Just the other day, I was talking to a friend about academic plans for the upcoming school year. It was then I realised not everyone knows which are the core modules we need to clear. This inspired me to blog about the topic of NUS BBA's programme structure and create a template to track the modules taken. Hopefully, with the template, you won't miss out on any graduating requirements. Read till the end of this post for the free template that I have created!
Introduction
Undergraduates in NUS Business School are automatically enrolled in the BBA(Honours) programme. However, you have the right to opt-out from the honours programme and graduate with a basic degree if you wish to do so. If not, by the end of your undergraduate years, in order to graduate with honours, you must have completed a total of 160 modular credits (MCs) worth of modules and fulfiled the requirements below:
General education (GE) modules: 20 MCs
Business core modules: 50 MCs
Business specialisation modules: 24 MCs
Honours programme modules: 20 MCs
Unrestricted elective (UE) modules: 46 MCs
Under the NUS modular system, each module typically weighs 4 MCs. While there are some modules that only occupy 2 MCs or 3 MCs, they're less common!
Apart from the abovementioned graded graduating requirements, there are also non-credit graduating requirements to fulfil. They include:
Academic orientation modules:
BPM1701 Calculus & Statistics
BPM1702 Microsoft Excel Skills for Business
Intensive 1st-year primer module:
BPM1705 Understanding How Business Works
Career preparation modules:
Career creation starter modules
STR1000
STR2000
Global immersion and study
Generally, you should aim to clear 40 MCs / year (160/4) or 20 MCs / semester! You may overload and underload accordingly depending on your plans for overseas exchange or if you're considering to do a semester internship. Here is a pictorial guide provided by the BBA Office. I found this useful as it gives some sort of structure as to what modules to bid for if they are not preallocated.
GE modules
To help us learn and develop holistically, NUS made it mandatory for us to clear the 5 pillars under general education. They are:
Human cultures (GEH)
Asking questions (GEQ)
Quantitative reasoning (GER)
Singapore studies (GES)
Thinking and questioning (GEQ)
As we only need to clock in 20 MCs worth of GE modules, and each module is normally worth 4 MCs, to fulfil the GE requirements, all we have to do is take one module from each pillar within our undergraduate years. You don't have to rush to take all of them in your first year as it'll be great to balance out your 3k or 4k modules with these generally easier 1k, GE modules in later years. Okay, so you might be wondering what does 1k, 2k, 3k, 4k modules mean. I'll be covering that in the Type of modules section later on!
Business core modules
Business core modules are foundational modules that you have to clear before taking higher level modules in later years when you declare and specialise in a major. They can be categorised into:
Analytical core
Functional core
Leadership core
It is best to clear them within the first 2 years else you may not be able to take certain higher level modules when specialising.
Business specialisation modules
There are 7 specializations we can select from. While it is not necessary to declare your specialisation in your first 2 years, it is something you should start thinking about seriously. The earlier you start planning, the less stressful it is when bidding for modules from Y2S2 onwards.
For each of these 7 specialisations, there are modules you must clear to graduate with that specialisation indicated on your degree, and others you can choose from so please do your research carefully and make sure you fulfil all the requirements!
Just to share, the 7 different specializations you can choose from are:
Business analytics
Innovation and entrepreneurship
Business economics
Leadership and human capital management
Finance
Marketing
Operations and supply chain management
Honours programme modules
Under the honours programme, you have the choice between 2 tracks, the Research option and the Coursework option. As I have yet to reach that stage yet, I won't be covering it in detail as of now.
UE modules
Yayy, the section where we can bid for whatever modules we wish to study and pursue our interests accordingly! Some people choose to clear their UEs by taking up random courses they are interested in while others bid for modules to fulfil the requirements of a second major or minor or specialization. Personally, I'm thinking of doing a double specialization but nothing's set in stone!
Types of modules
Apart from the different types of modules I have covered in the Introduction, NUS modules can be categorised into the different disciplines and different levels. The different modules each have a unique module code which comprises of a 2/3-letter prefix that indicates the discipline and a 4-digit number that indicates the level. For example, 1000 (1k) is a level 1 module. The higher the level, the more advanced the modules are, and you have to clear the stated prerequisites for the modules before bidding for them. Like I said before, you don't have to try to clear all the 1k modules, especially those GE and UE modules early on. This is because you can use these easier 1k modules to balance out the heavier and more challenging workload from 3k or 4k modules in your later years!!
S/U option
Ahh the glorious S/U option!!! The S/U exercise is part of the NUS grade-free scheme which gives you the power to replace your letter grades with S (satisfactory for ≥C grade) or U (ungraded for <C grade). When you choose to S/U a module, the corresponding grade for that module will not be factored into your cumulative average point (CAP). This is all part of NUS efforts to allow its students to smoothly transition and get used to the university academic rigour. Use it wisely, but don't overuse it or else it might destabilise your CAP!
At the start of Y1, you are given a total of 32 MCs worth of S/Us to use. However, only up to 12 MCs of the remaining S/Us you have leftover from Y1 can be carried over to subsequent years. A really, really important thing to note is that S/Us can only be used for 1k modules (with or without prerequisites) and 2k modules without any other NUS modules as prerequisites.
Deciding what modules to S/U was really difficult back in Y1S1. However, in Semester 2, 2 NUS students developed 2 telegram bots under @NUSAcadPlan which all NUS students can use to aid their S/U decision-making. Here are the links to the telegram bots:
Check out this LinkedIn post by one of the telegram bots' creators for more information.
Free template for tracking academic modules and grades
Having the need to track the modules I have taken, the corresponding grades and my CAP, I came up with this Excel spreadsheet. All you have to do is to type in the module codes and titles and use the drop-down list to enter the relevant data. You can download this free excel sheet through this link or head over to the resource tab in the main menu of this blog. *
After you have downloaded the spreadsheet, fill in the cells under the red headers. Upon inputting the relevant information, you will obtain the total number of MCs you have cleared, as well as your CAP after declaring your S/Us. Hope you found this helpful, whether you are an incoming freshman or an existing undergraduate!
Links you might find helpful:
*NOTE:
I made the Google Sheets view only because if everyone can edit at the same time, no one will get a result! So please DOWNLOAD it to use! Thank you!
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