Module 1: CM1502 (General and Physical Chemistry for Engineers)
Brief Overview:
1) Quantum Theory and Atomic Structure
2) Electron Configuration and Chemical Periodicity
3) Models of Chemistry Bonding
4) Shapes of Molecules
5) Theories of Covalent Bonding
6) Equilibrium
7) Acid-Base Equilibria
8) Ionic Equilibria
9) Kinetics
10) Thermochemistry
11) Thermodynamics
12) Electrochemistry
***Update as of AY15/16
1) Atomic and molecular structures – Quantum theory: dual nature of light, wave-particle duality of matter and energy, uncertainty principle. Atomic structures: exclusion principle, Bohr model, Hydrogen atomic spectrum; Periodicity: electronic configuration, quantum mechanical model and the periodic table, trends in atomic size, ionization energy and electron affinity. Molecular structures: molecular orbital theory, resonance and electron delocalization.
2) Bonding and interactions - Basic forces and interactions in molecules and extended structures (solids and surfaces). Bond polarity, electronegativity and dipole moment. Weak bonding and interactions associated with soft (biological) materials, membranes, interfaces and colloids. Hydrophobic and hydrophilic interactions, non-equilibrium interactions.
3) Spectroscopy and applications - Energy quantization and spectroscopy. Principles and applications of ultraviolet visible (UV-VIS) and infrared (IR) spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS).
4) Equilibrium - Reaction quotient, equilibrium constant, Le Chatelier’s principle. Acid base equilibria: acid dissocation constant, acid strength, autoionization of water, proton transfer, Bronsted-Lowry definition, polyprotic acids, acid-base properties of salts. Ionic equilibria in aqueous solution – buffer solution, Henderson-Hasselbach equation, acid-base titration curves, indicators. Equilibria involving slightly soluble ionic compounds, solubility product, equilibria involving complex ions.
5) Kinetics - Rates, reaction orders, rate constant, rate laws, half-life, effect of temperature, Arrhenius equation, collision theory, transition-state theory, reaction mechanisms, catalysis.
6) Common molecules and their transformations - Major organic functional groups and their reactivities, important reactions in chemical and pharmaceutical industry, fundamentals of chemical and photochemical transformation reactions.
Mode of Grading:
20% Midterm
20% Lab
60% Finals
***Update as of AY15/16
30% CA (Midterm + Quizzes)
20% Lab
50% Finals
As of what I know, the lab is still 3 sessions and may be the same experiments. For my year, we did the lab work with a partner. So you will be sharing the same results to write the report (but don't copy each other because there is plagiarism checks)
Lecturers:
Ms Saradha Thyagarajan
***Update as of AY15/16
A/Prof Chin Wee Shong
Comments:
As you can see, the first half is mainly A level H2 Chemistry again (The physical and inorganic Chemistry part), the additional things you learn like Spectroscopy is VERY useful for your FYP if you are doing an experimental FYP because you will use a lot of these instruments to do analysis so do not throw them away! For the lab, it should be quite easy to score B+ to A range if you do everything properly and format it nicely. For my year, they released the score of all 3 labs to everyone so we could see what grades we got, not sure if the new lecturer will practice this too. Finals was 5 structured questions. Closed book but they will provide a list of formulas to use, thus you need not memorize formulas. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you understand what is going on in the module so that you can tackle the questions easily without the need to memorize things. The structured questions can be quite long and tedious but you should be able to finish it within the time limit. If I am not mistaken, there was 4 structured questions to answer. Not too heavy a workload in my opinion, especially if you are strong in chemistry
Module 2: MA1506 (Mathematics 2)
Brief Overview:
1) Differential Equations (1st/2nd Order, Non-Homogeneous/Homogeneous, and many more)
2) Oscillations (Applications of ODEs)
3) Mathematical Modelling (Population stuff)
4) Laplace
5) Matrices
6) Linear Transformation (Advanced Vectors stuff)
7) Systems of First Order ODE (Eigenvalue, Eigenvectors, Nodal Sink/Source, Spiral Sink/Source)
8) PDEs
Mode of Grading:
20% Midterms (10 MCQs)
80% Finals (About 8 questions and 1 per topic, Closed Book 2 page cheatsheet)
Lecturer:
Prof Brett Mcinnes
A/Prof Fred Leung
A/Prof Chew Tuan Seng
Similar to MA1505, theres 4 lecture slots and you can choose to go for any one of it. And likewise for Polytechnic students, you will take this module in Year 2 Semester 1, therefore, the lecturer will only be A/Prof Chew Tuan Seng.
