Referring to the post "Useful tech skills to know", you can get some of the links to download the free software here.
1. Typesetting
People who want to use LaTeX can get a very good compiler here, WinEdt - its great. But I find that MikTex is easier to type equations with. To install LaTeX properly, you'll need to have Ghostview and prefably Ghostscript installed too, and Adobe Acrobat reader if possible. This website tells you how to get the compilers(s). Wikibooks offers a great tutorial on using LaTeX.
2. Sound
You can use Windows Movie Maker for this also. Or you can try this one. (Vanessa: Or Audacity, which is free, open-source, and works on all operating systems).
3. Video/ movie
Download Windows Movie Maker from here. It's really easy to use. If you're using a Mac, good for you; you have iMovie.
4. Engineering/Physics
Java or C++ are good places to begin with, particularly since the compilers are free and there's loads of online tutorials floating all over the internet. Some other languages with free compilers are Ruby, python, fortran, etc.
5. Check out MIT OpenCourseWare's webpage on programming. You can links to all sort of free compilers from there.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
SSEF
Yo everyone, I've been reading this blog for some time now, and under Lay Kuan's influence, I've decided to contribute too. My first post here will be about the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF), since it's one of the main highlights of my last year in school. A very memorable experience, got to meet many other research enthusiasts (like Chui Yi, although I didn't know her name back then) and spent quite a long while fidgeting and turning green at my booth (since I was the last group to get gold in my year, so I had to wait for pretty long and despair more and more as other groups were winning).
SSEF is, very roughly speaking, some sort of Olympiad for research. It's far more nebulous, and hence it has been criticised as not really reflective of the quality of the participants' research. This is due to the difficulty in assessing one's project. Much depends on whether the judge specialises in a certain field, whether your presentation is coherent, and whether you seem to be a trustworthy person (yes, they have this tendency to think someone else did the work for you). Nonetheless, these problems are the similar to those faced by researchers, so it's good to learn how to deal with them now. Besides, SSEF is great fun.
There are two parts to SSEF: doing good research (by extension, getting good results), and delivering it properly. This post will concentrate more on the latter.
Report
When writing the report, write the conclusions first. Of course, it's much easier to write in chronological order (writing what you did earlier first, followed by what you did later), but this is not suitable because of the SSEF page limit constraints. This is especially so if you did good research, which means you'll be overflowing with data. Some say you should just write everything down first and trim it down to size, but I found this method too difficult, too time consuming, and too painful (yes. It's like 'argh, I just had to delete a paragraph I spent an hour writing! nooo!').
Instead, I suggest you start with a focused conclusion showing what's your project's contribution to science. This will help to set the flow for the paper, and you will be less likely to include extraneous details into your report. I suggest writing three paragraphs, the first about results which were expected, the third about unexpected results, and the second somewhere in between. It's good to end off with a memorable and impactful statement about the practical application of your unexpected results (very important if you keep getting the 'what are the practical applications of your work?' from your friends/teachers/voices in your head). If you find that your report is still too long, edit the conclusions and try again.
An often overlooked thingy about writing reports (and posters, for that matter) is convention. Follow your own convention. By that I mean always have your title on the same place for all your excel graphs, use the same colour for the same sample when it appears in different graphs, use the same font for axis titles (and so on). Minutiae, I know, but this problem always pops up, especially if you happen to be as careless as I am. Or if it's a group project.
Poster
The backboard (or whatever you call it) the Science Center provides is big enough to fit a poster with dimensions greater than A0. Some people who are really desperate for space do that, but I think it's really awkward to have a non-A0 poster, the non-standard size makes me feel uneasy. More so if everyone nearby is doing A0 (they tend to do that). Any deviations from a single nice A0 poster should be done markedly, so much so that it looks intentionally different, rather than 'oops, I ran out of space and I can' t be bothered to edit it properly'. And at some poster shops, it can be 2 to 3 times more expensive than good ol' A0. The poster should be laminated matt (not glossy, you can't see the words with the light shining on the poster due to reflection). Poster Connection at Sunshine Plaza used to print rather cheaply (and pretty good quality too), but I heard it's more expensive of late.
