class participation will result in many "fake" and "wayang" people who will raise hands and unload their knowledge regardless on the direction of the discussion, all just for the sake of getting the class participation marks. Hence instead, Mr Yao designs many class activities which involves discussions naturally. He'll then walk around and grade everyone based on the overall performance. So just participate in your group discussions and you should be safe.

For the finals, Prof Lowe emphasized that our tutors are also responsible for marking your scripts. Finals consisted of 2 compulsory questions, in which both point form or essay form was allowed. During the reading week, I did several practise questions from past year papers, and I emailed my tutor for comments and feedback. He was very diligent in the feedback and very quick in his reply. From the feedback of the 2 practice essays I submitted to my tutor, I learnt what he likes. (Note that this may differ from tutor to tutor)

• Real examples are not required, rather use examples to illustrate your point
• e.g. "Suppose your boss knows that his workers have a habit of arriving late, he may wish to take up an authoritarian approach of leadership."
• You do not need to take a stand, rather generate points from both sides of the argument
• Unique points are preferred. Think out of the box! As long as you can argue in a way which makes sense, that will be a unique point which my tutor especially loves.

At the start of this module, all my friends stated that they were going to SU the module. Instead, I urged them to look at this another way. Aim for an A+++ for the module, so even if you do not do well, the S/U option is a safety net. This module could be used as a CAP puller too. I was glad that my friends took my advice, and all of them scored B+ and above. I was also a little shocked when I received my grade, but you see, aim high and when you fall from A+++ to A+, you'll still be contented :)

* A Hint: Understand your tutor's preferences (As stated in my guide - A guide to easily score that elusive A / A+ in NUS), what he likes and dislikes. Then during the final exam just dish him exactly what he wants, and you will reap the grades which you want too.

Expected Grade: B+

Achieved Grade: A+

CS2107 - Introduction to Information Security

Type: Unrestricted Elective Module

Difficulty: Easy

Workload: Light
Lecturer(s): Dr Sufatrio

Assessment: 1 Quiz, 3 Assignments, 1 Group Presentation and Finals

This module covered a wide range of Information Security topics, without going too deep into the mathematical details. There can be some topics which can be a little abstract (e.g. Certificates, Key Exchanges and SSL TLS protocol). These more abstract topics build upon the earlier topics of cryptography and encryption. Hence, it is vital to grasp the concepts of the first few topics really really well. Know what is the difference between Encryption and Hashing and the different types of them. Be very clear the differences between the various types of encryption and hashing methods.

For the midterm quiz, revise especially the birthday attack equation and the birthday attack variant (in your tutorial), the lecturer has a particular liking to this topic.

The 3 assignments were pretty fun, but it can be a headache when you just can't seem to tackle it. Google and stackexchange is your best friend in this. But I'll highly recommend you to do these projects as a group as its possible to delegate the work between friends.

The finals are open book, but the books won't save you. It is still important to know your concepts at your fingertips. Also, i'll recommend you to bring a 'dictionary' of terms compiled from your tutorials and lecture notes for your finals just in case. However the nature of the questions will require you to derive the terms from the definition, not the other way round, which increases the difficulty level.

The bell curve for this module can be rather steep at the better grades, but it's still pretty normal around for the grades below B+. This conclusion was formed by my own personal experience and a sample size of about 10 comp-science students. I was in the 75th percentile in all my assignments, quiz and finals, however I still didn't manage to achieve an A+ grade which I predicted. In computer science, there will always be a small group of students who are complete geniuses, who are complete experts in this field, who are better than the teaching assistants. Oh well, but I am still contented with my grade.

* A Hint: Know your concepts after every week. Don't procrastinate catching up, or your confusion will snowball, I guarantee this. If you are unclear in any topics, draw a visual mindmap on what happens. Personally seeing a visual big picture helped me understand much clearer than simply reading the notes.

