NTU, GD03 Singapore Architecture Development: The Historical, Cultural and Socio-Economic Perspectives

Course Type: Unrestricted Elective (UE)
Academic Units (AUs): 3

My Opinion about GD03:

This subject basically talks about historical development of architecture of Singapore (can be a guide for travelling in Singapore errr at least for me). In addition, this subject discussed about some technical terms in architecture as well as Fengshui.

The class consisted of 10 4-hour lectures, each from 6 to 10 p.m. Around 8 p.m. there was 20-minute break. Hmm… quite tiring though… No wonder there were several students slept [including me hehehe].

The lecture notes are very wordy. In the lecture notes were:

• paragraph-like bunches of words and sentences,
• very few lists,
• many pictures [no wonder the lecture notes are expensive -_-].

Meanwhile, the lecturer read his lecture notes and additionally gave [general] comments about some stuff in the lecture notes. So, I think it’s a good idea to observe and find the pattern of the lecture notes before the lectures. Then sleep peacefully during the lectureszz… zzz…

Grade Parameters:

• Attendance: 10%
• Class participation: 10%
• 1 Group Presentation: 30%
• Examination: 50%

Attendance & Class Participation [each 10%]

Come, listen, sign attendance, and then after the break could choose to continue listening, to sleep, or to leave the lecture… [most people left anyway...]

Group Presentation [30%]

The group presentation was firstly announced during the 1st lecture. However, the lecturer still checked students who haven’t formed their group near the last lecture.

The following are some description of the project.

• There was a list of buildings [around 40 buildings I guess] that could be chosen to be presented.
• A group of 2-4 people were to be formed.
• One group must explain 1 building for the presentation. [what to explain? everything!]
• The presentation slides [most people uses PowerPoint slides] must be burned to a CD. Later the lecturer would collect the CD.

The presentations took place at lecture 8 and lecture 9+10. [Lecture 9 and lecture 10 was merged as the lecturer gave time for the students to do 1-to-2-week revision.]

The following are some points that [I believe] would enhance the presentation performance.

• More Popular Building -> More [Historical] Reference
• More People in a Group -> [possibly] More Depth
• [Better camera ->] Better Pictures -> Better Slides
• Better ask for the lecturer’s advice…

Examination [50%]

What I’ve read didn’t come out… Perhaps because I skipped the last lecture… [errr I slept whole day]