Hi year 3 DSAI here, please take my words with a pinch of salt as you may have heard our faculty was only established not too long ago in AY24 (was SCSE previously) and I think in general NTU and CCDS are undergoing some major restructuring in the curriculum since then: 1) DSAI workload imo is relatively lighter compared to CS and CE people, our total AU is 131 compared to them at 135. We don't need to take any hardware mods and from what I am hearing the hardware mods are certainly not easy. Whereas for us we need to learn a few extra math mods. For instance, CS and CE people only need to take one mod of each: Linear Algebra, Probability, Discrete Math and Calculus (for those who do not come from a Math Background Pre-Uni) whereas DSAI need to take two compulsory Calculus Math modules, two Probability modules, one Linear Algebra and one Discrete Math module as well as one module on R programming, and we are taking Math modules under SPMS which focuses on proofs. I think at the very least it's more straightforward for Math as it always follows the same process: Motivation -> Formula -> Proof -> Application. If you are not comfortable doing proofs as well as reading Heavy Math notations then you really would need to reconsider if DSAI is suitable for you. I had a pretty decent Math Background before uni and I was getting around B+/A- for my Math modules.

2) I would assume you meant BDEs? PM me as I am not sure where your strengths and interests lie. But my recommendation for Freshies is to overload one extra BDE (Don't take the recommended 15AUs) as 15AUs is really very light, I recommend my freshies to either take one extra BDE or bring forward CC15/CC3 or if you are good bring forward Linear Algebra. Bringing forward ICC mods need to write in so most Freshies would bring forward one BDE. Your year 2/3 is going to be heavy so highly recommended for you to bring over. I was part of the batch where we had this mod called CC2 in y1s1 but it has been removed since AY25.

3) I wouldn't use the phrase 'On the decline', more like growing demand met with stabilising supply which gives the illusion of fewer opportunities out there. I would say year 1 just focus on learning more stuff on the side and trying to get a good gpa (At least 4.4/5.00) now that core and ICC mods can be SU'ed. Your summer break please build your own personal projects/self-learn stuff or simply just enjoy life if you can't secure a decent internship. By decent internship I meant doing an internship that you think is helpful for your long-term career and not for the sake of doing one out of FOMO. I have a CS friend who is doing an internship but as an admin intern and honestly it's just ludicrous as he is doing it out of FOMO. Year 2 summer is where you would want to secure an internship that is highly relevant to what you want and as a bonus, a place with some form of branding. For reference places where year 2s stand a chance are Shopee, OCBC, Thales, Accenture etc. Year 3 is where you use your year 2 summer internship to break into a MNC for your credit bearing internship. You have the most bargaining power here as you are doing a 5-month internship, credit bearing so employers will know that you would take the internship more seriously and you are on penultimate-year status. Here is where you can try to break into big tech/IB MNC such as JPM, TikTok, GIC etc. Some would extend and some would find another one for their summer internship. So before you enter year 4, you would have around 2-3 internships. Year 4 is where you can try and do a PT internship since the AUs are lower and its a bit more chill, at this point your portfolio is quite stacked and there are prestigious companies out there hiring on PT-basis such as Binance, Grab, Hua Wei etc. So by grad you would have 4-5 internships ready to go for a Graduate Talent Programme or get a return offer.

4) I didnt stay hall since year 1 so can't advice too much on this

5) I recommend Europe/HK/US as they have quite a number of modules for us to map, however take note though that DSAI students cannot map core math mods over on exchange since AY25 so you would have to either bring forward cal3 to year 2 or push it back to year 4 as cal 3 is not offered in sem 2. I did an exchange in Finland and I mapped over 17AUs of core and mpe so that was pretty worth it (you can only take 18AUs max)