Type: Core Module
Difficulty: Normal
Workload: Normal
Mentor: Dr Yap Choon Hwai
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:
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.
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
