SUSEP 2005

Differences in NTU and NUS – Is there a better place?

Draft 1

Disclaimer: All opinions are personal views that the reader has to judge objectively on their own. The observations and claims have yet to be verified formally and thus not subjective opinions.

 

Abstract

I have successfully applied for and obtain a place in NUS for the academic year of 2005/2006. Being an NTU student for the part 2 years, it has been an experience for me which I would like to relate to my readers

 

Summary

The question that is most asked about is whether NUS or NTU is better. That is a rather difficult question posed as the answer depends. To restrict the scope of discussion, the scope of the discussion would be computing courses in NUS and the NTU courses.

 

It depends on what a person would like to achieve. For simplicity, we need to take a view. For education thoroughness and complexity, take the NUS route as the overall experience is much tougher. For a simple easier time, NTU would be the one.

 

Myth or

 

To judge which university is better, we need to have some common denominators and for each one of them, I will talk about it briefly.

 

Location

            NUS win the best location hands down. The place it commands, although is not prime land, but it well served, as it has its own Kent Ridge bus terminal for some of the buses. And it has more buses than NTU per se. In future, it will also have its own MRT line. NUH is also within walking internal bus network.

 

Demography

            NUS are bigger in terms of the student intake and the type of students that it takes in is different. It can felt from the day one that one enters the campus. In NTU, prior to the opening of the new schools, the style of dressing of the students is different. The students in NTU are more bookish, and ooze the engineering dress style. It means the usual tee shirts and jeans and scandals or shoes. There isn’t much variety in clothing unlike in NUS. It is more prominent for girls.

 

School Structure

School of Computing is a school on its own. The NTU campus was on a central unit by itself. It is totally inter-connected and being the two main spine. NUS is scattered over the Kent ridge grounds. As such, for getting around in campus, students have to travel via the internal shuttle bus. NTU students have it lucky to walk from point A to point B.

 

Teaching Style

            The curriculum is set more by the lecturers than the school? For Operating System module, the decision if the final paper is to be an open-booked or closed book was asked. For introduction to computer security module, lab was decided at the start of the semester. And the lab was not ready until about the 3rd week of school.

 

Teaching Aid

            The facilities for webcast are more organized in NUS. It was started recently started in NUS and NTU. But the level of support given by NUS is more as there are admin support personnel to take care of the recording of the lectures campus-wide. In NTU, the initiative was done by NTU Computer Engineering society before it became spread to the rest of NTU.

 

Facilities

            NUS facilities are by far better than NTU. The numbers of tennis courts available are more. NUS built the new university hall. It has the university cultural centre.

            NTU have had the new schools andbuilt.

            Aging facilities are more prominent in NTU rather than in NUS. NUS has recently done an upgrade of the central library.

 

IT support

            NUS have its own computer centre, a building on its own with more manpower resources and budget. It organizes IT security week for the student population. For computing school, it even has its own helpdesk.