NUS guide: entering university! 🏫🎓💯

Apple’s Back to School promotion is back!  💻 🟢 Maximise your student benefits with ThisCounted’s exclusive partnership link — Get bonus gift card/cash on top of Apple’s bundle offer of AirPods with Mac or Apple Pencil with iPad 📒 Purchases must be through our unique link: bit.ly/ThisCounted 📘  Bonus gift cards or cash valued at up to $30 (with min. guaranteed value of $10) is on top of Apple’s bundle offer of AirPods with Mac or Apple Pencil with iPad! 📒 Ensure that you’re using ThisCounted’s link ( bit.ly/ThisCounted ) when making your purchase; after student/staff status verification, enter our link again (UniDAYs may redirect you incorrectly, so just re-enter our link after student/staff status verification, i.e. re-enter the link again when actually checking out)  📘 T&C apply (refer to image and Apple’s T&C) 🔴 Bonus gift cards/cash only for those who make verified purchases through ThisCounted’s link by 1 July Questions? Reach out to us at ThisCountedBiz@gmail.com

If you (or your friends/siblings) are looking to get an iPad or MacBook in uni, check out this deal to max out your student benefits! Using the link from @ThisCounted (a student-run channel that shares the best student deals), you get both the usual Apple Back to School Promo’s benefit (free AirPods when you get a MacBook/free Apple Pencil when you get an iPad) and a gift card/cash bonus valued at up to $30! Note that this bonus benefit is only available this week (closing on 1 July) and is the biggest student deal for Apple products! (Do share this with your peers too!)

ALSO, check out V'Day flower sales (a fundraiser organised by NUS TDC)—for those expecting a valentine, buying V'Day flowers on 14 Feb itself (or even a few days before) from florists often means paying a hiked-up price as vendors charge higher. Pre-ordering from the fundraiser now means locking in a significantly discounted price!

From the NUS website: Withdrawn (W): When a student withdraws from a course between the first day of Week 3 of the instructional period and the last day of the Recess Week, a ‘W' grade will be recorded in the transcript. Withdrawals after this period (i.e., from the first day of Week 7 of the instructional period) will result in an ‘F' grade, which will be included in the computation of the GPA and will not be eligible for the S/U option. This means that if you don’t like a particular course, to not have it show on your transcript *at all*, you’d need to withdraw before 29 Jan. Of course, if you still need time to judge, there’s no harm waiting longer—it’s just that withdrawal (which even then must be before week 7)—will result in a ‘W’ grade shown. Some may think of this is a blemish on the transcript, though one could think that a reasonable employer/assessor would not care about a 'W' grade. This doesn’t affect your GPA, and to most, genuinely doesn’t mean anything.

P.S. if you want NUS merch, get them @nusshirts ! It's way cheaper (and with nicer designs) than getting them at NUS Co-op! If you are not in NUS yet (whether bc you ended up going to another uni or bc you are still in NS), you may still make a purchase under the member of public option. This is an official NUS student-run fundraiser!

Hi everyone! The ‘NUS’ Shirts in the Collegiate font—a popular design to many batches of NUS students—is finally back again! Sales close on 20 Jan and material is dri-fit. Seen as a classic shirt by many and even a 'must-have' by some, this fundraising event is the last opportunity to get you this limited shirt. This round, on top of our classic designs, we will also be selling the black-gold shirt—a design rarely sold due to the higher cost of printing its shiny gold text—and the green and pastel colours. Funds raised go towards student activities. If you'd like to pre-order these shirts, there are just two forms you need to fill together: a Microsoft Form and a FastPay Form ! We will also be conducting distributions at more accessible venues in NUS (which may include UTown/faculties) for easier collection! As usual, you may buy these shirts with friends to get discounted rates through our bundle deals (as low as $11/shirt)!

