Busy final semester

Before I knew it, I'm now in the last semester of my Foundation studies in Nottingham University – not to mention that I'm halfway through it already. Two semesters seem to be a long time, but yet less than 9 months has passed since I started my course here. If I were to say the 9 months is short, it's not either. Much has happened since the day I got here that made the 9 months seem much longer. It's probably the departure from school life that made the days here feel more packed, hence 'longer' because much more has been done each day.

It's impossible to find another busier time to update my blog other than the middle of the semester, but if you hadn't noticed my blog hasn't been updated for 3 weeks. Besides, I haven't been providing any updates related to this semester. Although it has been only been 6 weeks, much has been done that can be filled into several blog posts. But sadly, all of these occupied my time until I've no time for blogging. The first week of this semester, I already went hiking up Bukit Lalang (Broga Hill) early in the morning at 5 am – and that was done during a weekday where I have an English class at 11 am. I've some photos of the scenery that I took which I’d like to post here if I'd time. The rest of the weeks were not devoid of other activities; my friends and I celebrated the birthdays of 5 friends – Esdelyn’s during the third week, Rod's and Hwa Siang's during the fourth week, and just recently Weng King's and Hui Yen's. During this semester I also joined two clubs that I’m interested in: Robotics and Tai Chi.

Moving on and as per the convention, I'm going to give a brief overview of the modules I’m taking this semester.


Foundation Mathematics (HG1 FND)

Lecturers: Mr. Balrama, Dr. Rohaizan, Ms. Thong
Tutor: Ms. Grace Yap
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of tutorial class per week
This module continues from last semester, which means that everything including topics and marks will be carried over to this semester. Most of the topics to be covered this semester are calculus-based, from applications of differentiation to integration. This is the first time I'm having a Malay lecturer. Mr. Balrama is no stranger to us, having taught us since the first semester.


Applied Algebra for Engineers (HG1 M02)

Lecturers: Dr. Harikrishnan, Ms. Thong, Dr. Rafi
Tutor: Ms. Grace Yap
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of tutorial class per week
Another maths-based module. Nothing much to say here because it's also well, about mathematics, with topics from matrices, vectors to 3-D geometry. Dr. Rafi is another Malay lecturer here, but so far it hasn't been his turn to teach us yet.


Electricity and Magnetism B (EN0 EMB)

Lecturer & Tutor: Mr. Lim
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of tutorial class per week
The only science-based module in this semester. Pretty disappointing because the previous semesters we had three. The topics involved which are magnetism, inductance and alternating current are not really my favourite. However, we're glad to have Mr. Lim from Semester 0's Basic Engineering Mechanics A back as our lecturer.


Digital Media (XXA C04)

Lecturer & Tutor: Ms. Geetha
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of tutorial class per week
Ms. Geetha is also a lecturer from Semester 0. She taught us Information Technology & Design then. For the first few weeks of this semester we learned about multimedia, namely audio, video and 3-D animation. The problem is nothing practical was taught, and we were expected to produce edited versions of audio and video by ourselves. For our group assignment, we have to produce a poster and a short 3-D animation. Our lessons now are about JavaScript – not a problem since I’m quite familiar with it already.


Communication Technology (XXA C05)

Lecturer & Tutor: Ms. Yong
Duration: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour of tutorial class per week
For an tech-enthusiast like me, anything that has a whiff of the letters "I" and "T" should spark an interest. Despite that, what was taught in this module is plain boring – I guess even technology has a boring side. I would say it's good to know how a network operates, but learning about types of cables and network topologies has no practical value. They're either forgotten quickly, obsolete after 5 years or couldn't be bothered by people unless they're network technicians. And I hate memorizing.


English Language and Study Skills B (EN0 ELB)

Lecturer: Mr. Emmet Whelan (Profile)
Duration: 4 hours per week
This module is not so much about English as were previous English modules. 60% of our marks will come from our group assignment – and that's a big project. We have to do a research – not the usual getting-information-off-the-internet kind of research – but much more. We have to get the data ourselves by conducting a survey; that means distributing questionnaires to people and analyzing the data. My lecturer is the same as last semester's, and we got to know quite a lot about him already.


Lab

Supervisor: Mr. Tan
Duration: 2 hours per week
As usual. The difference is that we have only 3 experiments, thanks to reduction in science-based modules.


Finally, no government compulsory subjects this semester.

Writing such a long blog post surely takes a lot of time and effort. You should see why I’m sort of regretting it when you see my to-do list:

• Digital Media Assignment – I'd done the poster (will post it here sometime this week), but we seem to have trouble with the animation.
• English Assignment – We haven't done the research yet. Hopefully you guys can help me fill in the questionnaire.
• Communication Technology Assignment – Practically untouched.

Apart from that, there're mid-term tests, maths quizzes and homework coming our way. Very busy, that is.