Photos from Heidelberg, Germany

Off to Heidelberg, Germany

Lim Min's friends sending her off at Changi Airport.
From left: Alexandra, Jia Rong, Debra and Lim Min

Lim Min is participating in the 4th Heidelberg Laurette Forum (HLF) held in Heidelberg, Germany, from 18 to 23 September 2016. Hotel acommodation and forum costs are sponsored by the HLF organiser, whereas her air tickets are paid for by NTU SPMS.

About the HLF

The Heidelberg Laureate Forum is a one-week event combining scientific, social and outreach activities. The winners of the most prestigious awards in Mathematics and Computer Science, the Abel Prize, the Fields Medal (including the Nevanlinna Prize for contributions in “Mathematical Aspects of Information Science”), and the ACM Turing Award are invited to participate in the Forum.

Each year the Scientific Committee of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation decides on a topical focus for the upcoming forum. This is done in close communication with the laureates.

Once the focus has been defined, applications from young scientists for participation in the forum are solicited. The first phase of the application process is primarily handled by the award granting organizations, supported by the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Mathematisches Forschungszentrum Oberwolfach and by Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics. The candidates proposed by these organizations will be reviewed by the Foundation’s Scientific Board, which will make the final decision.

Programme

Associate with GIC Pte Ltd

After her 10-week internship (end May to early Aug 2016) with GIC, Lim Min has been selected to join the GIC Professional Programme as an Associate. Four other fellow interns have also been similarly offered a permanent position with GIC.

She is now in her 4th/final year at NTU Mathematical Sciences, and will start work with GIC's Technolgy Dept upon graduation, in end July 2017. The salary is confidential; I can only say it is rather attractive.

Dean's List Academic Year 2015/2016 - Mathematical Sciences

Before and After ....

Before (2 years ago):

After (now):

UCL Student Exchange Exam Results

Lim Min took 2 Math modules and 2 Computing modules in UCL, from Jan to Mar 2016. Her exams were held in May 2016.
COMPM068 Cryptanalysis is a masters/grad mod, there is no exam, mark is based entirely on project work and class participation

Internship with DSO

Source: Internship with DSO - CN Yang Scholars's Club

With many university undergraduates sourcing for internships in various industries, we are privileged to have Lim Min, a third year Mathematical Sciences major, share with us her experiences in DSO.

DSO National Laboratories (DSO) is Singapore’s one and only national defence R&D organisation. It innovates technological solutions to create the critical edge in the Singapore Armed Forces’ combat capabilities.

With more than 1,300 research scientists and engineers working seamlessly across the domains of air, land, sea and cyberspace, DSO researches into emerging technologies, matures promising ones and integrates them into innovative system concepts to meet Singapore’s defence and security capabilities.

Without further ado, let us find out more about Lim Min’s internship with DSO.

1. How did you first hear of DSO National Laboratories (DSO)?

While participating in activities of the CN Yang Scholars’ Club, I was approached by DSO Human Resources (HR) personnel who introduced me to the internship.

2. Why did you decide to join DSO’s internship?

The DSO internship was compatible with my schedule and I could rank my interests, allowing for the internship to be catered to my preferences. They also allowed me to intern at the end of Year 1, and not many companies/organisations allow that.

3. What were your roles as an intern? Did you join a lab? If so, how were the labs like?

I coded using C (programming). The aim of my internship was to build up a cryptographic library. My main task was to implement Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA), which is a cryptosystem, and elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman cryptographic functions. Throughout my internship, I learned many things like coding in C, safety measures to implement in codes, security standards, and different protocols.

4. How different is an internship at DSO compared to research in school labs?

In DSO, there are fellow interns whom you can discuss your project with, as compared to the individual research I did in school. This made things more exciting and interesting.

