🎲 My top 3 favorite electives in NTU/NIE 🖌️

When I studied psychology a few years back in NTU, we have a lot of room and free time to take up other electives. I would like to share my top 3 favorite electives:

🖌️1. Drawing [AAA18E] from NIE

I really enjoyed this module. My drawing skills aren’t great but I always wanted to get better at it, so I took this module. This module was also very beginner-friendly, and the lecturer was very kind and patient. She believed that everyone can draw, and drawing is a skill that everyone can pick up.

If you see students sitting along the NIE corridor trying to draw, yeah that’s us from the class. It felt pretty cool, to be honest. There’s also this art critique segment after every art lesson, and we were supposed to put all our art pieces against the wall and we will take a look at them. The lecturer will give you comments and feedback. It was a very unique experience, most of the time you will either feel embarrassed or in awe. It’s amazing how well some people can draw.

But yeah, eventually you will be able to witness your progress from start to finish and it’s just amazing. I find the module very therapeutic and I really enjoyed going to class every week.

📘 2. Manga Illustration (I’m not sure what’s the exact name and index) from NIE

Well I am a fan of anime and manga and I have always wanted to learn how to draw manga characters. So I took a leap of faith to register for this class. You know sometimes you just want to take easy-to-score modules in university, but nah, I’m a crazy person so YOLO.

But yeah the difference in skill in this class is the greatest. You see quite a number of people who already can draw super well, some of whom are in the manga club/CCA. Then you are this basic noob. Honestly, the module isn’t very beginner friendly but I did enjoy my time there. I can’t draw very well but I also felt that I was quite demoralized by the difference in skill and also didn’t invest as much time (I mean I also learned that I shouldn’t be as crazy as I did for my board game module, for the sake of my GPA). I managed to squeeze something though, which I am still proud of.

But yeah, if you are thinking of taking this module (if it is still around), highly recommend for you to S/U it. I S/U-ed it without a second thought. It wasn’t easy but at least I did something I always wanted to do without always thinking about GPA this GPA that.

🎲 3. Tabletop Game Design I [AAA18G] from NIE

This was hands-down my favorite module (even more than my main psychology modules). At first, my friend told me that there is this NIE module where you could just play board games every week. WHAT. I have to find out if that’s true. So I registered for this module and got in. AND YES IT IS TRUE LOL. We literally just come to class every week, and the lecturer will just give us one board game to play. No cap, you literally just come to class to play board games.

So what are the grading requirements? You have a mid-term assignment where you need to write a game-review/strategy analysis for the lecturer’s card game, and you also need to create your own board game at the end of the entire module. It really depends on how much effort you want to put in for this module. Most people just come here and play board games to destress every week, and submit some basic board game for their final project and S/U (pass-fail) it. The intent of playing different board games every week is to expose you to different genres of games and also to hopefully expose and inspire you to different game mechanics which will help you create your board game.

Well for me, I literally put in all my effort for this module LOL. I did a lot of research, game-testing and design. My design and photoshop skills are not that great but I did something that my perfectionist brain can accept. I wanted to create an “elegant” game that was easy-to-learn, fun, high replayability, and low time investment (<30mins, ideally 10-20mins per game session). In the end, I was very touched when I got an A for this module because I invested all my efforts in this. I flunked my other elective and got like C/D, I think (totally pulled down my GPA) but no regrets. It’s a memory that I will remember for life.

All in all, I had a lot of flexibility in choosing my electives and I also had the tendency to choose fun modules rather than just easy-to-score electives. Well GPA is important but life isn’t just about results and grades. These modules helped to create fond memories that I will hold close to my heart and remember for the rest of my life.

💬 Are there any fun modules that you took in university that you would like to share/recommend to others? Comment down below!

P.S. I realized all 3 electives are from NIE, usually NIE electives are more fun la

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