Comments:
First off, the lecturers. I personally enjoyed Prof Brett Mcinnes lectures because his style of teaching is very unique and he dives deep into the mathematical concepts to help you visualize what in the world all these crazy formulas and stuff are for. Of course, there are some people who find it too deep and boring and thus dislikes his lectures but I personally loved it. If you are keen to widen your knowledge, go for his lectures, trust me you won't be disappointed. For A/Prof Chew, he is very structured in his teaching, thus is good for people who tend to lag behind and not understand what is going on in the formulas and stuff. If you need a step-by-step explanation, go for his lecture, he is very detailed and will take the effort to go through slowly. I didn't attend A/Prof Fred Leung's lectures for MA1505 and MA1506 so I'm not sure for his case.
The module is not too intensive in my opinion because I understood a lot from Prof Brett's lectures so it helped me conceptualize things much faster and clearer. The bell curve is very steep as usual because everyone will mug like crazy for the finals. Trust me, 1 question can make a vast difference in your grades. Therefore, if you are looking to score well for this module, you must internalize the concepts so that answering the finals is a breeze for you. Once again, having a strong mathematical background makes things much easier and for chemical engineers, this module is quite important as well for CN3121 (Process Dynamics and Control) and CN2125 (Heat and Mass Transfer). You will encounter a lot of ODEs and PDEs in CN2125 while for CN3121 Laplace's Demon will haunt you again (hur hur...). So I strongly recommend you keep the notes and your cheatsheet.
Module 3: MLE1101 (Introduction to Material Science and Engineering)
Brief Overview:
1) Atomic Structure and Bonding
2) Crystal Structure and Geometry
3) Solidification and Imperfections
4) Diffusion
5) Phase Diagrams
6) Mechanic Properties
7) Corrosion (Was removed for my year)
8) Metallic Alloys
9) Polymeric Materials
10) Ceramic Materials
Mode of Grading:
30% Midterm
70% Finals
All are Closed Book.
Lecturer:
A/Prof Xue Jue Min
Comments:
A rather visual module as well, especially the later part when you have to deal with all the crystal lattice structure of whatever materials are taught. It can be quite frustrating but with time you will be able to understand the concepts. The problem is that this is yet another closed book examination thus you will have to memorize some of the contents if you can't grasp what is going on. I didn't attend the lecture much because it was 8am and it was at U-town, a real pain to get there too in the morning. The lecture is rather dry as well. So, if you are confident you can self-study this module or just webcast the lecture. The most important concept to grasp from here is the Phase Diagrams because you will be seeing this nefarious diagrams again in CN2121 (Thermodynamics) and CN3132 (Separation Processes), it is very easy to confuse yourself so be careful. Finals were quite manageable in my opinion, I recall that its a few easy calculation questions and there will be phase diagrams and the martensite chart thingy, can't remember the rest of the paper but I managed to finish it within the time limit.
Module 4: HY2229/SSA2204 (Nation Building in Singapore
Brief Overview:
1) Pre-Merger, Merger and Post-merger
2) Policies for various sectors:
a) Education
b) Economy
c) Culture, Language, Ethnicity
d) Housing
e) Civil Society
Mode of Grading:
20% Tutorial Participation (Inclusive of posting comments on forum, think it consists of 10%)
20% Midterms
60% Finals
Midterms and Finals are Closed Book
***Update as of AY15/16
I am not entirely sure of the new basis but from what my friends feedback, there is no more midterms and instead there are now 2 term papers. Weightage might vary a bit but I'm pretty positive the finals will still be around 50-60% weightage.