5. What were some highlights of your internship?

I was very well fed during my internship (laughs). But the main highlight would be learning more about mathematics and computing by talking to the supervisors and interns there. Some projects include automatic error detection for codes, noise reduction techniques for multiple purposes such as voice recording, underwater autonomous systems, Application Programme Interface (API) to track all registered ships, detection of hidden artillery etc. We were introduced to these systems and were also free to ask and find out more if we were interested in them.

6. What was the biggest takeaway?

I learned a lot from my project in DSO. Some of these include knowledge on the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, elliptic curve, RSA, various fast multiplication/squaring algorithms, use of Wireshark, certificates and more. They proved useful in the later modules I took in NTU (e.g. MH4311 Cryptography) and for Cryptanalysis studied at University College London during the semester exchange.

7. How are the skill sets learnt during your internship applicable to daily life?

I learnt how to interact with people of different ages and from different faculties and schools better. Since some of the interns were from overseas universities, I got to learn more about foreign cultures as well. This helps me in my daily interactions with people from diverse backgrounds.

8. What was your first impression of the internship? How did you eventually feel about your experience?

Initially, I thought that it would be a boring and mundane job where I would barely learn anything as I had heard from friends participating in internships where you only “photocopy papers” and complete administrative work. I was pleasantly surprised that the internship turned out to be the opposite. Not only did I learn a lot from my project, there were various presentations in DSO that gave me insights into other projects as well.

9. What was the most attractive feature of the DSO internship?

The intern pay is good (the best that I have come across so far) and the number of projects available is vast to cater to your interest.

10. How has the internship influenced your attitude towards future career prospects?

I had always thought that working would be stressful and boring, but DSO has shown me otherwise. It made me feel that working in DSO is a possible career option for me when I graduate.

11. How were your colleagues and supervisors? Was the focus more on independent or guided learning?

For me, it was more about independent learning. I’m not sure about my other fellow interns. From this independent learning, I got better at finding my own answers online (and not over-relying on others for help), which is especially important in Research and Development. But of course, my supervisor was there to ensure that I was on the right track through frequent updates, and help was readily available when I faced difficulties. They provided general directions to help me find answers and explained important concepts to me.

12. Are there any advantages to being a CN Yang scholar while interning in DSO?

Everything was relatively equal amongst all interns.

13. What attitudes would you advice others to adopt should they be interested in joining a similar internship?

Be independent and open-minded.

14. Bonus Question: How would you rate your experience at DSO (Scale of 1 to 10)?

10. We were given a lot of space and time to explore our interests. DSO was also very flexible, from working hours to pursuing our interests in our projects.

Throughout the various presentations I had seen and the interactions I made with the people there, I have always felt that DSO is quite an exciting place to work in. The technology and software they have developed there are all very interesting. These include drones (sea/air), image analysis (to detect the distance of an object from the camera, or whether a person is sitting/standing, or to detect vehicles/persons from a video footage etc.), automatic code repairing and more. I was and still am extremely interested in these initiatives. Before my internship in DSO, I would have never considered the existence of such technology but now, my thoughts on the possibilities of technology have broadened.

Many of my fellow interns at that time have graduated, and are now currently working in DSO. Not only do you get to do interesting work, DSO also provides a good work-life balance. There are flexible working hours (you can come later and leave later), and there are also various events held for you to bond with fellow colleagues or your family. Sports Hour is also available for staff to utilise any day of the week. During this period, office hours end slightly earlier for you to play sports with your fellow colleagues. Also, during my time as an intern, there was a puzzle competition (which I took part in with other interns) among many events for National Day.

