UK Grad Trip - Thoughts

Unlike my US trip, I won't be blogging in a chronological order, but just in a thematic way. Will just blog whatever random thoughts come to mind.

Seven
When I first asked the group whether anyone was interested in going on a grad trip back in end-2013, I had only expected the 5 of us - Wilbur, Nella, Amelia, Gerald, and me. The gf was tentatively involved in other plans, and honestly I didn't know where I wanted to go and wanted someone else to make the decisions.

Fastforward a few months, the group had expanded to 7 to include my gf and Rhoda, and plans were on the way. Air tickets were booked. Accommodations were booked. Oh crap. I was really going to travel with 7 people.

Travelling in such a big group has pros and cons. The most obvious con of decision-making being difficult was actually manifested in quite a different way. Instead of having too many conflicting ideas (which I had prepared for by just splitting up and going off with the gf), we had too little ideas - almost everyone in the group was a 'anything' person.

E.g. "Where do you guys want to go?"
'Anything!'
"Do you want to go to this place?"
'Anything!'
"Should we eat at that restaurant?"
'Anything!'
"Can you climb on the top of the building and jump off while yelling 'I am superman'?"
'Anything!'

Ok the last one was nonsense. But this was really pretty much the whole trip, which got really frustrating as I am personally also an 'Anything' person so nothing would be planned till the very last minute, when I can't take it anymore and I would just pen down a list of activities and assume everyone wants to do that.

Another con of 7 people is that it takes time to move. Getting ready was surprisingly quick, mainly due to the girls waking up ridiculously early (good as we leave relatively on time, bad as it wakes me up when they move around and make noise if we're in the same apartment). The problem was moving on from each place we went to. Some will be ready to go but others will want to see a bit more or buy a few more things, which resulted in a lot of delay. I think if I went alone with the gf we would have covered easily twice the number of places.

Planning
I made the mistake of not being involved in planning until much later. I saw that there were a few others more keen than me and they seemed to be brimming with ideas, plus I was involved in some other activities, so I was quite lacklustre in the stages of planning leading up to our trip.

This was a mistake as it resulted in, on hindsight, some poor decisions, such as spending an entire week in London (I think 3 days was enough to cover everything), not going to Paris or somewhere outside of UK, going to South Downs (we effectively only went to ONE place), buying the London Pass (I think we only used 50 pounds worth at most. It cost 100+ pounds).

I'm not saying that if I had been more vocal initially we would have avoided these mistakes. After all, hindsight is only 20/20. But I definitely would have pushed for going out of UK more, and not going to South Downs, or at least planning our time there better.

Musicals/Plays
Before the trip, the most anticipated moment was when we watched Les Miserables in London. The rest of the itinerary didn't seem that exciting or interesting to me (museums and shitz), but I thought I would really enjoy musicals and even made plans to watch several more such as Phantom and Mathilda.

In the end, we did watch Phantom as well but not Mathilda. And while I really did enjoy the performances - they were splendid songs, music, emotional singers, etc - I couldn't quite reconcile spending such a large amount of money simply to watch it. I paid 69pounds (about 150$ after booking costs) for Les Miserables... it was good but I couldn't stop thinking how expensive it was and how I was better able to follow the movie version (storyline-wise) which cost only $10.

I came to the conclusion that musicals were great for a first-time experience for me, but I wouldn't be SUPER keen to go again (definitely will not go for the same show-_- I dont' understand how some people are willing to watch the same musical again)

Food
I claim to live by the phrase: "Some people eat to live. I live to eat". I love food. I would gladly pay abit more to eat better food. I wouldn't call myself a foodie, and I'm not into fine dining at all. But I do love good food.

In the UK, the cheapest meal costs about 3 pounds, and is a pathetic meat sandwich or something. The average meal costs 6-8 pounds, while if you eat at restaurants it may be 8-15 pounds. (just double everything for SGD).

With such hefty prices, I was actually quite deterred to try anything special/new, and simply went for the cheaper options often. Furthermore, the food wasn't exactly special - fish and chips, burgers, sandwiches, english breakfast etc were things I actually eat quite often back in Singapore. Thus I didn't really enjoy myself, cuisine-wise, in UK, as compared to when I was in Japan.


Money
I think I really need to let myself go money-wise if I want to enjoy holidays. I came back from the trip with 25% of my money left, as I was constantly scrooge-ing and saving over there. On hindsight I think I would have enjoyed myself more if I had just assumed this was 'holiday money' and I was going to spend it all, and just ... spend.

