My First Week In NTU
It has been a week already since I stepped into NTU. My first week in NTU has been great and kinda slack (only lectures and no lab or tutorials).
Well, it's the first week after all, so it isn't really a good measure of how life would be life in NTU. I am kinda worried for the future though. Anyway,
here are some of the things I did/saw/experienced in the first week.
1. I met some of my friends and got to know my friends' friends. So in the end, I had more friends. Anyway, our lecture was suppose to start in the
afternoon but we reach there early in the morning to buy notes. It's a good thing that MSE has a service that prints and photocopies notes for their
students. My friend and I were kinda free, so we decided to crash a random lecture. Why? Because we haven't felt how it is like to be in a lecture
theater in NTU. We decided that whether the lecture was on Arts or Science wouldn't matter because we just wanted an experience. Just then, we
heard some sound from this lecture theater (I forgot the name but it is near to Lee Wee Nam Library with glass panels near the entrance). So we
crashed and entered it. Guess what the lecture inside was about...
It was on Fluid Mechanics! Wow! Such a chim-ology topic. Nevertheless, we sat in and listened. Quite interesting in that we learnt some stuff.
2. There was this day when I wanted to collect my Matric Card. So I went to my school but and queued up at the General Office.
Let me sidetrack a bit. The General Office and General's Office are two completely two different things...interesting.
Okay, back to the topic. So I queued up. When it was my turn, I asked the nice lady at the counter for my card. I looked through my list and showed
her my name and she went to check. While she check for the card, I saw a stack of notes and so I asked the lady whether I can take the notes (it
was some lab notes and since I had a lab module, I might as well take it). She said yes and that I should write my name in the list provided before I
take. Okay...fair enough. So I wrote my name and before I took the notes, the lady said that she couldn't find my card! Oh no! The sky is falling! My
card wasn't there! What happened? She then gave me a form to submit to SSC. Thankfully the SSC was near our school. So what to do, I filled the
form and was about to proceed to SSC when I remembered my notes. So I took one set. Another lady at the counter asked me why I wanted the
notes. I said that I had a lab module in my semester. She told me that it was for year 2. You can just imagine how paiseh I was when the students in
the General Office looked at me. They must have thought that I am some super on student. First, the matric card and now the notes. I cancelled my
name from the list and went to SSC. The people at SSC told me that my card would be ready on the 15th of August. Hopefully it's true.
3. Have you ever been to Popular in NTU? It's like some hidden room in the South Spine. It took my friends and I a few minutes before we could
locate it. It was like at the lowest level and had no banner or indication that it was there. Some more the dark corner which it was situated in
doesn't help.
The thing about Popular is that it's too POPULAR! The queue there was very long. So long that I decided not to buy anything (okay maybe I didn't
have enough cash but the queue was pretty demoralising). I looked at the books and saw that the price was kinda expensive. It was like $30 to
$50 for my course books. There was one book that cost $100+! Can you imagine! What kind of book is that! I mean that price is really high man.
Maybe it's the questions for this semester's exam (joking, but how good it is if such a book exists). So I decided to wait for MSE Day before I get a
few textbooks at a lower price.
4. MSE Day arrived. I got the books. The books were very heavy and I realised that I can use them for weights training. Imagine one Thomas'
Calculus on the left arm and another Introduction to Materials Engineering on the right arm and me walking up and down the North and South
Spine. I tell you, my face will be in the Nanyang Chronicle if I really did that. Hence my common sense (yes I have one) told me that I should read
the books and not use them for weight training. Maybe I'll do that at home.
5. Lectures are okay. The most interesting was the Introduction to Materials Engineering. It was cool! The lecturer was our dean Prof Boey himself.
He spoke in a very friendly way and was able to make the lecture theater laugh. Okay maybe not the lecture theater (I mean if the lecture theater
could laugh then it would really be a very scary lecture theater) but the students inside. He's a funny person.
Okay, so that's about what I did in this week. Next week onwards, the lectures, tutorials and lab will start. It's gonna be very interesting and exciting.
By the way, I have a lot of questions in my mind as a freshie. Below are the questions I have.
1. Should I do a minor? I mean a minor means 15 AUs more but your CV will look nice in it. But the question is does a minor really give you an
edge over other people?
2. Should I get a laptop? I don't stay in hall so I have a PC at home. So do I really need a laptop. And if yes, which one?
3. What electives (both PE and UE) should I do? If I am doing a minor, I'll use my UE for my minor, else I'll see what I can do with the UEs
(maybe take a course in bird watching and stamp collecting - joking only lah).
4. What strategy should I use in completing my 4 year course? Cramp all the electives in my first two years then concentrate on others or spread
evenly through the 4 years?
5. Should I go overseas like in GIP and INSTEP and GSS? It would look nice in my CV but do I have the time? Even more if I am doing Eureka
and a minor!
Conclusion? 4 years is defintiely not enough to have everything. So take everything one step at a time. I plan to do my first semester with the
default timetable provided and see how things go.