4th Heidelberg Laurette Forum participation

Lim Min has been selected to participate in the 4th Heidelberg Laurette Forum which will be held in Heidelberg, Germany, from 18 to 23 September this year. Many thanks to HLFF for selecting her, NTU's Prof Tang, for having nominated her, and NTU SPMS for sponsoring her travel expenses. We are very grateful to NTU for nurturing her and for giving her so much opportunities ever since she joined NTU about 3 years ago!

~~~~
Dear Min Lim,

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that the Scientific Committee of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation (HLFF) has selected you to participate in the 4th Heidelberg Laureate Forum, taking place from September 18 to 23 in Heidelberg, Germany. Only the 200 most qualified young researchers are granted the opportunity to experience the unique atmosphere of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum. Please read the following information carefully and follow the instructions for your online registration.

Accommodation

As Heidelberg is a popular tourist destination, hotel accommodation is very limited in September. Thus, please fill in your travel details in the respective section of your online profile no later than July 31, 2016. Please note that the HLFF will cover the costs for hotel accommodation for a maximum of seven nights within the period of September 17 (arrival) to 24 (departure), 2016. Once your accommodation is booked, you will receive an email confirmation. If your travel details are NOT completed on time, you will be required to arrange accommodation on your own.

Travel

When planning your travel, please keep in mind that you are requested to stay for the entire event. If you arrive before September 18, we strongly encourage you to register onsite on Saturday, September 17, 2016, from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. The registration desk will be in the foyer of Heidelberg University at the University Square.

Costs

The HLFF will provide board and lodging for all participants during the 4th Heidelberg Laureate Forum. To cover your travel expenses, you should request financial support from your home institutions (university, research lab, company). If that fails, you should apply with a national funding agency in your respective countries. If both applications are rejected, you can apply for financial support from the HLFF. The travel grant application form is available for download on the online registration tool. The rejection letters have to be included in the travel grant application. Those of you who are not eligible for national funding are requested to specify the reason(s).

:Visa Regulations
:
:Travel Health Insurance
:
:Complete Online Profile
:

Kind regards,
Young Researchers Relations

Applying Internships

Many undergraduates work as interns during their school breaks, typically from end May to early August period, which is the local universities' long break. Doing internships or industrial attachments will help the students to gain valuable job experience, to have a first hand experience of the kind of job they want to do after graduation, and also increase the chance of being recruited upon graduation by the companies at which they interned. One may choose to intern during the long break just after Year 1, 2 or 3 (assuming it is a 4-year course). However, opportunities are most aplenty for Year 3 students, as large organisations are recruiting potential employees to join their companies after the students have graduated. One may apply for internships through his university, or directly to the companies.

Recruitment process may start as early as 9 or 6 months before the internship. For instance, Lim Min has started to apply for May - Aug 2016 internship period in Aug-Dec 2015. Companies (with either local or overseas attachments) that she had applied include: Jane Street, Facebook, Google, Merck Sharp & Dohme, P & G, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, GIC, Merrill Lynch Bank of America. Most of the intern jobs that she has applied fall under Tech Professional or Software Engineer category. After going through many, many rounds of selection tests and interviews, she has had some rejections and offers.

Interestingly, these companies offer successful interns a wide salary range, it may be from as low as S$800 per month to as much as above S$10,000 per month.

After much consideration, Lim Min has decided to accept the offer from GIC.

