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Results of CS3216 (Semester 2, 2008/2009) Mid-term Survey +
My Responses
The following are the results for the online survey that we did after the
mid-term exam. I've also included some of my comments to the mid-term survey.
There are several reasons for this survey:
-
Timely Feedback - We cannot teach well unless we know what's going on
and what students do not understand. Waiting till the end of the semester
would be too late and there's nothing much that we can do. That said, I hope
that students will appreciate that the lecturers are only human and it's not
always possible to address all concerns and fix all problems this semester.
In any case, the feedback will be taken seriously and future batches of
students will benefit.
-
Allow
Lecturer to Respond - This survey also presents the lecturers with a
opportunity to address the concerns of the class and to clarify some issues
from the perspective of the teaching staff, which is also why this
particular page exists.
-
Reference
for future batches - Students always want to know about class before they
take it.
Note: Feedback on the TA and Tutors are omitted here because of privacy
reasons. I do not feel that it is right for me to put up the feedback they
received on this site (not implying that they are bad. In fact, I have the
privilege of the support of a FANTASTIC teaching staff this semester and the feedback
is raving good, but I still omit as a matter of policy). They can choose to put up their feedback
on their own homepages if they wish.
This is an anonymous survey. We have no idea who said what. We just know what
was said. :-)
Total Number of Respondents : 27/28
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Essay |
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1)
Why did you decide to take this module?
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1. I thought it was going to be fun, and I can meet lots
of talented people. |
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2. First, this module is so out-of-the-box and
challenging. There is a certain form of unexplainable
pride to be part of it. Second, I've strong interest in
Internet Marketing and the development of social media.
Most importantly, I believe this module will also enable
me to cross the chasm between “developing interest” and
“real action”. |
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3. Love at 1st Sight of the email about this. Serious, I
have been looking and hoping to take this type of module
which allow students to release their creativity and do
almost "whatever they want". Possibilities are endless
in this module. As I am not a computing student, I would
also like to pick up programming on the fly and learn a
lot one go rather than taking modules by modules CS
module and slowly learn. |
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4. I want to find a practical way to start my dream and
also want to make a difference. |
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5. This is a chance for me to try something I like. It
turned out that I did some amazing stuff that I wanted
to do for a long time. This is also a perfect networking
place, we have the best of NUS students here in my
opinion.
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6. I wanna take some practical works on facebook & wpf,
apply what I've learn about facebook social graph, and
try to learn as much as possible from other people. |
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7. It seemed like a great challenge, an excellent
learning opportunity, and a chance to meet more
interesting individuals. |
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8. Frankly, my main reason was to take a non-examinable
module that is fun and interesting. Facebook is at least
more interesting than another computer methodology or
accounting. And I didn't believe it when the lecturer
said the workload will be very high. |
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9. I was looking for something fun and different.
Looking for a place to meet and work with cool,
passionate, and interesting people from all over the
university, looking to make practical applications, and
to test if I am up to actually making applications with
the current standard of my art/design/programming
skills. |
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10. Its out of the box ...crazy! Seemed like a nice
opportunity to do something different, while learning
something really worth learning. Moving onto new stuff,
especially in programming was something that did not
look forward to and i wanted to overcome that. Meet
birds of a feather :) No one had intimidated me about
this module (unlike some friends of mine) :P |
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11. I want to take something different from the rest of
the NUS modules. This module happens to be different. I
thought I will really learn something out of this
module. Not hard skills, but soft skills. |
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12. For fun; to make something cool; I was getting lost
in this life and hoped this module could help me find
out what i truly love |
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13. Know more like-minded and un-likeminded people. Was
hoping this will provide me with some insights into my
blindspot. |
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14. To learn something new. |
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15. Taught by my prof. |
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16. Build up a good portfolio for the game industry (by
doing a Facebook game). Force myself to learn new
programming languages. Get familiar with working on game
projects. |
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17. To be able to do something really cool! |
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18. Because i was interested in seeing dreams happen on
web applications. I was searching for people who had the
skills to execute some crazy ideas that i had, and
happened to find this module. Oh, and the module
description intrigued me :D |
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19. To learn about FB platform. Get to know people who
are as crazy as me. have a fun time |
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20. I wanted to learn something really useful, something
that you can see results almost immediately, unlike
other courses... Who the heck encounters partial
differential equations or triple integrals daily?! |
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21. Wanted to improve the facebook page that I was
maintaining so that it can be a better marketing
platform. Also to learn about social networking. |
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22. Because it is quite interesting, and I think the
knowledge and skill I will acquire through the course
will benefit my future work/study. |
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23. I like making a difference |
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24. 3216 is cool :) |
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25. Haha. This is the best module in NUS ma. The
structure of the class is very dynamic, and it really
opens our mind to many revolutionary ideas. |
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Skip: 2 (7.4%) |
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All in all, I must say that I have very motivated students this
semester. From the answers to this question, it's quite clear that it's
because they are here to learn. :-)
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Hmm, looks like we're really doing something right this year with 90% of
the students responding that they learnt quite a lot. The figure was
only 60% for the corresponding survey last year.
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Multiple Choice |
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2)
How would you assess the difficulty of the
assignments? |
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They were too easy |
1
(3.7%) |
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They were not much of a challenge |
0
(0%) |
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Average, just like my other classes |
0
(0%) |
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They were challenging |
19
(70.4%) |
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I almost wanted to commit suicide |
6
(22.2%) |
| Skip |
1
(3.7%) |
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It seems like the students found the assignments significantly harder
this year. The most likely reason is that the WPF assignment is much
harder than the Facebook assignment. Last year, the class had a Facebook
overload and developed three Facebook apps during the first half of the
semester.
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To be honest, I already tried to reduce the workload from the last
offering by reducing the assignments from three to two and by allowing
larger groups. But to be fair to me, the basic requirements for the
assignments that takes up 70% of the grade were really more than
reasonable. As it turns out, like last year, students spent a lot more
time than expected trying to get at the 30% of the "creativity" grade.
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Essay |
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4) Please let us have your views on the
Facebook assignment. |
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1. It was extremely insightful considering that I have
zero programming background. I'm in awe of my project
mates who were resourceful to find materials to pull it
together. |
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2. too many milestones. Probably can reduce a bit next
time. |
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3. It's fun. |
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4. An fun filled assignment ... we did not know what we
were up against...so everything started well and we
decided to complete the rat race to the best of our
abilities ! Serious comments on the blog already. |
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5. Nil |
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6. It is a challenge start for me. It will be better if
there are more pre-process. |
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7. Hurried start to the module, but it was good to set
the tone from the on-start. Was a little cruel to have
submission be on the week of CNY though. Grading on the
coolness factor seems a little subjective. Might have
been good to break down into various components. |
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8. I learnt a lot from the facebook assignment. I felt
that the specification of a certain minimum number of
implementations of a particular task was not very
necessary (like 5 FBML tags at least). |
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9. A lot to learn. Much time trying to setup server etc.
FB tools are quite easy to use. |
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10. Very tight deadline for an assignment. But i guess
we really learn how to work with tight deadlines. For an
ARTS student myself, I have really learned, a bit of
programming here and there so I think its really a way
to learn. |
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11. One thing about this assignment is that it's "live"
on facebook, so there was a certain "pride" element
attached to it. As such, we dedicated a lot of time and
effort on it. Besides, it's the first assignment, so
everybody is still very active and hyper. Suffering
indeed bonds people, adding more fulfillment from this
project. Good structure too, as it let us explore the
different features that the api provides. |
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12. There are too few programmers |
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13. Its pretty cool. Everything on the assignments is
pretty cool. However, it'll probably be better if the
distribution of programmers can be more even.
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14. Wah major stress. My group might have worked too
hard for it, but that cant be true, other groups were
also as mad. I still think we should have started with a
simple and short hello world app ( 1 wk?) so we can get
used to working with each other and understand the
workflow for making a facebook app better. Then the big
major facebook assignment. |
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15. Workload too heavy......... First assignment seems
as challenging as a final project |
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16. I firmly believe some of the milestones are not
realistic or reasonable and detrimental to a successful
app. For eg, a fixed required amount of fbjs. If my app
has no use for fbjs why should I include it for the sake
of including and be marked down for uncreative use? Yes
there was a disclaimer on the assignment specs, but
please be realistic. When we hardly have time to
eat/sleep and finish the work how to even find time to
write a petition? Since this module prides itself so
much in flexibility, I believe the milestone should be
as general to all app as possible. I believe wpf
milestones are much more general and applicable to any
app. |
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17. Since last year this has been done before, it's
structure is pretty good already. Nothing much else to
say. Structure Excellent. Almost everybody submitted
slightly later than the deadline, probably the time of
the deadline wasn't very good. Maybe like the usual
00:00 deadline. A like 9am deadline or some other time
maybe better. A deadline on weekend might be good too.
