Semester Reflections

The first semester of university has flown by and is coming to an end soon. I would like to take some time to reflect on my experience, as well as keep a log of sorts of what I’ve been doing during the semester 12 weeks seems to be a long time in theory, but it’s gone in a flash in reality. I wonder if this is what the rest of uni life will be like. Just a blur of memories.

Studies

With finals still looming ahead, I hesitate to make any conclusions on my results. But I can say that I predicted my workload this semester to be light, and I was right. Besides the suprising amount of time German 1 took, the rest of my modules were on par with my expectations.

One pleasant suprise was how interesting CS1101S was. I really enjoyed doing the missions and quests, and I could see the passsion of the profs and my TA. I was also impressed with how challanging some of the tasks were. Out of all the intro programming mods I’ve taken, this one definitely takes the cake.

IS1103 was a straight SU grab. I think I only spent 10 minutes a week on it, so no big loss there. I highly suggest to take it in year 1 just to SU it. In a similar vein, I’m going to take ES2660 next semster if possible since I’ve heard its another fluffy SU mod.

ST1103 was average. I neither enjoyed nor disliked it. I felt that there could have been more effort in teaching R, but that’s probably because I didn’t bother waking up before 8 to catch the live lectures. With the finals having such a large weightage, I’m doubling down on that for now.

MA1301 is just tedious. It’s not hard, but having to grind through IB/A-level math again is just not very enjoyabble. I really hope that I get an A so all that time spent doing the tutorials wasn’t wasted. Still prepared to SU it if necessary though.

German was fun but I wasn’t used to 2 hour interactive lectures initially. Also, German is hard. With 12 different ways to say the word “the”, it’s hard to keep track of everything. Thank god for open book tests and pdf scanners amiright.

In summary, I would say it was a good, gentle intro to uni life and studying. I definitely prefer this to JC style grinding, and I like having the independence and freedom to choose my study plan. One thing that really helped was finishing everything super early, like two weeks before the deadline. That made everything more relaxed and less stressful.

Of course, I admit to having an unfair advantage especially for CS. I know that many people are having a tough time. And I really sympathize, because I know how hard the content is. All I can say to them is to push forward and know that grades aren’t the end all, especially in tech. Even if you feel like you’re failing, If you’re intrested in coding you will be able to make a career out of it.

I believe that next semester will be a lot tougher. I just hope that the amount of F2F classes are minimized, and that ES2660 doesn’t take up too much time. The CS stuff should be managable but it won’t be easy still. Fingers crossed.

Social Life and CCAs

I didn’t expect to run so much in university. I joined NUS Mountaineering, and took part in some pretty shag runs almost every week. I met a bunch of great people from there, and took up climbing again. I went of a climbing spree over the semester, going three times a week throughout. It was really fun, but not for my wallet. I will probably be getting a membership soon to cut down on the cost.

It’s really hard to meet new people now with online clases and not staying on campus. I do make an effort but it just seems tough to form lasting relationships. But that’s probably how its like after uni too. In fact, it’s likely way harder once we’re working. That’s why after finals I’m going to try to invite more people out or to go climbing together.

Performing as part of NUS Piano Ensemble was super stressful but fun. Ever since I messed up at my piano recital when I was 8 I’ve had an aversion to performances. Actually I missed the start in the run through performance and was so embarresed. But I practiced like mad and nailed it during the actual thing, so all’s well that ends well. I have this huge imposter syndrome too because everyone there has like a piano diploma and started playing since they were 5 or something. I’m really impressed by their playing too. But I’ve decided to take this as a motivator to really get better. 4 years is a good amount of time to improve, after all.

I had planned to join NUS MMA and Climbing. I attended one session of the former and didn’t like the striking aspect, since I’ve always wanted to learn jiu jitsu. Also the training clashed with mountaineering climbing days (before the wall closed rip) so I decided not to continue. NUS Climbing rejected me, but I found out that they were a bouldering club anyways, and I could just use the usc wall when it was open, so no big loss there.

I kinda want to join something tech or service related next semester, so we’ll see how it goes.

Uni life?

I am definitely enjoying myself in university, but I feel like I’m not experiencing everything to the fullest. Call it FOMO, but I want to do the kinds of things that I can remember when I’m stuck in an office. Maybe covid is the reason, but one goal next sem is to really meet more people and do stupid shit together. Yeah, thats a good thing to aspire to. I think.