Semester: AY19/20 Sem I
Professor(s): Liang Yong Jia
Workload: Heavy
Overall: This is a notoriously tough module but it is compulsory for Sociology majors. While I think that theory is super important for Sociology, I can’t say I enjoyed this mod as much as I could. I do not hate theory and it was interesting to see how such abstract thoughts from so long ago, can actually be applied today, but Dr Liang is just a really bad prof. The readings were already such a huge challenge (around 60 pages of Marx/Durkheim/Weber per week and sometimes even going up to 100+ pages), but Prof Liang did not help anything at all. So I would summarise this mod as an insightful course but one that was made unnecessarily painful by the professor. I think if it were taken by another professor, I would have enjoyed it so much more.
Assignments: There were 3 essay assignments for this course (one for each of the major thinkers) and a group presentation. The first 2 assignments involved us choosing a movie from a prescribed list to watch and write about how the theory we learnt could be applied. The last assignment was more open-ended and was about applying theory to a real life social issue. These are not unreasonably difficult assignments if you understood the theories, but I struggled with them because Dr Liang’s lectures left me as confused or even more confused than before the lecture. These assignments are also marked by the TA and I think the marks varies quite lot depending on your TA. My TA was really nice and I think he gave generally decent grades to everyone in class but I can’t say the same for the other TAs. Not sure if Dr Liang bothered to do some kind of standardisation when it comes to marking. So there might be an element of luck here. The group presentation which happens during tutorial classes are based around readings. Groups are expected to breakdown the readings and explain it to the class. You can choose your groupmates as it was on a sign-up basis. I did not take this course with friends but was blessed with good groupmates whom I made friends with and who sorta became my 3101 support group throughout the sem thereafter :”)
Exams: There was only a final exam for this course. It was 2-3 long essay questions. It was manageable if you understood the theories and studied.
Professor(s): This is where the problem lies. The professor is so bad. Dr Liang is not only a NOT NICE guy, he is so utterly unhelpful. He quotes directly from the texts and just reads the quotes off the slides instead of explaining it. He is also honestly quite lazy in my opinion. While I appreciated how the bothered to talk to my group about our presentation as we were the first group to present, he was unhelpful pretty much all other times. He leaves lectures almost immediately after it ends and basically does not answer email questions. He basically just told me that my questions were good questions and that I should answer it in the course of my assignment essay (what in the world). Thankfully, I never asked him any questions after that and hence, was not that mad at him anymore. I also feel like he did not standardise marking of the assignments and the assignments were returned at different times. It also felt like all the TAs got different instructions as some TAs gave grades for the first assignment while others did not. Good thing it was rectified from the 2nd assignment onwards.
Tutorials: I had Mr Shantanu as my TA. He is a generally nice guy and he is also very willing to help. He explains the various theories and concepts in class so much better than Dr Liang. Thank goodness. He tends to be a little forgetful sometimes tho and does not always remember to send us the notes he says he would. He does reply to email queries promptly and is generally helpful!
Recommend? If it is not a compulsory mod, save yourself the pain and NOT do it. Especially if it’s under Dr Liang. If you have to do it, try to do it under another professor.
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