Expected Grade: A+

Achieved Grade: A

BN3101 - Biomedical Engineering Design

Type: Core Module

Difficulty: Easy

Workload: High
Lecturer(s): Dr Mrinal Musib & Dr Ren Hong Liang

Assessment: 10% Quiz and 90% Group Project

This design module is a more advanced version of BN2203. This module covers the entire design process all the way just before clinical trials. Hence this module reflects the actual industry design processes and methods.

Groups of 6 are allocated by the lecturers and I guess the groups are formed with every group having almost the same average CAP. Each group will be allocated $500 budget and the ultimate goal is to make a fully functional working prototype which addresses a project task given to you by the professor assigned to your group. Your group will also have to conduct a market research and a patent search to make sure that your group is not infringing on anybody's patented designs.

The quiz around mid-semester was just a burden in my opinion. They tested everything the lectures covered. Be careful, they will test every little detail in the lecture notes. I found some questions to be a little absurd too.

• Which country is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) based in?
• Which is the last stage of the Product Development Process which BN3101 covers until?

Look, I did not even think that the introductory lecture 0 would be covered, but it was!

* A Hint: Start early! Every group always rushes at the end to finish up the prototype. If your whatsapp group is too quiet, start the ball rolling! Step up to arrange and organize meetups and the agendas to accomplish. Meet on a weekly/biweekly basis and make sure you have an agenda drawn up for each meeting. Try not to say "lets all go home to do research" because frankly speaking, nobody will do it. Rather, ask  your members to do research first BEFORE the meeting, then discuss our findings during the meeting. This ensures that everyone will do some form of research.

Expected Grade: B+

Achieved Grade: A

BN2402 - Fundamentals of Bioinstrumentation

Type: Core Module

Difficulty: Easy

Workload: Light
Lecturer(s): Dr Huang Zhi Wei & Dr James Kah

Assessment: 2 Labs, 2 Quiz and Group Project

I had taken this module as a replacement for BN3401 which was supposed to be a super high level electronics module. I guess the department pulled the plug off this module to allow electronics to become a technical elective rather than a compulsory module. Simply because, electronics are not for everybody.

As a year 4 taking this year 2 module, we had prior knowledge having taken EG1108 and BN2203 before, hence the module was a breeze.

This module was split into 2 components, an theory part and a practical part. The first part taught us things which EG1108 covered + Operational Amplifiers (OpAMPs). So expect topics like KVL, KCL, Superposition and lots of OpAMP theory. There was a quiz at the end of Part 1, and it has a high emphasis on OpAMPs so study this chapter especially well.

Part 2 was taught by Dr James Kah, and he went through the basics of Arduino. If you have any member in your team who is good in programming, this part should not be a problem to you. The mini project was to make a stress sensor to quantify the stress level of a subject using 2 sensors (GSR sensor and a heartrate sensor). We did not have to 3-d print anything, rather the emphasis was the method which we quantified the stress levels into and the modification of the basic codes which we were given.

There was a live demonstration part where we had to strap the stress sensor onto one of the TA and attempt to induce stress on him. Because many research papers quoted the "Stroop Color Word Test" as their preferred method to inducing stress in their subjects, many many groups also used this test. My group did not want to blindly follow the crowd because that was simply boring to have 20 groups all using the same test on the TA, hence we decided to try something more fun - the Fake Hand Experiment.

The experiment was a success because the TA simply did not expect the hammer coming. Our stress sensor also registered a spike in stress level which I was relieved that the experiment was a success.

Overall, I felt that this module was very doable.

* A Hint: For part 1, focus especially on Operational Amplifiers because I am 100% certain that will come out. For part 2, don't simply blindly use the first 10 links of your google search, because that will be what everyone clicks. Scroll down, be creative, and most importantly, make sure it is still within your group's capabilities.