So that if we stay like many days overnight to rush
assignment then we won't have to skip class as we have
the weekend to rest. |
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18. ok lah, facebook is not very hard |
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19. Awesome assignment. I like it that the deadline is
particularly short. It forces us to learn the quick and
dirty way. And once the assignment is over, we will
review and consolidate what we have learned to be even
more prepared for the final project. If the assignment
is too long, people may slack, and defeats the purpose
of learning. I think it is a magical number! |
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20. It starts the nightmare of this semester. The
assignment itself is not that hard but what we want to
achieve is somehow beyond our strength. Going through
the whole process of building a web app is tough but
amazing. Quick learn and quick deployment is challenging
but greatly rewarded. Poor management and efficiency did
cause serious problem and that is the first lesson to
learn. Really glad to have a great team to work wiz.. |
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21. It's a good warm up for the course. The assisgnment
milestones are moderately easy, but final application
delivery depends on students. In that way, it encourage
us to work for the best without worry of milestones. |
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22. It was intense and painful. But nonetheless, I grew
from the pain. I felt I have learnt a lot and am much
more prepared for the Final Project because of the
Facebook Assignment. The good thing is that it was given
at the start of the term where things are still pretty
relax for the other modules. I can still afford to spend
a disproportionate amount of time on this module. |
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the compulsory milestones were easy, but we ended up
pushing ourselves too hard
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23. Provide the full codes (a php file) for a working
hello-world, as we realised that there was problems with
the setprofileFBML function thing that creates the
sidebar box which we spent almost a day trying to figure
out... Actually everyone was still quite disoriented at
the first week, no one did any work until the 2nd week
which resulted in a bit of a rush. Perhaps you can
instill more fear (heh) during the first lecture so
people get to work asap. |
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24. Too short time to form teams, come up with an idea,
learn how to adapt to Facebook and then execute it! It
would have been nicer to let us have a week of intro
breather into Facebook and the other ppl in our class. |
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25. Facebook assignment is well-designed to guide the
students, it also has a lot of room for creativity.
Unlike other modules in NUS, you have to think a lot to
get a high score for the assignment. This module is not
about your grade, but it matters as only the best in
class gets the top grade. There're some problems with
the zone set up, some teams couldn't get the right set
up & forced to use a different framework/tool. A better
Unix guy would be very helpful for this assignment. Also
the joyent thing should be send to students when they
are selected for this module, it takes very long time
for approval. So my suggestion: - keep the same
structure for this assignment, you guys have enough
experience to run this smoothly already. - better guide
on zone set up. Ask some experts from SoC to help if
possible. |
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Skip: 1 (3.7%) |
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Re: comment 7, I apologize that it was due during CNY. It's a scheduling
problem. Didn't really have much of a choice unfortunately.
Re: comment 16, the milestones are very specific because the point of
the assignment is to "encourage" students to try out the various
features in the FB API. Perhaps a petition is too strong a word, you
guys could just have sent me an email asking to be exempt from a
milestone and I'd see if it's reasonable. So far, I have never rejected
any reasonable requests and some groups were in fact exempt from some
milestones.
Re: comment 23, no lah, that make the assignment *much* too idle. The
Facebook assignment is simple enough so that there are enough
programmers in the class who can satisfy the basic requirements by
themselves. That's part of the learning. The WPF assignment is much more
complicated and it would be probably be too much to ask for you guys to
build from scratch.
Re: comment 25, I disagree that there is any major issue with the
Zone setup. This comment must be from the team that struggled with CakePHP. You guys were not expected to use any frameworks. Groups that
do the simple php thing shouldn't have big problems. What I should have
done however was to have warned you guys are about CakePHP. One group of
students last year also blew up on that. They couldn't get it working on
SoC Zones either. Chris Henry is a Zones expert but the way. Kent is
pretty good with Zones too.
Personally, I wasn't too concerned with the Facebook Assignment this
year because we already had a lot of experience with the assignment last
year. Was much more concerned about the WPF assignment this year.
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Essay |
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5)
Please let us have your views on the Facebook
Application Seminar. |
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1. It was a good learning experience. I learnt a lot
from my peers. The only bad thing is that it was too
rushed. Right after we handed up Facebook Assignment, we
have only the weekends to work on it. It didnt helped
that it clashed with Chinese New Year. |
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2. The motivation behind having the seminar was good.
Given that the module is about evolving platforms
instead of just Facebook though, it might have been good
to have the option of doing a social app that might not
be on Facebook. Grading on the presentation seems a
little subjective. Might have been good to break down
into various components. |
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3. Nil |
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4. it was a good learning experience |
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5. Not sure whether it will be better if changes the
sequence of Seminar and first assignment. |
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6. It was fun to learn about what works and what doesn't
work for consumers between 20 to 30 years old (my
classmates). Seems about the only assignment that I know
what I'm doing. |
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7. This is in between the FB and WPF assignment. Maybe
it might be better to put it before the Facebook
Assignment. Then we will learn from others mistake by
analysing them only do ours. We might learn how to avoid
those mistake and learn things from other apps before
executing ours. But the problem is maybe if we do it 1st
then we can we appreciate more about other apps. So not
so sure which way better. Another suggestion is to let
each of us present one very short seminar that we
prepare during the holidays. Then we can also save time
and lessen the workload during term time. Everyone was
quite busy at that time already. So many didn't meet
many times. The preparation was not a lot, but
nevertheless sufficient. Presentation wise everyone did
quite well. But not enough "WOW" factor. The blogging
about it part it's quite cool. But reading through all
the others blog and to give are very time consuming.
Some people say the same thing and got dilemma which
side to comment on. Overall. ok. |
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8. It is very engaging, especially for the blogging
activity along with it. Other modules should follow this
kind of style to promote engagement in the topic |
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9. Ok~ easy and student-friendly maybe we can do the
seminar before the deadline of FB assignment |
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10. Useful. Super easy compared to other assignments |
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11. It was quite a fun assignment but the fun was taken
out cuz we had to rush the previous assignment then
this. Not much time was given to fully play around this. |
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12. Tutors could also give some comment and share their
experience. |
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13. The idea of having us present was good! It was
placed perfectly - just after we had completed
assignment 1 and we gained a much better perspective. |
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14. It is quite well-designed. |
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15. Hey.. I've written it on the blog already. sorry
feeling too lazy right now to copy paste too :P |
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16. Hmm... this seems kind of random because there is no
real structure to doing it. Did not really learn much as
well, because different teams seem to be too general
when they talk about their application, it is hard to
derive the main learning point. |
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17. Time is too tight. Immediately right after the
deadline of assignment 1, the application seminar is
due. Not forgetting, even after the deadline has past
for the first assignment, many are still working on bugs
to upgrade the programs to an acceptable standard. I
believe it'll be good to provide some breathing space |
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18. It's quite fun to do research about other Facebook
Applications, see what's popular now, find out why some
apps succeeded... |
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19. Pretty useful lessons by looking at other
applications on facebook. I've learnt many thing about
UI & back-end stuff as well as some very good
presentations from non-SoC students. - 20. Suggestion:
make the session longer. Q&A would definitely be
interesting. I feel bad for the teams that didn't have
Q&A session. |
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20. It is fun. |
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21. Sometimes I think the order of things in these
module could be rearranged. This seminar is useful but
it comes too late for the first assignment. |
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22. Didn't spend a lot of time on this relative to the
other assignment. Think every group had a good
presentation with a focus on being creative. |
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23. It is the most styled n interesting seminar i have
ever attend. A process of evaluation unveils the
opportunities and push ppl think hard abt what the hell
the web is. |
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24. I like! It was a rather rush job, but after the
first time I was thinking that it'll be great to have a
second presentation so we can show what we learnt from
the first presentation. It was pretty fun and
interesting. ^_^ |
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25. It's a small scale assignment. Only presentation.
But its a good seminar, get to learn from 1 and another. |
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Skip: 2 (7.4%) |
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The presentations we had this year were better than those we had last
year. Perhaps it's because we had a better venue.
For all the complaints about timing, some of you guys should someday
become a prof and have to plan a teaching schedule and you realize the
constraints in terms of what needs to come before what and how space out
assignments and deadlines, etc. Public holidays like CNY also wreck
havok to the scheduling. The planning for this semester is already much
improved from last year when I didn't quite know what I was doing. :-P
I thought the blogging thing was helpful too - but frankly the grading
nearly killed me. :-)
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Essay |
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6)
Please let us have your views on the WPF
Assignment |
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1. XIONG AH!!! Lol, integration almost killed the people
on my team. There was really too little time, the
software was extremely difficult (and non logical) to
use, and we ended up creating something that I was
personally quite dissatisfied with. Many of the cool
functions that we initially wanted had to be scrapped..
It could have been so much more! :( |
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2. Its good to learn and experience a new platform for
making applications. But considering the amount of time
we have, 6 weeks for 2 assignments, I personally prefer
to consolidate my knowledge on the Facebook platform by
doing another application on it instead of trying out
another platform. |
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3. Don't ever use WPF again. Use more popular platforms
like Gears or Air which provide cross platform support.
It's quite irritating to be forced to use Windows,
though I'm a Windows user. Perhaps we have can larger
groups to spread out the workload too. It's quite hard
to learn a new platform, which also involve learning new
languages...quite xiong to do that in a period of
1-2weeks.
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4. The WPF seem to be a very hard programming language.
But letting us learn a MS thing is something new. Though
very hard but some might still be working with MS or MS
product in the future. So it's also good to learn
something on MS which is not very common. For those who
didnt use WPF, they didn't have a lot of support (got
some lah). So basically change from doing AIR to doing
Gears cause they cant do certain things. But choosing
these also grant them an advantage of doing more things
than doing more programming as in WPF. So it's not bad
either. Overall this assignment lacks a bit of
creativity and some of the submission have little
practical usability/ |
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5. I don't really like this assignment at all. I don't
like the idea that the application which I have
painstakingly developed is not cross-OS compatible. Many
shares the same sentiments as me, but have decided to
choose the WPF platform because of the resources
available and the very very tight deadline given (noting
that tutorials have begun) |
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6. Lotsa things to be learnt. WPF is not trivial at all,
esp if you had no prior experience in .NET |
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7. oh...WPF is terrible~~ but I learn a lot :) |
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8. I hate to install the WPF software. Its a very big
hassle. 3 weeks to finish an assignment that we know
nothing about, its tight deadline + learning a new
software. So its very tough. |
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9. The WPF assignment was very torturous. Structure of
the assignment wise, I think that the introduction of
the marketing portion and interface design were good,
but I'm not sure of the importance placed on it. Because
in reality, everything is really driven by users' needs. |
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10. It's interesting. I like WPF technology and it's
really a chance to test what I can play with it.
