EC1301 Principles of Economics

Module Description
This course is designed to teach the basic principles of economics to undergraduates from non-economic majors. It introduces students to elementary microeconomic and macroeconomic concepts and provides them with an economic framework to understand the workings of individual markets, the aggregate economy, as well as international trade and finance.

Background: I obtained an A in H1 economics. Take note, only H1 economics. On top of that, I could hardly remember anything from H1 economics because of National Service. However, I thought that the concepts were not too hard to grasp. Most of the topics sounded new to me.

Microeconomics
- Introduction to Economics (Scarcity, choice, opportunity cost)
- Supply & Demand
- Elasticity
- Cost, Production and Profit Maximization
- Market Structure (Perfect Comp, Monopoly, Monopolistic Competition & Oligopoly)
- Economic Efficiency and government's role

Macroeconomics
- Production, Income, Unemployment, Price Level and Inflation
- Classical LR and SR model, Economic Growth
- Fiscal policy, Fluctuations, Keynesian Model
- Money, Banking, Central Banking
- AD-AS model, Macro policy
- Exchange rates

Workload
Two two-hours lecture
This module is covered by two lecturers. Mr Chan Kok Hoe covered macroeconomics. He is okay but not memorable, since I cannot really remember much about him. Dr Connie Chung is very funny! The way she presented the slides kept me awake for most part of her lectures. All in all, the lecturers are alright :)

There is nothing much to say about the lecture notes except that they are all from the textbook. Honestly, for this module, the lecture notes will suffice but if you feel that you don't understand the lecture notes, it is good to use the textbook as supplement.

There is no real need to buy the textbook. During my year, the e-book of the textbook was available to us on Aplia for free. If I am not wrong, it only covers the microeconomics section. (Correction: I was wrong, the book covers macro as well :))

Lectures are webcasted. So if you don't understand anything, you can always watch them. However, during my year, the lectures were held in LT27 and the quality of the webcasts were not very good.

Weekly online assignment on Aplia (Aplia is this online learning platform that replaces tutorials)

Online assignment takes about an hour or less to complete. It is a good habit to call your friends to check answer. During my semester, the weightage was 10% but it is still quite important to grab hold of those marks since this is an "easy" mod. You will need to refer to the textbook to answer some of the question. (textbook provided on Aplia)

Assessment (AY11/12 Sem 1)
10% Weekly online assessment on Aplia.
30% MCQ mid terms
60% MCQ finals (Every semester, the NUS economics society will sell exam solutions. So you can check them out)
Traditionally no negative marking.
The papers are not too hard as long as you are clear of the concepts.

Personal
 I did my own summary in the form of small notes to revise for final exam (the final exam fell on my birthday, so that sucks).
I did above average for mid terms, 27/30
I did okay for the weekly assessment (8 plus?)
I think I did well for finals, hence the result.

Extra notes to readers: I have past year papers and lecture notes. If anyone is interested, download them from my Dropbox.
If you want to know more about the modules I have taken, you may refer to this list or the labels on the right! :D