Semester: AY18/19 Sem II
Professor(s): Kelvin Low
Workload: Managable to Heavy
Overall: I actually really enjoyed this module. Partially because I love food (but who does not) and partially because the content made me think about food and my eating experience very differently. The readings were honestly really enjoyable for me. I would say that although there was a decent amount of assigned readings, the readings were not particularly difficult to digest. Some of my favourite topics revolved around notions such as authenticity, gender and spaces. Lectures were also rather lively. Prof Low would usually show some form of videos during lectures and sometimes even have live demonstrations. I remember how Prof Kelvin made students go up to eat chocolate in front of the whole LT as a starting point to his lecture on food and senses. This was one of the courses I looked forward to the most!
Assignments: There was only one major assignment for this course. We had to do a group project and present our findings on the topic. Some of the more interesting projects had the group cook food together and present it to everyone during tutorial. My group also had a decently interesting project that made us go to a restaurant and eat while observing things like how the restaurant constructed authenticity through things like decorations. My group was generally pretty functional although I only had one friend in that group of 5 and had quite a bit of fun talking to them while eating. We had a presentation during the tutorial slot which was pretty chill.
Exams: There’s a midterm and a final exam for this module. The midterm was an in-class exam during the lecture slot. I don’t remember it being extremely difficult so as long as you studied. I think Prof Low liked people to cite or reference the readings so it’s probably a good idea to do the readings. The midterm consist of short structured and an essay question if I don’t remember wrongly. The final exam was 2-3 essays and was pretty manageable as long as you studied and did the readings.
Professor: I personally like Prof Low a lot. He comes across as rather intimidating but I think he teaches well. His slides were understandable and I think he explained the concepts in a way that helped me understand it. Some of my friends said that he talks really fast and it was hard to catch what he was saying but I did not think he was particularly fast. I think Prof Low also puts in quite a lot of effort into the lectures such as preparing videos and live demonstration to make classes more interesting which I appreciate. He also really loved batik shirts LOL
Tutorials: I had A. Aarathi as my tutor. I really liked her. She is friendly and very approachable. I think she also conducts classroom discussions well. She likes to make jokes too which is a plus. I also remember who she was so willing to meet my friend and I outside of the classroom to clarify our doubts and reassure us that we were on the right track. Really loved Aarathi!
Recommend? I loved this module and would recommend it to anyone who loves food and wanna just understand deeper about the idea of food and how it is more than JUST food or JUST eating. If you are willing to put in effort into the module (do the readings, show up for lecture), I think you will enjoy it. I had non-sociology major friends take this course and they seem to enjoy it too.
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