As many of you know, in 2008, the year 6 batch studied their core (and elective and honours) modules. Some of them also took internships. Others did more research.
This year, the sem 2 plan shares some similarities.
1. Core/honours modules for English, math and science are only on two days: Thursday and Friday this year.
2. Arts/humanities modules and other elective modules like MA6205 Graph Theory, MA6204 Game Theory are on a third day (Wednesday).
So what else are we year 6s doing?
Basically, we have three options on what to do with our three free days (2.5 if you take humanities/arts).
1. Take NUS modules. The 2008 batch was also encouraged to take the modules, however I think reading NUS modules is on a larger scale for my batch (2009). More people were offered the chance to take the modules and more people applied, too.
We don't know the status of our application yet, though. NUS modules only start in August so it's not a problem for now.
2. Special electives. This is a new thing. There is one special elective per math/science subject. It's a revision module to help you consolidate your knowledge of that subject over the past few years. You will get "invited" to take special electives if your subject CAP is below a certain cut-off point, which varies from subject to subject.
So far, chem special elect has the largest number of people taking the class.
3. Internships. Last year, students could source for internships themselves, but this year they're not allowing it, thanks to previous bad experience. So the only internships available are sourced by the school (which presumably brings some standard of quality). Internships range from healthcare to public service departments to research, etc etc. There are very few internship places available.
They gave us a form to indicate our top internship interests. However first priority goes to students who have not been invited to apply for NUS modules or those who are not taking special electives, because you must be gainfully occupied during your free days, therefore these students who aren't doing anything else must do an internship.
Besides this, we all attend classes on Thursdays and Fridays and we have to attend CCA on Fridays as well.
Some notes on the free-days options:
NUS modules start in August, which is great because you have one month's break. But NUS modules also end later (exams in end Nov - start Dec). Considering that year 6 school exams are somewhere in mid-late October, it can get rather tiring to have to keep attending lessons.
Special electives... well not much to be said except that one of the reasons why the school put them in place is to "offer you a chance to boost your CAP". I don't really know what this means - are special elects going to distribute free As?
Also there are some of us who are thinking of crashing the special elective classes, sort of like taking modules on an audit basis in NUS - you sit in for the lessons but you don't take the quizzes, tests, exam. No idea if the teachers or admin will allow this, but hopefully they will.
Internships - the option that everybody wants. There are some that are very high demand, like interning at St. Luke's (center for the elderly), which is mostly by people who want to go into med school. Then there are those which are very flexible, like an internship with DSO. They're willing to cater to the schedules of those taking NUS modules, which is really quite remarkable.
Internships are valuable because they add quite a lot to your college app, or so I am told. The fact that you're gaining real-world experience is always a plus on your resume, which is why many poly students do internships. Personally, I think it's also a good source of things to talk about in college essays.
The interesting thing (well, to me) about the internships is that since you must be gainfully occupied during your three free days, if you are nominated for NUS modules and your application isn't successful, you must take an internship. At least, this is how I see it.
I don't know how true my assumption is, because we have to wait for NUS to tell us our module app status. The admin will probably know best about about how they'll handle students whose NUS applications fall through. For more info on this you may want to contact the college counselors.
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