Lecturer:
Mr. Edgar Liao
***Update as of AY15/16
A/Prof Albert Lau will lecture this module instead of Mr Edgar Liao
Comments:
For my year AY12/13, I found this module very slack because I intended to S/U it in the first place (I didn't in the end). Basically, if you recall all your SS in Secondary 3 and 4, this module is easily a walk in the park for you. The only pain you will face is memorizing the name of the people, the name of their policies and the dates. But don't worry, you can "craft" your essay around what you know, thus what I did was I memorized only the critical stuff that can be used cross-chapters, the minor details I left most of it out.
Mr. Edgar Liao is a very engaging and funny lecturer and I enjoyed his lectures much more than when I learnt it in secondary school. He was very helpful in tutorials as well in facilitating your learning. He will also go through with every student their midterms when you collect it. As for the new lecturer I'm not sure if he will do it for his term papers. If you are someone who absolutely hates memorizing and you are allergic to writing essays, you might want to reconsider taking another SS module. I didn't do well for the midterms (Got a B-) so I kinda gambled with the finals (Don't do it unless you are a fortune teller) and won (A very good jAckpot).
Module 5: GEK1508/PC1325 (Einstein's Universe and Quantum Weirdness)
Brief Overview:
1) Relativity
2) Simultaneity
3) Astronomy (A bit of star reading and other star stuff like their life cycles and supernova etc.)
4) Black Holes (I enjoyed this one!)
5) Double-Slit Experiment (Wave-Particle Duality)
6) Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
7) Particle Physics
8) Quantum Field Theory
Mode of Grading:
5% Star Gazing (Attend 2 out of 4)
5% Tutorial Attendence
10% Forum Posts
10% Assignments (In tutorial)2x20% Tests
30% Term Paper
Note: I might have jumbled up the weightage a bit because I do not have the grading scheme (It was on IVLE but is long gone). The star gazing is quite simple, go there, see a bit mark attendance. Tutorials is quite slack too, the tutor will guide you to the in-class assignment to the point that its very easy to score full marks. The tests is open book and for term paper you can choose to either do a fictional story or do a critical assessment on a physics-based book.
Lecturer:
A/Prof Phil Chan
Comments:
The module is rather easy-going because first of all, there is almost no calculations. The formulas given are for understanding, you need not memorize it (exam is open book too anyway). This is a more conceptual module than a calculative one. Therefore, if you are a FASS student who hates calculations, this module can be a good science GEM because its mainly concept-based, the more you read, the better. Moreover, the professor likes to test very strange things in the exams for example, he will give you a picture of one of the nobel prize winners in physics and ask you for his name. Or he can give a you quote from one of the famous scientists and ask you who said this quote. (All can be found in his lecture notes, it's only whether you bother to dig it out or not) The other questions are straightforward and he often hints in the lecture what he will test, so expect a steep bell curve for the 2 CAs.
The term paper is a rather fun one if you choose to write a fictional story (I did that). You will either group in 2s or 3s to write your own fictional story of not more than 2000 words with a caveat that you must include whatever quantum stuff you learnt in the lecture. You can venture out to other concepts out of the notes as a bonus. As for the critical assessment of a physics-based book, I did not have any friends who did that (because it is obviously going to be much harder than writing your own story!) but I suppose if you know which book has loopholes and you have the other relevant sources to back you up, it should be doable (Somewhat like a mini-thesis paper I suppose?).
The lecturer is great, loved all his lectures. Very engaging and lots of fun in learning the quantum physics. You can consult him for your term paper too if you are unsure or stuck. I'm not too sure if this module is offered still (Because I couldn't find it in AY15/16). But it is a very easy-going science GEM and you will have lotsa fun learning I hope!
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