Semester: AY19/20 Sem I
Professor(s): Daniel Goh
Workload: Heavy
Overall: I really wanted to like this mod as I think urban studies is so fascinating but it was really such a traumatising experience. I can’t say I fully blame Daniel Goh for making this such a painful course to do (more on this later) but I think it was because my pairwork component was done with this utterly lazy, sleazy and incompetent guy (not gonna slander his name online but if you wanna know who to avoid can hmu). The readings for this course were on the heavy side and honestly just quite abstract many times. I would have to say that some of the readings were interesting and quite insightful. You also get to be a bit more knowledge about terms like “garden city” and other urban planning ideologies after this course.
Assignments: This course had a mix of individual and pairwork. Individual components include a 10% reflection on your favourite place (done in the first tutorial) and a 20% reflection due after the pairwork. The reflection is linked to the pairwork as you are supposed to reflect about your experience using theory. The pairwork was a study on a neighbourhood/place which you like using one of the theoretical frames learnt in class. The theory which Prof Goh made us use was not the easiest to understand so I definitely struggled. Hands down the worst part of the whole course would be my partner for the groupwork. He was not only lazy and just aimed to get a C and was just busy doing his other stuff outside of school instead of doing our project, when he eventually decided to do work, he was so out of it that he worked on a question we did not agree to do. He probably did not listen during discussions and hence could only often say “ya I agree” and “that’s a good idea” and did not know which arguments we were making.
Exams: There was only one written exam for this course and it was the final exam. This was an open-book exam and Prof Goh even gave us the question to the finals beforehand. We had to answer 2 essay questions from a list of 4-5 questions. While this might sound insane, all the questions on the list were INSANELY DIFFICULT too. Prof Goh said he gave us the questions beforehand so he does no heav to read bad answers. Well, imo if he did not give us the questions beforehand, we would all crumble during the exam. I wrote out an essay before the exam and kinda just went to the exam to copy it oopsies. It was that difficult and that traumatic.
Professor(s): Prof Goh is honestly a super smart and knowledgeable professor. He brings up very interesting topics throughout the course and also mindblows you and challenges you in so many ways. He also has a very unique way of teaching. He does not have slides and will only write stuff on the whiteboard and you should just copy it down or take notes. He is generally very willing to clarify doubts and questions which I really appreciate. However, my impression of Prof Goh slipped during the class presentation for the pairwork. While granted, my pairwork was not good, he was really harsh on us. While my partner and I were speaking, Prof Goh looked like he was napping away and when we were done, he woke up and wrecked us. It just felt so bad to have your classmates nudge each other to look at Prof Goh sleeping and had to stand in front of them while he wrecked us. This was made worse as Prof Goh praised every other group that came after my group (we were the first to present). The whole session was just so mortifying.
Tutorials: I had Prof Goh for tutorials. Tutorials were not really lessons or discussions but more a timeslot for assessment. Our assessments for our individual reflections on a place at the start of the semester and the presentation for the pairwork was all done during tutorials. The last few tutorials were used for the pairwork presentation and the other tutorials were used to present ideas for the pairwork to the class and get some feedback. So I would say that tutorials are better seen as assessment periods than the usual tutorials where you learn new things to supplement lectures.
Recommend? I would not particularly recommend this mod as it is really heavy and difficult and I did not have a good experience overall. But if you are looking for a chance to challenge yourself and learn new things, you could consider this course. Prof Goh is not a bad professor by any means teaching-wise so you could definitely consider it. Though, I would say that there are much easier 3k modules to take.
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