Module: EC3332 (Money & Banking I)
AY17/18 Sem 1
Grading:
- Tutorial attendance and participation: 15%
- Closed book mid-term test: 35%
- Closed book final examination: 50%
Review 1:
Lecturer: Seet Min Kok
Tutor: Zhu YanQi
What it’s about: The first half of the module focuses on the banking portion where students would be exposed to the structure of the financial system, the 2008 financial crisis and certain technical terms (e.g. Stocks, Bonds, etc). The second half of the module focuses on interest rates and monetary policy.
Assignment workload: Workload is not heavy, tutorials are simple as the answers can be found in the lecture notes. Personally, I feel that the lecturer’s notes explain the concepts quite well so there is no need to read the textbook.
Thoughts about the tutor: The tutor prepares a summary for each lecture and recaps the important concepts during tutorial which is very helpful. However, she ‘volunteers’ you instead of you volunteering yourself so do come prepared every tutorial. Personally, I find her quite nice and she explains the material well.
Project workload & question/theme: NIL
Readings: The textbook, which is supplementary as the lecture notes are quite sufficient.
Exam: Midterms were conducted in a MCQ format. However, the questions asked were quite tricky so you must know your material well. The average for the paper wasn’t that high either since it was quite tricky (around 21/35 if I’m not wrong, I could be wrong). The final examination consisted of 4 short-answer questions and each question had 2 parts. The final examination was wayyyyy easier compared to the midterms (I had time to finish the paper while going at a leisurely pace). The bell-curve is going to be steep for finals.
Recommended if: You want a less quantitative module (Simple math involved). Although, it is quite content heavy so choose wisely. Note: For economics students pursuing honours with a specialization in Monetary & Financial Economics, this module is compulsory.
Rating: 3.5/5 (The lecturer was quite funny but the material was not)
Expected grade: B
Actual grade: B+
Review 2:
Lecturer: Seet Min Kok
Tutor: Zhu Yanqi
What it’s about: The module talks mainly about monetary policy and the functions of financial institutions (hence the title). Some of the covered topics include the money supply process, theories of money demand, and financial crises.
Assignment workload: Weekly problem set of about 4 to 6 short structured questions to be covered during tutorial. The answers can usually be found in the lecture notes.
Thoughts about the tutor: She covers a short summary of what was taught during lecture every tutorial session. One good thing was that she picks people to present on the problem sets’ questions so that everyone gets a fair chance and we’ll get some class participation marks 🙂
Project workload & question/theme: No projects
Readings: Probably just look through the lecture slides since he uploads them before lecture to better understand the lecture contents. You can also read the textbook (it’s stated as compulsory), but personally, I stopped reading after midterms as there was no time but the lecture slides were sufficient.
Exam: Midterms was solely MCQs while finals consisted of only short-answer questions. I found the midterm rather tough as many options seem correct so choosing just one was not a simple task. However, the final paper was relatively easy, it’s as if most of the answers can be found in the lecture slides. I didn’t memorize any content but I’m sure if you tried to memorize everything you would still score decently. This is bad because the bell curve is probably gonna kill most people. Oh wells…
Recommended if: You prefer content-heavy over math-heavy Econs modules HAHA, ok but it is indeed an interesting module 🙂
Rating: 4/5
Expected grade: B
Actual grade: C+
Plain Janes 