Module review for PS1101E/GEK1003: Introduction to Politics

Taken AY2014/2015 Semester 1


PS1101E/GEK1003: Introduction to Politics

I’m very sure that every review on PS1101E that you come across will end up extolling the virtues of Prof Yoshi, who has won the Teaching Excellence Award for many years in a row. He is extremely clear in conveying the concepts, and he even repeats them sometimes in order to help you remember. I think part of the reason why his teaching style is so effective is because he is very systematic in explaining the flow of the theories and the concepts; he even puts funny pictures and speech bubbles, as well as ridiculous analogies, in order to make things more understandable. He is most possibly the best lecturer in Political Science (according to some seniors), and he is widely known by even the non-PS students as well for being a great lecturer.

I found the content for PS1101E very interesting for the most part, and the readings as well were difficult but I liked reading them (with the exception of some). However, I think trying to cram the content into my head in a few days before the exam was really difficult and it didn’t help that I didn’t start earlier as well. I would say that it is a relatively content-heavy mod, but it’s worth it because the concepts that he teaches you are valuable in interpreting the world’s politics around you.

Prof Yoshi only uploads his slides after the lecture, and there isn’t any webcast. Furthermore, you should really attend his lectures because occasionally, he gives a random hint of what to study. You should definitely not miss his final revision lecture, in which he basically tells you the 35 identification terms that may come out in finals (out of ten given, you pick five) as well as the possible topics that may be tested for the long essay. Studying the 35 terms is the most difficult part during preparation, but during the finals, it is most certainly the long essay that proves the greatest challenge.

Assessment: Tutorial participation makes up 20% of the grade, and the essay assignment and finals both take 40% weightage each. This means that you won’t be very busy during midterms for this mod, but that doesn’t mean you should be negligent in your readings, either. Not all the readings are important, but it is really hard to know which one will be important later for your essay assignment. Even though Prof Yoshi says that it is a think-piece and that only two references are required, it really depends on your tutor’s marking style, and thus I think it’s better to include more references (maybe five would be a safe number) – although referencing doesn’t guarantee a good score. It probably would be best to read Fukuyama’s The End of History, Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations and Political Decay, and all the Asian values debate readings (Mahbubani and Aung-Thwin, who happens to be the father of the Burmese HY1101E lecturer) at the very least. It’s also very important how you choose your essay question for both the assignment and the finals – I chose the right question for my assignment and did well, but for my finals, I picked a trickier question and ended up going off point midway.

Workload: In terms of workload, the readings are quite heavy. There’s usually one or two per week, and while you don’t need to read them all, you have to read some of them, or you’ll be left rushing the readings the week before the assignment (like me). Still, it’s good that there is very few assessments for this mod, because it minimises the time spent trying to study or write another essay. Of course, that could also be a downside because it is, to some extent, an ‘all or nothing’ situation. I think that PS1101E is generally hard to score in, but it is definitely worth the effort and the pain, and I would definitely take it if it was under Prof Yoshi.


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