With my weekdays spent in an office from 9-6, this semester was a special one to say the least, for I embarked on my full-time internship during the academic sem. Having spent the previous 4 sems with my nose in the books, this was something totally new for me and choosing to do 1 course along with my internship made it tougher. This post will focus primarily on breaking down my internship experience so let's get right into Part 5 of my NUS Course Reviews.
Disclaimer 1: As a CHS student doing a double major in Communications and New Media (CNM) and Management, as well as a Minor in Korean Language Studies, my reviewed courses will be almost exclusively CNM, Business, CHS and Korean courses with very few exceptions if any.
Disclaimer 2: All of the following courses were taken in AY 23/24 Sem 1 and the structures of these courses MAY BE DIFFERENT in subsequent sems. All views expressed in this article are my own so please only take this review as an unofficial guide. More detailed information can be found in the links at the bottom of this article.
HS2903 - Sporting Bodies
Expected grade: B
Actual grade: B+ (honestly I'm pleasantly surprised by this because I scored consistently below median for almost every assessment released, I'm just glad I don't have to S/U this)
HS1403A - Career Compass III
Expected grade: CS
Actual grade: CS (nothing much to say here, the moment I completed NM3550C I already knew I was going to pass this as well)
NM3550C - CNM Internship Programme
Convenors: Dr. Jinna Tay, Dr. Shobha Avadhani
Teaching Assistants: Merlin Cheng, Farah Bawany
TLDR: The greatest milestone for most Year 3 CNM students.
Description of course
- NM3550C serves as a capstone course for most CNM students, having us embark on a CNM-related internship of at least 16 weeks long that allows us to apply what we've learned to working in various industries.
- The CNM Internship Programme (CIP) aims to develop students' skills and put what they've learned theoretically into practice, as well as get students to critically reflect on their experiences and identify areas for personal improvement.
- Unlike most courses, CIP is double the units, being 8 units instead of the usual 4. This makes the grade for the course twice as valuable as a higher grade has double the impact on your GPA.
- Alternative courses:
1. NUS Overseas College (NOC) students - TR3201N (Entrepreneurship Practicum)
Assessment
- Pre-Departure Quiz (10%)
- CIP Meetup (10%)
- Report 1 (20%)
- Final Report + Presentation Slides (30%)
- Supervisor's Feedback (30%)
Pros
I think that to some extent, it's good that the CNM department mandates an internship as part of our curriculum, essentially "forcing" us to get industry experience relevant to our course of study. The department curates a good number of internships from partner companies, many of whom have been involved in the CIP for years by now, and having such a wide selection offered to students is good. Of course, students are still allowed to self-source internships, so they're not just restricted to what the department has curated (though students will still need to get their self-sourced positions approved first).
Not every major in NUS requires students to do an internship,
with CNM being one of the few FASS majors to do so. This also means that many
students only do internships in the summer break, especially if they don't take
a Leave of Absence (LOA) or juggle an internship concurrently with studies.
While we do have the option of doing courses together with CIP (which I did),
CNM students have the unique luxury of having a full semester where their only
task is to be an intern, with just the odd assignment as per CIP requirements.
This provides a good first taste of the workforce for many students, as they
fully immerse themselves in the company environment and culture without
(largely) needing to worry about other courses at the same time.
I also think it's good that the CIP itself commences during the summer break and officially ends 16 weeks after, which lands us somewhere around week 9 of the semester. This means that if you have no other courses on your plate and if your internship ends there, you will basically end the semester early, giving you the freedom to do whatever you want afterwards.
Cons
I feel that NM3550C puts way too much focus on being an academic course. I get that the point of the course is for us to apply what we've learned in the classroom into the workplace but at the end of the day, I feel that more emphasis should be placed on our internship performance than on the academic reports. Instead, 50% of our grade comes from the reports while only 30% is based on our supervisor's feedback, the best measure we have of performance. Essentially, a student who wrote a stellar report may ultimately get a better grade than another who may not have written so well but had better internship performance in the form of better feedback from their supervisor.
Moreover, I don't agree with the idea of having an internship course be letter graded. This goes in-hand with my previous point about NM3550C being too academic. I expected internship courses to be graded on a CS/CU basis, like what Engineering students experience during their Industrial Attachments. Instead, CNM students must unnecessarily focus on doing well for the academic reports, which take up 50% of our assessment weightage, when they should really be focusing on performing well as an intern. Beyond that, I don't agree with tagging supervisors' feedback to a letter grade, as I feel it defeats the purpose of getting feedback in the first place. Feedback is about understanding and improving oneself, without having to worry that this feedback is going to tank your grade. While you can argue that in the workforce, poor feedback can lead to a worse performance appraisal (which can lead to losing one's job), I think that this is not something that should be applied to NM3550C yet as students may adopt the wrong mindset from it.
If NM3550C is going to be letter graded, they should only make it academic and if they want to go the reflection plus feedback route, make it graded on a CS/CU basis. Mixing the two just gives students a hard time in the long run, as a bad grade for an 8-unit course can be devastating.
Personal thoughts
I had quite an enjoyable experience throughout CIP, especially since it was my first proper foray into the working world. I had done internships before but nothing longer than 8 weeks, so this was a whole new ballgame for me. At the same time, even though I only had to do one other course this semester, I found it tough to juggle and I now have newfound respect for those who do part-time studies while working full-time.
I think that CIP in essence is a good programme, it goes a long way in helping CNM students gain invaluable internship experience that will undoubtedly prime them for the workforce (I know it did for me) and form close bonds with their colleagues that might even extend into friendships once they leave the company. I just wish NM3550C was not so academic, and I think an assessment model similar to FAS2553, which is graded on a CS/CU basis and is also largely reflection-based. I think that would be a lot better than having us write academic reports that I personally feel do not add as much value to our CIP experience than if we were just allowed to critically reflect without the need to force our essay to answer a specific question or link to a specific topic.
Overall, NM3550C is a good course with potentially misguided assessments, and I hope the department can continue to adjust the course to add more value to students' internship experiences.
Expected grade: A-
Actual grade: A+ (the elusive grade I had hoped and prayed for but never expected to get, can't believe I actually got it considering how bad I felt my second report was)
Grade Point Average (GPA): 4.55 (super grateful my GPA went up a bit thanks to CIP but it's still a bit too close to the border of the next lower honours classification for comfort)
This was definitely the most unique semester for me as I was barely a student and was really more like a functioning member of the workforce. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a tiny bit worried, considering that CIP had twice the number of credits that a normal course had and that I had to juggle one other course alongside a full-time internship. Luckily things turned out alright for me and a great weight was lifted off my shoulders once I saw my grades.
At the end of the day, I'm glad I went through this CIP experience though, it's taught me a lot of useful skills that I can definitely apply to both my remaining time in university as well as my future career. I've made great connections, both personally and professionally, and I hope every CNM student can have as good of an experience as I did or even better. Cheers to the continued development of the CIP and all the best to my juniors for their subsequent internships!
For more information, please access the following links-
General Course Info: https://nusmods.com/modules?sem[0]=1&sem[1]=2&sem[2]=3&sem[3]=4, https://luminus.nus.edu.sg/module-search, https://canvas.nus.edu.sg/search/all_courses/
CHS Curriculum: https://chs.nus.edu.sg/programmes/
CIP Information: https://fass.nus.edu.sg/cnm/information-for-students/
NOC Curriculum: https://enterprise.nus.edu.sg/education-programmes/nus-overseas-colleges/programmes/curriculum-overview/
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