Life in 2nd semester

Wishing all Hindus a Happy Deepavali!

Time flies... It was just July - summer in the UK - when I first started a whole new journey in the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC). Now it's the end of October - autumn, approaching winter - and 3 weeks into my second semester, known as Semester 1 here. Pardon me for not keeping you guys outside Nottingham updated.

Despite the fact that I've grown very accustomed to life here, a new semester still brings its own very unique challenges. For one thing, the campus is now a lot more livelier (crowded I shall say) now that all the students from foundation to postgraduate levels are back from their holidays. In my unit at Pangkor Hall where there used to be an empty room, there is an addition of an African from... well... Africa. I can't even recall his name by the way. Given the influx of so many students, one can imagine how packed the common areas in the university are, namely the student association building (cafeteria and some shops inside), computer labs and sports center. The campus is no doubt quite big, but most of it is made up of empty spaces. In other words, the buildings here are quite small and sparse.

The arrival of students new and old has changed the way things are going on here compared to my first semester. Heck, this is how university life should be, as one of my friend remarked. Clubs and societies are now active with each of them having their respective AGMs. But what is disappointing is that there are not many engineering-related clubs around, so in the end I opted to join the Outdoor Club (only). This club essentially organizes activities which are (obviously) outdoor-based, like camping, cave-exploring, paintball, etc. However fun these activities sound, they do not come cheap. A 2-day camping cum water-rafting trip costs RM200... Apart from clubs and societies, the university is also busy organizing events like "Understanding the Birds and the Bees" last week. Euphemism away, this event is basically about sex education. I didn't attend any of the programmes held, but I heard from my friends that the people there were giving out free... guess what? Condoms. Plus a pack of lubricant. Cool huh? The subject of comdoms became the hot topic of the day. Some even set their own target (not seriouslly) of when and how they're going to use it (must use before the expiry date)!

Academic-wise, the number of modules I'm studying are still the same, albeit harder, because the knowledge from secondary school can only take us that far... Below is an overview of modules I'll be taking this semester.


English Language & Study Skills A (EN0 ELA)

Lecturer & Tutor: Mr. Emmet Whelan (Profile)
Duration: 4 hours per week
Time: Monday, 9 – 11 am; Wednesday, 11 am – 1 pm
This semester is the first time in my life where I have an ang mo (Caucasian) as a lecturer. He is from Ireland and has taught in Taiwan before, so he can understand Mandarin. Apart from the change in lecturer, this module is somewhat similar to ELI in Semester 0, but this time there will be an assessment based on oral presentation. I'd already chosen the topic of SpaceShipOne (I thought of using Nintendo Wii as my topic, but someone has already done it last year).


Light Waves & Electrons B (EN0 LWB)

Lecturer & Tutor: Dr. Khiew
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of example class per week
Time: Monday, 11 am – 1 pm; Thursday, 1 - 2 pm (Example class)
The lecturer for this module is the same as LWA last semester. He is the only lecturer who is known to visit student's blog (including mine). This module is getting a whole lot tougher, with Dr. Khiew cautioning us at the beginning of the semester that there are over 80 formulas to memorize. The Physics in this module is mostly about the quantum realm of nature, with stuff like the Bohr model of the hydrogen atom, Compton effect and the Pauli exclusion principle during the last week. This is where the limits of Form 5 knowledge is reached I'm afraid.


Basic Engineering Mechanics B (EN0 BMB)

Lecturer & Tutor: Mr. Tan
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of example class per week
Time: Monday, 2 – 5 pm
We have a new Mechanics lecturer, who was previously our lab supervisor last semester. Unfortunately most students have trouble understanding his lecture, especially after the second week. This module takes us deeper into the field of mechanics, starting from circular motion and ending at oscillations.


Foundation Mathematics (HG1 FND)

Lecturers: Dr. Natanael (Profile), Ms. Grace Yap, Mr. Balrama
Tutor: Ms. Grace Yap
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of example class per week
Time: Tuesday, 9 – 11 pm; Friday, 9 – 10 am (Example class)
This module differs from others in terms of its organization because it runs for 2 semesters. In this semester itself, we have 3 lecturers, each one teaching us for an average of 3 weeks. So far I'd been taught by Mr. Natanael on the topic of trigonometry. He claims to be the cutest lecturer on campus (you can see his photo on his profile page).


Electronic Information – WWW (XXA C01)

Lecturer & Tutor: Ms. Reginamary
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of example class per week
Time: Tuesday, 2 – 5 pm
This module is basically about the internet - how it works and how to create web pages using HTML. Creating HTML pages is pretty basic for me (I started learning it during primary school), but still there are tons of internet jargon (e.g. TCP/IP, DNS, ICANN) which I've to know the exact meaning, although I'd already have a rough idea of what they mean.


Electricity and Magnetism A (EN0 EMA)

Lecturer & Tutor: Mr. Terence Wong
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of example class per week
Time: Wednesday, 2 – 5 pm
This is the module where we learn about electric circuits, manipulating current, voltage and resistance. My lecturer is also the Director of Studies for the Engineering Foundation Programme. He is the only Physics lecturer who doesn't use PowerPoint, but rather talk and chalk (this phrase is a little too outdated, because I haven't had the chance to catch a glimpse of chalk after I left school). However, I prefer his style because he starts everything from ground-up, making sure we understand everything that he is teaching.


Moral Studies (MPW2153)

Lecturer: Dr. Tew
Duration: 5 hours per week in one day
Time: Friday, 12 – 5 pm
Many people have the the misconception that Moral Studies will be like what we do for SPM, memorizing all those moral values. I can assure you that this is totally different, in fact, even more mind-boggling. We have to learn a new branch of knowledge called philosophy, which literally means "love of wisdom". We have to study the various theories that are supposed to help us determine what is morally right or wrong. But what is morally right or wrong is so subjective that each theory presents its own flaws. For example, one such theory is utilitarianism, which states that whether an action is morally right is solely determined by the overall happiness brought by it among people. This is quite understandable, but when it comes to a situation where killing someone brings a lot more happiness, then is the action considered morally right? This is something debatable. Anyhow there is nothing absolute when it comes to the issue of ethics and morality. In his exercises given so far, we are expected to list out the flaws in each theory, which means more memorizing...


Lab

Supervisor: Mr. Tan
Duration: 2 hours per week
Time: Tuesday, 11 am – 1 pm
This slot is more or less the same as in the first semester, except that the time and experiments are different.


The arrangement of my timetable is in such a way that for Monday and Tuesday it's all packed. Thursday is the most relaxing day with only 1 hour of class. Friday is supposed to be a day where I can wake up late, but because of the Maths example class, I'm forced to wake up early...

I hope you have taken your time reading this long post, because such long posts filled with text like this are hard to come by in this blog once things get busier.