Expected Grade: A

Achieved Grade: A+

Module review for my Year 4 Semester 1 modules

Year 4 Semester 1

It's finally my final year! When I was in year 1 I recalled envying those year 4 graduating students. But now at this point, I am not looking forward to graduation. Life after graduation is like a dark abyss, once you enter it, you'll be faced with life's stresses and problems all thrown at you. Before you know it, you'll have emerged from the other end of the abyss, having conquered life and it's troubles, but finding yourself too weak and frail to enjoy the last few remaining years in life.

BN2402 (Fundamentals of Bioinstrumentation)

BN3101 (Biomedical Engineering Design)

CS2107 (Introduction to Information Security)

HR2002 (Human Capital in Organizations)

Module review for my Year 3 Modules

Year 3 was really a great and memorable year. Exchange and Industrial Attachment, my CAP did not move an inch during this entire year.

Year 3 Semester 1

Embarked on the coveted Student Exchange Programme (SEP) to KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

Why should you go on a Student Exchange Programme?

1. You get to experience a student life in another university. Such an experience is very different from travelling to a country on a holiday.
2. You get to freeze your CAP. All modules taken while on SEP will be graded on a Pass/Fail basis and will not be counted towards your cap. You will just have to pass the modules which you took. (So take all the difficult technical elective modules while on SEP!)

If you're afraid of the cost, here's a breakdown of my total expenditure during the semester. Note that my living expenditure was very low because I did not travel or eat out. I cooked every meal and was very prudent on my spending.

Expenditure
Accommodation 5 months	$3,300
Living expenditure	$1,700
Air Tickets	$1,100
Total:	$6,100

Of course you may apply for funding and bursaries to offset this amount. I applied for the NASA Exchange Scholarship through NUS (I heard that NUS gives this funding to almost everybody, not too sure). This effectively offset my expenditure by $2,500.

Year 3 Semester 2

EG3611 Industrial attachment (Internship) semester. I did not take any evening modules because I reckoned that I would be too tired after work to even concentrate.

GET1004 / GEK1531 - Cyber Security

Type:  Unrestricted Elective Module

Difficulty: Normal

Workload: Mildly Heavy
Lecturer(s): Prof Yu Chien Siang & Prof Leung Ka Hin

Assessment: Midterm Presentation, 2 Tutorials, Individual Powerpoint Presentation, Group Project and CA1 & CA2

This module covered several topics on cybersecurity, but focused more on the mathematical side of cyber security as the module belonged to the Mathematics department. A similar module which I took later was CS2107 - Introduction to information security, which covered more or less the same topics, but focused on the applications of such techniques. On hindsight, I felt that CS2107 was more fun as we got to play around with spoofing and code injection techniques. However this module helped me understand the mechanics behind these techniques.

This module was an evening module, which meant that the lecture slots were conducted from 6pm - 9pm. As such, the lecture hall tend to be pretty empty as no students like to stay in school so late. There was, however, no webcast to this module.

Out of all the weekly 3h lectures, 70% of the lectures were conducted by Prof Yu who covered the theoretical portion and 30% of the lectures were conducted by Prof Leung who covered the mathematical portion of the module.

The theoretical lecture slides tend to be full of pictures, as the lecturer would explain the concepts verbally. In these lectures, you would not need to take notes, simply sit back and relax and just know the events / concepts which the lecturer mentions. Just make sure that you understand any technical jargon brought up, for example phishing, spear phishing, espionage, malware, trojan, keyloggers etc.

The mathematical portion of the module, on the other hand, is very important in this module. This is still a mathematics module after all. Though there are few lectures, these concepts are especially important. Prof Leung would go through concepts like how the various ciphers work, the mechanics behind RSA cryptography, modulus arithmetic etc. There will be a couple of tutorial questions for this part, and it is really important that you understand how to do all these tutorial questions. Due to the nature of this module, there are only a few types of (theoretical) questions they can ask you.

