Third: Term 7

2/3 of the final year is over. We’ve started out final term and it’s been quite a ride.

29 Jan — 18 May is 111 days

This time I’ve included the 2 week holiday after Term 7 ended.

The time tracker managed to get ~96 days this time, which is about 86.5% of my time. That’s not bad! Previously it only caught 71% of my time.

Hours supposedly owed

SUTD’s curriculum is supposed to be 12h per module per week. Considering this is a 14 week term, I should be spending 672 hours (40,320m). I spend about 53% of that. It’s actually down from last term!

COVID-19 Changes

There were some major changes this term. Most of the grades ended up being extremely project based. That was actually incredibly advantageous for me because I’ve always been better at doing project work rather than simply exams.

Capstone — I can’t share the slides because we work with a company, however feedback was that the presentation was quite well done! It did reflect in the grade too.

Equity Valuation — We had quite a lot of fun doing up a valuation for Nvidia. Feel free to read the report and take a look at the slides.

Derivative Pricing — This was mostly homework based and assignment based. Assignment 1 was to hedge Zimbabwe. An absolutely absurd task but we found out about how hedging works. Assignment 2 was really just a simple coding task.

Milestones

1. We competed in the CFA Challenge! Managed to clinch best presentation. It took about 100 hours to prepare for this over just 2 weeks. Somewhat intense but fun experience.
2. Open House was another whirlwind. Because of COVID-19 it was cancelled and we had to run everything online. The biggest challenge was dealing with the PR nightmare due to a blunder by a junior. I’m glad that we were eventually commended for how we handeld this matter
3. GreenWatch. I suppose elements of this scorecard started off during this final term. It was eventually done into the first week of Term 8 but most of it was done in Term 7.
4. Started work at Tribe! I’m glad that the blockchain workshop done last term essentially demonstrated that I had some understanding of creating successful pedagogies for learning technology. This has been one heck of a journey so far. As I write this, I’m approaching the end of my second month here.
5. SUTD’s Constitution — I’m really glad we finally started this process even though it is an arduous one.
6. Sigma — well most of the pieces are in place for an event to happen.
7. Capstone grading — I think that was a learning experience. We were essentially forced to make capstone for Term7 pass/fail. This did not sit well and quick hands and a bias for action led me to send out a survey which definitively proved that my batchmates were not too happy with this (70+% didn’t want it). But what I realised was. Anyone, literally anyone, could have just sent out that same survey. In fact someone else did. But it was the will to act that made it happen through mine.

Unexpected Opportunities

Honestly, COVID-19 blew the entire year away. This was completely unexpected. I did not anticiapte the large amount of sweeping changes that would occur, but neither did I anticipate the upswell of civic society.

Lim Yi Fan did up foodleh.app which I thought was an incredible effort.

We tried to help out with the SUTD community by gathering resources especially for career opportunities. Feedback from freshmores was that it was quite eye opening to see the variety of opportunities still available.

Reflections

I realised that no matter the intensity of work I do. I would always have to spend 50% of my waking hours resting. These weren’t exactly rest hours because I would mostly just be catching up with friends or watching bits of comedy I could find.

Also, the biggest lesson for the whole of Term 7 would be that one should seek excellence and alignment. The reason why I’ve managed to do well both academically and career wise was simply that I did not have to force it. I genuinely enjoyed every single module I took this term. Tribe’s work was also aligned to what I would do for free in my spare time anyway. The impetus of working with an organisation gave access to resources where I could do it even more efficiently and better.

Now, first week into Term 8 and I anticipate that it would be another incredible term. Truly I hope this pandemic blows over and life could get a semblance of normalcy. However, I’ve noticed that people have become accustomed to this new normal. If that’s the case, then what new dynamics would arise?

Oh yes if you made it this far, and you’d like to have a chat. Catch my tele @fishbiscuit.