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My Course Works
SMU requires us to pass 6 courses with some minimum requirements. I took those 6 courses in my first year (term 1 and term 2). I took 3 courses in term 1, namely: Decision Support & Optimization, Information Storage & Retrieval and Information Security. And the rest of 3 courses in the next term, namely: Advanced Topics in Intelligent Decision Support, Advanced Topics in Databases and Information Retrieval, and Information System and Management. The entire courses were not easy. I had to struggle to finish all the home works, assignments and term papers. I managed to pass all of it =D with a lot of hard work. Here are some summary about it.
Decision Support and Optimization
This course covered classical algorithmic paradigms, graph and network model and algorithms, mathematical and constraint modelling, local search and advanced heuristic. This course was taught by my supervisor, Professor LAU Hoong Chuin. Even though this is one of the courses in my primary research area, for me, this was the most difficult course during my PhD course works. And because of this is my primary research area, I had to pass it with minimum requirement A-. It made the pressures higher.
My most difficult topics in this course were asymptotics and recurrences. I was not really good in mathematics and already forgot a lot of mathematic symbols, that’s why asymptotics and recurrences looked more difficult. I stayed up really late just to finish asymptotics and recurrences assignments. I finally managed to pass this course with a lot of struggling.
Information Storage & Retrieval
This course covering theory, design and implementation of data management and information retrieval systems. Taught by Professor Pang Hwee Hwa. I really felt that this course was not too difficult or maybe I felt that way because I have already studied this during my Master degree. And because I thought it is easy, I tend to underestimated it. As the consequence, I didn’t get my expected result and I did poor term paper and poor presentation. A moral lesson from this course: never underestimate anything.
Information Security
This course covered the key facets of information security, from theory to applications in a networked environment. This course was taught by Professor Robert Deng. Ever since my undergraduate studies, I never really fond anything related to security. It was the course that I wish I could skip. Even thought Prof. Deng was really nice, I still felt like I could not understand. But I still managed to pass this course (with a lot of hardwork, browsing the Internet and help from my friends).
Advanced Topics in Intelligent Decision Support
This course explored recent advances in intelligent decision support methodologies. Taught by Professor LAU Hoong Chuin. This course was more like series of seminars rather than in lecturing. I enjoyed this course. I learned a lot in this course and my term paper in this course is one of my research projects (deliberation problem) that I’m still working on until now.
Advanced Topics in Databases and Information Retrieval
This course studied research and survey papers in database and information retrieval, with an emphasis on system and application issues. This course was taught by Professor Pang Hwee Hwa. I had difficulty in choosing a good topic for my term paper. I asked my supervisor, Prof. Lau, weather he had a topic related to this course and luckily, he and Prof. Pang had discussed about one database problem (query distribution problem) that might be can be solve with meta-heuristic algorithms. So, I started to work on that topic and make a fine term paper about it (not really good one, it was just fine).
Information System and Management
This course covered an overview of fundamental research methodologies in information systems and management. This course was taught by Professor Ma Dan. I was unexpected, that in this course used numbers of economic terms. I didn’t really like economy and I didn’t have a basic knowledge in economy. So, understanding this course was a real challenge.
Those were my course works. I have learned so much from the entire courses.
Contact:
School of Information System
Singapore Management
University
80 Stamford Road
Singapore 178902
Email:
lindawati.2008@phdis.smu.edu.sg