Anonymous (1) AY25/26 Sem 2

About the Instructor:

I felt that Prof isn't as naturally engaging as other profs I've encountered, which made some of the more content-heavy portions difficult to follow. But he does a good job of interspersing lessons with some questions and usually group discussions, which help to create a more lively atmosphere.

 He is a physicist but is also well-read about war policy, so I felt he was knowledgeable enough to critique or expand on our insights shared in class.

 I also appreciated Prof's efforts at adapting the course on the fly with minimal disruption to his students. Initially he wanted to design the final assignment around a board game simulation, but he wasn't able to procure it in time, so he notified us in advance about the change. He also took our feedback seriously and changed 2 of our in-class quizzes to a take-home assignment to ease our studying workload.

Content (Structure/Organization): 

First half was about the scientific principles behind designing weapons and some game theory, second half delved into more of the guiding principles behind war strategy. The US-Iran war was the hot topic and received a significant amount of attention in the second half, not sure how this will look like for future batches.

 I am not a technical student and I have not touched Physics since I was 14 so I greatly struggled with the first half. I also didn't think that the first half content helped me understand more about the second half content (apart from game theory). So I gritted my teeth through the first half and found the second half somewhat more enjoyable.

Manageability of Workload: 

*Disclaimer: because this was the first iteration, there may be more changes. Prof changed some deliverables midway during the sem.

 Attendance/participation: 10%

 1st half: In-class quiz (5%), group presentation (10%)

 2nd half: In-class closed-book midterm (20%), 1,200-word briefing memo (10%), group presentation (15%), 3,000-word essay (30%)

 Workload was moderate, the stress mainly comes from the number of graded components and less about the intensity of each assignment. Group presentations are very short at ~10min each so you can do your part the night before. The final presentation/essay were about using LLMs to simulate war conflict and commenting on their decisions. While the final essay word count is intimidating, it followed on from the work done in the final group presentation and requires little research, so it's not as bad as it sounds.

Ease/Difficulty of Attaining Grades:

I personally don't like NUSC in-class midterm papers as I usually don't have much time to study for them, and the technical content didn't help either. If you really want top band do put in more effort to understand the scientific principles in the slides for midterms and quizzes, it is possible to mug. 

 For the presentations and essays I felt he was slightly more on the lenient side, perhaps because I have more of an affinity towards the content. But I do feel that the midterm is potentially the biggest differentiator.

Learning Value/Recommendation: 

I didn't find it too useful, mainly as I zoned out during the first half. I found the war strategy side of things to be more interesting yet fairly surface level. What was more insightful was about how an LLM processed war information and made decisions, it increased my (potentially misplaced?) hope that the use of AI in militaries may not lead to WW3 after all.