Assessment:
20%: 4 homework assignments (each due in two weeks) (I got 97/100, which wasn’t even 75th percentile, so most people got full marks i suppose)
30%: Midterms (I got 97/100, average was around 84-87)
50%: Finals (Topics not covered by Midterms)
This module was pretty interesting to me, it builds on the numerical methods learnt in MA2213 Numerical Analysis I and I get to implement the numerical methods more through the lab sessions as oppose to just 1 project in MA2213.
Tutorials are just lab sessions where we get an lab project and attempt to code in 45 mins. Tutorials’ attendance are pretty low as most people are weak in coding in MATLAB and it was difficult to finish the project in 45 mins. A/Prof Tong Xin does give an explanation of the project at the end of each tutorial which provides a qualitative understanding of the topic, which was the only reason I attended the tutorials. Also, the lack of actual pen-and-paper practice meant that I’ve got to be independent in finding my own problems to practice on for midterms and finals, which I did and scored well for midterms.
The homeworks are mostly rehashed from past year with a few tweaks here and there but it shouldn’t be too difficult. A/Prof Tong Xin is pretty open with consultations and questions so feel free to clarify your doubts.
The lectures are held at 8am, no webcasts and A/Prof Tong Xin speaks as he writes the content down on paper and visualises it on the board. He also has a pdf version of the lecture notes, however, they are often plagued with typographic errors and grammatical errors. He updates the notes every single week and it gets confusing to follow through sometimes. His handwriting isn’t fantastic either so I can’t depend on the handwritten notes to decipher what exactly are the mathematical derivations that he’s trying to convey. The notes are also not very rigourous, which he admits himself, sometimes the numerical method is described in words (pseudocode) and it’s left as a reading exercise to us to find out how to implement them exactly, which can get annoying. Sometimes when I really can’t grasp the concept I approach him and he explains it qualitatively again, which can get annoying.
For one do to well in this mod, one needs to do a lot of reading from different sources to know how, exactly, does each numerical method works and find pen-and-paper practice to apply them in different numerical problems.
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