Milestone are set the same way as FB assignment. This
assignment encourage creativity and exploration. I'd
also really like to develop my application to be the
final project application. |
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11. I like the effort put in to expose us to new
technology. Providing a code skeleton is the correct way
to go because this app is way too technical and complex.
But due to the short time, the creativity is very
limited. The fatigue from facebook is also a problem.
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12. It was great to introduce an added dimension to the
module, and adjust the mindset of the class to look for
"evolving social platforms" instead of just Facebook or
other social networks. WPF was not friendly though. |
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13. I don't hate WPF...just don't like it because it
takes more time to figure out how to do it rather than
what to do. Even though i did do much coding in this
case, instead of randomly hacking, I somehow catch the
idea about xx is the future. The concept of
online/offline app is not new to everybody but when
working on this concept, it turns out to be another
story. Anyway, install something built by ourselves is a
bit cool...again, many thx to my teammates and we did an
awesome job~ |
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14. Awesome. This assignment proves that CS3216 is not
just about Facebook. I like the idea of introducing
other technology buzz words like Hybrid applications,
Cloud Computing. The course is not about learning a
software (for e.g., WPF) per se, but about learning the
development processes and ideas relating to future
trends of computing. |
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15. Luckily we did Google Gears, so we had a lot less
problems to deal with as compared to the other groups.
Its good that other programs (adobe air etc) were given
as options. |
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16. The installation of the big files is too
troublesome. |
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17. Too much stuff to learn in such a short time.
Assignment was released late on schedule. No one is
asking question because you can't skip the development
to go on forum and ask and wait for the MS guy to reply.
End up there's almost no support from MS. Suggestion: -
Move to air/gears next year please. Air ~ Flash, Gears ~
JS so at least your staff can pick it up easy to help
students. - Give students more time to work. 4 more days
would be enough. |
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18. It was very difficult! To figure out how to get it
to work on your own workstation was tedious and at the
end of the install fest itself - I wasn't very excited
about working on this one! But I did learn and
disconnected operation is quite cool |
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19. I finally manage to appreciate visual studio. |
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20. Nil |
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21. I really wanted to jump out of the assignment into a
world outside SOC. My visits to the restroom seemed like
the only breaks I had !! And I did not learn a lot from
the assignment... at least not as much as I did from the
other assignments....it was a struggle to make sense out
of non sense. Overall I should say it was a nice
exposure to WPF, though not sufficient enough to learn
different interfaces. I guess the slogging is truly
worth something , for I believe that its going to be the
next gen thing !! |
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22. Again, much time was spent on setting up stuff.
Workshop was quite helpful. Assignment wise, I think
there isn't much type of applications that needed
offline access. Most of the apps are mission critical
apps. |
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23. This is the nightmare. Ashamed to say I contributed
less to this than the Facebook Application. Was lost
right at the programming beginning, but managed to do
some market survey. Timing also clashed with the sudden
influx of work. |
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24. It is quite well-designed. |
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25. WPF thing is quite cool. It'll be better if the
duration could be longer. |
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26. the learning curve was too steep , because we had no
experience with wpf before, it was quite hard to learn. |
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Skip: 1 (3.7%) |
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My general feeling is that the WPF assignment is a bit too challenging.
The logistics were actually also a nightmare for us in preparing the
Workshop. Yeah, I understand that many of you guys nearly died, but
trust me that the teaching staff also came close. :-PI apologize for
the delay in the release of the assignment. There was a good reason.
Yuen Hoe and Kok Wee were working out the sample app for you guys and
they ran into some difficulties integrating with the SoC Virtual
Machines. I already instructed the teaching staff to provide sample code
and give you guys preinstalled VMs to reduce your workload and pain. If
we had released the assignment on time without sorting out all these
things, some of you might have run into more trouble. Also, my view was
that it was good to give you a couple extra days to rest after the FB
assignment and that none of you would likely have started working on it
so early .... and we don't want the early birds to have to suffer more
frustration because the sample code is not available and you had to
figure out from scratch how to do the syncing.
At the end of the day, I still think that the introduction of WPF is
not without its merits and that students did learn something in the
process. I personally don't work with Windows much either - but Windows
actually does have quite a lot of cool stuff. I would also like to take
this opportunity to thank Apurva Lawale and Pratibha Kumar from
Microsoft for helping us with the WPF assignment and workshop.
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Essay |
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5)
Did you find the feedback write-ups that you received after
grading to be useful? If so, why? If not, why? |
|
1. Yes, it is very detailed. |
|
2. Useful:) as least let us know where can be improved |
|
3. Yes, very useful, and very detailed. Thanks for all
the detailed criticisms! It really helps in re-assessing
our application and discussion new solutions to the
problems raised. Tho' I still don't believe that my art
is the best, personally I feel that Captain Cook's art
is way better than mine. Fish Vegas is also pretty good.
(Which is also why I decided to pick up illustrator
during WPF..) ^_^ |
|
4. Haven't received them yet, but yes, I'm sure they'll
be! It's good to know my own weaknesses, even tho it
might sting a little! |
|
5. The feedback for the Facebook Assignment was
excellent. There didn't seem to be any feedback about
the Seminar though. |
|
6. Yeap. It indicates my weaknesses, and provides
solutions on improvements. These are pretty important.
These are sometimes what I meant by ... my blind spots? |
|
7. Very useful, cause we are all not experienced and
lack some common sense. It will help us a lot when doing
the final project. |
|
8. yeah~ very useful |
|
9. The comments are quite true though most of them are
not on my part (design) |
|
10. It's useful with tips and hints for future
development. Some advices also coincident with my doubts
about the app, and make me double focus on that. |
|
11. Yes, get to learn from the mistakes. |
|
12. For mine, I feel the feedbacks were mostly obvious
issues that our group already know but do not have
enough time to implement. In a way the feedback does not
taken into account the complexity and time of the app.
Some app are much more complex and making it look fancy
is probably not the first priority. Because making the
app at least workable is the most important. |
|
13. Yes, very useful. Because It revealed some problem
of our own programming habits and the collaboration
among team members. |
|
14. Yes. The feedback for the Fb assignment was very
good. Showed us that you cared enough to read through
and understand the effort we put in - and that is very
encouraging. |
|
15. I have never seen a more detailed feedback write-up
in my entire 3 years in NUS! Most of the feedback I got
barely exceed 2 lines in other modules. Kudos to those
who spent the time to write them. As a student I
appreciate the amount of feedback that I received here.
Most of them are spot on and some even provide
recommendations to tough issues that our group faced. If
every module in NUS bother to provide feedbacks like
those in CS3216, students will be able to learn much
faster and more effectively. |
|
16. Yes, useful and I take responsibility for lack of
contribution. It's tough not to feel old when blogging
was not done as part of coursework as an undergrad. But
it was good to read from people's views on things. |
|
17. Certainly... Kok Wee's comments make me think about
what I should do before coding. It turns out that coding
is not hard and the core part is more likely to be how
you actually code your mind. Faults are really there and
the space to improve is there as well. Maybe i am a bit
uncomfortable with dealing wiz the detailed part, ehhh,
it is actually compulsory to think through it otherwise
life is even tougher....sure, how to manage to project
scale is another lesson to learn... |
|
18. Nil |
|
19. Quite useful, especially for final project. |
|
20. The feedback is very useful. The staff read
every-single-line of my code, I think. They provide
excellent feedbacks on the code review, and they all
true. |
|
21. Not very useful. The feedback to a large extend did
not apply to our ideas for the future and our first apps
were based on what we had planned in general for the
full-fledged app. |
|
22. Yes. It pinpoint exactly what we need. The teaching
staffs are very experienced and take great pain to think
about our application and come up with the feedback. |
|
23. Yes, because it's in very detail. Seems like you all
check through all the codes and give us comments in
extreme details. The feedback was also very useful. |
|
24. Quite useful. |
|
25. I think so, it helps us to do better for the final
project |
|
|
Skip: 2 (7.4%) |
|
Glad to know that students found the comments useful. CS3216 assignments
are extremely hard to grade and we spent a lot of time grading them.
Re: comment 4, I think you need to check your spam folder for Kok
Wee's email. Or you can email Kok Wee. Maybe there was a mistake.
|
|
Essay
|
|
6)
If you’re a programmer, do you think that the
non-programmers are able to contribute effectively to the
assignments? |
|
1. They play a pivotal role in making sure the product
is nice and marketable. But when there's too many of
them in a group, the programmers suffer. It is still
about writing programs, design is important but without
a working app, there's nothing to design about. However,
I feel that people who can't do programming and design
are a total burden. I'm sure you know who I am referring
to. Marketing skills are useless if 1) there's no
product 2) there's a product but looks like crap. People
who can only do marketing shouldn't be allowed to join
this course, unless they are keen on learning the other
2 skills. |
|
2. Yes. In both the assignments so far, I believe that
interested non-programmers contribute equally. |
|
3. Yes!! We needed and need designers badly and are
trying to bribe the existing small pool of designers !!
I am not sure about the biz oriented people though.... |
|
4. Yes but to a limited extent. More programmers are
needed because the assignment are really very technical.
|
|
5. NA |
|
6. Definitely. |
|
7. Of course they can. As far as I can see, it is
designers who lead a team ( i know Prof Ben disagree).