For this module, I mentioned that the workload is mildly heavy. This is because there were a couple of reports / presentations

• 1 individual presentation
• 1 group presentation + report

However, this segment was purely for you to learn about a topic outside what was taught, hence it wasn't stressful at all. The presentations were held in a very casual setting, hence there is no need to wear formal at all. Just that the report writing and presentation preparation requires some time to prepare for.

CA1 and CA2 were conducted in the lecture theater. The test consists of a theoretical part (fill in the blanks style) and a mathematical part whereby you need to show your mathematical workings.

In summary, this module was not difficult at all, and it helped my gain a better understand of the mechanism behind cryptography. However if you are the more "hands-on" type of person, CS2107 will be a better module for you.

* A Hint: For the theoretical part, understand all the keywords. Know what these cybersecurity terms are and how they work. For the mathematical part, just know how to work out all the examples in the lecture notes and the tutorials and you will be fine.

Expected Grade: B+

Achieved Grade: B+

BN3501 - Equilibrium and Kinetic Bioprocesses

Type: Core Module

Difficulty: Easy

Workload: Normal
Lecturer(s): Prof Chen Chia Hung

Assessment: 2 x Labs, Group Report and Presentation, Midterms and Finals

I was apprehensive when I was scheduled to take a level 3000 module when I was just a year 2 student. However don't be fooled with the level, this was one of the easiest modules I might have taken in NUS. This module covers concepts like thermodynamics, enthalpy, Gibbs free energy and energy equilibrium. This module has NO webcast, like all BN modules.

At first, the lecture notes may seem intimidating with many complicated equations peppered throughout the slides throughout all the lectures. The good news - there are no cheatsheets allowed for this module. This means that it is upright unethical for the lecturers to make us memorize every single equation. We are humans, not cramp-bots. Prof Chen was kind enough to mention during lectures which concepts and equations are the more "important" ones to study. Every week, on top of the lecture notes, there will be a tutorial and a set of True/False summary questions for that week's lecture.

The labs were pretty interesting, but may be a little difficult to understand if you havn't read the lab manual beforehand. Lab 1 involved a spectrophotometer to measure the change in light absorbance as a reaction proceeds. Although the experiment manual was complicated, our lab TA was really kind enough to guide us throughout the lab. Lab 2 manual was even more convoluted, with the title being "Determination of Michaelis-Menten constants for Free and Immobilized enzymes". Not my cup of tea, and I admit that I was pretty much a freeloader for this lab. However, the experimental materials were high in cost, hence we had giant group sizes - my group had 10 members. Not much effort put into this lab and not much learning from it, ohwells..

There was also a group project component, with my group having 15 members. This presentation and report could be of any topic from a huge list given to us. In my opinion, this was mainly for general knowledge and self-improvement. My group's topic was "Carbon Monoxide Poisoning" and we covered the mechanisms behind this poisoning. The report had to be 2 pages long and in the format of a research paper.

Now for the midterms and the finals. The BME department is notorious for not releasing past year questions, but I do have the midterms questions and answers for the year I took the module in 2016. The midterms and finals were highly similar in format, with a good mix of conceptual questions and calculation questions. In both assessments, they started with a section of True/False questions, followed by a couple of calculation questions. The true/false questions were very similar to the weekly summary questions, and the calculation questions were highly similar to the ones in the tutorials. In fact, it was really straightforward that many people left the examination hall during the 1-hour mark for the finals.

Important tutorial questions: Calculation of Enthalpy, Entropy, free energy and work done in a process.

Important concepts: Kelvin Plank statement, Clausius and Clausius inequality.


* A Hint: Needless to say, attend all lectures to take note of the important sections and concepts. Memorize all True/False questions (you won't regret this) and do all tutorial questions. Don't just looks through the answers and agree, redo the questions (I'm serious).

