My first semester at NUS

Semester is going to end soon, here's my experience so far:

Modules
1. Promotional Management
Super great course! I am in love with it again!
Yes, I took Advertising at ANU during summer school before.
I did similar things before.. I did campaign before..
and the campaign I did at ANU, due to the time limited in summer school, had to be done in just 3 weeks, super stressed super fun.
and the campaign I did at ANU, my only partner (we had to do in pairs).. quitted the course half way... so I did it by myself.. hahaa..
But I don't really mind taking this course again (even before I knew how great the lecturer is!)
coz I really love this subject.
Back to the module I take this time..
the lecturer, Dr. Jorg Dietzel, is a super great lecturer in this area.
He has very long experience in advertising field.. and the main point is.. he's still in touch with the field.. which is very important.
The theories he taught was simple yet different to what I've learnt before.
and I agree that there should not be too much theories in this ccourse.. coz too much theories --> too much boundaries.
Every Monday 3-6pm is my most favourite time throughout this semester! The only time that I enjoyed.

There was a 40% assigment in this course, which we have to work on an advertising campaign with a real client.
This idea is not a new idea to me as the courses in ANU always to that.
But I think the idea of "each group working with and representing a real advertising agency" is quite interesting.
That was a great idea to let students learn instead of "pure talk" (well.. is it the right english to use? coz it's a translation from Cantonese)

For my group.. we had been time struggling whether to choose large international advertising agency to work with or local smaller scale ones..
we all think that working with large agency will gain us reputation BUT they may not even spend time on helping us..
so we finally chose a local well-known ad agency.. Mandate
and I do think that we have made the right choice.
Although we've only had 2 meetings with Mandate throughout the process, but both were very helpful and the Creative Director was really kind to us!!

The whole project was a great experience and I'm still very excited about it!
I am seriously considering choosing this field as my career right now..
but the question is.. Do I have the talent??

2. Consumer Behaviour
This is another interesting modules that I took this semester. Although I didn't choose it coz it is a core subject that I had to take..
The lecturer, Dr. Catherine Yeung, is also a good lecturer, and she's from HK.
I'm really proud of it.. coz everyone knows she's from HK and I'm from HK.. hahaha
and she's so young and I really wanna know how she can achieve all these within such a short period of time!
I like this subject coz I'm always interested in how people behave..
The problem was.. I understand the theories.. but as usual, I hate to memorize all those technical names.. as I don't really think that's necessary..
so.. my 2 tests were not very good.. hahaa.. one of them are over average.. but another one was below average..
but I know that I learnt alot.
and I can tell it when I do my group project.

3. Personal Finance
I still cannot recall why the hell I'd the guts to take this module.. as I'm always an idiot on finance.
I'm good at Maths, I did Additional Maths and Pure Maths before..
But.. I could never do finance!! and I'm also quite bad at Accounting..
I think I take it becoz I wanted to learn??
and turned out that it was quite difficult for me.. as usual.. hahaha
I didn't even know how to use a financial calculator before! hahaha
But of course again I learnt quite alot from this course.. on stock market, housing, importance of planning for retirement...etc
I failed the first test but lucky the percentage is not very high
This is the first time I failed something during my universits y studies..
The 2nd test is coming next week.. good luck to me.
By the way. I really have to thank all the groupmates I had in this modules, coz I think the group projects saved my life.. hehehe

4. Asia Pacific Business and Society
I really dunno what I should say about this modules... coz I dunno what I've learnt.. hahaha
most of the things in this course had been covered in some other courses I took in ANU..
but this time it is more brief..
for example, when we talk about business model in Japan, at ANU, we spent half of the semester to discuss all the details..
here.. we only had 1 lecture --> 2 hrs..
what should I say??

5. Asian Market and Marketing Management
*sign
I really... hate this modules..
if u look at the name of the course, u expect a lot..
But... turn out that.. it's nothing about AISA!!
because.. our dear lecturer... only knows things happened in Canada coz she lived there before
although she is from Mainland China, her views on China was very outdated.
And I really wonder why NUS can let someone who has only been researching all the time teach "marketing" modules??
Marketing is all about experience.......
I don't really want to talk about this anymore...

Lecturers
Generally lecturers at NUS are not as good as those at ANU..
The super great lecturer Dr Dietzel, is actually a part time one..
When I did the online course evaluation, I can't even vote him for the best lecturer!! so I decided to vote for no one!
I also heard comments from other students that generally lecturers at NUS (especially in Business School)
are quite lack of real experience.
So what u usually heard in class will be "A recent research shows..." (the recent research refers to the research done several yr ago)
Other thing is...
lecturers here are not as friendly as ANU.. the power distance is quite high..
whereas lecturers and even staff at ANU.. they are more likely to treat students as their "customers" or friends
interestingly..
yesterday during the last lecture of consumer behavior, the lecturer suddently said that:
"I don't provide free consultation for your other assignments in the future"
she told us not to go for her and ask her comments on other assignments after this course..
so.. i guess what she means is.. "u didn't pay, I won't work for u.."
and I guess this is the first time she treat us as a "customer"

Students
Students here are generally competitive.
It's not becoz they're Singaporean.. It's becoz they have to compete with each other to get higher score.
Whereas in ANU, we get what we get.
What I mean is.. the distribution of marks here for each module is a normal distribution, only a certain percent of people will get A+
but in ANU, if u managed to get more than 80%, u will get High Distinction,
but marks is also adjusted.. but only with the means of other years' results.. (to maintain the level of difficulties of the module)
So students in ANU are not competitive..
which one is better??
I dunno..
People say comptetiton --> improvements..
but if students are competiting within the same class.. they are quite likely to hide their knowledge to each other..
whereas for the students I know in ANU, they are more willing to share what they know in class..
Besides, when we come to Q&A session in presentations..
students are so aggressive here, they just pick anything, even minor point to ask..
they ask for the sake of asking..
At ANU, we asked.. in a more polite way.. and also we shared..
The thing is...
if u don't mind people getting higher marks..
u will be more willing to help
and the overall grade will be improved.
then.. why not?

I learnt all these when I was in secondary school already..
although we had to compete with our classmates..
but somehow we were very close friends.. (for the whole class)
so we helped each other..
and we did very well when we came to the open exam in Secondary 5