When people randomly come up with ideas, programmer will
response like " yes, i can do it" or "no, I cannot do
it", then how? Who is going to make decision? I suppose
designers should do and drawing pretty pictures is
definitely not the only thing they can contribute to
project work. Programmer struggling with code and they
don't bother to think why I am doing this crazy
stuff.... |
|
8. NA |
|
9. Not programmer. |
|
10. Yes, they are invaluable to the success of the
assignments. I cannot design, but they can. However,
they should learn more on how to integrate design into
programming, that will make our (programmers') life a
lot easier. |
|
11. Depends on their roles. Good designers are very
important, they make the front end look good. Report
writers are also important. If you're neither designer
nor report writer nor programmer, you're not useful in
this class. |
|
12. I am considered a semi-programmer. In both the WPF
and Facebook assignment, the non-programmers are
generally able to contribute pretty effectively. In my
WPF group especially, one of the member is unable to
code, design and draw, but he managed to secure a good
marketing deal for our app with an external
organization. I guess its about maximising each other's
potential. |
|
13. If they can do designs, then they can contribute
pretty well. Unfortunately, other than that ... I don't
think they can contribute too effectively. They do not
provide much value add to the team, other than helping
to write the report and stuffs. That is of coz, unless
they are open and can provide marketing directions and
all that. |
|
Definitely, without designers, we can do nothing. |
|
14. - |
|
15. Okay, I happen to be a partial programmer. I think
non-programmer can learn basic programming and
contribute as effectively. It does depends on the team
dynamics. The experienced programmers need to be good
enough to allocate manageable tasks to the newbie
programmers and guide them along. |
|
depends on whether the non-programmer wants to learn and
have a heart for the project |
|
16. Yep, non-programmers did their best. Thanks to their
effort, report and user experience of apps are no longer
burdens to programmers. I propose the perfect team is 1
reporter/marketing/business man, 1 designer and 3
programmer with 1 programmer be a leader. If the
programmers are good then 2 programmer would be enough,
otherwise the jobs would be too easy (and can not
utilize all manpower). |
|
17. Designer can definitely contribute to the
assignments cause a lot of designs is also needed. For
semi-programmers, if their team got too many hardcore
programmers which can do all the job then they can't
really contribute much coz the hardcore basically can
cover a lot already. |
|
18. The designers made front end work more appealing
with great designs and ideas for user interaction. It
might have been good to have a component grade
specifically grading the design of the application to
let the designers be more motivated. The involvement of
pure marketers might have been made better by involving
them in product management type roles while the product
is being built. E.g. market survey, product usability
testing (based on paper prototypes), etc. |
|
19. hmm..design mostly. For games, designers are more
important. For utilities, not so. Else they will just
help with writing the fluff side |
|
20. Nil |
|
21. Some are extremely helpful who take care of all the
reports, generate ideas, gameplay... so that we can
focus on what we're best at. While others are simply
free riders, who know sh*t about software development
and hence contribute nothing |
|
22. N.A. |
|
23. absolutely yes!!! |
|
|
Skip: 9 (34.6%) |
|
I am glad to see that the majority of the programmers agree that the
non-programmers in the course are quite important. :-) Part of the story
in CS3216 is to make students aware of the importance of an ecosystem
and that programmers alone are not enough. :-P
|
|
Essay |
|
7)
If you’re a non-programmer, what are your views
on the assignments? Do you find it difficult to contribute? |
|
1. There are always opportunities to contribute if one
sets his/her mind to it. Most obviously, Help Guides and
Documentation are always key to a good user experience. |
|
2. For people between designer and programmer are hard
to contribute. For designer it is easy to contirbute.
The only thing is that at some point of time where the
programmers are crunching for the final touches then
non-programmers can do almost nothing but give suppport
and encouragement. |
|
3. No. I think non-programmer need to take the
initiative to help in areas where the team needs help.
However, I feel that the structure of the lessons and to
a much lesser extent, aspirations, are too programming
centered. It is not easy for non-programmers to know how
to contribute. Of course, if they dare to take this
course, they should know for themselves how they are
able to contribute la. |
|
4. n/a |
|
5. As a half-programmer, I think its generally easier to
contribute to the Facebook than the WPF assignment. The
learning curve is steep but generally doable. |
|
6. Yeah.. At times I felt really useless. I wanted to do
more! Or maybe it was cos i had to rush the front end
work, so when it came to my turn to slack everyone else
was chionging and i really wanted to help. All i managed
to do was to make one small scrollbar look pretty and
work! >.< |
|
7. - |
|
8. Yes. A bulk of the assignment is too technical based. |
|
9. NA |
|
10. Hmmm yeah, I think its difficult to contribute.
Because the whole course is programming heavy, as in all
the milestones are based on programming, I always felt
that even as an artist I'm not able to contribute to the
group. I liked the UI milestone in WPF, because it
allowed me to actually do "work" for the module. But my
group members have been very nice and have told me that
art is very important. >_< |
|
11. I'm a programmer |
|
12. We all have our roles to play, I'm a designer
myself. So for me, its not difficult to contribute
because I have to design. |
|
13. Yes, difficult to contribute. This is a CS module
afterall, so programming component is quite heavy. My
rudimentary knowledge of Flash did not come in handy
either.
|
|
14. The assignment allows us to bring to life our ideas
that we had in mind for a long time. Nope, not difficult
to contribute. |
|
15. Comparing with programmer, non-programmer has a
easier job. However, a team cannot work without
non-programmer. |
|
16. Nil |
|
17. sorry am a programmer...at certain point of the
assignments, i seriously considered becoming a designer
or something .... seemed like the work was more
interesting on the other side of the fence ...haha :P |
|
|
Skip: 10 (37%) |
|
Hmm.... interesting - but it's good to know that the programmers all
feel that the non-programmers are critical to their success in this
course, even though some of the non-programmers seem to find it hard to
contribute at times.
|
|
|
| |
|
Multiple Choice |
|
1)
How do you find the lectures? |
|
They are completely useless. I learn nothing.
|
0
(0%) |
|
I have no idea what's happening half the time |
4
(14.8%) |
|
Lectures are no different from the other classes
on campus |
0
(0%) |
|
Lectures are clear and I am able to follow the
material quite well |
12
(44.4%) |
|
Lectures are way cool. Easily the best class that
I've taken at NUS |
10
(37%) |
|
No idea. I don’t attend the lectures |
0
(0%) |
| Skip |
1
(3.7%) |
|
I'm glad that the lectures are generally well-received by most students. :-P
I am curious to know how come there are 4 students who have no idea
what's happening.... would encourage them to drop me a note at some
point.
I think I did several things right this year with the scheduling of
the lectures. Also, I suspect that "earn my pay" summaries also help
reinforce the key ideas of the lectures.
|
|
Essay |
|
2)Feedback
for Lecturer Ben Leong. |
|
1. Talks very fast, and it's pretty funny hearing his
speeches. However, he speaks wisely, and i truly enjoy
his guidance ... I think he is quite able to connect
with my pattern of thoughts regarding visions and all.
His comments (including those he left at blogs) are
quite insightful, and can see that he truly listens to
the student's feelings and ideals. Works hard, and leads
by example. Quite the sort that I might categorize as a
Life Teacher, instead of a simple module lecturer. |
|
2. The "earning-my-pay" talks, though short, were very
effective in bringing the class together to focus on the
key issue. All these talks about social media can be
very diverse and draw our attentions away from the key
point. Most enthusiastic lecturer I've ever met (no one
can fight). Very real in his interaction with the
students too, hallmark of a wonderful educator. Respect.
[Salute] |
|
3. Ok lah. Very Evil. Yeah the friday facebook pitching
session was fun but I didn't regret choosing the musical
instead. ^_^ heez. |
|
4. Don't know what to tell him...thanks for the module!
Even though you appear evil, guess its for the greater
good. I am seriously considering another opportunity to
be your student...maybe for urop, if possible :) For
sure, you are going to be someone who has made my
academic life different and be one of those rare
teachers who have inspired me to learn and love what
I've learnt. But I would say that your feedback really
demands us to work more than we want to. |
|
5. A lot of motivational talk, gave a different view of
what learning is about and I think this is good. However
I feel he can be elitist sometimes, only talk about
getting or being the best sometimes. |
|
6. Full marks for founding the class in the first place.
Building communities is the way forward for helping NUS
students compete in the global economy. Without fail,
each lecture/session is littered with "earning my pay"
summaries that usually hits the nail on its head,
driving through key issues surrounding the software
development community. |
|
7. Haha.. evil prof! But one who really thinks, and
constantly challenges us to reach higher, reach for
more. It makes things really stressful, but then it
makes us learn a lot! What would be nice tho is a follow
up module from CS3216 where we can expand on what we've
done and spend a whole semester on a super duper crazy
proj....... |
|
8. Nice to be so spirited every time. :) |
|
9. Blessed are those who are evil enough to make us
understand that in the end, the suffering is worth it
all. |
|
10. I feel that dr ben is very knowledgeable and
opinionated. He is very willing to share his experience
with us. However, sometimes I think that he will impose
his opinions and it is really very hard to change his
mind. He is commendable for all the hard work in
designing such special module and facilitating it. He is
friendly and readily approachable. But like I said, his
knowledge and life achievement may indirectly make him
closed to other views of things. |
|
11. I like the style of the class you made, and
especially appreciate your effort to invite the guests
to come to the lectures. I also really like the case
studies written in form of story telling. |
|
12. very evil~~ |
|
13. Damn cool ~ |
|
14. He earned his pay. He have very practical teaching
style, which is something that most teachers need. He
can strike a chord with the student and engage us very
well. He not only teaches useful stuff, but at the same
time, really make us KNOW that what he teaches is very
useful. |
|
15. Very good summary every time that let us understand
what is important because every lecture there's too much
thing said and to learn. Cut in at the correct time when
guests speaks to let us have a clear mind of what is
going on. Hardworking on reading at every blog and
commenting. |
|
16. always good.... |
|
17. Nil |
|
18. Evil, but cool and helpful :) Like a daemon with
wings~~ |
|
19. Prof Ben has a very unique way of teaching. He
doesn't teach anything, he inspires students to learn.