As with the report, write the conclusions first. It should give you a general idea of how the poster should go. Regarding the exact flow of the poster, it's good to plop all your diagrams, pictures, and schematics on powerpoint first and arrange them such that they make sense. After which, add figure captions and some explanatory text and you have a poster. Like the report (and unlike powerpoint slides), posters are parallel axes of information, so don't repeat diagrams. It's fine to point to other parts of the poster when the need arises.
I recommend putting as many diagrams as possible and as little text as possible. By the time you present at SSEF, you should know your project well enough to say what you need to say to explain your stuff sufficiently well. On the other hand, it's rather clumsy to whip out a pencil and start drawing on the spot. Moreover, it's rather disconcerting when the judge seems to be reading the poster rather than listening to you.
One exception to this rule is to put brief definitions of certain jargon just after your introduction. If the audience can't remember a term you introduced earlier (this happens rather often), he/she can read it from the poster without interrupting you and feeling like an idiot. On top of all these, someone with background in your field should be able to look through your poster and have some idea what you're doing without you making the presentation. Not that the judges will do that and walk off, but well, it's good style.
Once you have a draft which bears some semblance to a poster, print it out on an A4 paper. The font should be big enough that it can be read even when shrunk down to A4. Practice presenting to friends and teachers, regardless of whether they are in your area or not. It is highly likely that you will get judges who are not specialists, so learn how to recognise the various signs of confusion and find methods of explaining your stuff without compromising the beauty of your project. For some projects, it may be useful to build a model to complement the poster presentation. I built one to show a 3D coordinate transformation which I calculated. Much easier to present. Besides, models are memorable.
The Day Itself
Make friends with the people around you (and give them your number). This is a must if yours is a solo project. The judges can come any time from 8am to 5pm, and it's rather difficult to stay at your booth all the time. Sticking a piece of paper which says 'Away, please call ' on your booth (or having it as a ppt slide on your computer, for that matter) doesn't give a particularly good impression. Ask your boothmate to call if you a judge comes. In my case, my first judge came around 3plus, and I was sitting on the floor sleeping (some HCI guys stole my chair. And my boothmate's chair). My boothmate woke me up, very thankfully.
There's no fixed style of judging. So far, I've heard of three.
1) The usual present first, Q&A later, with no time limit.
2) Give a quick summary (my juniors were asked to present in 3min), and then Q&A.
3) The judge comes and just asks questions (my first judge did that).
So be prepared. Also, some naughty judges may request a specific person in a team project to answer a certain question or present a certain part, so do practice everyone's part. One of my juniors even had to present while her teammate was not there (judge demanded it so).
During my year (2009), there were only 3 judges per project. From 2010 onwards, there's 4 to 6 judges per project. It's rather tiring, so think twice before submitting more than one project to SSEF.
Miscellaneous
It's quite nerve wrecking when they're giving out the prizes, so try not to stand in the middle of the crowd or you may get asphxyated. In any case, SSEF is not just about winning, but about getting to know your project and the projects of others in general better. Easier said than done, of course.
If you win any award (and signed up for A*TS during registration), they will call you back for another round. They will select 8 from that round to enter the final round, where the chief judge is some nobel laureate. The final round was especially nerve-wrecking, though that is a story for another day. I will most likely write a short post on A*TS soon.
(Will be updating this post when I remember more)
SSEF is, very roughly speaking, some sort of Olympiad for research. It's far more nebulous, and hence it has been criticised as not really reflective of the quality of the participants' research. This is due to the difficulty in assessing one's project. Much depends on whether the judge specialises in a certain field, whether your presentation is coherent, and whether you seem to be a trustworthy person (yes, they have this tendency to think someone else did the work for you). Nonetheless, these problems are the similar to those faced by researchers, so it's good to learn how to deal with them now. Besides, SSEF is great fun.
There are two parts to SSEF: doing good research (by extension, getting good results), and delivering it properly. This post will concentrate more on the latter.
Report
When writing the report, write the conclusions first. Of course, it's much easier to write in chronological order (writing what you did earlier first, followed by what you did later), but this is not suitable because of the SSEF page limit constraints. This is especially so if you did good research, which means you'll be overflowing with data. Some say you should just write everything down first and trim it down to size, but I found this method too difficult, too time consuming, and too painful (yes. It's like 'argh, I just had to delete a paragraph I spent an hour writing! nooo!').
