School of Computing Academic Advisory and Enrichment Programs

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School of ComputingAcademic Advisory and
Enrichment Programs

• A/Prof Lee Wee SunAssistant Dean, Undergraduate
  Studies
• School of Computing
• leews_at_comp.nus.edu.sg

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Academic Problems

• Every year, around 10 of freshmen face academic
  problems after one semester
• CAP below 2.0 (C average)
• Have to see an academic advisor
• You dont want to be one of them.
• What got them into academic difficulties?

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Why they did badly and what they did to improve

• No real difficulties, I just didn't study. I was
  lazy and just wanted to enjoy university life.
• I started studying and taking interest in
  programming.
• I am not trying to blow my own trumpet, however,
  the first time I did it, I didn't do any work at
  all. That is to say, I didn't attend lectures,
  tutorials recitation nothing of sorts. So if I
  may say so, the prime reason for coming down in
  the particular course was rather a complete
  negligence on my part Especially when I had
  come directly after A levels this sudden influx
  was a bit hard to grasp, inspite of being warned
  that uni would be like this. )
• Stuck to the basics, attend lects, tutorials and
  recitations more than I did the first time.
  Started the labs earlier .

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• Firstly, I had difficulty understanding
  programming as a whole since I had no background
  in computing when I first took CS1101. Therefore,
  learning Java is almost the same as learning a
  new language.
• Secondly, I didn't really know how to apply basic
  algorithms to solve problems(labs).
• I attempted all tutorial questions and clarified
  my doubts during tutorials.
• I exchanged ideas on how to solve problems and
  weigh their complexity or efficiency with my
  tutorial mates.
• Increase my self-confidence, really.

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• Complacency and adaptability. CS1101 is a module
  that I took for the first semester. Besides
  adapting to a brand new school, I also need to
  juggle between the new social life and a
  completely different (from JC) way to study a
  module. I think the main problem is not sure how
  to go about studying this module, no computing
  background, unsure how to go about asking
  question and that the nature of the module has
  very huge snowballing effect once you lag at the
  very beginning of the course.
• Practice, be consistent and keep asking questions
  (both to yourself and the lecturer), keep the
  programs that you practice, realized your
  mistake, remember them and keep going on.

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• (a) Basically, I was a Business student in
  polytechnic before university. I did not have any
  background knowledge on computing or computing
  languages at all. The lecture speed was quite
  fast and I couldn't catch up. As a result, the
  things that I do not understand snowballed and in
  the end, there wasn't enough time for me to learn
  well. All these might have attributed to my slow
  understanding of the terms and how the codes
  work.
• Practice. This time round, I put in more effort
  to complete lab questions. Not only did I attempt
  current lab questions, I did extra questions from
  previous years which I obtained from my seniors
  or friends. I always think that practice helps a
  lot as it familiarize you with the syntax and the
  different methods and tricks used to solve a
  problem.

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• (b) I know that having no background actually is
  not a very valid reason because I do have friends
  who have no background knowledge as well but
  still did well the first time they took the
  module. So I put it down more to lack of
  practice. Not that there isn't enough practice
  questions set by the lecturer, instead, I did not
  attempt the questions. There was very bad time
  management. It was my first semester in a
  university and the workload is so much different
  from pre-university. I couldn't cope and in the
  end, I choose to do work that are easier to
  accomplish, hence, ignoring lab questions.
• The second time I took, my friends who passed in
  the first semester helped me a lot. They tutored
  me, taught me patiently.

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If you think you may struggle

• Try not to overload yourself. Generally, doing
  more than 5 courses a semester is not a good idea
  for struggling students.
• Try to work consistently through the semester,
  rather than cramming at the end. In particular,
  try to ensure that you do all the tutorial
  exercises.
• Work in a group if possible. Students who study
  in a group tend to do better.
• Other than compulsory modules, try to pick
  courses that suit your strengths.
• Do some research on the courses before signing up
  for them.

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It's already the middle of the semester and you
don't have a clue what the course is about ...

