Chemical Engineering student hacks and tricks in UTP

As a chemical engineering student in UTP, you will encounter many stuff/assessment which include:

• Integrated project (group assessment)

• Lab Experiment/ Report making (group assessment)

• Quizes (Individual/Pair/Group)

• Tests (Individual)

• Assignment (Individual/Pair/Group)

I will begin with 'least' weightage assessment which is quizes. When you enter in most of the courses/subjects, quizes is the most common assessment that your lecturer can give whether pop quizes or quizes with date given (hint by lecturers). Quiz is somehow not so hard as other assessment as it consist only one or two chapters of the course with weightage from 0.5% up to 10% (damn thats high but somehow possible).

Next is Assignment, assignment is mostly given to fulfill your extra coursework mark other than project,quizes and others. Assessment from my experience mostly given based on pair or grouping hence choose the best teammates or partners that you can rely on. Befriend with the smart ones is a good hack as they can 'guide' you along the assignment. But don't show a bad attitude, learn from them. Don't eventually leave them doing the stuff as you know, they can do it in the best answer but teamwork is crucial. Sometime the smart ones also make mistakes, miscalculate or misunderstood certain term. If you can't manage to get a 'genius' in your team, do a discussion with other team. Chemical Engineering (CE) students in UTP have among the best discussion with excellent lecturers to refer too.

Next is Tests, you mostly might encounter one or two test for a course but rarely three (my batch didn't encounter this before). I'm from September 17 batch by the way. One of the tips that I can share is most/some tests lecturer have give you some 'hint' in lectures. Keep in mind some question in tests looks impossible to understand but some of them are words to keep you from focusing the correct method and answer. Past year tests/ final exam papers are without a doubt are among the best reference that you can get. One but not least, consulting the lecturer about the chapters that will cover for test. You can feel that some lecturer intentionally focus on some questions that you may ask which come in the test. Tests mostly are around 10-20% of the coursework (CW) mark but Lab tests may reach to 40% a test (no kidding, try CE Lab later you'll know).

Then, Lab Report. Lab report mostly are group based where you will be done after you undergo experiments. Templates and marking rubric can be referred to lecturer as Lab report consist of two types, Short or normal report and Long report. The difference? Long report may need more research and parts such as Literature Review and Mechanisms. Lab report of a normal CE Lab that I have encounter is 5 to 7 reports including long reports. Lab Experiments session schedule might differ from each group where the tips comes in. Normally the first lab session will be the fresh and self research from online where you cannot refer to other group as the first lab session is different. The following lab session, you might ask other group that have done your future lab experiments for reference. You can refer the schedule below for more understanding.

Last but not least the most deadly (might be hell) assessment of all the Integrated Project. The word integrated means combining two or more courses silibus in one project. It might sounds hard but some courses correlate well with the other (probably). A semester, you might normally get one integrated project apart from us in our First Year, we got two (tired but fun somehow). You can refer to the ChemE-Car and IChEP blog for more info. Some projects may consist of application of CE tools, the software tools not the test tube beaker stuff I mean which are:

1. ASPEN HYSYS

2. iCON

3. Simulink or MATLAB

4. Microsoft Excel (to ease your calculation if a change/mistake is done)

5. Microsoft Visio (for PFD)

From my batch experience, in our Second year, all the groupings for project and labs are based on our CGPA. Like damn right? Strive towards better CGPA kids, its good sometimes to be smart which can get yourself a smart group mates. Integrated project might have a weightage of 10 - 20% per subject. Like go get good marks for this, it saves most of your courses. Installing the apps in your laptop/PC also saves time as you don't need to use the lab computer with is at block 3 ~ 5 which is a waste of energy unless your laptop is old and unreliable to run the apps.

In conclusion, don't skip lectures, course briefing and delay your assessment. Do or plan your assessment well. Consult the smart ones and lectures to get a better picture. It's hard to be lazy in UTP especially a CE student in UTP (no kidding). All the best!