Taken AY2014/2015 Semester 1
HY1101E: Asia and the Modern World
I thought I liked History when I did it at the A Levels, and I loved SEA especially (I still do). But this mod just didn’t do it for me – it was too broad, spanning from the dynastic period to modern history, and it was mostly ‘touch and go’ for each of the different time periods. There was a vastness of regions covered – South Asia (India and Pakistan), East Asia (China, Japan and occasionally Korea/Taiwan), and Southeast Asia (Thailand, Philippines, Burma and Vietnam, mostly). It was too much for me, and I felt that the content wasn’t really organised in an understandable way. The patterns, while there, were not readily apparent, and it was very difficult to track the developments and continuities across so many regions.
I read other module reviews that said if we have taken A Level History before, this module would be not much of a problem. I have to disagree. While it is convenient to have some background information on SEA nationalism, decolonisation, political structures and economic development, as well as a knowledge of the Cold War, the module content organised these topics in a different way. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the recap, especially for the SEA region which I love, but other than that, it was all new information and I struggled with synthesising it and using it in my arguments. I really didn’t enjoy this module, but I know of a sizeable amount of people who remained ambivalent or even stayed interested throughout, and to hear my opinion regarding this subject only would be therefore quite an unrepresentative summary of what this mod is about.
Assessment: There were two midterms, each one 25%, and online forum participation was 20% (one forum session was 5%). The finals was 30%, which was a great relief because it didn’t have as high a weightage as the other mods’ finals. However, having two midterms was taxing (even though we would get the Fri lecture off in lieu of this torture) and having to remember so much information without a discernable, identifiable pattern really killed me. The forum participation is something that is required in Sem 1 – if I’m not wrong, Sem 2 may not have this component. It was amusing, if not a bit disturbing, to see everyone duking it out online with their tremendously long posts and taking up all the available points anyone could possibly conceive for a particular question. My advice to you is to start early and beat the crowd, but play fair at the same time – you can write a long post, but try to limit yourself to at most 2 points so that you’ll reserve some space for the rest to write as well. As for the finals, I wanted to die – partly because I left all the memorising to the day before the exam, which was the stupidest thing I’d done this year. The finals test all the semester’s worth of work, but I spotted identification terms from Theme 1 and 2, and thankfully was able to scribble some half-hearted words for them when they came out.
Workload: The forum participation was a pain, really – it required checking to see if anyone replied, and typing another short ‘essay’ in response to someone’s rebuttal, or adding on to their point. It took up even more time than a tutorial would have. There are readings every week, but I gave up very early on in the semester, and only read whenever it would help with the online forum post (I cited some readings for my points). I think the lectures, if you pay attention and diligently take notes, will stand you in much better stead for the exams than the readings. The content, however, is massive, and it’s hard to tell what is permissible to skip. Still, the saving grace of this mod is that they have a tendency to keep the questions at a somewhat doable level (although I would say it’s still hard) and you are probably bound to recognise a few of the ID terms that you have to do if you put in enough effort into at least scoping out the topic in general. I think, though, I would have been better off not taking this mod, especially with my poor time management and inability to memorise copious amounts of information in a short amount of time.
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