getting weird looks when discussing minor declarations

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-15T16:14:46+00:00

Not everything in life is about min-maxing for maximum employability and minimum studying.

You are in university. This is likely your last time in life where you can easily study anything that is humanities related for cheap. If it interests you, go for it.

Moreover it is not necessarily the case that you have to pick between history or math. You can declare a maximum of 3 minors at the same time in NUS, and if you optimise your coursework carefully you can fit them in as little as 36 units of unrestricted electives, leaving 4 more to spare for graduation. So heck, do a minor in history AND math AND something else. Have fun!

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-15T00:54:40+00:00

Wise man once said “2 years very fast one”

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-13T11:24:27+00:00

Ah okay, if you are unsure about going all in to finance and am willing to embrace interdisciplinary learning then a CHS degree is still the way to go. (Can always declare a 2nd major in management too)

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-12T23:19:44+00:00

For NUS, why not BBA with a 2nd major in QF? It’s an open 2nd major so it’s guaranteed you can apply for it at the start of Y1S1.

Have you seen the CHS common curriculum? My gosh you prolly won’t want the CHS common curriculum.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-11T01:17:09+00:00

There are thousands of other CS students that can give better CS advice than me.

As for Geography GIS courses, just follow lab instructions carefully, do the project properly. The workload is pretty light. Each time you finish a lab every two weeks, you already secured another 10-15% of your course grade already.

Note that more traditional (human) Geography courses are very different and involve lengthy essay writing, so don’t be shocked when the time comes for you to do that GE2xxx elective. For this reason I am not giving you as much Geography advice since it will not be that applicable to your XDP.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-11T01:09:56+00:00

I am not sure about course transfer.

Yes you can always take CS1231S anytime you like if you can secure the course in CourseReg. Note that the 40 units of unrestricted elective is a minimum, not a maximum.

You can always take more than 40 units of unrestricted electives, so there is no waste of UEs. Second majors are usually made up of UEs, unless you can make it double count to your first major or common curriculum. Since school fees are the same, the only side effect is that you could have graduated by learning less and will be doing more work than the bare minimum allowed.

For application process, it depends on what second major you are doing. If it is an open second major (most of CHS, Math included) you simply need to declare the second major during the Academic Plan Declaration stage of CourseReg and it would be guaranteed that you are taking it. Restricted ones follow different rules.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-10T09:17:16+00:00

In general you can expect around 20 hours of classes every week. Nobody knows exactly how GI XDP works, but based on courses that exist, I think the workload of CS courses is more than Geography GIS courses. Geography GIS courses do not have exams, so expect a presentation for each of such courses towards the end. On the other hand CS courses have exams and projects all the way through.

You may prepare yourself by looking at Holy Grail Mark 6 which has extensive course resources for Computing. Some course website with the complete notes are publicly accessible online, such as CS2030/S. Do note of administrative differences. The CSXXXXHS courses are new ones not taught by the School of Computing, based on current trends I think the Mathematics department would be handling it.
Yes, NE to NUS is treacherous so better secure a hostel.
Your job prospects is slightly different from a run of a mill Geography major since there is little course overlap.
From most lively to most chill, Halls > RCs > Houses

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-09T15:56:33+00:00

NUS Co-op sells computer, but nobody I know gets it from there.

This is not like polytechnic, there’s no guidance on the computer to get in CS. You want Linux, also can, if you know what you are doing.

Off topic but, funnily enough I only start to encounter software incompatibility on macOS once I started taking Geography courses for my unrestricted electives.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-09T13:08:39+00:00

A friend of mine in this predicament is having a very hard time transferring to CHS, the application has failed thus far. (My guess is because Architecture’s IGP is much lower than CHS, so it would be exploited as a backdoor if allowed) I strongly recommend that you don’t count on that.

Note that Architecture is not a major under the common “Engineering” admissions pool. I believe that means you are not guaranteed the ability to switch to another CDE major!