Instead, I suggest you start with a focused conclusion showing what's your project's contribution to science. This will help to set the flow for the paper, and you will be less likely to include extraneous details into your report. I suggest writing three paragraphs, the first about results which were expected, the third about unexpected results, and the second somewhere in between. It's good to end off with a memorable and impactful statement about the practical application of your unexpected results (very important if you keep getting the 'what are the practical applications of your work?' from your friends/teachers/voices in your head). If you find that your report is still too long, edit the conclusions and try again.
An often overlooked thingy about writing reports (and posters, for that matter) is convention. Follow your own convention. By that I mean always have your title on the same place for all your excel graphs, use the same colour for the same sample when it appears in different graphs, use the same font for axis titles (and so on). Minutiae, I know, but this problem always pops up, especially if you happen to be as careless as I am. Or if it's a group project.
Poster
The backboard (or whatever you call it) the Science Center provides is big enough to fit a poster with dimensions greater than A0. Some people who are really desperate for space do that, but I think it's really awkward to have a non-A0 poster, the non-standard size makes me feel uneasy. More so if everyone nearby is doing A0 (they tend to do that). Any deviations from a single nice A0 poster should be done markedly, so much so that it looks intentionally different, rather than 'oops, I ran out of space and I can' t be bothered to edit it properly'. And at some poster shops, it can be 2 to 3 times more expensive than good ol' A0. The poster should be laminated matt (not glossy, you can't see the words with the light shining on the poster due to reflection). Poster Connection at Sunshine Plaza used to print rather cheaply (and pretty good quality too), but I heard it's more expensive of late.
As with the report, write the conclusions first. It should give you a general idea of how the poster should go. Regarding the exact flow of the poster, it's good to plop all your diagrams, pictures, and schematics on powerpoint first and arrange them such that they make sense. After which, add figure captions and some explanatory text and you have a poster. Like the report (and unlike powerpoint slides), posters are parallel axes of information, so don't repeat diagrams. It's fine to point to other parts of the poster when the need arises.
I recommend putting as many diagrams as possible and as little text as possible. By the time you present at SSEF, you should know your project well enough to say what you need to say to explain your stuff sufficiently well. On the other hand, it's rather clumsy to whip out a pencil and start drawing on the spot. Moreover, it's rather disconcerting when the judge seems to be reading the poster rather than listening to you.
One exception to this rule is to put brief definitions of certain jargon just after your introduction. If the audience can't remember a term you introduced earlier (this happens rather often), he/she can read it from the poster without interrupting you and feeling like an idiot. On top of all these, someone with background in your field should be able to look through your poster and have some idea what you're doing without you making the presentation. Not that the judges will do that and walk off, but well, it's good style.
Once you have a draft which bears some semblance to a poster, print it out on an A4 paper. The font should be big enough that it can be read even when shrunk down to A4. Practice presenting to friends and teachers, regardless of whether they are in your area or not. It is highly likely that you will get judges who are not specialists, so learn how to recognise the various signs of confusion and find methods of explaining your stuff without compromising the beauty of your project. For some projects, it may be useful to build a model to complement the poster presentation. I built one to show a 3D coordinate transformation which I calculated. Much easier to present. Besides, models are memorable.
The Day Itself
Make friends with the people around you (and give them your number). This is a must if yours is a solo project. The judges can come any time from 8am to 5pm, and it's rather difficult to stay at your booth all the time. Sticking a piece of paper which says 'Away, please call ' on your booth (or having it as a ppt slide on your computer, for that matter) doesn't give a particularly good impression. Ask your boothmate to call if you a judge comes. In my case, my first judge came around 3plus, and I was sitting on the floor sleeping (some HCI guys stole my chair. And my boothmate's chair). My boothmate woke me up, very thankfully.
There's no fixed style of judging. So far, I've heard of three.
1) The usual present first, Q&A later, with no time limit.
2) Give a quick summary (my juniors were asked to present in 3min), and then Q&A.
3) The judge comes and just asks questions (my first judge did that).
So be prepared. Also, some naughty judges may request a specific person in a team project to answer a certain question or present a certain part, so do practice everyone's part. One of my juniors even had to present while her teammate was not there (judge demanded it so).