Expected Grade: B

Achieved Grade: A-

BN2401 - Biosignals Processing

Type: Core Module

Difficulty: Easy

Workload: Normal
Lecturer(s): Dr Qiu Anqi & Dr James Kah

Assessment: Weekly Quizzes, Labs and Finals


* A Hint: If you wish for me to have this reviewed, do drop your request in the comments and I will do it up soon!

Expected Grade: B+

Achieved Grade: A

BN2203 - Introduction to Bioengineering Design

Type: Core Module

Difficulty: Easy

Workload: Heavy
Lecturer(s): Dr Yap Choon Hwai & Dr Huang Zhiwei

Assessment: LabView Assignment, Midterm Presentation, Prototype Demo and Final Presentation

This module is a sequel to the BN2103 module. In the former, you are given a product to make and you make it. This time, you are given a problem statement and you are expected to design and make the product with a budget given.

Students are divided into groups automatically so no choosing of team members. Different groups are also automatically assigned under various profs with different problem statements. A budget of $500 is allocated to every group.

Grading of this module had 2 components - individual and group components.

In my opinion, this project really depends on how on your groupmates are. I was blessed to have an awesome team and hence I feel that we did not too badly. I won't go into detail about the project timeline and what we did. My advise to all of you will be to start early and get things done ASAP. This is because unforeseen circumstances will definitely crop up (product failing, initial idea not too good etc) which you will have to redo the prototype.

As for grading, I was pretty puzzled to see a wide range in grades from my group. B, B+, A-, A+ were the grades achieved. I guess individual components do play a major role too, so try your best to do the individual assignments properly!

* A Hint: Do your best in individual components. Be a good teammate and push your group to start early.

Expected Grade: A-

Achieved Grade: A+

BN2201 - Quantitative Physiology for Bioengineers

Type: Core Module

Difficulty: Normal

Workload: Normal
Lecturer(s): Dr Alberto Corrias & MD Angelo All & Prof Leo Hwa Liang

Assessment: IVLE Quizzes, Labs and Finals

Although we were given a warning at first that this module had a lot of memorizing to do, it was pretty okay in my opinion. This was because the lecturers made it clear what we had to know and what we did not have to memorize. Textbooks are not required for this module, the lecturers notes suffice as the lecturers do not test anything outside their notes.

This module was broken down into 5 parts: Cardiovascular, Respiratory, Neural, Gastrointestinal and Renal Physiology. Each of the parts (with the exception of Renal Physiology) had its own IVLE test upon completion.

I rated this module of a 'normal' difficulty as there were many overlaps with my O-level Biology topics. I found many things taught vaguely familiar and that helped a lot. It may be a little more difficult if you do not have any Biology background.

Anyway, this module was not all Physiology (naming parts, memorizing function and whatever medicine students are tested on). There was quite some physics in this module too. The all too familiar Bernoulli's equation for calculating blood pressures, the Fick's law of diffusion are just some of the many equations you have to employ too.

The lab sessions were very cool in my opinion. We learnt how to use the stethoscope  and a Sphygmomanometer to measure a persons' blood pressure (for real!). Another lab employed the use of a device which is able to measure our lung's various capacities and oxygen concentration.

* A Hint: Regular reviewing of the notes prevents you from forgetting what was taught previously. The IVLE quizzes helps a lot, ensure you put in effort in those. Try to collaborate with friends if possible.

Expected Grade: B+

Achieved Grade: A-

Module review for my Year 2 Semester 2 modules

Year 2 Semester 2

I did surprisingly not-too-bad for this semester, contrary to my predictions. Oo maybe this time my grades aren't enough to qualify for the dean's list, but I'm pretty much satisfied with it :)

BN2201 (Quantitative Physiology for Bioengineers)

BN2203 (Introduction to Bioengineering Design)

BN2401 (Biosignals Processing)

If you wish for me to have this reviewed, do drop your request in the comments and I will do it up soon!

BN3501 (Equilibrium and Kinetic Bioprocesses)

GET1004 / GEK1531 (Cyber Security)