Hi,
Anyone knows how's the 'bidding' of subject work for FASS? Tks.
The following is extracted from a forum post I found here:
http://forum.brightsparks.com.sg/showthread.php?t=3742
It was posted a few years back though, so I guess some things might have changed.
Facts On The NUS Modular System
1) A typical student will have to complete 120 MCs (modular credits) to graduate for a 3 years Bachelor's program and 160 MCs to graduate for a 4 years Bachelors with Honours' program. A typical module in NUS is worth 4 MCs, which means that on average, a student has to complete 10 modules (40 MCs) per academic year and 5 modules (20 MCs) per semester. This may be different for special cases such as students overloading for acceleration or students taking Double Degrees, Double Majors, Minors, USP, etc.
2) Each semester, a student may be pre-allocated some modules, mostly under the Major and Faculty requirements. These modules do not require the student to bid for, and 1 bid point will be deducted per module from the student's P Account. What a student normally does is to check how many pre-allocated modules there are for a particular semester, then bid for the remaining modules to hit the average of 5 modules per semester.
3) Modules that require bidding include Major/Minor electives, Singapore Studies (SS), General Education Modules (GEM), and Unrestricted Electives (Breadth for modules out of a student's home faculty, and UE for modules from any faculty). A student has to complete a certain number of SS, GEM, Breadth and UE, other than the Major and Faculty requirements, in order to graduate. Some modules are cross-listed, and can be counted as either of two categories.
4) All modules have a module code. The first few letters indicate the discipline of the module, the first digit indicates the level of the module (Level 1000 to 4000), the 2nd digit indicates the nature of the module (1 for essential, 2 for elective, 3 for enrichment), while the rest of the digits are just running numbers. A student can bid for a module at any level as long as any pre-requisites for the module are fulfilled.
5) There are a minority number of modules that are worth more or less than 4 MCs. If a student bids for such modules, additional planning will be needed. E.g. taking two 2 MCs modules to cover 4 MCs instead of one 4 MCs module.
General Steps In Selecting Modules For Bidding
1) Know exactly what are the Major, Faculty, SS, GEM, Breadth and UE requirements you need to complete in order to graduate and specialise (if applicable). It is generally good to confirm your Major as early as possible. Do also find out the pre-requisites for the higher level modules, so that you will not miss out on lower level modules required to fulfill them. Once this is done, decide which module/s you are interested to take for a particular semester.
2) Ensure that you satisfy the pre-requisites for the module/s, and are not precluded from it.
3) Check that the timing of the lectures, tutorials and exams of the module/s do not clash with your pre-allocated modules.
4) You may wish to consult your seniors for more information about the module/s.
5) Evaluate if you have enough points in the relevant P or G Account to bid for the module/s, especially for hot-selling ones. You can refer to the "Archive" section under the CORS website for past statistics.
Facts On Module Bidding
1) Students in the first 2 semesters starting from the matriculated semester are grouped as "New Students", and the rest are grouped as "Returning Students". For students using the P Account to bid for modules, New Students are abbreviated as Pn and Returning Students are abbreviated as Pr. Students using the G Account to bid for modules are abbreviated as G.
2) A student is given 1000 bid points at the start of each semester. The bid points are divided into 2 accounts, the P and G Accounts, in a ratio specific to the student's home faculty. The P Account is used to bid for Major/Minor requirements and UE under a student's home faculty, while the G Account is used to bid for Minor requirements, SS, GEM and UE out of a student's home faculty. Unused bid points will be accumulated and transferred to the next semester.
3) For each module, there are advance, open and close bidding phases. The advance bidding phase is for all students to place bids for modules before their bidding queues open. The open bidding phase is the phase of a bidding round, where statistics of live bids are shown and updated, while the close bidding phase is the phase during the last few hours of a bidding round, where no statistics are shown. This discourages students from delaying their bids until the last minute.
4) There are rounds and queues during module bidding. Rounds 1A-1B are for Pr only. Round 1C onwards are open to both Returning and New Students, but there are bidding queues in each round to protect different groups. For Round 1C, the queue is Pr, Pn and G (for Minors and USP First-Tier modules). This means that each of the 3 groups have their own quota for a same module. For Rounds 2A-2B, the queue is Pr+G, and Pn. Pr+G means that the quotas for a same module for Pr and G are merged, hence there is no protection for Returning Students. And for Round 3, the queue is Pr+Pn+G, hence there is no protection at all.
5) The last factor to esnure fairness in bidding is the workload policy. From Rounds 0-2B, a student can only bid for modules to a maximum of 23 MCs. A student can only bid for more modules during Rounds 3A-3B under approval of the home faculty. As mentioned before, most students typically take only 5 modules (worth 20 MCs) per semester. Overloading is for students who believe that they can manage a more intensive curriculum.
Facts On Allocation Of Modules
1) There is a quota on the number of places available for each module, which will be stated before bidding starts. The top few bidders within the quota will get the module, and each successful bidder has to pay the bid points equivalent to the lowest successful bid price from their respective P or G Account. This is different if the number of bidders is less than the quota. In such a case, all bidders need to pay only 1 bid point from their respective P or G Account.
2) If there is a tie in a bid, the bidder who bid first gets the module. E.g. when there are 5 places for a module and 4 students bid 200 points while another 3 bid 180 points, the student who bid first amongst the 3 bidders of 180 points will get the module. The timing of a bid is the timing when the bidder first places the bid. It does not change if the bidder increases the bid points. However, if the bidder withdraws and re-submits a bid, then the later timing will prevail.
3) There are penalties for dropping an allocated module. If the module is dropped before the "W" grade period, 50% of the module's bid price will be refunded. If it is dropped during the "W" grade period, a "W" grade will be given, and there will be no refund of bid points. If it is dropped during the "F" grade period, an "F" grade will be given (which affects the CAP), and 100% of the module's bid price will be refunded. If the module is not dropped but failed, an "F" grade will also be given and all bid points will be refunded.