(Note: I may blog less as the university starts as one post can easily take me 1 to 2 hours. With that time, I can already finish one lecture recording...haha)
Well, it's the first week after all, so it isn't really a good measure of how life would be life in NTU. I am kinda worried for the future though. Anyway,
here are some of the things I did/saw/experienced in the first week.
1. I met some of my friends and got to know my friends' friends. So in the end, I had more friends. Anyway, our lecture was suppose to start in the
afternoon but we reach there early in the morning to buy notes. It's a good thing that MSE has a service that prints and photocopies notes for their
students. My friend and I were kinda free, so we decided to crash a random lecture. Why? Because we haven't felt how it is like to be in a lecture
theater in NTU. We decided that whether the lecture was on Arts or Science wouldn't matter because we just wanted an experience. Just then, we
heard some sound from this lecture theater (I forgot the name but it is near to Lee Wee Nam Library with glass panels near the entrance). So we
crashed and entered it. Guess what the lecture inside was about...
It was on Fluid Mechanics! Wow! Such a chim-ology topic. Nevertheless, we sat in and listened. Quite interesting in that we learnt some stuff.
2. There was this day when I wanted to collect my Matric Card. So I went to my school but and queued up at the General Office.
Let me sidetrack a bit. The General Office and General's Office are two completely two different things...interesting.
Okay, back to the topic. So I queued up. When it was my turn, I asked the nice lady at the counter for my card. I looked through my list and showed
her my name and she went to check. While she check for the card, I saw a stack of notes and so I asked the lady whether I can take the notes (it
was some lab notes and since I had a lab module, I might as well take it). She said yes and that I should write my name in the list provided before I
take. Okay...fair enough. So I wrote my name and before I took the notes, the lady said that she couldn't find my card! Oh no! The sky is falling! My
card wasn't there! What happened? She then gave me a form to submit to SSC. Thankfully the SSC was near our school. So what to do, I filled the
form and was about to proceed to SSC when I remembered my notes. So I took one set. Another lady at the counter asked me why I wanted the
notes. I said that I had a lab module in my semester. She told me that it was for year 2. You can just imagine how paiseh I was when the students in
the General Office looked at me. They must have thought that I am some super on student. First, the matric card and now the notes. I cancelled my
name from the list and went to SSC. The people at SSC told me that my card would be ready on the 15th of August. Hopefully it's true.
3. Have you ever been to Popular in NTU? It's like some hidden room in the South Spine. It took my friends and I a few minutes before we could
locate it. It was like at the lowest level and had no banner or indication that it was there. Some more the dark corner which it was situated in
doesn't help.
The thing about Popular is that it's too POPULAR! The queue there was very long. So long that I decided not to buy anything (okay maybe I didn't
have enough cash but the queue was pretty demoralising). I looked at the books and saw that the price was kinda expensive. It was like $30 to
$50 for my course books. There was one book that cost $100+! Can you imagine! What kind of book is that! I mean that price is really high man.
Maybe it's the questions for this semester's exam (joking, but how good it is if such a book exists). So I decided to wait for MSE Day before I get a
few textbooks at a lower price.
4. MSE Day arrived. I got the books. The books were very heavy and I realised that I can use them for weights training. Imagine one Thomas'
Calculus on the left arm and another Introduction to Materials Engineering on the right arm and me walking up and down the North and South
Spine. I tell you, my face will be in the Nanyang Chronicle if I really did that. Hence my common sense (yes I have one) told me that I should read
the books and not use them for weight training. Maybe I'll do that at home.
5. Lectures are okay. The most interesting was the Introduction to Materials Engineering. It was cool! The lecturer was our dean Prof Boey himself.
He spoke in a very friendly way and was able to make the lecture theater laugh. Okay maybe not the lecture theater (I mean if the lecture theater
could laugh then it would really be a very scary lecture theater) but the students inside. He's a funny person.
Okay, so that's about what I did in this week. Next week onwards, the lectures, tutorials and lab will start. It's gonna be very interesting and exciting.
By the way, I have a lot of questions in my mind as a freshie. Below are the questions I have.
1. Should I do a minor? I mean a minor means 15 AUs more but your CV will look nice in it. But the question is does a minor really give you an
edge over other people?
2. Should I get a laptop? I don't stay in hall so I have a PC at home. So do I really need a laptop. And if yes, which one?
3. What electives (both PE and UE) should I do? If I am doing a minor, I'll use my UE for my minor, else I'll see what I can do with the UEs
(maybe take a course in bird watching and stamp collecting - joking only lah).
4. What strategy should I use in completing my 4 year course? Cramp all the electives in my first two years then concentrate on others or spread
evenly through the 4 years?
5. Should I go overseas like in GIP and INSTEP and GSS? It would look nice in my CV but do I have the time? Even more if I am doing Eureka
and a minor!
Conclusion? 4 years is defintiely not enough to have everything. So take everything one step at a time. I plan to do my first semester with the
default timetable provided and see how things go.
(Note: I may blog less as the university starts as one post can easily take me 1 to 2 hours. With that time, I can already finish one lecture recording...haha)
Tags:
posted by Steph at 8:17 PM
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1 Comments:
Hi, I came across your blog and was wondering what are some of the job prospect for Materials Engineers after they graduate?
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