• Talk to the course lecturer, TA, or friends. Get
  help!
• If it's really hopeless, consider withdrawing
  before the last day of the Recess week. This will
  result in a 'W' grade which is not included in
  CAP computation. Withdrawal after this will
  result in an 'F' which can badly affect your CAP
  - you then have to try to recover from the bad
  performance in future semesters. Be careful with
  doing this - you'll also have to consider whether
  the course is a pre-req for other courses that
  you need to do the following semester,
  withdrawing can mean that you'll not be able to
  do some of the courses that you were planning to
  do.
• If you need more advice, please make an
  appointment to see an academic advisor. Their
  contact can be found at http//www.comp.nus.edu.sg
  /undergradprog/u-advisor.shtml

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If you are doing well in SoC, opportunities to
excel are limitless

• Travis Ho Weiren
• IT Youth Award, Singapore Computer Society IT
  Leader Award 2008
• NUS Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award
  (Team) 2008
• AIIDE ORTS Game AI Competition Winner in
  Strategic Combat and Tactical Combat 2007
  (webpage, video)
• Independent Game Developer Challenge Open
  Category (Games Convention Asia) Best in Show
  Award, Excellence in Technical Achievement Award
  2007
• 30 Hour Codeathon (Games Convention Asia)
  Excellence in Technical Achievement Award 2007 .

Internship at MIT withSingapore-MIT Games
Lab2007 Studying in UC Irvine in 2008 as part of
Student Exchange Programme
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If you are doing well in SoC, opportunities to
excel are limitless

• Ye Nan
• Completed B.Comp (Computer Science) and B.Sc
  (Applied Maths), both with First Class Honors in
  3.5 years instead of 5 years, 2007
• NUS Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award
  2008

• Publications from Undergraduate research
• Sanjay Jain, Frank Stephan, and Nan Ye.
  Prescribed learning of indexed families.
  Fundamenta Informaticae, 2008.
• Kang Ning, Nan Ye, Hon Wai Leong. Better
  Preprocess and Anti-symmetric Computational
  Model for Algorithm or Peptide Sequencing by
  Tandem Mass Spectrometry. Journal of
  Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.
• Sanjay Jain, Frank Stephan, and Nan Ye.
  Prescribed learning of r.e. classes. ALT 2007
• Nan Ye and Hon Wai Leong Determining Charge State
  for Low Resolution Tandem Mass Spectra based on
  Complementary Peak Pairs. BioDM 2007

Currently doingPhD in SoC
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If you are doing well in SoC, opportunities to
excel are limitless

• Varun Chatterji, Rishi Israni, Indradeep Biswas
• Founded tenCube in 2005
• Currently incubated in School of Computings
  Incubation Center
• Specializes in mobile phone security
• Grand Champion of Startup Singapore 2006
• Top 10 Wireless Innovation in Asia Pacific -
  Frost Sullivan
• Red Herring Asia Top 100 Companies

Some of the founders were attended theNUS
Overseas College in Silicon Valleyduring their
degree programme in NUS
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If you are doing well in SoC, opportunities to
excel are limitless

• Cai Junfu
• Graduated 2007
• Did UROP and HYP
• HYP work published in Empirical Methods in
  Natural Language Processing 2007 and was best
  method in SemEval 2007 evaluation.

Currently doing Masters in Computational Finance
at CMU. Wants to be a trader when he graduates.
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If you are doing well in SoC, opportunities to
excel are limitless

• Teng Junbin
• Graduated 2007
• Champion of ACM Programming Contest Asia Regional
  2004-05 and 3rd place in The ICPC 2005 Parallel
  Challenge

Working in Google Mountain View.
Melvin Zhang Zhiyong Graduated 2006 Champion of
ACM Programming Contest Asia Regional 2004-05 and
3rd place in The ICPC 2005 Parallel Challenge
Doing a PhD in SoC
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Enrichment Programmes in SoC

• Enormous number of opportunities for SoC
  students.
• Take advantage of them. Make yourself stand out.
• University Scholars Programme (USP)
• NUS Overseas Colleges Programmes (NOC)
• Student Exchange Programme (SEP)
• Special Programme in Computing (SPC) and
  Undergraduate Research Opportunity Programme
  (UROP)
• Advanced Technology Attachment Programme (ATAP)
• ELITe
• Look up SoC and NUS Enrichment Programmes in the
  SoC webpage

