Month: July 2011

Greater Overseas Exposure for Graduate Students

fasswebmaster Graduate Studies

Recently the Faculty has set up funding to promote greater overseas exposure for our graduate students in much the same way of what we are doing with undergraduates. There is now funding available for research graduate students to either head out for an exchange or for shorter overseas educational programmes such as summer schools, research attachment programme. If you are interested please refer to these weblinks.

Graduate Exchange

http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/intl/gradExch.html

The funding can be used to cover airfare and living expenses. Please involve your supervisor in the discussion process before applying for such exchanges.

Overseas Educational Programmes

http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/intl/gradOverSeasEdu.html

The funding can be used to cover airfare, registration/ tuition fees and living expenses. Students are encouraged to source for their own summer school and programmes and to involve their supervisor in the search and discussion process.

If you have any query, please write to FAS SEP at fasbox34@nus.edu.sg.

The QS World University Rankings by Subjects – Social Sciences 2011

fasswebmaster Announcements

We are pleased to announce the QS World University Rankings for 2011. Here are the FASS subject rankings as considered under the QS Social Sciences category!

rankings

For the full list, click the respective links below.

Sociology

Economics

Politics and International Studies

Click here to to view the rankings for FASS subjects under the QS Arts and Humanities category.

CS3216 AY2011/2012, Semester 1 Call for Registration

fasswebmaster Announcements

CS3216 (Software Development on Evolving Platforms) is a 5-MC cross-faculty module that will be offered by the School of Computing for the fourth time next Semester. To avoid timetable conflicts for students from other faculties and because we will be inviting external experts to give guest lectures, the lectures and seminars will be held on Monday evenings from 6.30 to 8.30 pm.

This module is not your traditional software engineering course. Inspired by The Last Lecture (or “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”), this course is your chance to start realising your dreams today. You will get the chance to show off your creativity to do something different. Be it online games, community service applications or industrial collaboration, you are free to build almost anything under the sun.

Enrollment is open to students of all faculties and students will work together in small inter-disciplinary teams to create their killer applications. Programming experience for non-SoC students is not a pre-requisite (since work will be done in teams) and we have had students from Science, FASS, Business (including an MBA student) and Engineering in addition to SoC. Assessment will be project-based and there will be no examination component.

It is no secret that in the next decade, we will see the convergence of three key technologies: mobile, social and cloud. CS3216 complements the iPad programming module (CS3217) that was offered for the first time last Semester and will provide students with the opportunity to explore the latest mobile, social and cloud technologies.

There will be two semi-structured assignments: (i) Facebook application and (ii) Mobile-Cloud (AWS) HTML5 app. For the Final Project, students are free to propose anything they think is “cool” and they can choose to build their social/mobile/cloud application of choice. Students are also welcome to use this opportunity to develop applications that have commercial potential or can be used as entries to Startup@Singapore.

Like past years, places for the course will be limited, though some places will be reserved for non-SoC students. Also, the places will not be assigned by CORS bidding. Instead, interested students are to submit a personal statement (with their matriculation number clearly stated) to cs3216-staff@googlegroups.com by 17 July 2011. Students will be informed by 22 July 2011 if they are offered a place in the upcoming offering of the course (and students who secure places will automatically be pre-registered for CS3216 on CORS).

The personal statement should address the following questions:

§ Why do you want to take the module?
§ Describe your background and explain how do you think you can contribute to the diversity and vibrancy of the module and to the team projects.
§ EITHER (i) Describe a cool Facebook app or mobile app that you *really* want to build. Explain why you think your app is really cool; OR (ii) Describe a business/project that you want to start. Explain how you think taking CS3216 will help you.
Students should probably throw in a resume or portfolio of sorts if they feel that it would be helpful in demonstrating that they have what it takes to succeed in this course. Students who want to be considered for the class as designers should most definitely submit a portfolio of their artistic works as well.

Interested students are welcome to come learn more about the course. Perhaps check out the blogs from last year – http://cs3216.blogspot.com (check out sidebar), and course feedbacks for the past three years

(a) 2008

(b) 2009

(c) 2010

The info session will be held on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 4 pm in the Video Conferencing Room (COM1/213). Join the CS3216 Facebook group to stay tuned or ask your questions there directly and perhaps check out some videos from past classes.

This is your chance to let your imagination run wild and do something cool — and get the chance to play with an iPad (if you don’t already have one) 🙂 Questions? Please send email to cs3216-staff@googlegroups.com.

FASS Open House 2011

fasswebmaster Faculty Events

The FASS Open House 2011 was all about embarking on a great new adventure with the Faculty. How apt is it to liken the journey in FASS to that of an adventure with many unseen challenges! Being a soon-to-be-graduating student, I recall vividly the time when I was still a clueless “freshie”; I did not know the difference between Sociology and Social Work and thought that Malay Studies modules are taught in the Malay Language! Navigating through the mysterious maze of different subjects seemed like an almost impossible task for anyone to master.

This is why I felt that the Open House was a good platform for prospective students as the booths and talks exposes them to the nitty-gritty details of what they can expect from each subject. In this year’s Open House, each Department’s exhibition area had its own distinctive flair. There was also an atmosphere of friendly competition as most Departments tried to outdo each other by offering attractive freebies to prospective students. Among them, the Department of Malay Studies had an assortment of traditional Malay kuehs and batik designed notebooks, the Department of History offered mini-tool kits, and the Centre for Language Studies dished out booklets containing short phrases in multiple languages and not forgetting sweets from different parts of the world.

While the visitors eagerly munched on these tidbits and sweets, seniors and lecturers were seen busily answering their queries on the FASS curriculum. For those who were too shy to ask any burning questions face to face, lectures were held throughout the day by the Departments, introducing the fundamentals of the different subjects offered by FASS.

The Student Hub was also buzzing with activities with student societies such as the Youth Expedition Project and the FASS Student Club having booths to showcase activities they have organised and are planning to organise in the new academic year. Many freshmen signed up for the Arts Camp to get themselves sufficiently orientated with FASS as well as to get to meet more people before semester starts.

This new academic year, FASS, in conjunction with FOS, will also be rolling out the carpet for the pioneer batch of Environment Studies students. The talk by Prof Peter Ng on ‘Training a New Generation of Environmental Managers and Researchers in Asia’ held in LT 12 was especially well received. Being a new programme, faculty members who are part of it were swarmed with questions by both the prospective students and parents alike during the lunch reception after the talk.

I was extremely amazed by the turnout. Despite the heavy downpour in the morning, prospective students were not deterred from streaming into FASS throughout the day. I can only imagine how excited these prospective students must have been after attending the Open House.

To all you freshmen, welcome to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences!

By: Fairus Bin Jasmin
FASS History Major (Class of 2011)