Photos from UCL Student Exchange

Off to University College London (UCL)

Daniel (NTU's Engineering student) is also going to UCL for Student Exchange

Friends from NTU's Regular Service Project for the Hearing Impaired (RSPHI) sent Lim Min off at Terminal 3

Lim Min will be staying in an apartment @Redfield Lane with a group of Singaporeans. It is about 35 minutes away (by London tube and walking) from UCL Campus. The rental is 152 pounds per week for single room. She will be returning to Singapore on 30 March 2016, and flying back to UCL for her semester exams, in end April to May.

NTU 2015/2016 Semester 1 Exam Results and Module Comments

Lim Min's Year 3 Semester 1 Exam Results:

Her 4th consecutive perfect GPA of 5.0. Well done, Lim Min!

Comments by Lim Min (be warned, plenty of Singlish!)

Year 3 Semester 1 2015 (27 AUs)

BU8641 Cultural Intelligence: How to be an Explorer of the World(3 AU) (Gerpe-ls)

Lecturer/Tutorial: Hoo Hui Teng, Thomas Rockstuhl

Grading:

Group Project: 35%

Paper Test (Week 9): 10%

Experiential Learning Journals: 40%

Class Participation: 15%

Overall Grade: S

This mod was done at the hive (south of NTU). If you follow the rubrics for all the assessments and study for the test, I think it is not hard to get A/A+. But then it is really time consuming. Even though I just required a pass, I feel that the amount of effort I put into this is more than other SU modules, as there are so many tasks to be completed.

Class participation is easy to score, since the 4 criteria are: class attendance, punctual completion of surveys, posting of more than 5 posts on facebook and the more subjective contribution of ideas in class.

There are many journals to write, I can’t remember how many, perhaps 5 or 8? But everything should be fine if you follow the rubrics on what to write. I was too lazy to refer to that long rubrics and may have gotten C for majority of them.

There are many exchange students taking this module, and you need to go 2 outings with your group. It could be fun for some people, to make new friends. But after this module ended, I haven’t met up with any of them, unfortunately.

If you just want to SU and clear the gerpe, this mod is a little too time consuming. But if you want an A/A+ for gerpe and have time to spend, or if you just want a fun mod, this mod may be for you.

CZ1005 Digital Logic (3 AU)

Lecturer: Dr Chan Siyin (First half), Dr Lam Siew Kei (Second half)

Tutorial: Dr Chan Siyin

Lab: Jagath C. Rajapakse

Grading:

Quizzes (4 of them): 25% (8/8, 5/8, 6/8, 8/8)

Online tasks: 5% (5/5)

Final exam (20 Nov 2015, 1430-1630): 70%

Overall Grade: A+

Both lecturers are really good, very clear. I didn’t attend or watch any of the lectures. But I watched all the pre-recorded lectures. For this module, I quite like the system where all the pre-recorded lectures (all contents for this module) are uploaded at the beginning. You can take your time to watch them at your own pace, but there is a recommended time to watch them (e.g. which week to watch which video). The real life lectures (there are uploaded recordings of these too) are mostly for recaps only, and maybe some lab info.

The only thing I don’t like about the pre-recorded lectures is that it is so slowwwwwwww (the spoken) and there is no x1.5 or x2 speed button!! (And I can't download it too!!!) I kept falling asleep while watching it :(:(:(.

I think the tutorials are really useful to attend. (I think I skipped 3 of them though, due to various reasons, such as, it is a Friday class, or I had Laos Project fundraising, or sometimes Cryptography module got cancelled and I went home on Thursday instead etc). For this mod, the uploaded answers are not as pretty. It is like tutorial scribbles which you can probably understand better if you attend the tutorials. So the answers are not really printable.

All labs are compulsory, with a 8-mark graded quiz at the end. I can’t believe I lost so many marks for the quizzes. For example, it asked for the 2’s complement representation of +40, I was probably too noob, but I thought they wanted 2’s complement of +40 which is the -40 one. So I typed the 2’s complement representation of -40 instead, which costs me 2 marks. The other 3 marks I guess I "legitly" lost them hahaha.