In Psychology, we learn about a concept called hedonic treadmill. The gist of it is that we, as human beings, are great at adapting to our current situations, whether good or bad. Thus when we experience good (or bad) things, we adapt to them, and the happiness ( or sorrow) it brings us diminishes over time, and then it affects us less than before.

A simple example would be if I used to earn $100 a month, then a $10 meal seems like a big deal to me. But later if I earn $10000 a month, I get used to $10 meals, and I would start to desire $20, $50 meals, etc. Thus, it's like we're on a treadmill - we keep moving forward but never actually move in terms of our happiness - we just adapt, and our happiness returns to a baseline.

I bring this up as I think it's hard for me to adapt to a more well-off situation (i.e. now, when I am working). I was raised to be frugal, to save, to scrimp and save. It's hard to shake off 24 years of frugality and start spending more freely simply because I earn more money now. I wonder if Psychology will be right or I will be an exception.


What I Liked
I was fairly neutral about almost every part of the trip, apart from a couple of highlights - watching my first musical (Les Mis), making an impromptu trip down to Loughborough to eat soemin's yummy cooking and to spend a day with bestie, and the Emirates stadium tour.

Thinking about it, this was on in London! What about the first 7 days? Well, two reasons why they may have not been so enjoyable :
1) I'm a checklist kind of traveller - I like going to major attractions and checking them off my list (e.g. in the States I visited Empire state building, golden gate bridge, Grand Canyon, etc). If I had planned it myself, I would only have gone to London and perhaps spend the rest of the time bouncing around Europe. Or at least go around UK, instead of staying just in England.
2) SH had a tooth infection in the first half of the trip which really worried me sick. The thought of her possibly suffering some sort of permanent disability really broke my heart - everytime I looked at her and see her struggle to smile with her swollen cheek, I'm not sure if the pain was greater for her or for me. Thank God that she is better now and has sought appropriate treatment. I pray that she will recover fully!

Of course, the culture immersion was great - this is something I'll always enjoy about travelling even if I'm physically drained from the activity. English people are really nice and friendly! Literally every single person we asked for directions was patient, friendly, and remarkably detailed. Some even chatted with us briefly. They are like less forward Americans, but just as friendly! Of course, the British accent is awesome :D

The service staff were also very very polite and nice - it reminded me of Japan, but in a different way. Japan's service staff is more of a subservient kind of nice, while the English staff were more genuine and warm.

Key lessons
I guess some things I learnt from this trip were: travel in as small a group as possible; be proactive in planning of the trip (unless it's SH planning it... lol. I enjoyed our Japan trip despite planning virtually nothing. Maybe it's just the company); don't be afraid to spend - it's a holiday!

Types of puzzles in a puzzle room.

I have gone for about 9 escape rooms from different companies now. There are several categories that puzzles fall into. There can and is usually overlap between categories.

A.1) Search
The simplest and sometimes the most boring types of puzzles are those that need you to find -something- that is taped to a wall, under a box, behind a cabinet or something like that. I won't even call these puzzles.
Some examples would be hidden keys, hidden clues, etc.

While these are the most necessary puzzles to have (since escape rooms ARE about finding clues), I don't like it when they form the crux of a particular stage (e.g. need to find an obscure hidden object to unlock next lock).

Rather, having easy-to-locate but difficult to figure out HOW to use it type Search puzzles are probably the best and most fulfilling (since you feel like you're using your brains primarily to solve, not your ability to play hide and seek with hidden objects)


Tips for New Puzzle Solvers: Have 1 (or 2) dedicated 'Seekers' who have keen eyes to search everywhere for any useful clues once you begin or when moving to a new zone. It's not just a matter of looking, you may have to interact with the environment (e.g. touch or pull or push something to reveal something hidden, etc).

A.2) Search and Combine
These are an extension of Search type puzzles, where you have to find more than 1 object and use them together to get past something.

To use a fictional example so as not to spoil any of the existing puzzles (You will figure out what this means when you see it), a Search and Combine can be something like I found Object A, and I find Object B, I need to use them together to get more clues. Xcape has quite a few of such puzzles, and The Escape Artist has utilized some of such puzzles in their Prinsep Street branch.

B) Riddle
Riddles are straightforward (but not necessarily easy) - they are simply an IQ-like puzzle on a piece of paper (or papers) that requires you to solve something on them. They can be in the form of logic puzzles, math-like puzzles, or literal riddles. These are arguably The Escape Artist's specialty - they have more riddles than other escape companies and their riddles are good and challenging. Their original branch (Bukit Timah) with only singular rooms utilized mostly Riddle puzzles.