During my year (2009), there were only 3 judges per project. From 2010 onwards, there's 4 to 6 judges per project. It's rather tiring, so think twice before submitting more than one project to SSEF.
Some of the less specific questions which were posed to me
-What was the hardest part of your project?
-How much help did you receive from your mentor?
-What is Faraday's Law of Electromagnetic Induction? (I really got this question)
-How do you convert milliradians to degrees? (This one too, no kidding)
-Are you Singaporean? (Whaaaat?)
Miscellaneous
It's quite nerve wrecking when they're giving out the prizes, so try not to stand in the middle of the crowd or you may get asphxyated. In any case, SSEF is not just about winning, but about getting to know your project and the projects of others in general better. Easier said than done, of course.
If you win any award (and signed up for A*TS during registration), they will call you back for another round. They will select 8 from that round to enter the final round, where the chief judge is some nobel laureate. The final round was especially nerve-wrecking, though that is a story for another day. I will most likely write a short post on A*TS soon.
(Will be updating this post when I remember more)
Examples of APA Citation style
See here for a good website on how to cite references for scientific papers, homework, lab reports, etc, properly.
EDIT: 22 August 2010
'nana' suggests using this site instead. Many thanks for the suggestion!
EDIT: 22 August 2010
'nana' suggests using this site instead. Many thanks for the suggestion!
Top 10 Commencement Speeches on YouTube
Carrie Oakley wrote to CollegeTalk about an article called "Top 10 Commencement speeches on YouTube". This article was posted on the online website, Online Colleges: Complete Guide to Accredited Online Colleges.
From the home page of Online Colleges:
"Online Colleges is a nonprofit resource for students considering attending an online college. As a nonprofit website we accept no sponsorships from the online colleges we list, and thus provide students with the single most comprehensive and unbiased list of online colleges and universities on the web. The goal, is to combine existing lists of online colleges and find previously unlisted colleges and list them all in a single page which students can use to make a more educated decision about where they want to go to college. In addition to linking directly to the college, we maintain a brief descriptive overview of the distance education component of the college as well as list the colleges accreditation information.
Currently our database has 343 colleges listed, making it the most comprehensive list of its kind on the web. If you would like to add a college or suggest a change for a schools listing, please contact us."
Many thanks to Carrie Oakley for bringing this article to our attention!Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Illustrated guide to a PhD
For those interested!
Matt Might illustrated a guide to what most people achieve after getting a PhD.
Matt Might illustrated a guide to what most people achieve after getting a PhD.
Desperate Guide
Edwin Fu is a college student who received a full tuition scholarship. He has written to CollegeTalk about a website called Desperate Guide: Undergraduate College Financial Aid, Scholarship. This website lists all the US colleges and universities that give financial aid and merit scholarships to international students. It has detailed descriptions of each college as well as their admissions numbers, college statistics, financial aid awards, deadlines, etc.
Top 25 US Colleges that award Financial Aid to International Students
Top 15 US Colleges that award Merit Scholarships to International Students
The website also lists government and university scholarships for international students - UK, Australia, Singapore, China, Japan, Canada, Denmark, South Korea, New Zealand, and Norway.
Top Financial Aid, Scholarships Around the World for International Students
Many thanks to Edwin Foo for bringing this website to our attention!
Top 25 US Colleges that award Financial Aid to International Students
Top 15 US Colleges that award Merit Scholarships to International Students
The website also lists government and university scholarships for international students - UK, Australia, Singapore, China, Japan, Canada, Denmark, South Korea, New Zealand, and Norway.
Top Financial Aid, Scholarships Around the World for International Students
Many thanks to Edwin Foo for bringing this website to our attention!
Monday, August 16, 2010
Journal Watermark
Journal Watermark is a newly-launched literature/art magazine, an online magazine featuring the literary and artistic works of talented young Singapore-based creators. It looks very meaningful, so do go and check it out and start writing!
Journal Watermark is an amateur online literary journal, written by young writers and for young writers. A collaboration between students of NUS High School and Raffles Institution, it was first proposed by Asra Siddiqui in 2008 and was formally launched in 2010. We remain, nonetheless, both autonomous and wholly student-run.
