Prognostications Sem 1 07/08

December 11th, 2007 by lynnylchan under School Life

GEK1542: Forensic Science

Optimistic: A-

Pessimistic: B

The paper was 100 multiple-choice questions, and required us to recall probabilities, drug dependencies and evidence law along with other more mundane stuff like how such-and-such a case was decided. Time management was a bit tight, but I had enough time for everything. Some questions were ambiguous, however, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. The forum was filled with complaints later about the fuzzy wording of the questions.

I got B+ for both the midterm test as well as my fingerprint report, so an A seems out of the question. I would be very happy with an A- in fact, as my GEMs have a tendency to score that way (with the exception of that nasty Food and Health module). But in a class of 404, competition is keen, so a B+ seems more likely. Bah. I hope it won’t get worse than that, because it IS a level-1000 GEM after all. And if all else fails, I still have the S/U option to exercise. Whee for post-hoc grade elimination!

PL4202: History and Systems of Psychology

Optimistic: A-

Pessimistic: B-

I refer to this as my pseudo-philosophy class, since for the first half of the semester we were mired in terms such as dualism, consciousness, and other vague terms that did not hold my interest. It was mostly a talky class, with the lecturer interacting with a few outspoken students while the slower-brained ones (like myself) sat and watched the clock.

I really dislike false advertising in IVLE module outlines, and I didn’t realise it was going to degenerate into a giant discussion session. At least some history got taught, in the form of dates, notable contributions and so on, but it didn’t make up the bulk of the module. While it’s an effective module in terms of making the students think critically and deeply, it does not satisfy my criterion of “can I score”. I’m sorry, but if employers only want to see the triangular letters and have no interest in how well I can argue for a functionalist perspective on machine AI, then I shall only focus of the ability of the module to fulfill that criterion. I’d recommend this module to others only if they really love talking in class, or have a high enough CAP to make up for the shortfall this module may cause.

PL4218: Psychological Assessment

Optimistic: A+

Pessimistic: B

This is my fun Wednesday module, because there’s very little preparatory reading to be done, and most of the class is hands-on. You show up, the adjunct professor talks a bit about the topic of the week, and you split up into groups to work your psychological magic on each other.

It’s about the use of assessment skills and tools in clinical practice, and our lecturer is a practicing psychologist with an Irish accent. This is the first time she’s teaching in NUS, so her classes weren’t as bogged down with NUS-style assessments of class participation. Anyway participation wasn’t forced and we always had a lot of fun administering tests to each other, or roleplaying as therapists and patients. Continual assessment (CA) came in the form of a midterm test (for which I scored full marks, yay) and a solo or group presentation on a topic of our choice. That was great. Anything went, as long as some form of assessment was covered. Since I was presenting solo and I only had 10 minutes, I went for a narrow focus of diagnosis and assessment in autism. No one else did autism, strangely, although a couple of presentations dealt with gender identity issues, as well as malingering.

The paper had 2 questions, both compulsory, which meant that our whole class of 50 people wrote the same essays. The first question was a case study in which we were supposed to come up with a treatment plan for someone presenting with a whole litany of disorders. You couldn’t begin to disentangle his depression from his anxiety and drug abuse, and that’s probably a realistic portrayal. Nothing in psychology ever comes clear-cut.

The second question was basically a chance for us to earn points by doing a memory dump. She requested descriptions of the symptoms and possible developmental factors in the 10 personality disorder subtypes we had learnt about. Just as well I spent time mugging those 10. Beautiful, flowing prose went out the window, to be replaced with tersely worded descriptions of antisocial personality disorder, borderline PD, and the like. I didn’t even have a summary - what was I supposed to say, “In short, the above are the symptoms and possible factors” bla bla bla? I hate repeating myself, and my hand was hurting anyway. Memory dumping - I like. A throwback to my JC days where regurgitation was a prized skill, I suppose.

So yes, she did seem quite eager to give us all triangular letters. Quote from the last class: “If your spelling and punctuation are all right, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get an A+”. Or something similar. Of course the A+ is contingent on your getting the correct content onto the page first, of course. She was just warning us about her finickiness for spelling and grammar. With an enrolment of 50, I’m sure some sort of bell curve will still come into play. But so far, this is my best bet to make my quota of a triangle per semester.

GEK1046: Introduction to Cultural Studies

Optimistic: A-

Pessimistic: B

Another level-1000 module, one more and I’ll have hit quota. Arts students are allowed a maximum of 8 level-1000 modules (presumably from our own faculty, since we should be encouraged to take modules from other facs). This one is under the aegis of the English Literature Department, so I felt at ease to spout misinformed theories of Marxism and gender identity formation. Tutorial participation isn’t graded anyway, so I decided to have fun spouting off.

Despite what many people think, it’s not all about watching TV shows and movies and analysing them. Sure some watching and analysing goes on, but before you think this is a chance to legitimise repeated viewings of ‘300′ by taking a gender issues perspective, we had to watch a David Lynch film, and it wasn’t pretty. It’s very theory-laden for an introductory course, and I’m sure more than a few freshmen got lost along the way.

The final exam was open-book, but I didn’t touch my notes. I decided to take up their offer to analyse a Nokia advertisement and a 50 Cent poster, and managed not to make any references to any cultural theories. Baudrillard, Barthes, Adorno and Horkheimer, de Certeau - nice knowing you, so long farewell. Perhaps my analysis of the 50 Cent poster was lacking in depth a bit - I didn’t talk about how he influenced gender identity formation in adolescent males by his overt display of masculinity, because I only have an hour for each question and I have to handwrite. But all in all, I think it was okay. Which, knowing my luck, means I bombed the paper.

So again, another B is the lower limit, since I really don’t expect to do very badly. But not impressively well either, despite my “interesting reading” of the Ratatouille poster that I did as a take-home assignment.

PL4223: Introduction to Clinical Neuropsychology

Optimistic: A-

Pessimistic: B-

This is a non-examinable module, so by right it should be at the top, but never mind. This course is taught by an adjunct professor who practices as a clinical neuropsychologist at SGH and various care centres.

Coursework makes up 100% of the grading, of which 30% was from our case study presentation, 30% on our topic review on any neurological disorder, and 40% divided between reading reflections and class participation. He gave us the option of doing an extra assignment and being graded on 10% participation, or the original set number of assignments and 20% participation. Since I write better than I speak up in class, I opted for the extra work.

It was primarily quite dry in the beginning, with a set topic of the week - stroke, dementia, epilepsy etc. He used videos extensively, which is great because 2 hours of him talking about a single disease can be quite boring. It’s not that he’s unable to hold our attention, but because the subject matter is quite dry to begin with.

Also, his focus is more on developing our soft skills in preparation for a life in clinical practice. So we would often watch videos with real patients documenting their life with their condition. I think many of us appreciated this human focus, plus it’s all non-examinable so we were able to just watch and learn whatever we wanted from it, rather than hurriedly copying notes. I gave up writing notes after maybe week 5, when I realised that “hey, none of this stuff is coming out anyway!”. So yeah, sometimes no-exam modules can be great.

So since I did quite enjoy this module, and put effort into my writings and topic reviews, I hope to score something decent. I’m not sure of the score for the presentation but it should be okay as well, based on the feedback he sent to us. The lecturer is very fond of class polls and feedback, which makes for a more transparent learning environment. I think that’s great.

I guess I should have written all that in the feedback exercise, huh?