PF1101 Review (AY21/22 S1)

Taken in AY21/22 S1. 

Fully online module (Lecture & Tutorial)

Deliverables

All submissions throughout the semester are in Week 13
  • Quizzes (5%)
  • Forum posts (10%)
  • Tutorial class participation (10%)
  • Individual essay (25%) - 1500 word limit
  • Group report (50%) - 6000 word limit

Review

This module was originally under SDE, but due to the new engineering curriculum, students in FoE took this for the first time this semester.
The module is essentially project management techniques in the built environment. Therefore, the techniques taught are not for the small school projects but rather large-scale industrial projects.

Prof Low taught the lecture. Each lecture is 2 hours long without any breaks. I attended the lectures live for the first 3 weeks and afterwards I gave up. While Prof Low is very knowledgeable and has a lot of experience and stories to tell, I felt that watching a Zoom lecture is too boring and I couldn't pay attention. 

From week 4 onwards, I did not bother watching the lecture recordings at all. The quizzes are giveaway marks - you have 2 attempts and the answers are shown after the first attempt. Therefore the knowledge needed will serve you only when you need it for tutorial group projects. I referred to the notes and I was able to manage as I did my part of the tutorial project.

My tutor was Prof Gan. The group members were randomly generated with Zoom breakout rooms. Every week during tutorial the whole team will present their progress on Zoom. He tries to pay attention to all teams and give feedback; but as human nature, I myself cannot have such a long attention span. Therefore, I believe that almost everyone will get the full class participation if you present your part. After each tutorial, students will post their learning points on your tutorial group's forum. Likewise, with so many classes to keep track of, I also believe that forum posts are not of high priority.

Also hope that your randomly selected teammates are hardworking -- I do see some groups on Zoom with 1-2 people tanking every week's presentation -- I feel sorry for them. Towards week 13, I suddenly see forum posts popping up from names I have never seen before. I am not sure if they even participated in class. 

My learning points from this module came only from the assignments. I do feel I learnt a lot from the final group report. However throughout the semester, the dry lectures may tempt you to S/U. Nevertheless, as the submissions are only in Week 13, there is plenty of time to slack of and work hard to the end. As I did the group report with my team, they were hardworking and I felt that it was possible to secure an A.

With this, the workload of this module is very light throughout the semester. I believe it is manageable to overload with this module. Skip all lectures and you will still be able to cope. Furthermore, my team did every tutorial presentation slides only 1 day before. The real workload comes in Week 12 onwards (yes, start early!) when the group should start to work on the report. You also have your individual essay which seems more like a reflection essay rather than a technical essay. Therefore, I will call this a fluff mod and if you are able to write long essays without having a road block, you will find the workload very light.

Grade

Expected grade: A- to A

UPDATED:

Actual grade: A+

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