Final paper was finished in 1hr 50mins. It was okay… but for one of the questions, I was not sure about the order of things in "synchronous always block". It was said that order matters. But then I'm not sure what happens when i do a<=b then b<=a (does this b get the old a or the new a (which is b now). I was tempted to create another register… but then the qn says according to the circuit as shown in the figure which has only 2 registers… so… I decided to wire it outside then. I assumed the synchronous always block will “finish running” before the assign statements get “done” outside, since it is supposed to act like solid wire.

CZ1007 Data Structures (3 AU)

Lecturer: Prof Hui Siu Cheung (First half), Dr Owen Noel Newton Fernando (Second half)

Tutorial: Han Jing

Lab:

Grading:

Lab Test (Week 8): 25% (100/100)

Assignment (Week 13 due): 25%

Final exam (23 Nov 2015, 1300-1500): 50%

Overall Grade: A+

Prof Hui has a Hong Kong accent!! This teacher is super hilarious. One of the few lectures that I can stay awake hahaha. But afterwards I also ponned and watched at x2 speed or faster, or just read the notes. The lecture notes are actually quite comprehensive. Both lecturers seem rather friendly!!

I took this mod because it is a necessary pre-requisite for CZ2001 (and maybe for some other mods I intend to take in the future). But since I already knew quite a bit of the contents for this mod, I could just read the notes, and watch parts of the recordings. It got harder to discern what was said at x2 the speed especially for Dr Owen. But I learned quite a lot from this mod too.

Going for lab and doing the lab worksheets at home is the same though (other than if you don’t know how to do maybe you can go to the lab to ask?). So lab can totally be ponned. Lab quiz is like a giveaway. 4 questions, 1 question from each category A,B,C,D. Before the quiz, he will provide 6 questions from each category. And 1 EXACT question from each category will come out for your lab quiz. So a lot of people got full marks for this.

For the final exam I think the paper was harder than the past 2 sems. (Or any other sems according to other students.) But I like it as there are plenty of thinking questions. Hahahaha. Finished in 1hr 45mins. I was quite stunned at qn 1a) because it's like codes that you will never code e.g. for switch, if I have a continue, does it continue to the end of the switch, or continue the for loop? Since break breaks from the switch and not break from the for loop so perhaps continue continues to the end of the switch? Idk. I assumed it would continue to the for loop. (It can't be that continue and break does the same thing in switch??) And then they just had to put default case before the last case ‘c’. So what, if I switch(‘c’) does it go to the last case or the default case?? I just assumed cases in switch are like jumps. It jumps to that case. And the 5 marks qn to correct the code. Was I supposed to find 5??!! I didn't. I find 2 confirm and 1 possibly. But other than these qns… I think it's okay.

This paper quite paiseh as I asked the both profs 1 qn each. 1 because he didn't have k=0 as initialization for one of the question. But ya, he said it was possible to code to handle it, so ya, I realise you can code it to handle it in later parts of the code. Sorry for making you walk all the way to my table Prof Hui! The other one was the qn state “remove node” of the binary search tree then do some transversal. So I was quite stunned, because I was like what am I supposed to do after removing??!! I can't transverse a broken tree right?!!! So I asked Prof Owen Noel Newton Fernando (I don't know what's his name/surname hahaha, they all look like possible names) if I should remove the entire subtree, he said “No, I mentioned it in lecture, did you attend the lecture?”. I was so paisehhhh to say I didn't go and I hardly watched the recording. So my brain started recalling the notes and I got it, so I said: “oh, you mean like fix the binary tree after removing?”, he said ya. On hindsight it's like so duhhh right??  You remove of course fix la. Or else do what. But… idk… when I saw the remove I literally thought remove and do nothing. Hahaha so paiseh for him to walk all the way to my table also. First time I raised my hands twice in an exam T.T.

CZ2001 Algorithms (3 AU)

Lecturer: Prof Tan Ah Hwee (First half), Prof Zheng Jie (Second half)

Tutorial: Prof Elvis Liu (I think)

Lab: Prof Tan Ah Hwee

Grading:

Lab (4 assignments/presentations): 20% (5% each)

Mid Term Quiz: 20% (38/40)

Final exam (2 Dec 2015, 0900-1100): 60%

Overall Grade: A+

