HSS1000 Module Review

AY24/25 Sem 1
Lecturers: Dr. Veronica and Dr. Huang Lingli, et al.
Tutor: Mr. Yu Depeng

Topics covered:
- Structural racism
- Mental health
- Food sustainability
- Humanitarian crises and state sovereignty
- Financial crises
- The crises of digitalisation
- Poverty

Weightage:
- Tutorial participation: 16%
- Forum posting: 24%
- Essay outline: 10%
- Essay: 15%
- Group abstract: 10%
- Group presentation: 25%

Fortunately, the workload was much less than HSA1000 (which I took concurrently). Although I liked this module, I really disliked the forum posting component as I do not really understand how one can judge whether a question posted can get the full credit. For context, the grading criteria for each post are as follows: relevant & informed (2 points), clear & direct (2 points), and critical (2 points). There were 7 postings and they choose the best 4, which constitutes 6% each. I scored 22.5% for this component. The interesting part was that I consistently scored 4.5%, but it was only until one of my HSA1000 tutorials were my groupmate mentioned that the tricks to getting a perfect score are to give contextual knowledge and write much. Miraculously, I managed to get my perfect scores from then.

The tutorial classes were fun as we discussed various topics such as food sustainability. Many of these topics revolved around a central theme, which was `crisis', and it intertwined nicely with concepts we learnt from O-Level Geography and Social Studies.

I would say that it is very easy to do well in this module as long as you know how to write. On top of displaying critical analysis of the question, I feel that it is more important to be concise and not beat about the bush.

Expected grade: A
Final grade: A