Its kind of playing cheat but for some reason if
students are willing to put more effort/ kill themselves
to learn because they are inspired, why not. |
|
20. very enthusiastic, very knowledgeable, very nice to
the students. Among the best lecturers I have known in
my entire NUS life. |
|
21. Simply the best lecturer. =) |
|
22. Thanks for taking me in this class, and for
constantly driving us to our potential. Best lecturer
award should go to you. Thank goodness u r not my boss
;p else sure die of stress. |
|
23. GREAT. Thanks for making the class interesting. |
|
24. He is a very impressive lecturer with out of the box
teaching strategies |
|
25. Considering the efficiency, I would learn more
specific knowledge in lecture. |
|
26. He's smart, but not that kind of super-duper-smart
guy. His strength is that he knows to influence people
to do things, inspire them. Best lecturer in my NUS life
so far. Keep it up ;). Suggestion: - slow down a bit
when you talk, sometimes it's hard to hear what you are
talking (you definitely want us to learn more, don't
you? So speak just a bit slower) |
|
|
Skip: 1 (3.7%) |
|
Thanks for the kind words... some of you say the funniest things. I'm
frankly quite amused. :-)Re: the "earn my pay" speeches, they are
really a response to feedback I got in this section last year. Some
students said I wasn't teaching and was only doing logistics
coordination by getting people to teach for me. :-) Okay lah, it's
really not that big a deal to me what students say as long as I'm
convinced that they are learning something. One of the issues that arose
last year was that I realized that some students weren't really paying
attention much to the lectures. Maybe the students just lack the
maturity and listening skills (and I mean really listening out to what
the speakers are saying), so I decided that perhaps a summary would be
helpful to nail the idea ideas. The blogging thing also came out of this
observation and my attempts to maximize learning value.
Re: comment 6, I had already responded to the student on this
accusation of "elitist". This idea of trying to form teams with the best
people is really not elitist but common sense. Í don't believe I need to
say more because most students will figure this out. The courses at SoC
involve a great deal of group work and every semester I have students
who complain that they got stuck with teams where some people didn't
pull their weights.
Re: comment 10, personally, I think opinionated is good. I would
encourage all of you have to opinions about everything and to engage
people who don't share the same opinions. Yep, it's quite hard to change
my mind, 'cos I think quite hard before I form an opinion. To change my
opinion, you would have to have a good case - but that's not to say that
it's not possible. We cannot be wishy-washy and anyhow believe people.
Sometimes, it's also good to defer making up one's mind until we have
enough information or have thought hard enough about the issue.
|
|
Essay
|
|
3)
Suggest other topics that should have been
covered for the lectures (if any). |
|
1. basic marketing 101 eg. covering the 4Ps (price,
product, promotion, place). afterall, the software has
to generate income right? |
|
2. User study |
|
3. It was said that in the development of software,
major part of the budget goes to marketing. This idea
was reinforced several times by Dr Ben. I thought this
course will be made perfect if there are topics with
regards to the marketing aspect of this nature. |
|
4. Nil |
|
5. NA |
|
6. n/a |
|
7. More WPF/Air/Gears workshop. It's new, so don't
expect people to pick up that easy. |
|
8. Google Gears!!!!! |
|
9. Instead of lectures and workshop, we could have 2
workshops per week....one of shorter duration. Guess
that would be more useful. The lectures really did not
interest me and I attended them to have a nice break and
because we need to blog about it later....anywayz I
realised that to blog, I just need to pen down what Dr.
Ben summarises at the end and copy paste it onto the
blog post. |
|
10. I think a few courses focusing on layout design and
art for the non-programmers might be useful. I am not
particularly worried for designers because many take
this course with proficient design and photoshop skills.
But I worried for the marketing/business people that may
really have problem finding how they can contribute.
Adding new marketing-related aspirations does not really
solve the problem because anyone just need an hour to
think and write. |
|
11. Practising sales pitch, marketing, business skills.
People's skills. |
|
12. Lectures could have been more interactive and fun..
haha.. after all we barely meet the rest of our
classmates apart from those in our group, so perhaps
that's what made us more sticky to our original groups
to begin with! |
|
13. Can't think of any offhand. |
|
14. Hmm.. how about production or workflow? I feel that
these always get neglected. I
|
|
15. Right now the class is very end consumer focused.
Maybe it is because that the facebook itself is end
consumer focused. I think WPF has great potential if
students think about uses for enterprise use. After all
there are more mission critical apps on the enterprise
side and more mobile warriors |
|
16. intro to new n cool tech :) |
|
17. With regards to "evolving platforms" technologies,
Twitter might be the only big missing piece, but the
skill sets taught to us through the assignments more
than prepares us to tackle this relatively new platform.
Perhaps more of a module suggestion than an additional
lecture, mobile application development would be
excellent as an extension to this course. That aside, it
might have been interesting to do a lecture/workshop on
fund-raising for tech start-ups to let the class know
how easy it is to get seed funding in Singapore. This
could perhaps even latch onto the once-a-semester Garag3
Open House to minimise efforts. |
|
18. I think more than enough topic has been covered.
|
|
|
Skip: 9 (33.3%) |
|
Glad to hear that students have internalized the importance of sales.
Unfortunately I have to admit that sales is really not my forte, even
though I can probably do some rudimentary selling if required. People
should go and take classes at biz school or read books. My sense is that
a lot of it is also common sense, i.e. understanding the psychology of
the people you want to sell to and using some creativity to figure out
how to sell to them. There are probably also some standard techniques.
CS students like to do startups, but one of the problems is that many of
them focus too much on technology and not enough on sales. As long as I
have alerted the students in CS3216 of this pitfall, I think I have done
my job.
Re: comment 8, actually I already realized that some of you are doing
exactly that - but it's not a real problem. Proves that you're minimally
paying attention to what I say and taking notes.
Thanks for the other ideas. I will think about them and see what we
can do in the future. The main constraint is that we only have a limit
amount of time. A semester is really quite short. :-)
|
|
Essay |
|
8)
Which of the workshops (UNIX, XHTML/CSS, PHP/MySQL,
Intro to JavaScript, AJAX) did you attend. Please let us have
your feedback on them |
|
1. most are really basic. should cater for experienced
programmers also |
|
2. UNIX: sufficient, but if we have a whole sheet of
what exactly to do/ a simulation would be better.we jsut
copy and you explain what is happening. XHTML/CSS:
sufficient. PHP/MySQL: I think can teach a little bit
more. JS/AJAX: maybe a little more on AJAX WPF: this is
super tiring and many can't finish.It's a little too
tedious to do this.But the workshop is well prepared,
just the nature of MS products. |
|
3. I attended all the workshop. UNIX - CSS - PHP - MySQL
- JS - Flash (you guys missing this one) workshop are
very basic, actually I don't need to go. I can't give
feedback as I know most of the stuff before hand. WPF
workshop is totally useless in my opinion. It's too
complex to make it in 1 day. All I did was just
copy/paste without understanding the code. |
|
4. Attend all except for AJAX. WPF was fun as I finally
had hands-on access, I got lost in the rest because no
access to the system. |
|
5. I attended all of them and have learnt a lot! Thanks.
:) |
|
6. I attended almost all of them, but wasn't able to
understand much.. I did get the CSS and AJAX bit pretty
well, or at least the concept of it, (which is cool cos
then i could understand what could be designed) as well
as WPF (because it was really nicely guided) but for the
most part, the instructions given were
programmer-oriented, which i feel should be the way for
this module cos u're teaching the programmers to get
better, not the non-programmers to become programmers.
All the same, it would have been nice if there could
have been a detailed guide (in plain english) for each
tut, which non-programmers like me could refer to before
class :D |
|
7. Nil |
|
8. UNIX, XHTML/CSS, PHP/MySQL, JavaScript/AJAX, WPF i
have attended, all were quite useful WPF and
JavaScript/AJAX were particularly useful for our
projects
|
|
9. all helpful wpf workshop too long |
|
10. Very useful. Some of those with specific
examples/tutorials/WPF such as AJAX and WPF are more
useful because we get firsthand experience with the
topic. I think the XHTML/CSS workshop should be done
with a tutorial. It is cool for non-programmer to see
how the code translate into images. It is kind of hard
to structure such workshops with half the class
programmers, while the other half is not. Instead of
striking a balance, maybe splitting into two groups
might be good. |
|
11. All. They are quite useful for beginner like me who
are new to web programming. |
|
12. All of them. The workshops are pretty basic. Good to
get off the ground. Provides a good starting point for
newbies. The contents and followable and sufficient.
However, as with technical lectures, one can't benefit
much from it if they don't do revisions on the
workshop's contents. That'll be the student's
responsibilities. |
|
13. I attended all of them. They are really very useful
especially for a non-programmer like me. I don't like
coming to school on Saturdays but I know I cannot miss
the workshop because of the stuff I am going to learn. |
|
14. all due to the time limit and schedule, the content
covered is very basic and some things we have already
learnt beforehand. Advanced topics like AJAX is
interesting. WPF is painful but Kok wee is excellent. |
|
15. All. UNIX: The unix one was good, and I learnt a lot
from them, since I was trying to mess around Mac and
Linux myself. XHTML/CSS: I've been trying to figure out
this for a long time and I was quite happy to find most
of my questions answered in a single day of workshop!
