About NTU Courses
안녕, 你好, Hellos!
So, I'm currently a student in Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in my Year 2. I am studying Mathematical Science (Business Analytics). It's a relatively new track/specialization for my course and since I had some business background, so I figured why not choose this track. Haha. In case I cannot make it my 2nd choice was Statistics. Oh well, lucky to get in BA. ^^
Okay, so today's post is to introduce to people about NTU's courses, the categories and names etc. I was once a freshie and was super confuse about the whole system, it's totally different from my poly one. So I was a lost sheep. Meeeeehhhh.
I mean what in the heck is UE, PE, MAJOR-PE, etc. Like what the heck is the difference?! Isn't it just taking the courses that the school assign to us? No man, in NTU students have to register for their own courses but that is another story for another time. FYI, I mainly got the information below thru a What's App message that was spreading for the freshies haha.
Category of Courses
Let me start off with the most important category of course every student of NTU have to take.
1. Major Requirements
1.1 CORE
Cores are the courses that are directly related to your degree, like math, business, materials, aerospace etc. These are compulsory and fixed courses required to satisfy your programme requirement. You have to clear all the cores associated to your course. If you fail, you HAVE TO retake it.
Cores usually have correlation between each semester due to pre-requisites. For instance, in my programme, I have to take Calculus 1 in semester 1 in order to be able to take Calculus 2 in semester 2. Sometimes, the pre-requisites can be waived but only when you consult the course coordinator under special circumstances.
1.2 MAJOR PRESCRIBE ELECTIVE (MAJOR-PE)
Major PEs are courses for specialization in a degree programme. In my case, my Major PE are related to Business Analytics. There is a list of Major PE for me to choose to take up. There are limited choices to choose thou.
According to the NTU website, these are courses to allow students to broaden their range of study to other curriculum. This is further divided into 3 categories:
2.1 GER-CORE
These are compulsory, fixed courses usually related to
-Communication Skills
-Environmental Sustainability
-Career Development
-Ethics
-Singapore Studies etc.
Usually these are pass/fail courses, and are only 1 AUs. I do get 3 AUs one with finals, but it's pass/fail. Mostly the courses are dry and boring and in my opinion, bloody useless and a waste of time. So, it's best to get over and done with it as soon as possible.
2.2 GER-PE (Prescribed Electives)
These are like courses related to other studies. However, this is restricted to 4 sub-area of studies related to:
-Art, Humanities & Social Sciences (AHSS)
-Business & Management (BM)
-Liberal Studies (LS)
-Liberal Arts (LA)
-Science, Technology & Society (STS)
In my opinion, LS and LA has the most boring and unattractive courses ever. If I do not have this restrictions, I would not take up any of it. AHSS has a lot of arts courses like drawing, photography etc. BM has courses like intro to accounting, human resource management etc. STS has the most interesting courses out of all of it. I took 3 STS in my programme. 1 to meet my requirement the other 2 to meet my GER-PE-Any Category requirement.
2.3 GER-UE (Unrestricted Electives)
These are courses that are free for students to choose without restrictions, to broaden their learning experience. It can be taken any time in your years of studies but plan well to graduate on time. Usually students take up UE on their last year or spread-ed out thru out the years.
With UE you can take up language courses like Korean/German or sports courses like Floorball or Yoga. Or any other courses as long as the school approves. I highly suggest you to take up UE not to SU but to pull up your grade a lot of them is actually easy to score as long as you put in enough effort. Unless you don't want to put in effort for UE then ya....
The amount of UE you have to take differ across programmes. My engine friends only has to take 4 3AUs UE but I have 21 AUs worth of UE so, definitely more than them.
Grading System
Some courses are not graded, these courses do not have GPA weightage. If you pass you get the AUs and if you fail, you don't. Some examples of these courses includes MOOC - Online Coursera Courses, PS8001 - Defense Science.
For graded courses, grades and grade points are as follows:
A/A+: 5
A-: 4.5
B+: 4
B: 3.5
B-: 3
C+: 2.5
C: 2
D+: 1.5
D: 1
F: 0
In other words, get at least a B and above. Else, your GPA is screwed. But I do see some people who can pull their GPA from below 3.0 to above 4.0. So it depends on you, yourself. Really.
Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Option (SU)
This is an option to allow students to make their course as an ungraded one provided that they pass the course. Most people use this for their UE. However do take note that the SU option does not apply to:
-P/F courses
-courses that count towards the requirements for second major or minor programme
-graduate courses
-incoming exchange and non-graduating students
Usually each student only has 4 courses that they can SU. So use it wisely.
I hope this is helpful for those studying in NTU! For more information, please visit NTU's AUS Handbook.
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