Hey freshies! CONGRATS on making through a semester! Hope your results were okay! For those in NUS, S/U is open until 29 Dec 6 p.m.—but there is generally no need to S/U now. You will still be given the option to S/U your Sem 1 grades after Sem 2 (during Sem 2's S/U period). There may be a few reasons why you might consider using the S/U anyway in this semester, and all of them boil down to one reason: that there are stuff (e.g. internship, scholarship, or SEP applications) that require or look at your Sem 1 grades before the Sem 2 results/SU period occurs. E.g. if you are going to make an application for intern or something else in the middle or maybe even late Sem 2, it's highly likely they won't be waiting till you get your Sem 2 results before getting back to you--instead you only have your Sem 1 GPA. For some, this may provide good reason to S/U to inflate your GPA now. Consider if you are going to be applying for anything in the middle of next sem that may put you in such a situation. Another possible reason is that you may be applying to transfer courses: in this case, it is not clear whether your post or pre-S/U GPA would be looked at. There’s also another reason that’s not really applicable to most y1s: the Dean’s List. Majority of faculties do not let freshies on this in y1 (so this isn't a concern for most now; we will share more next AY on getting in the dean's list). The School of Computing is a known exception, where it is possible for y1s to be on the dean’s list. However, you may find it a bit of a gamble to S/U a grade just to be on the dean’s list: even if you SU the grade, it's not guaranteed to be on it. SOC students should check for any faculty-specific requirements (and if they look at post or pre-S/U) What if I don’t want to waste my S/U but need to temporarily inflate my CAP (to apply for ___)? For whatever reason you need this for, there might be a way, though only for a limited duration. Of course, we don’t promote unethical loopholes here, so we are sharing this only assuming you have valid reasons. If the module you had a bad grade for had some sort of unfairness during the exam (e.g. some CHS AI Mod I took last year had our internet cut off mid-way which was v disruptive), then you may appeal your grades. In this wait time when your grades’ appeal is being assessed (regardless of subsequent outcome), your transcript will show ‘IP’ (in progress) for that module instead of its actual grade.

If you need to swap tutorial slots, you may use one of these group chats to make requests for swap!

Hi everyone! Below is a message on the balloting process which isn’t by us, but has been passed down by various NUS seniors! Note that “courses” used to be referred to as “mods”: “Balloting process How to ballot like a senior (by sam chan) First, here is how the balloting works: - you rank up to 20 tutorial slots according to your preference, with the slots you want more ranked higher - you do not have to use all 20, and in fact you can just put one tutorial slot per mod - the system looks at your first choice, checks the tutorial class, and if there are vacancies, you're in! - the process then repeats for your second, third choice etc. until you have tutorials for all your mods, or you have no viable options left (i.e. all your preferred tutorials are full) - it's quite by luck in the sense that if you're the 26th person the system sees for a 25-person class, you don't get it, even if you put it as first choice. hence the term balloting. IT IS NOT FIRST COME FIRST SERVE! Now that you know how balloting roughly works, here are some pointers! 1. Plan for multiple timetables - needless to say we all have that one tutorial slot we want (for free day, with friends, both, etc.), however it would be terribly unwise to not have any backup plans/tutorial slots. having three choices per mod is a safe number, although you can go up to 4 per mod (equal distribution among 5 mods) or any number really (unequal distribution) 2. Know your preferences - even among your first choice tutorial slots for your modules, it's good to know which are the ones you want the most - generally you get your first three choices, while anything after that is more risky, so you need to priorities which are the ones you diedie must get, and hence rank first 3. Know that certain tutorial slots are more popular - generally tutorial slots from 10-4 are the more popular ones - likewise for those on the same day as the lecture for that mod - you might want to rank these slots higher - this is more for your knowledge, but if you plan to take this tutorial with say >5 friends, some of you might not get it Keeping these pointers in mind, you ballot! And here's now: (note: you don't have to follow this method but I find it really helpful. also, it's based on the assumption that one has 5 mods to ballot for) 1) Note down the tutorial slots you want on a piece of paper (virtual or otherwise) according to your modules, while ranking them at the same time. - you should have 5 columns of 4 tutorial slots each (assuming equal distribution), already in order of preference 2) Double check the timings and the tutorial number (eg. D3, E5, etc.) 3) Rank all your tutorial slots in a flop-table style (MOST IMPORTANT STEP). This might require some explanation, so bear with me. Let's say your 5 mods are called 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and it's according to the mod which first-choice tutorial slot you want the most Each mod has 4 tutorial slots, called A, B, C, and D according to your preference. Here's how your ranking would look like then: 1A 2A 3A 4A 5A 5B 4B 3B 2B 1B 1C 2C 3C 4C 5C 5D 4D 3D 2D 1D Basically you "reflect" your mods. Since you're quite likely to get your choices for 1, 2, and 3, but less so for 4, and 5, your sixth and seventh choices should be the second-choice for mods 4 and 5 to increase your chances of getting what you want. 4) Finally, don't panic if you don't have any tutorial slots! There is always add/drop and online swaps, and worst case manual registration. It's all part of student life! But if you follow the above, it's less likely to happen (: “

