looking back...

My second last semester had a bitter-sweet aftertaste. I think it is hard for people to understand my mixed feelings so I decided to post my grades along with my comments. It was a really stressful semester and I was stretched really thin by all my activities. It was amazing that I survived it. Here is what I had went through:

On top of my FYP and 4 modules, I was a tutor for CS2010 (Data Structures and Algorithms II) for 2 classes. I also audited Prof Chin's MA3265 (Introduction to Number Theory) to learn more about p-adic field (though the first part of his course was totally boring as he went through things that were too elementary). I also did Prof Chin's tutorials from time to time so I won't say that I was totally slack. I was also giving a weekly crash course to programming for my friend. I spent a lot of my time on my FYP as the content wasn't easy -- The book says that the prerequisite is algebraic number theory and algebraic number theory is what I am trying to teach myself now. I also spent some time taking part in the selection test for ACM ICPC and skipped some school to take part in 2 regionals.

So here is my commentary of the modules I took

LAF1201 French 1 - B
I must admit I had a lot of fun in French as it was the first module I had the opportunity to make plenty of mistakes. It is a module that taught me that it is okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from it. However, I didn't really put in much effort as my hands were tied with too many activities and I was too stressed out. Hence, my terrible grade.

MA4262 Measure and Integration - A+
I think I have been surviving from the effects of getting B+ for MA2018 under Dr Ku Cheng Yaw and as a result I have been always telling myself that I am terrible in Real analysis. Maybe I wasn't that bad at analysis, it was just that I wasn't giving myself chance. Okay, I must admit that I didn't really work very hard for this module as I didn't really have the time to attempt the tutorials towards the end of semester. I had to borrow someone's tutorial to solve some tutorial questions. On the other hand, Denny Leung is a really really good lecturer. Trust me, I took 3 analysis modules under him. Reading Rudin's book (Real and Complex Analysis) on the day before the examination enabled me to appreciate the module better.

MA4292 Undergraduate Topics in Mathematics - A+
The only reason why I didn't exactly slack off for this module is because I had weekly assignments to do. I feel that the most of the rest of the students in the class were a little handicapped in this module as they didn't have sufficient knowledge in certain things like rings and modules. Reading Serre's book (Linear representation of finite group) make me realize how elegant Serre's writings are. Furthermore, I understand Galois cohomology better after taking this course. The terminologies used make more sense now.

MA5203 Graduate Algebra - B+
I must admit that I was slack because I didn't have time to do the tutorials. I only did the tutorials right before the midterm test and before the final examinations. Even so, I didn't have time to do all 92 tutorial questions. I think I probably only did less than half of them because they are so difficult. I felt that my lousy grade was because I didn't attempt a few questions and that caused me to lose like a quarter of my marks in the final exams. However, on the bright side, I learned a lot of things from the course. I spent a lot of time pushing myself by working on really difficult topics for my assignments (for one assignment I did a write-up on sheaves and functors on them; Hartshorne was a bitch to read). I put in the most effort for this module in the week leading to the finals but sadly my grades do not reflect my effort. On the other hand, I am glad I took this module as I learned so much.

In conclusion, it was a whirlwind battle for me. I SU-ed my French and Grad Algebra doesn't count to my CAP so my CAP went up by a miserable 0.01.