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Enrichment Programmes in NUS and SoC

• University Scholars Programme (USP)
• Broad based education, freedom to explore across
  disciplines
• About 180 students across NUS each year
• Small classes with similarly well motivated peers
• Lots of opportunities for overseas experience
• Opportunity to join USP in the middle of the
  semester

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Enrichment Programmes in NUS and SoC

• NUS Overseas College (NOC)
• Spend a year working in a start-up company in one
  of the NUS overseas colleges at Silicon Valley,
  Bangalore, Shanghai, Stockholm or Bio Valley
• Take part time courses in Stanford, Upenn,
  Fudan,
• Ideal for budding technopreneurs

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Enrichment Programmes in NUS and SoC
McGill University

• Student Exchange Programme (SEP)
• Spend a semester or a year studying in another
  country . while paying NUS fees

Vienna University of Technology
University of California Los Angeles
University of California Davis
University of Toronto
University of Adelaide
University of California Berkeley
Eindhoven University of Technology
University of Hong Kong
University of Copenhagen
University of Karlsruhe
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of California, Irvine
Humboldt University Berlin
Ecole d'Ingenieurs
Ecole Central de Paris
Zhejiang University
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Enrichment Programmes in NUS and SoC

• Special Programme in Computing (SPC)
• Research-focused track in School ofComputing
• We believe that exposure to research is one of
  the best way to train our talented students.
• Through research, students are exposed to open
  ended problems. They learn
• how to pose problems such that it is likely to
  be solvable,
• come up with creative solutions,
• carry out their research plan under a tight
  schedule,
• verify and improve their solutions
• present the solutions convincingly.

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Enrichment Programmes in NUS and SoC

• Special Programme in Computing (SPC)
• Students selected after one semester in NUS.
• Undergo apprenticeship in research mentored by
  faculty members.
• Learn research methodology and read classic
  research papers in second year.
• In third year, do research project in
  Undergraduate Research Opportunity Programme
  (UROP).
• In fourth year, do research project in Final Year
  Project (FYP)
• See http//special.comp.nus.edu.sg/ for details
  (need your SoC Unix userid and password to
  access).

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• Bill did undergraduate research too
• W. Gates and C. Papadimitriou, Bounds for sorting
  by prefix reversal (1976)

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• Special Programme in Computing (SPC)
• If you are interested in SPC, you may want to
• Do CS1101S instead of CS1101
• Scheme instead of Java. Exposure to another
  programming language
• Attend the Computational Thinking seminar series
• Start thinking deeply about computing

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Computational Thinking seminar series

• Exposure to computational thinking in various
  areas of computing
• Get in the habit of seeing the world through
  computing lenses, discovering new insights with
  them
• Tuesdays 12noon to 2pm in SR3 (avoid clashes with
  your other courses when you do course and
  tutorial registrations)
• Organized by the SPC and NUS ACM Student Chapter
• Open to all. Useful, regardless of what you want
  to do.
• Get 2MC pass-fail (CS/CU) if you sign up for
  CS3108A.
• See http//nusacm.org/computational_thinking for
  details.

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Advanced Technology Attachment Programme (ATAP)

• Industrial attachment programme
• Six month full time attachment at highly selected
  company
• Broaden your education by enabling you to
  appreciate the application of computing knowledge
  to industrial related projects
• 12 MC CS/CU
• A minimum allowance of S1000 per month
• Start planning for it!

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Enhanced Learning in Information Technology
(ELITe)

• Funded by IDA
• Students selected after one year of study
• Only Singaporeans and PRs who do not have
  scholarships are eligible
• Undergraduates who are on the programme will get
  opportunities to upskill themselves through
• Exposure to infocomm policy thinking
• Mentorship by industry leaders
• Industry-relevant projects
• Local / Overseas internship opportunities
• Training and capability development in technical,
  soft skills or domain knowledge ?

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