PHP/MySQL: I've learnt this myself before so I didn't
really find them useful. Javascript/AJAX: I was a little
afraid to tread into more languages but this workshop
showed me that it wasn't that difficult at all and threw
away the illusion that jQuery and other libraries were
difficult to use. WPF: 16. No one had any real idea what
the heck was really going on...
|
|
17. UNIX - workshop is very fast, can be quite confusing
sometimes (for a non-programmer) XHTML/CSS - only basics
are taught, so quite easy to follow. PHP/MySQL -
confusing! but maybe because I wasn't listening hard
Javascript/AJAX - only basics are taught, so quite easy
to follow. WPF - all we are doing in the workshop is
copy and paste code, so there's not much to learn
although TA did try to explain the code, I feel we could
have been more independent. |
|
18. Unix and wpf. Very informative and helpful. |
|
19. UNIX. It is too advanced for me. |
|
20. Attended all workshops other than XHTML/CSS. For the
PHP/MySQL, JavaScript/AJAX, it might have been good to
have everyone do the W3 tutorial before the workshop so
that a little more depth can be put into the workshops.
The WPF workshop was really well structured, but those
that worked on the Desktops seems to have learnt more
WPF related lessons whereas those on laptops seem to be
stuck trying to fix installation related bugs. |
|
21. I attended all of them... They are alright. |
|
22. UNIX and WPF. They're not too in-depth but covered
most of important materials needed for assignments.
|
|
23. I attend all of them. Fairly, they cannot deliver
everything in 2/3 hrs then...What workshops do really
matters since it opens the door...and then long way to
go loh~ |
|
attended all...have provided feedback to the respective
tutors. Please keep the 1st workshop before the first
assignment is released....i mean the one that had intro
to extracting info from facebook. |
|
24. PHP/MySQL - perhaps can teach mainly using examples.
Javascript/AJAX - It helped to reinforce knowledge. WPF
- GooD |
|
25. WPF - Good. lots of info to learn PHP-MySQL - NOt
that useful because it is quite similar to other things
i have learnt. |
|
|
Skip: 2 (7.7%) |
|
The workshops were meant to be quite basic because they are meant to
bring some people up to speed or at least expose them to the material.
CS3216 is not really about teaching stuff, but about opening horizons
and pointing people in the right direction to learn stuff on their own.
I am also quite reluctant to increase the class time. CS3216 is already
quite heavy.
|
|
Essay |
|
9)
If you missed one of more of the workshops,
please let us know why you didn’t attend them. Did you already
know the material or was it due to scheduling conflicts? |
|
1. Flash/Actionscript - something I already know and
conflicting schedules. |
|
2. N/A |
|
3. NA |
|
4. I already know them or I have other module work to do
or rush this module's assignment. |
|
5. as mentioned above, workshops are quite basic so i
don't feel that bad if i miss one or two of them |
|
6. Nil |
|
7. Chinese New Year |
|
8. N.A. |
|
9. Scheduling conflicts. There are other commitments
that I've neglected for too long. |
|
10. Ajax - Know the material |
|
11. i did not miss any. |
|
12. I am a good student, I come for all the workshops
and ate all the free lunches. |
|
13. I didn't attend XHTML/CSS, PHP/MySQL,
JavaScript/AJAX because I've known the material. |
|
14. Conflict in schedule |
|
15. Flash. Scheduling conflicts. |
|
16. n/a |
|
17. Due to schedule conflict as I promise something
before I receive that the email stating that the
workshop will be held on the 1st saturdy of the 1st
week. Hopefully next time can pal nearlier and inform
earlier. |
|
18. I attended them all |
|
| |
|
Skip: 9 (33.3%) |
|
We had A LOT of problems with the scheduling of the workshops, which is
why I scheduled all the workshops on Saturdays. I am most grateful to my
most brilliant and dedicated teaching staff for agreeing to take time
off to teach on Saturdays.
|
|
Essay |
|
10)
Do you think we should conduct other workshops?
What should they be? |
|
1. Perhaps a few more on the more advanced stuffs, like
various PHP frameworks or some very useful javascript
libraries..? |
|
2. I think that workshop for semi-programmers should be
conducted to increase their competence against other
hardcore programmers. Maybe can be held during the
vacation so that they can learn before the course
start to work on the assignment. |
|
3. Nil |
|
4. Project management. Coding style. Software
engineering. |
|
5. no suggestion at this time |
|
6. Hm. How about preparing art for applications? Like
the differences between raster and vector, how to save
art, best resolution for screen.. etc. This will help
optimize art for the applications so that loading time
etc wouldn't be so long. |
|
7. A design-intensive workshop :P |
|
8. how to write an executive proposal for VC funding. |
|
9. C# classes for WPF |
|
10. I think we should have a BBQ. Just to de-stress and
have fun. |
|
11. more workshops on flash and photoshop |
|
12. No. But the workshop usually come too late. Like
flash and php, they were after the fb assignment. If
they were before it will benefit more. |
|
13. You should. Even though it is almost impossible for
ppl to make use of the stuff in their projects, the good
point is to show the choices we have to build our app.
What should they be? ennn, it is unfair for you guys to
teach everything in a few hrs but may be helpful to
recommend some good tutorials/books/random stuffs... |
|
14. FBML/FMJS. Alot of what we learn in CSS/AJAX, we
find it hard to apply them into facebook due to
compatibility issue. |
|
15. Marketing of software or games. Maybe can be done
hand-in-hand with the Electronic Gaming module or Biz
Sch. |
|
16. Yes. Some C#, one more workshop on working with
visual studio and .net platform. |
|
17. So far so good. |
|
18. Advance JS/AJAX would be very interesting. Also UI
design workshop (I don't know how this one works,
probably provide some concept about design?) |
|
19. Hmm i think flash should have been covered earlier,
but that's just a personal opinion. I do think that a
more in depth UI/UX workshop could have been held, but
that's really just a personal opinion (esp since the
learning curve for UI is really steep) |
|
20. Fund-raising workshop (See Q18) |
|
|
Skip: 7 (25.9%) |
|
The idea to work with another course sounds pretty good. :-)
|
|
|
I think that blogging really works *much* better than the IVLE
Discussion Forum. I understand that the foreign students are likely to
have a harder time with the blogs because they may not be quite so
comfortable writing in English. Nevertheless, I would like to convince
them that if they are not comfortable, they should still write more to
improve.
The importance of writing cannot be understated for ANY profession. I
didn't believe my teachers when I was younger - but I'm quite sure that
the students will understand someday, even if not now. :-)
Personally, blogging also takes a toll on me, but the way I see it. I
already know the objective of each class. Sometimes we get it right,
sometimes we don't. Either way, blogging a summary at the end of each
class allows me to reinforce some of the ideas and also make-up for
things perhaps not covered quite so thoroughly. Not every student is
inclined to blog, but for those who do so seriously, blogging gives me a
very direct channel to understand how the students thing and respond to
some of their ideas directly.
|
|
|
| |
|
Multiple Choice |
|
1)
What is your overall impression of CS3216 thus
far? |
|
This is a horrible class. Truly regret choosing
it. |
0
(0%) |
|
It’s alright, but mostly painful. |
2
(7.4%) |
|
Just like any other module |
0
(0%) |
|
It’s a good module and I definitely enjoy it. |
10
(37%) |
|
CS3216 rocks! Coolest class I have taken in my
life. |
14
(51.9%) |
| Skip |
1
(3.7%) |
|
Wow, looks like CS3216 is quite well received this semester. Perhaps I'm
doing something right. :-)
|
|
Essay |
|
2)
What do you think you have learnt thus far? |
|
1. life, marketing and teamwork |
|
2. If you are dreaming big, here's your chance. |
|
3. - refreshing views from coursemates on what social
networking should be - programming - there are many
roads to success.. |
|
4. I've learnt that it really pays to keep your eye out
for innovations and to think: Learnt to stop thinking
that ideas have to be new to earn money, because some
times simple applications can be those that churn out a
lot of cash. Learnt more about how social networking
sites work and how existing applications encourage user
interactions and how to apply them to our own
applications. a lot lah. these are the main ones. ^_^ |
|
5. 1. That I can learn languages in a single day. 2.
I've realised how resilient I am. 3. How to split the
workload and work as a team 4. How much I can love and
hate programming simultaneously ! 5. How to avoid
working on other modules...aka how to copy from friends
as much as u can, to survive thru the semester till the
recess week/reading week. 6. What a semester long rat
race feels like! |
|
6. That MONEY CAN BE MADE IF YOU GOT THE IDEA. The skill
of picking up stuff by yourself? After being forced to
learn several languages on my own. |
|
7. Be more mature. Time Management. Abillity to sleep
less. The lastest and future trend in computing and web
programming. Facebook users type and how to taget them.
A little of UNIX, HTML/CSS, PHP/MySQL, JavaScript/AJAX,
WPF, Gears Working in a group with extreme short
deadline. Writing blogs with useful content. Being able
to reflect on things learnt, and noting down them. Being
able to learn programming with the internet itself.
Realising that sometimes forum are better than API page.
How to analysing things critically. Presentation skill.
Increase Self esteem. Dare to be different. |
|
8. 1) Varying programming languages 2) More knowledge
about how to talk to hardcore programmers |
|
9. New platforms evolve everyday. The ones who survive
know how to learn; and execute well. |
|
10. the BIG picture. through the talks given by Ben and
many external speakers. and the skills and exercises
that help me kick start of my future study/work in web
programming and hybrid application |
|
11. never rush to do something...think through it first
and do it better. marketing plans...sorry no. what a
life can be when u r mugging in COM1 for a few weeks. It
is hard to master something but even harder to start
doing something. Don't do much and do what u can manage
to do. |
|
12. Apart from the technical aspect, I think this is one
of the few modules I have taken that allows you to do
something and learn by DOING. Things like team dynamics
and project management are definitely additional skills
that I have acquired in this module. |
|
13. - Lessons of business, team management, and future
technology and possibility. - Over ambitious kill.
