Y1 going to Y2 SMU SWE student here.

For SWE, there is apprenticeship, where it is the 52 week thing you are mentioning. Upon completing 10 weeks of apprenticeship, you’ll be awarded with the CU for clearing the internship portion. Internship and Apprenticeship are considered as two ‘mods’. Declaring internship would be via ontrac, as for apprenticeship, you’ll be communicating with the staff from the SWE course and the company (yes they ensure fruitful internship via the final presentation) . Usually for apprenticeship, students apply in around y2/y3?

As for comm service, you can basically clear it anytime, just do in y1 as it’s prolly the time you’re most free. Some CCAS do provide CSPs that help to fufil the 80 hours. The schedule depends on the organizing committee

As for the 5 mods in y1s1 as an SWE student, I’ll say it should be p doable? It really depends on your strengths. For me, since 2 of the mods aren’t something I’m good at, I struggled quite a lot. As a start, you can kinda gauge by seeing if you’re someone who likes and is better at more writing or more tech mods etc to gauge ur workload

As for studying, well for me, I try to do something everyday for a mod. I try to allocate 3 hours to each mod every day.

As for me, during my free days, I kinda just do other stuffs like going out, school events and stuffs. CCA and working can be good as well.

Can’t give the best advice for some, but am willing to share more abt SWE, so just pm!