Both lecturers are really good and clear!! I watched most of the videos at x2 the speed though. Prof Tan went through some of the teaching feedback for him, and I think he was quite amused by the x2 comment!! Hahahaha!! Prof Tan, that comment was made by me!! He kept saying “he”!! How come you assume is a guy!!! I am a girl!!

For lab we got Prof Tan!! Yay!! I like Prof Tan a lotttt!! He is so niceee!! This was the only class that could fit my timetable, and since due to overload approval etc, I could only add this mod after school starts. So my friend asked (or was it me? cannot remember) if we (4 of us) could all form the same group if we all switch to his class (his class had many slots available), and he agreed!! Yay!! But what I don’t understand is, why did he add a china person into our group? (I have nothing against them ok!) Our group already had 2 Malaysians! And some other group were all Singaporeans. I thought there had to be a good mix or something. Since it was too troublesome to meet outside of class to code the labs, I did the whole thing, wrote the report and then sent to the group (it was mostly just tedious, not hard to do, and can be easily completed on my own). But for the last lab, I didn’t have much time, I asked my sister to help me code some parts hahaha :P.

I think the tutorials are totally ponnable. So I didn’t attend (other than for quiz purposes) after some time. The uploaded solutions are really good, and I don’t think the tutorial session gave any new insights. I think the tutorial teacher is a prof (from google), but he looks so young, so I’m not sure if it is the same person.

Final exam was probably easier than previous years. Can’t remember.

HP8006 Psychology of Crisis Stress Management (3 AU) (Gerpe-ahss)

Lecturer: Prof Jansen Ang

Grading:

Mid Term: 40%?

Final exam (26 Nov 2015, 1700-1900): 60%?

Overall Grade: S

This is probably the most entertaining lecturer I have ever encountered thus far. He is SO FUNNY, his stories are SO INTERESTING, and lectures usually end earlier! (1hr earlier maybe? Of a 3hr lecture). There is only a 3hr lecture every week, and there were only 10 lectures. There is no recorded lecture though, so I guess ponning a few is fine (I skipped 2 or 3), but one should attend most. Lecture Room was almost full house everytime I attended!! I was so shocked!! It was as if there's barely any empty seats!! If you are a little late, you have to look really hard to find where the empty seats are. And it was at LT7, not a very small LT either.

Mid term was 100 MCQ I think. The percentage I can’t remember, it was not in any slides. Finals had some MCQ, some short answers and a 2 choose 1 essay question.

If you intend to SU, this is probably the best mod to take. Attend a few entertaining lectures, study a bit, take finals. (I think I only studied 1 or 2 hrs before the final paper). Not sure if I can S it. Hopefully I can! But I think if you really study you can get A/A+. Because it is really mostly pure regurgitation e.g. what are the stages etc. Which I cannot remember mostly.

MH4311 Cryptography (4 AU)

Lecturer/Tutorial: Prof Wu Hongjun

Grading:

Assignment: 10% (120/100, 100/100)

Class performance: 10%

Midterm paper: 20% (95/100)

Final exam (23 Nov 2015, 0900-1100): 60%

Overall Grade: A+

This is a small class size, so lectures/tutorials are held in SPMS tutorial rooms, and there are no recorded lectures.

Prof Wu is one of the Profs whom you will be very comfortable approaching. Super friendly and approachable. Maybe it is because he is very small built. One thing is you cannot pon any lessons, attendance is graded. Also, tutorial solutions are not uploaded. So it is necessary to copy down the solutions! I didn't for the first few tutorials, but it probably doesn't matter much since I think i did the first few tutorials correctly. Also, assignments are not extras, the stuff there can come out for finals is what I learnt.

There are 2 assignments that are 5% each. And each assignment has a 20 mark bonus question. For the second assignment, the 20 marks bonus was to find the private key of ocbc bank, which of course, you are not expected to get it. If you can, you will certainly be famous.

For class performance, 5% is attendance (you can miss a few, maybe 2, and still get the full 5), the other 5% is tutorial participation which is graded as follows:

The full marks is 5. It follows the following calculation:  

1)  Each tutorial question 1 mark,  

2)  If a student answered 0 question,  then the student gets 5 marks

3)  If a student answered 1 question   (n1 marks, n1 <=1),  then get (4+n1) marks;  

