CM4282 - ENERGY RESOURCES

Course Overview:

The course is broken down into 4 segments  

1) Context (Economics, Policy & Introduction)  

2) Storage and Distribution of Electricity  

3) Energy Generation  

4) Efficiency-Use Technologies 

Overall Difficulty: Average 

Difficulty of Assessment: 

CA1: Average 

CA2: Average 

Group Presentation: Difficult 

Poster of Group Presentation: Average 

Reflection Essay: Average 

Post Lecture Quizzes: Easy 

Pace of Course: Just Right

Duration provided to prepare for Tutorial: 1-2 days 

Workload of Course (Average Number of hours spent per week): 

To learn the content: 6 hours

To complete assignments: 3 hours 

How did you find the contents (how it was delivered) and the assessments of the course? 

There is a post-lecture quiz for almost every lecture except the introduction lecture. Students have 3 attempts for each post-lecture quiz. The post-lecture quizzes served as a useful concept check tool. I highly recommend reading through the lecture notes and internalising the content, then doing the post-lecture quiz closed book. This will allow you to spot the areas which you should spend more time on during your revision. CA1 and CA2 were quite doable, though some concepts in CA1 were not explicitly mentioned in the lecture notes and you would really have to listen closely to what the lecturer is saying during the lectures and take down notes. It is also important to note that lecture recordings are not released, unless you have a valid MC or reason to miss lectures. The group presentation portion was quite difficult. The lecturer provides a list of topics to choose from, and most of the topics are quite interesting, though a lot of hours have to be put into researching the topics since they are not easy. For example, my group did the topic 'CO2 to fuels', which was definitely fun to research and learn more about, but because the market is so new, legitimate information was difficult to come by. The Q&A portion was quite challenging as well, since the questions asked by the lecturer really test your fundamental understanding of the topic that your group chose. Overall, I enjoyed the lectures and tutorials and looked forward to them. Though the group presentation portion was not easy, I have learnt a lot from it. I would recommend taking this course! 

How was your experience with the course? 

The lecture content was very interesting and highly applicable to our lives, since all of us need electricity in our daily lives. We often take for granted how energy generation can impact the environment. This course even explains why it is difficult for all countries to adopt renewable energy despite its clear benefits for the environment, and it also discusses realistic measures for the world to move toward clean energy.