Reminder to do your coursereg if you haven’t! Note that if you didn’t do academic plan declaration, then your course pre-allocation (if you’re supposed to have preallocated courses) may be affected. If you declare late, it would also take some time before preallocation happens.

Also, additional tip: for 'restricted' second majors/minors (these are the ones you can't directly declare), some of these require you to e.g. take a certain number of the relevant courses before you can declare them. If you think about it, that can be a bit of a chicken and egg problem (you need to declare it to be your second major/minor to have priority to be able to bid for these courses, but at the same time, you need to have taken a few of these courses before you can even declare it to be your second major/minor). This often results in people who want to declare these as second major/minor in future being unable to get the courses needed to even be eligible to declare it on time. For instance, in my personal experience, when I wanted to get a second major in management (aka second major in biz), it required you to take ~four business courses (do read up on which exact four are eligible to count) before you can declare it as second major. However, securing these courses in the first place is challenging when you do not already have it declared (since actual business students get priority). Many students fail to declare a Second Major in Management because of this (the requirement is to declare before end of y2, but many fail to even secure the required courses by then). A loophole I thought of (not that we are recommending loopholes, of course) is to declare a second major/minor in something else that isn’t ‘restricted’ but has common courses. In this case, an example is a Minor in Entrepreneurship. Anyone can declare they are going to minor in Entrepreneurship, unlike minoring/second majoring in Management. So what you can do is declare a minor in entrepreneurship first, get a slight priority for some courses like BSP1702, MNO1706, MKT1705, ACC1701 (and many more courses which are also possible prerequisites to declare a minor/second major in management), be more likely to secure the needed courses, and then in future semesters it may be easier to declare a second major/minor in Management having secured the needed courses to declare it. If you found these tips/updates so far helpful, do share these channel @MykeGuide with your friends!! 🙌

^^ read this tip for acad declaration!

Also, reminder that tmr is academic declaration!

^^ sending on behalf of flag (these money go to charity!)

🚨 ATTENTION ALL CURRENT NUS STUDENTS AND INCOMING FRESHIES!! 🚨 Getting bored of wearing the same few school t-shirts?? 😔 Or want to get your hands on some NUS merch before you begin your time here? 👀 WELL GOOD NEWS because King Edward VII Hall Flag is back with yet another FUNDRAISER!! ✨(YAY!) ps. all shirts are cotton! additionally, if you’re gonna be staying ON CAMPUS next semester, we have JUST THE THING FOR YOU!! Check out our WELCOME PACKS so that you don’t have to bring these yourself 😌 (what a steal!) WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GET YOUR SHIRTS AND PACKS HERE NOW!! Ps. do look for Xian Yin @xian_yin for any queries!

🚨 ATTENTION ALL CURRENT NUS STUDENTS AND INCOMING FRESHIES!! 🚨 Getting bored of wearing the same few school t-shirts?? 😔 Or want to get your hands on some NUS merch before you begin your time here? 👀 WELL GOOD NEWS because King Edward VII Hall Flag is back with yet another FUNDRAISER!! ✨(YAY!) additionally, if you’re gonna be staying ON CAMPUS next semester, we have JUST THE THING FOR YOU!! Check out our WELCOME PACKS so that you don’t have to bring these yourself 😌 (what a steal!) WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GET YOUR SHIRTS AND PACKS HERE NOW!! Ps. do look for Xian Yin @xian_yin for any queries!i

Also, for those who joined this channel a lil later and didn't see this, do rmb to join the groups here!!

P.S. note that it closes today 2359; it was extended to tonight!

Just a quick blast on behalf of NUS KEVII Hall’s orientation comm! For those who were accepted into NUS KEVII Hall, do check your email to check for the orientation camp’s sign-up link! Note that camp sign-up closes on 13 July 2359