4)  If a student answered 2 questions (n1 and n2 marks),then get (3+n1+n2) marks;

5)  If a student answered 3 questions (n1, n2 and n3 marks),  then get (2+n1+n2+n3) marks

6)  If a student answered more than 3 questions, we select the three with highest marks.

Suppose the highest three marks are h1, h2 and h3, then get (2+h1+h2+h3) marks.  

For tutorials where there is enough time, for each question (that he thinks is not really hard), he will randomly generate a student’s name using his random student name generator.

For the midterm, he was really lenient I think. A lot of my friends had 2/5 or 3/7 for questions they didn’t know how to do. But I got 0/5 for that one question hahaha, as the question asked what was wrong with the encryption or something and said to not mention about it being insecure. I interpreted it as 'don’t just say it is insecure, explain why'. So I explained why it was insecure. But actually you are supposed to say something like, the function is not invertible. I think 4 people got 90 and above.

Something funny happened. The random name generator has brought us countless joy and entertainment. Apart from generating my name on the day where I didn't really do the tutorial. (On that day, the first thing I said was: please don’t generate my name, and the first name it generated was mine -.-) So anyway, the funny incident. It generated this guy’s name, and he said: “I didn't do the question”, Prof wu: “ok”. *presses random name generator again. SAME guy name appears. Guy said: “I stilldidn't do the question.” Prof Wu: “I know, it has only been a few seconds.”. HAHAHAHAHA.

This is one of the mods that requires the most memory work I feel. But I really like the stuff I learnt in this mod!! It is so cool!! And very applicable if I am going into security field. For finals I think I finished in 1hr 50mins? And I still don't know for sure what I should do if certificate authorities are compromised, for that 5 mark question (was it 5?).

MH4311 2013 2014 past year papers & solutions

MH4510 Data Mining (4 AU)

Lecturer: Dr Tang Wenyin

Tutorial/Lab: Tang Xingyu

Grading:

Homework (Lab/Assignment): 20% (5/5, 5/5, 14/15, 10/10, 14/15)

Mid Term: 25% (91/100)

Final exam (30 Nov 2015, 1300-1500): 55%

Overall Grade: A

One of the most memory work required for a Math module. But it is also one of the most applicable to real life situation I feel. As in you can possibly use it in work life.

I thought the lecturer was really unclear in the beginning. But then later, maybe I got used to it or she got better or maybe it was because I started watching the recording instead, I thought it was quite clear. Watching the recording saves a lot of time for this mod, because of the 15mins break in between.

There are 5 assignments though, so it was a little tedious to do them, because each assignment takes up quite a bit of time. How much % each assignment takes was not given.

Midterm has quite a bit of memory work involved also. It will ask about the advantages and disadvantages I think, and I cannot remember all, so lost a few marks here and there. We cannot get back our mid term paper. But I heard the average was 80+. They were very lenient I think. My friend got 100! :).

Final paper was 6 questions choose 5. Some regurgitation is involved. Sian. Wanted to SU it as I thought I might get A-, but decided not to.

MH4510 2015 Assignments and Answers 

MH4701 Mathematical Programming (4 AU)

Lecturer: Prof Chua Chek Beng

Tutorial: Prof Chua Chek Beng

Grading:

Assignments (8% each): 16% (28/30, 29/30)

Midterms (12% each, Week 7, 11): 24% (22/24, 21/24)

Final exam (25 Nov 2015, 1300-1500): 60%

Overall Grade: A+

The class size is small, so lectures/tutorials are held in SPMS tutorial rooms, and there are no recorded lectures.

I think finally, there were only 10 registered people in class. Usually less than 5 appear? I think there were 4 people who attended class regularly, including me. But as time passed it dwindled to 2-3. And the last few lessons had only me???!!! Omg… I don't know if I should feel honoured to have one to one teaching or paiseh to take up Prof Chua’s time, especially when I was 10-15mins late and he waited. I learnt a lot from him! Actually his notes are so good that Idk… maybe can totally pon horrr. But maybe by attending I can see the thought process. The tutorial questions are really nice I think. And when he goes through the tutorials I feel like I learnt a lot, especially for those few tutorials (or many) where I haven't looked at.

