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SPMS Course Review Y1S1 AY1819

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AY1819 S1 Course Review

MH1100 Calculus I

Lecturer: A. Prof Tong Ping / A. Prof Xia Kelin

  • 2 Quizzes: 21.5/22
  • Midterm: 18/20
  • Finals(60%)
  • Overall Grade: B+

A fairly standard course in Calculus I. From first principles (limits) to derivatives and its applications up to anti-differentiation.

The bell curve was extremely steep. For comments just see my reflections/advice from this semester. I am choosing to be lazy here.

MH9100 Advanced Investigations in Calculus I

Lecturer: A. Prof Tong Ping / A. Prof Xia Kelin

  • 2 Quizzes (40%)
  • Class Participation
    • Prof Tong
      • Group presentation on book reading (20%)
      • Problem Solving (10%)
    • Prof Xia
      • Group presentation on chosen applied mathematical topic (30%)
  • Overall Grade: A+

Like the Calculus I class, we alternate between the two professors with Mid-Terms as the splitting point.

  • Like MH1100, Tong's class had a more rigorous flavour. Every week we spend 1h on about 5 problems. Everyone writes their solution on the whiteboard and you have to solve/present at least 2 to get full credit in the grading above.
    • It's stressful
      • but it's okay! The first lesson may be more intimidating than the rest because the problems in the first week are there to gauge the level of godliness in your class of about the size of 20. And after add-drop it was 10 for us...
    • After the problem solving 1h, we take 5 weeks to read Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis and explain in groups to the rest of the class
  • Prof Xia: we just read papers and self-organise in groups to present on topics we want. Have fun and enjoy but prepare to get questioned if you are trying to bluff/smoke/haven't prepared.

MH1200 Linear Algebra I

Lecturer: Prof Andrew Kricker

  • Midterms: 24.5/30
  • 3 Quizzes: 16/20
  • Finals(50%)
  • Overall Grade: A-

Course in LA1 from Gaussian Elimination up to dimensions of subspaces. Less content than the previous years.

Prof Kricker is a good teacher although a busy man.

MH9200 Advanced Investigations in Linear Algebra I

Lecturer: Prof Kiah Han Mao

  • Final Assignment (100%)
  • Overall Grade: A

A very nice course! 1AU only and Prof Kiah tries to make it so. Rather than covering the same topics as MH1200 (which in the end we did much more content than MH1200), we had 9 weeks of Tutorial questions buliding on concepts that also go alongside the wonderful Essence of Linear Algebra by 3Blue1Brown. So we had quite intuitive yet tough problems every week.

Like the other advanced class, there is quite a lot of preparation and problems to do before each class but I found it rewarding in the end. It will be the most educational of all the courses because of the smaller class size and closer contact with the profs. Again, these closer contacts are only meaningful if you are able to prepare and learn as much as possible with each week/iteration.

Our final assignment was to solve all problems in Kurt, and Tanya Leise. "The $25,000,000,000 eigenvector: The linear algebra behind Google." SIAM review 48, no. 3 (2006): 569-581x

MH1300 Foundations of Mathematics

Lecturer: Ng Keng Meng

  • Midterms/ CA1 (25%): 25
  • Homework Assignment / CA2 (15%): 15
  • Finals (60%)
  • Overall Grade: A

Introduction to proofs. First 3 weeks on logic, proof techniques then some elementary number, set and function theory.

MH8300 It's a Discreetly Discrete World

Lecturer: Prof Kiah Han Mao - Tutorial (20%) - Midterm (30%) - Finals (50%) - Overall Grade: B+

Steep bell curve too!

PS0001 Introduction to Computational Thinking

Lecturer: Thomas Peyrin

  • Tests ('quizzes' but scheduled) (50%)
    • 2 Hands-on exercises quizzes (20%)
    • 2 MCQ based quizzes (30%)
  • Quizzes (on online platform after online lecture) (20%)
  • Project (30%)
  • Overall Grade: A+

Elementary Python course from syntax up to writing functions.

It was frustrating on both sides whether a student or an educator since this is the first time the course is being offered.

All lessons are in the computer lab. We started out playing with Raspberry Pi! On the first week we actually booted straight into the device and played with it by rewiring keyboard and monitor from the Windows PC to the Raspberry Pi. On subsequent weeks we SSH (remote connecction) using Windows Software. This may sound daunting to the unintiated but really it is like using any other windows software; follow instructions and type instructions and press buttons in the correct order just like summoning a 'spell' (which you learn to call an algorithm)

After this the course is really only about being tested. But I figure that nothing I advise here will remain so after the next offering so whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent!

I was worried about the bell curve about this one but I guess this just means I do not know the nature of the beast!

Further Reading

I curated a little list of advice by other NTU SPMS Seniors

SPMS MAS Senior advice

Another Senior (MAS)

Another Senior

Another Senior (MAEC)

Another Senior

NTU SPMS CBC Chem

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