Our creative works span several media forms, from prose and poetry to scripts and short films. We are looking for the unpublished, the up-and-coming, the young, and – above all – the talented. Beyond medium, genre or theme, our main criterion is quality. We aim to showcase a diversity of works and writers, and to offer our contributors a stable platform for publication.
As a quarterly publication, new issues of Journal Watermark will be released online at the start of every term; that is, at the start of January, April, July and October.
Our present editors are: Kylie Goh and Asra Siddiqui, who made this magazine possible; Annabeth Leow; and Viona Lam.
Annabeth Leow has asked CollegeTalk to reproduce the following here:
[Much thanks to the awesome people at the College Talk blog for helping us out.]
On 9 July, Journal Watermark was launched.
The product of three enterprising NUS High students and one alumnus, Watermark is a collaboration between the four editors and their fellow lit-loving peers in Raffles Institution. We publish every quarter, at the start of each academic term; and we’re open to literary and artistic works by NUS High students and Rafflesians (alumni under the age of 25 are welcome too).
Right now, we’re opening submissions calls for the second issue, which will appear in mid-September 2010. We welcome creative works of any kind: prose, poetry, drama, short films, digital and traditional art (inclusive of photography), et cetera. If you create works in a medium we haven’t listed, go ahead and send it to us anyway! Our submissions policy can be found here, and we can be contacted at this address. We’ll be reading submissions for Issue #2 until 31 August 2010.
If you haven’t checked out our work yet, now’s the time! Issue #1 is available online.
We are also on Facebook.
Journal Watermark is a student-run, student-initiated project. Contributors’ views do not necessarily reflect those of the editors or of their respective institutions.
Many thanks to Annabeth Leow for writing to CollegeTalk about this website!
Journal Watermark is an amateur online literary journal, written by young writers and for young writers. A collaboration between students of NUS High School and Raffles Institution, it was first proposed by Asra Siddiqui in 2008 and was formally launched in 2010. We remain, nonetheless, both autonomous and wholly student-run.
Our creative works span several media forms, from prose and poetry to scripts and short films. We are looking for the unpublished, the up-and-coming, the young, and – above all – the talented. Beyond medium, genre or theme, our main criterion is quality. We aim to showcase a diversity of works and writers, and to offer our contributors a stable platform for publication.
As a quarterly publication, new issues of Journal Watermark will be released online at the start of every term; that is, at the start of January, April, July and October.
Our present editors are: Kylie Goh and Asra Siddiqui, who made this magazine possible; Annabeth Leow; and Viona Lam.
Annabeth Leow has asked CollegeTalk to reproduce the following here:
[Much thanks to the awesome people at the College Talk blog for helping us out.]
On 9 July, Journal Watermark was launched.
The product of three enterprising NUS High students and one alumnus, Watermark is a collaboration between the four editors and their fellow lit-loving peers in Raffles Institution. We publish every quarter, at the start of each academic term; and we’re open to literary and artistic works by NUS High students and Rafflesians (alumni under the age of 25 are welcome too).
Right now, we’re opening submissions calls for the second issue, which will appear in mid-September 2010. We welcome creative works of any kind: prose, poetry, drama, short films, digital and traditional art (inclusive of photography), et cetera. If you create works in a medium we haven’t listed, go ahead and send it to us anyway! Our submissions policy can be found here, and we can be contacted at this address. We’ll be reading submissions for Issue #2 until 31 August 2010.
If you haven’t checked out our work yet, now’s the time! Issue #1 is available online.
We are also on Facebook.
Journal Watermark is a student-run, student-initiated project. Contributors’ views do not necessarily reflect those of the editors or of their respective institutions.
Many thanks to Annabeth Leow for writing to CollegeTalk about this website!
Friday, August 13, 2010
Sureties
If you're ever thinking of signing for a scholarship with a bond, you'll need two sureties. Check the approximate criteria here, from the MOH website. Varies between different scholarship boards but you might want to think about who could qualify and would agree to be your surety, given the possible consequences if you ever renege on your bond.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Choosing between A*STAR and DSTA
For people interested in a career in science and engineering, these are the two scholarships they are most likely to apply for. Chances are, if you can get one, you can get the other. It was a tough choice, really, since they both looked so good and offered exciting career paths.