Since Prof Chua is always so serious, I remembered one joke he made. It's something like “So you see, the c, no pun intended…”. I think I was the only one who laughed, so paisehh, because it was really unexpected.

I learned a few words too, like perturbation, coercive, and hessian. Talking about the Hessian, so I called this thing the upside down triangle and Prof Chua said, “It's called a gradient.”. Then I “oh okay”, so I remembered it, then I called this other thing double gradient because I learned that I should call that triangle the gradient (I used to call it double triangle, or triangle square) then he said “It's a hessian.”. Then I started laughing with my friend (I think she was laughing too, there were only 2 of us in class that day), but Prof Chua was totally not laughing. And his straight face made everything 100x funnier so I laughed quite long i think. Oh gosh, I hope he was not miffed or thOught I was fooling around with math or something.

For assignments and midterms, the statistics are as follows:

Assignment 1: Average: 13.4, Median: 17

Assignment 2: Average: 11.6, Median: 8.5

Midterm 1: Average: 11, Median: 13

Midterm 2: No stats.

He scanned all the marked assignments and midterms and uploaded them for us though! Maybe it was because it was a small class size, thus possible. But still!! Quite a lot of effort. I was quite shocked at my midterm results though hahaha. For midterm 1 he gave 4/6 for a question I didn’t know how to do. And ironically, I thought I could do all for midterm 2 (But actually I missed out quite a bit of things), but got lower than midterm 1 instead hahaha.

There were no labs though (all became make up classes or mid term tests).

FINAL PAPER IS OMG!!! 4 questions 25 marks each. Then of the 4 questions 2 of them are proofs that are exactly from the lecture notes. And I don't know how to do these 2 because… well… I had no time to read lecture notes proof. The last time I read it was like 1 week+ ago (and I skipped a lot of the harder proofs too) and since then my memory has been replaced with stuff from 3 papers. Actually I realise it's in the tutorials too… Don't know how to do these 2 questions properly omg!!! Are these 2 supposed to be giveaway??? I think they killed me. I prefer the previous year’s paper. I think it was way easier. At least I could do close to all for the previous year’s paper. Why no augmented and no barrier?? I'm so sad. This time can only do 2/4, 50 marks??!! Furthermore usually when I think I can do I will still get a few marks deducted. Somemore I'm not entirely sure if what I wrote for qn1 makes sense. I can only confirm qn 3 is correct. OMG!!! I thought it's an unspoken rule that math exam will never come out something from the lecture notes/tutorials!! So I just remembered most of the results, to use them. Oh goshhhh and before Prof Chua collected the paper he was smiling!! Why!! I wanted to ask “Prof Chua why are you smiling?”. What's with that 灿烂的smile??!! Did he think it was a very easy paper?? T.T. It probably is to people with good memory? For people like me with poor memory and not good enough brain to prove those stuff it's a killer!!! :(:(:(. But surprisingly, when I checked the lecture notes, my approach to the 2 questions was actually kinda correct.

Oh, but it is cool that I was sitting on the last seat in the exam hall! And the seat before mine was a year 4 student, this means the other 9 students are >= year 4. Since seating arrangements are according to Matric Number. My friend said some were phd students? I'm not sure how accurate this information is. She can only guarantee that the 4 consecutive seats before mine are year 4. If there are no phd students… there will be less than 10 students?! Then the class probably would not open.

This is the 3rd time I take a lesson under Prof Chua. Actually I think his MH2401 Algorithm and Computing III is the most fun among ALL mods I have taken. From juniors I have seen that the questions are not reused!! (Some a bit similar but the major ones like final one is entirely different). But compared with other computing mods (e.g. CZ2001 Algorithm whose lab qns are rather irritating and standard) from school of computing, MH2401 is WAY better and MUCH MORE interesting!! I kinda hope to take it again (actually maybe not). Since the questions change every year. But i digress.

MH4701 Past Year Assignments and Tests Solutions

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