These are usually fun, but having too many is also detrimental as if puzzle-goers are stuck at a particular riddle it can be frustrating (more so than being stuck at the next category of puzzles).

Tips for New Puzzle Solvers: Keep track of every clue you see that you have not used. You may have to come back to it in a subsequent area. If there is no obvious method to solve the Riddle, it's probably a Multi-staged Riddle and you need to utilize a clue from somewhere else.

C) Multi-staged Riddle
This category is slightly different from the previous one. Normal Riddle puzzles can be solved by just looking at deducing from the piece of paper that the puzzle is on. Multistaged Riddle puzzles require you to find clues from elsewhere (can be same area, or maybe previous areas) to solve it.

These are arguably one of the more fun categories, as it feels more challenging when it really isn't, and is just about knowing you have to use a particular object (should not be too randomly connected) to solve the main puzzle.
Later puzzles in a room are usually multistaged puzzles as they require you to go back to something you've seen earlier to get clues to solve them.


Tips for New Puzzle Solvers: Keep track of every clue you see that you have not used. You may have to come back to it in a subsequent area.

D) Props-based Puzzles
This involves special locks (not all locks are number or key locks! :)) or special puzzle boxes or other props that you have to figure out how to use. I won't elaborate so as not to spoil the surprise and fun of figuring out how to open a particular lock. There are some very creative locks out there :)

These are very fun to have, but of course, should not be repeated across rooms as the novelty wears off immediately.

Tips for New Puzzle Solvers: Veteran puzzle solvers will have no problem recognizing particular locks, but first time solvers just need to figure out how a particular lock works.

Should I write an Honors Thesis? (PL4401)

Should I write an honors thesis, PL4401? How do I do it? Is it difficult?

These are questions many undergraduates find themselves asking, and are also questions I've been asked numerous times. Thus I hope this entry will help people to make a more informed decision. If you have any queries feel free to email me at atqhteo [at] gmail [dot] com.

--

Let me start with a disclaimer. I am a Psychology major at NUS, so what I say may not be 100% accurate for other majors/schools. In addition, this post was written in 2014, so if you're reading this much later, some policies may have changed.

Most people, when they decide they want to write a thesis or are thinking about it, there are 2 broad reasons why they want to do so.

1) They want to pursue postgraduate studies, or have a keen interest on research / scientific inquiry about a particular topic(s), or you are aiming for First Class.
2) They prefer writing a thesis over taking 3 modules

If you fall into the first category, I suppose you wouldn't even be reading this blog post. So most people are in the 2nd category, and are deliberating whether it is really better to write a thesis than to take 3 modules.

I  will present what I believe to be the most common questions + main things you need to consider.


Which Professor should I approach? How do I approach him? When should I do so?

Which Professor? Ideally, you want to find a professor whose research interest is in line with what you want to do. You can find out what each professor does here. If you have no clear preference for a topic, try to pick someone you like (e.g. from a previous module, seems nice and good) as it's a year-long working relationship.

How? To approach the professor, send him an email expressing your interest in having him supervise your honors thesis, and try to give a few ideas which you have (your final idea should be further refined after discussion so don't worry if the initial idea is too broad, etc).
What happens next is he'll probably arrange a meetup with you to have a chat to decide if he/she wants to take you as his student, or perhaps he'll ask you to submit a 1 page writeup of what you want to do. It varies by professor!

When? As early as possible! Every cohort seems to get more kiasu than the previous one. I personally approached mine once in Y2S2, and once at the end of Y3S1 (when he accepted me). No harm approaching early, if it's too early the prof will tell you himself.
It's best you start early because the more popular (because they are good) profs will be snapped up really quickly.


Which is more heavy, writing a thesis or doing 3 modules?

Let's do a precise comparison.

Time. Let's first look at time which you can precisely pinpoint.
For 3 modules, 3 hour lectures over 13 weeks would equate to 117 hours.
For your thesis, you typically run one experiment (it really depends on subject matter - for instance, Health Psychology topics may involve going to hospitals to interview patients or something), and assuming about 180 participants, and the worst case scenario of 1 ppt at a time, that's about 90 hours (I ran about 10 participants at a time, so it was about 9 hours?)

Of course there are other time involvements such as in the assignments of modules, or the writing of the thesis, meeting with supervisors, but these are hard to give estimates to.