For me, what really tipped the balance in my favor was the fact that A*STAR scholars are encouraged to do a PhD. I decided that since I really wanted to do a PhD, I might as well choose A*STAR. I liked the way they structured the PhD programme for their scholars. Counting from the time you sign the contract to the time you finish serving your bond, its 3 years for undergraduate degree + 1 year research attachment at an A*STAR institute + 5 years PhD + 2 years working at an A*STAR research institute + 3 years where you can choose from 4 career tracks. Quoting a piece of advice someone gave me at a (non-A*STAR) scholarship fair: "If you don't do a PhD straight after your bachelor's degree, you may not do it after you start working and get promoted". (Disclaimer: I didn't say it, nor do I think that applies to everyone.)
The choice to choose between 4 career paths two years into the 5-year-bond after my PhD was also attractive. There are four tracks to choose from: Research, Academic, Management, and Industry. So even if I decided I didn’t want to do research anymore then, I could still have a position where I could do something useful. By then, my thoughts on my career progression should be pretty set.
While I was on attachment at A*STAR. I decided I could see myself working there in the future. The strength in the biological sciences was also a factor - what if I wanted to crossover to bio next time? Even for bio haters, don't rule this out. Quite a lot of people start out in physics and ended up in bio at the postgraduate level - I know at least one such person personally.
In DSTA, its not so clear cut about whether their scholars end up getting a PhD or not. That said, I think DSTA is an awesome place to go if you’re not completely sure if you want to do a PhD, but like science and engineering! And they do really cool stuff too. You can always graduate and work first before deciding if you want to stick to DSTA or go do a PhD.
For me, what really tipped the balance in my favor was the fact that A*STAR scholars are encouraged to do a PhD. I decided that since I really wanted to do a PhD, I might as well choose A*STAR. I liked the way they structured the PhD programme for their scholars. Counting from the time you sign the contract to the time you finish serving your bond, its 3 years for undergraduate degree + 1 year research attachment at an A*STAR institute + 5 years PhD + 2 years working at an A*STAR research institute + 3 years where you can choose from 4 career tracks. Quoting a piece of advice someone gave me at a (non-A*STAR) scholarship fair: "If you don't do a PhD straight after your bachelor's degree, you may not do it after you start working and get promoted". (Disclaimer: I didn't say it, nor do I think that applies to everyone.)
The choice to choose between 4 career paths two years into the 5-year-bond after my PhD was also attractive. There are four tracks to choose from: Research, Academic, Management, and Industry. So even if I decided I didn’t want to do research anymore then, I could still have a position where I could do something useful. By then, my thoughts on my career progression should be pretty set.
While I was on attachment at A*STAR. I decided I could see myself working there in the future. The strength in the biological sciences was also a factor - what if I wanted to crossover to bio next time? Even for bio haters, don't rule this out. Quite a lot of people start out in physics and ended up in bio at the postgraduate level - I know at least one such person personally.
In DSTA, its not so clear cut about whether their scholars end up getting a PhD or not. That said, I think DSTA is an awesome place to go if you’re not completely sure if you want to do a PhD, but like science and engineering! And they do really cool stuff too. You can always graduate and work first before deciding if you want to stick to DSTA or go do a PhD.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Discovery Vacation Camps
This was sent out last year through the forum. Dunno if anyone is interested to earn a little money during the school vacations. If you are click here. Commitment time is one week at least during the June/December holidays.
Monday, August 2, 2010
College Applications 2010/2011
Just thought I'd give this a brief mention... both UCAS and Common App have reopened for admissions in 2010/2011. Juniors who aren't intending to apply to uni this year are also welcome to check them out and get an idea of what the whole system is like.
Another thing I thought I'd mention is that some US colleges (the only ones I can remember off the top of my head are the whole UC group and MIT) are not on Common App, so it would be best to find that out wayy ahead of the deadlines.
Happy writing.
Another thing I thought I'd mention is that some US colleges (the only ones I can remember off the top of my head are the whole UC group and MIT) are not on Common App, so it would be best to find that out wayy ahead of the deadlines.
Happy writing.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Criticism of college rankings
Don't get too caught up in college rankings when researching them. Here's why.
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