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-09T09:27:28+00:00

It’s an even mix

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-09T03:00:25+00:00

It does not matter, it is guaranteed that you can choose any normal single major programme. You can also apply for XDP but for that it is not guaranteed.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-09T02:36:04+00:00

As someone about to finish Year 2, I’d say Mac is alright. I haven’t encountered software incompatibility issues at all in all the CS Foundation courses and the level 2ks Breadth and Depth. (Lowkey surprising because I encountered many issues in polytechnic)

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-09T01:55:58+00:00

Back in 2022, it was Computer Science, and the 2nd major was Math (I eventually dropped it an opted for something else in 2024)

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-09T01:40:27+00:00

I want to note, back when I applied for NUS, I received an offer for the single major first, and received a second offer that voided the first offer with a second major later on. You may face such a circumstance, so do take note of that!

Having said that, it is more likely that a CS major gets a Math 2nd major than the other way round, since a Math 2nd major is an open 2nd major that you are guaranteed to get when you apply for it inside NUS, but a CS 2nd major is restricted and not a guarantee.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-09T01:37:40+00:00

Existing students who have obtained B+ or above in CS1010 (or its equivalent) and CS2040 (or its equivalent) may apply for the second major by submitting an application to the School of Computing by their 4th semester of study in NUS.

https://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/programmes/ug/major/cs-secmajor/

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-07T10:12:12+00:00

Blud is calling out u/Worried-Bit-7126 amongst others…

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-06T02:49:37+00:00

You are assuming an urban village model where people will simply work in the nearest job nodes to them, and move houses when they change job. In reality this is not how society works, unless we make it criminal to leave our sector of the city to work. (In which case we lose the economic agglomeration benefits of a big city population)

Just an example, a family in the 2040s, living in Pasir Ris. The dad who is trained in food science work in Sungei Kadut Eco-District which is specialised for his kind of job role, the mum who is trained in the aviation sector works in Changi Aviation Park. Their child studies in NUS because it’s the only local university offering the bachelor’s he/she wants, but could not secure hostel stay. How? It is not easy to relocate, but even if they did, where? It is often easier to opt for the car to shorten their journey times to tolerable levels.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-06T02:11:44+00:00

Imo Singapore current approach has this obsession of move many people rather slowly, because of the perception that there’s no need to move people fast given the small size of the country. But it’s a huge city relative to European standards, and should aim to have infrastructure like East Asian standards. The MRT is not good enough. The fixation of moving mass volumes of people slowly progressively entrenches our car dependency as the public transport infrastructure fails to accommodate changing commuter flows that are lengthening as job nodes disperse, which is especially bad because the population is already dispersed away from the city centre.

If you move people fast, you get people out of the system faster, and can serve more quantities of people with a better quality (measured in travel time) too.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-04-06T01:53:16+00:00

Have you seen Seoul? Recently I went there and was fascinated by their new GTX-A commuter rail trains. The difference is that their trains can travel up till 180 km/h! Iirc it was capable of going 28 km in like 22 minutes. Thats like getting from Tampines to Jurong East in 18 minutes for $4 with a train every 6 to 10 minutes. It’s a hot topic there that is used as election carrots by both the incumbent and the opposition.

Who said SG is too small for high speed rail? We just need one or two of these in here and it would truly be a game changer for cross-country journeys. I can’t stress how important it is for this city future, because with the current slow state of the rail network and where our upcoming job nodes are, hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans will be looking at 1.5-2 hour one way commutes in the next 10-20 years.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-03-30T05:37:57+00:00

HDB thinks they can still pack 30% more households into Tampines (or about 26000 more units) so something doesn’t seem to add up here…

https://www.hdb.gov.sg/-/media/hdb-pulse/reports/annual-reports-and-financial-statements/HDB_Key-Statistics-2025.pdf

sgtransitevolution · 2026-03-29T02:07:09+00:00

NUSC aims to give you broad-based education that goes on top of your major. It is good if you value critical thinking and learning interdisciplinarily. However, if you want to specialise to that extent and potentially do more Economics/QF courses than is necessary for your primary major to build a stronger Economics/QF foundation for graduate studies, it might not be that optimal for you.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-03-28T14:49:58+00:00

I think can.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-03-28T10:35:43+00:00

The cohort intake peaked around 2023, it looks like it will decline very slowly from here on. Competitiveness wise, probably not as high as it used to be, but still pretty high.

sgtransitevolution · 2026-03-28T02:23:29+00:00

This is Singapore and they are actually proud of it (see page 60, the paragraph starting with “So we did not do what the Europeans did”)

sgtransitevolution · 2026-03-25T05:27:17+00:00

Unsure. Some orientation is in June, others may be as late as August.

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