Especially when I don't know skill of my peers very
well, and the time for fixing/covers any mistakes are
unrecoverable. - Shout out loud when being stuck. So,
teammates can help and cover. It's disgusting to get
stuck, let time goes, and excuse to extend deadlines
later. - Optimized for 5 persons team formation is
1-1-3: 1 sales + 1 designer + 3 programmer. For 3
programmer, 1 to be the lead programmer who should care
about the app as a whole, communicate with designer and
other programmers to integrate design and all components
together. 2 programmers to make components can divide
their jobs by application functions or application
layers. Application system, coding convention,
application architecture should be brainstormed before
all the real coding happened. |
|
14. TONS of things. Cant write all of them offhead. But
I know the lessons learnt will all come back to me when
I need to apply them in the future. But the best part is
learning about ideas. How we can think of ideas that
makes a difference and actually implementing them! |
|
15. Teamwork (i can't live without great programmers!),
the (time) constraints of programming, and that while
ethics may be important to me personally, other people
might not adhere to that same rule. So watch your back.
lol |
|
16. - Learnt how to deal with non-programmers. - Learnt
how to pick up new language in such a short time. -
Basic concept to design social/web app. - Whole bunch of
entrepreneur stuff. - Networking. |
|
17. Some technical knowledge about web app team work |
|
18. Experienced truly the power of team-work. Interface
design and rationale from case study. Game design from
inputs from my team-mates. How simple and seemingly
stupid ideas can work wonders. Realizing the potential
of connected identities across the web. |
|
19. How to work with others |
|
20. That people are important. I have to keep reminding
myself about this. Looking for people. |
|
21. I must say I learn a lot but at the same time I also
learn nothing. In other words, info overflow. I will
elaborate in the latter question on this module as a
whole. |
|
22. I believe I've upgraded my programming skills to
some extent. That's not too important though ... What's
important is that I've seen new ways of utilizing them
to ride on opportunities. Like Xiao Nei, Google etc ...
Opens my mind, widens my vision. |
|
23. the price to do something you like how to survive
common sense how to fail other modules easily :) |
|
24. Dare to dream. |
|
25. Nil |
|
|
Skip: 2 (7.7%) |
|
Seems like people are learning stuff. The interesting thing is that
different people are learning different things. This may seem a little
weird, but it's to be expected for CS3216. Frankly, I also learn stuff
and different stuff each time.
Comment 21 is interesting. Will respond to it in the next section
too.
|
|
Multiple Choice |
|
3)Would
you recommend this module to anyone else? |
|
No, I won’t want them to suffer the pain I did. |
1
(3.7%) |
|
Nah, I don’t think it’s worth it. |
0
(0%) |
|
I have no opinion about this. |
3
(11.1%) |
|
Yes, I will encourage anyone who asks me. |
17
(63%) |
|
Of course, every NUS student should take this
class! |
5
(18.5%) |
| Skip |
1
(3.7%) |
|
I guess the results here are to be expected given that the course is
better received this year than last year. :-)
|
|
Essay |
|
4)
Please give us your comments and suggestions on
how to make your learning in CS3216 more efficient and
interesting. |
|
1. I think that I already spend way too much time on
this module than is good for me :P meaning that this
methods of teaching and assessing are efficient and
interesting (they got a lazy person like me to work :) ) |
|
2. Discuss more with groupmates. Take less other
modules. Must manage time very well and do work at your
own optimum time of the day. Have fun playing around
with groupmates while working. |
|
3. I cant think of any. Maybe make this into a 20MC
module so we can immerse 100% into it. |
|
4. more external speakers on the latest technology in
the field. |
|
5. Blogging is good... but more discussions pls! ^_^ I
like discussions. |
|
6. less pressure less things to do like blog |
|
7. Don't allow people from this class stay overnight in
COM1... |
|
8. Having individual projects I guess will really force
every individual to learn something. While this may
sound unfair to non-programmers, they are the ones who
really get to learn something. Ultimately grades
shouldn't be everything, I feel that grades should not
be revealed through out the course of the semester. The
students in the class are actually competing more than
learning. Think about it, NUS is all about competing.
See who can do better, lets face it we are all here
because being selected for this module makes us feel
proud of ourselves and most importantly there is no bell
curve. We are all here for the A+! |
|
9. Hmm... more efficient? Frankly, because most of us
are new to this, perhaps it would have been better to
throw us into a prerequisite module with many mini projs
that cover a wide range of scope, showing us the
possibility of execution and opening up our imagination,
then chucking us into CS3216 for a hardcore execution of
just one HUGE proj. It's a personal opinion, but it's
just that i felt that we could have produced so much
more if we had more time to intensely work on one proj,
and really explore and execute super cool possibilities.
Like prof Ben said during our meeting - how to make a
difference in just 12 weeks? Well, if we didn't have to
spend so much time on the learning curve, perhaps we
really could make a difference! |
|
10. Hmm..I think stuff that is used 1 time should just
be provided instead of the team trying to figure it out.
Server and development setup is an example. Also
encourage people to use frameworks, libraries because
after all, reading other people's code is an efficient
way to learn. |
|
11. - Keep class ratio at about 60% programmer, and 40%
non-programmer. I think it'd be the golden ratio to have
good team :P - Keep inviting guests to our lecture. I
really appreciate this :) |
|
12. Nil |
|
13. Workload may be a problem for everyone. In my
opinion, the reason why the problem is here may be not
only for the really heavy workload, but also some
problems related to class organization. |
|
14. I think we should give every group a chance to talk
about their Facebook and WPF application. There is a lot
to learn from this class due to the calibre of students
in it. The Facebook Seminar is a good example. It is
very encouraging after seeing each other everyday in
COM1, we get to see/show the app that all of us have
been working so hard on. |
|
15. I feel that this module really is more practical and
useful than any other modules. However, there are too
much things being taught a short span of time. The
result is confusion and not knowing what is important.
Dr ben always talk about NUS students jus going through
the motion and not learning. I must say the same
happened in this module. Yes we learn a lot but there is
so much info and work that we are also going through the
motion and not appreciating it. With such short
deadlines, our minds will be preoccupied with rushing.
Learning so many life "philosophy" and having not enough
time to slow down and think through will just render it
as a passing knowledge. I seriously believe this module
should cut down on it's pace, workload and scope. I
think no other module gives two week for deadlines. The
quality of work required is such that the amount of
effort needed is huge. I think this is partly our fault
too. We are in an arm race to be the best. However, I
feel the teaching team should do more to prevent this.
Continues in next the question. |
|
16. i thought the peer survey could be done using online
survey templates eg surveymonkey, instead of using word
doc. easier to key in that way and for the info to be
consolidated. |
|
17. It might be cool to do instant Twitter-ish feedback
during each lecture to allow conversations to start even
while it is on going. This perhaps might also help the
presenter to readapt the presentation if he/she decides
to do so. Each tutor overseeing 1 or 2 groups might also
be a good idea to measure progress (this vs. the
mid-assignment report) and coach the group should any
coaching be needed. |
|
18. let's groups have a session to advertise their apps
which of course they are damn proud of |
|
19. too much commenting...am not going to fill |
|
20. Have a breathing space between assignments |
|
21. I think the blogging method was efficient and
interesting. But perhaps there are some ways to
aggregate the blogging efforts together, and then
extract out summaries of important points. The reason is
that everybody is contributing, but these contents are
too scattered, and that makes it hard for effective
learning. (Google Reader is only a "Reading" tool) |
|
22. - Add in bell cure for this class. Definitely help
to increase the competitive. Or at least said so, so
students will work harder. |
|
23. Perhaps have a lesson on time management..? or..
have more team members? or other ways to reduce the
workload. Most people made SOC1 basement or other labs
their home during the final days of the assignment
deadline. This shouldn't be the way things should go. It
is still a 4MC module after all. When some people cheong,
more people are compelled to cheong too. And this
results in everyone cheonging. So if you don't cheong,
you feel you are slacking. When in fact, you are already
neglecting other modules and most importantly, your
loved ones, your family and your health. I know a couple
people have fallen sick over the past few days.. Some
had relationship problems because they had no time for
their other halves. This problem needs to be at the top
of the list of problems to be addressed |
|
24. Status quo is ok. |
|
|
Skip: 3 (11.5%) |
|
To respond to comment 6, I did think very carefully about whether to
introduce blogging. Yes, I understand that the workload for the course
is already quite high and introducing more work will not help increase
my popularity (though fortunately teaching is not a popularity contest).
Given what I have seen thus far, I think that blogging does have its
learning value.
Re: comment 8, there's already some individual work - remember the
app seminar critique? However, for the programming assignments, ít's
really not practical and it should be quite clear why not. While you're
right to say that I expect all students in CS3216 to learn something, I
don't expect them to learn the SAME things. What they learn will
ultimate depend on themselves and how much effort they put into
learning. Suffice to say that I don't expect non-programmers to become
programmers after attending this course, though they better have a good
understanding of how the programmers work. For the programmers, the
course offer you the chase to try out new cool technologies, like the FB
API, WPF, Google Gears, etc. Again how much they learn depends on
whether they actually take the time to do those things. I was just
telling some students the other day that a degree is not the same as
education. It's possible to be educated without a degree and perfectly
possible to be an un-educated graduate. It's about learning and learning
how to learn, not about chasing dunno what degree.