Readings. How much reading do you have to do?
For 3 modules, average level 4000 module has 2-6 readings per week. Let's take it as 4 average. So that's 12 readings x 13 weeks = 156 readings
For thesis, the bulk of your reading is done initially during idea generation I think, as you need to read each article thoroughly to get a good feel of where the field is at and what to do for your thesis. I read maybe 50 articles for this stage?
Later on as you write and bolster up your content, the reading can be a more 'surface' kind of reading where you browse abstracts and skim through the main discussion points, so it's not like a modules' readings where you have to read thoroughly. It's hard to give a ballpark figure, but my final thesis draft had 88 citations - this figure of course does not include articles which I have browsed but didn't use.

Which is heavier? You decide based on what I've said! (I personally feel that I did much less reading than I would have if I took 3 modules)


I still don't know. They seem equally heavy. What else affects whether I should I do a thesis?

A thesis is dependent on 2 further factors: the individual's working style, and the professor supervising.

Professor. I've had so many friends who got screwed over by their supervisors. There are a number of things you need to know about your professor (or try to find out) before embarking on a thesis under his/her supervision.
- Email turnaround rate: Some professors like have ridiculously fast turnarounds of 2 minutes - 30 minutes, even in the middle of the night. Others take 24 hours (still pretty good). The really bad ones can take anywhere from 3 days to a week to reply and email, and even when they do it's pretty vague.
Email turnaround is really important especially when you are panicking over one major problem and you need some professor-input, or when you're trying to arrange meetings, etc
- Working style: Is your professor hands on (i.e. willing to help you with queries you have) or hands off (i.e. prefers you to find out everything yourself and only helps you if really really necessary, and even then gives vague 'find out yourself' answers)? Ideally, he should be somewhere in between. You don't really want someone to spoonfeed you everything, yet you need someone who is willing to help when you need it.
- Extent of help: Some professors are willing to tutor you on how to utilize Medialab (Yes, I know a prof who actually did this), some will just thrust you a statistics textbook and ask you to figure it out yourself when you don't know the difference between logistic regression and hierarchical regression and which test statistic to report. If you have a particular weakness (e.g. stats), sound off early and see how your prof reacts - does he say he will help you if you really need help, or does he leave you to your own devices?
- Meetings: How often will you get to consult your professor? This is important in the initial stages when developing your thesis ideas, and especially important in the post-data collection stage when you are trying to make sense of your (most likely) weird results. Is your supervisor going on a conference anytime, and when? Will he be away on certain weeks? Try to find out these things early so you can plan your work.
- Drafts turnaround: How many drafts will your professor read? How long will it take for him to get back to you with comments? This is probably one of the most important things you need to establish AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE. The more drafts you have, the more likely you will get a better grade! (assuming you improve with each draft)

Your working style. As you can see from the above, a lot of your work is dependent on your prof's efficiency as well. Are you ok with having such an uncertain timeline?
When you take modules, everything is very structured in terms of when to read what, when is each assignment due, etc. When you write a thesis, it's up to you to plan your time and how fast you want to do things. If you are a huge procrastinator, modules may be the way to go for you.


To share my personal experience, I much prefer to work independently and plan my own time and work with my own deadlines (usually set very early). Thus, I made swift progress on my thesis and had my first draft out by end of the first semester. Now, 2 weeks before thesis deadline, I have already bounced 3 drafts off my supervisor, and I'm more or less done with it, while some other friends are still busy on their 2nd draft and nowhere near completion. Yes, I am very kiasu.

As for my own prof (Dr Eddie Tong), let me share based on the 5 factors above.
Email turnaround rate: He's pretty fast, usually within a day.
Working style: He's a mix. He leaves me to do my thing, but when I ask him for help he provides good help (provided they are good questions. He's particular about asking good questions)
Extent of help: He saved my ass with some statistics magic, by utilizing a different analysis procedure that obtained significant results. He also taught me how to run a logistic regression (provided syntax and all) and ran me through the theoretical underpinnings of it. Very grateful for this.
Meetings: No regular times, but in general when I ask for a meeting I would get it, it's just a matter of when during the week.
Drafts turnaround: Each draft took maybe a week at most to read - a really quick turnaround. We also agreed to about 3-4 drafts, as I asked him about this really early. Note that the drafting process can be quite brutal - I literally rewrote my entire 10+ pages of my introduction after my first draft.

Yes, I had the privilege of a pretty cooperative and helpful prof, which helped in making everything more efficient and allowing me to complete the thesis earlier. I think our working style kinda complemented each other - I was very kiasu and wanted to chiong everything fast, and he's very dedicated and will cater his time accordingly to help me churn out the work.

--

To sum it up, you should do a thesis if
1) You manage to secure a professor whose areas of interest and working style align with yours
2) You are a good independent worker who can manage your time well
3) You would rather plan your own time than follow a plan
4) You would rather focus your reading on one main area and plan your own reading