To the comments that we should have more time and slow down. Well,
there's a balance that needs to be stuck. On one hand, we only have 13
weeks in a semester, which frankly, is not a lot of time. On the other
hand, I'm also trying to earn my pay in teaching you as much as I can
during this short period. It is quite unlikely that any of you will be
taking any future modules with me since I'm the CS1101S teacher for I
suspect a couple more years.
Re: comment 23 on workload, my point is very simple: the workload is
caused by the quality of the people in the class. The assignments are
quite simple (as many of you admitted) and if people want to put no
effort into doing them, you will still pass the class. As it turns out,
CS3216 is typically taken only by the very best students at NUS and the
nature of the best students is such that they are perfectionist. There's
always a choice in life. You can decide not to take CS3216 - or if you
decide to take CS3216, you can decide not to work. The latter will of
course make you hated by your coursemates, but there's always a choice.
Re: suggestion 17, I think it's a good idea. Lemme think a little
about it and discuss with the teaching staff. I'm very stressed out
already and I'm not sure I want to do Twittering, but I'm open to trying
new things. :-P
BTW, this midterm survey is not for fun. I actually do take the
responses and comments seriously and may choose to do things differently
depending on what I perceive to be of the greatest learning value. I was
earlier having a hard time deciding whether to do Google Web Toolkit or
talk about Open Source for week 12. Given your feedback, I have decided
that we will do a in-class Final Project presentation/discussion.
Essentially, each group will come up and present what they have done for
the Final Project by then and the rest of the class will
comment/critique and we will have a discussion. Not just that, a small
handful of you will be anointed as facilitators for each of the
projects. Your job will be to act as the facilitator for the discussion
of the project that you're facilitating. I will be asking for volunteers
over the next couple of weeks. :-)
|
|
Essay |
|
5)
Any final words about CS3216? This is your chance
to tell us anything you want that is not already covered by the
previous questions. |
|
1. CS3216 challenges and enforces a steep learning curve
for most (if not all) in the class. The community
building aspect of the module could extend beyond the
class (bi-annual application challenge with a prize
money??) to help sustain the ecosystem. One of the best
classes in NUS ever. |
|
2. This class rocks, very fun. Though it's really
challenging for the student to let this co-exist with
other modules, it sort of forces them to be better in
time management, and sieve out the un-important things
in life. I believe that when i look back years down the
road, this experience will be one of those
"life-changing" or influential moments. |
|
3. It has been a fun but hectic time, but way too busy.
|
|
4. If I had more modules this semester, I would
seriously consider if I really want to take this class. |
|
5. 4) How many hours per week do you estimate you spent
this class? A. At most 10 hours B. Between 11 and 13
hours C. Between 14 and 15 hours D. Between 16 and 18
hours E. At least 19 hours ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? I spent
no less than 50 HOURS per week for this module. We camp
overnight at COM1 almost every day. Super crazy but
definitely one of the funniest, sickest and most
memorable period of my life. Love every bit of this
module!! |
|
6. Seriously. I really hope more modules like CS3216 is
offered in NUS. It is very practical and makes learning
enjoyable. I truly believe in what I learnt. I
especially like the part that this module's students are
all handpicked based on merits rather than CORS bidding.
It really makes the class more vibrant, and I really see
that all the classmates are really remarkable people. |
|
7. I think I'm pretty satisfied ... really looking
forward to the final project. And yes, I'd like a BBQ
get-together. |
|
8. Can we have another final survey after the final
exams to reflect on the whole sem? Don't put survey
during midterm break. Put it after the midterm exams
week. Less stress. Deadline dont put 00:00. Day time
would be better than everyone rushing till late night.
We are one of the best module in NUS, must be different
in a good way. Not all the faculty receive the email.
Missed some talents. Final project almost everyone stick
to their original team. NOT FUN><. didn't get chance to
work with more people and the total application created
was less. Less creativity space was exploited as the
opportunity of doing another thing was given up. |
|
9. There are too few programmers in this course |
|
10. I would never regret taking this module :) |
|
11. Please make it an 8MC module. SERIOUSLY! |
|
12. Nil |
|
13. Oh, my top wishlist item! Can you increase our
module credits? hahaha.. then maybe we can take one less
module during the sem and let us really concentrate more
on CS3216! :P |
|
14. I think Dr. Ben should be more careful when picking
up people for this class. There're some free riders in
the class, there're some 1st year students who quite
limited in term of skills also. To enjoy this module,
you should be expert in at least 1 filed:
design/coding/writing. Otherwise it would be a painful
experience for you. And certainly not worth it. Also,
Sharon shouldn't be admitted, as she can't contribute
much to any project. Probably can let she attends the
class, not to takes it. No offence. |
|
15. As the module is very flexible and open ended, there
is no "market-rate" of projects. Thus, students do not
know when to stop. It is not just about making choices
but making a level playing field. A market spoiler will
make other's effort pale in contrast but it is not fair
that the others have put in an equal amount of grade A
effort in all modules whereas the market spoiler gets A
and do badly in other module. In any case, the module
encourages an arm race culture without a proper way to
brake it. I believe most if not all students' other
modules have been greatly affected by cs3216. I feel
this module can be more beneficial if it knows each
place as a 4mc module and that this module is not taken
alone. Focus on something and go in depth than breadth.
In a way, even after warning that this module is heavy,
I feel cheated by the 4mc. It is definitely more than
that and in a sense I was short changed. Please raise
the mc or cut down on the workload. In closing, I will
like to say this module has great potential but I would
not recommend it to a friend if the current workload is
maintained. Sometimes "Less is More". =) |
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16. it is a very challenging class to take, I don't
remember my science modules being so demanding. but it
is very fulfilling to build an app and every week, our
brains get picked...learning seems so fun again. I do
feel quite often that I've bitten off more than I could
chew. actually all tutors for this module are very
helpful, and they speak English! You have no idea how
bad in English my TAs for the Science modules were.
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17. I learnt a lot, really. People in this class are
very nice. =) |
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18. ah? isn't there a final final survey when the
semester ends? ^_^ |
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19. Please offer more MCs for this module! Please get
more designers for the class. Programmers are
sufficient. Let students set the 16-20 aspirations
themselves, while you just give the topic of the
aspiration. That way the aspirations will be related to
the apps. |
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20. No |
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21. this survey is quite long..... |
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Skip: 6 (23.1%) |
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Re: suggestion 1, application challenge is probably not feasible since
people are generally busy and after chionging for CS3216, app
development is particularly attractive. Of course, if I coughed up a big
enough prize, say $1 million, this would work, but you guys are going to
have to wait a bit for your poor prof to have that kind of cash to burn.
:-) Lemme see if I can persuade Kok Wee to organize a BBQ. We can have a
end-of-course BBQ and invite past CS3216 TAs and students to join. Maybe
have a beat-boxing and bottle blowing talent show.Re: comment 15, the
workload is determined precisely by "market rate" as I mentioned above.
Your perception on this mc business also needs some "fixing". I have no
idea who you are, so I can't tell how many classes you have taken.
Statistically, you are likely to be at least year 2. Lemme ask you a
question: in your opinion, is the learning value of a class correlated
with the number of mc's? My own experience in school is that there is NO
CORRELATION. Lemme ask you another question: how much did your parent
pay to put you in school? What's the point? Just to get a degree or to
have you actually learn something? The point I'm driving at: the
students who are concerned about the mc's for the class SHOULDN'T EVEN
BOTHER to apply for this course. So please tell your friends about the
workload and recommend that they don't take the class if you think they
are like you and need to take classes that "know their place as 4 mc
modules". :-)
That said, it has never been my intention for CS3216 to suck up so
much time that the students end up failing our modules. Am seriously
trying to balance and moderate workload while maintaining learning
value. In the next offering (if there's a next offering), it might not be
Facebook and WPF again. It might be something else. The truth of the
matter is that I also have very little control over the workload. I do
my best to come up with something that I hope would maximize learning
value and the workload will be what it is. I'm well-aware of this "Teach
Less, Learn More" mantra. The focus is "Learn More", not "Teach Less".
Someone was commenting earlier, I don't teach anything. :-P How much
better can you get?
Re: comment 8 about people sticking to their assignment 1 teams. This
is actually something quite unexpected. There was a significant amount
of musical chairs last year. The situation is likely caused by the fact
that there are fewer students this year and because I allow people to
form bigger teams.
The last comment I want to make is about the composition of the
people. Some people say there are too few programmers, while others say
they need designers. So who is right? BOTH. For some strange reason, the
composition of the teams are not very balanced this year. Some teams
have too many freshmen; some don't have enough programmers. But this is
not new. It also happened last year. Well, I did tell you guys in NO
UNCERTAIN TERMS at the beginning of the Semester that the key to success
in CS3216 (and probably in life) is to form teams with the right people.
May this be a lesson to all. Then there's also these complaints about
slackers and "free-riders". Again, this will ALWAYS happen. Every
semester will be the same - and life too will be like that. You will all
meet people you think are quite idle and cannot stand. What I can say
however is that the people who got admitted to this class are people
that I believe have some sort of talent, and the potential to become a
"somebody". Whether they actually get somewhere later in life, or become
mediocre nobodies is a decision that they will make for themselves.
CS3216 is merely the beginning of the rest of their lives. This is their
chance to start on their path to greatness - but they can certain decide
to not take this chance to "make a difference" and just be a
slacker/"free-rider". Maybe it's not that they want to be slackers, but
they have other things in their lives besides CS3216 and so they can't
devote the time. There are many reasons for what we see in life. We just
have to learn to work with who we get and size people up quickly so that
we don't get stuck in teams with people who don't pull their weights.
Such is life lah. :-)
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