NUSWhispers – Confession #92912

What defines a good lecturer? Maybe someone that is able to dissect difficult concepts down and explain them to students in a way they can understand, and/or maybe someone that understands the students’ concerns and tries his/her best to address them, and/or maybe someone charismatic. I dedicate this post to lecturer Adi Yoga who taught CS2102 (Database Systems) this semester. I’ve got to say, I’m really impressed by how well he was able to take simple concepts and explain them in a way I could never understand. It’s like he is a master of encryption. By simple, I meant concepts that I’ve already known before, or concepts that the TA was able to express so concisely in laymen terms. He’s also pretty awesome in making sure that no question asked in the lectures are left unanswered while being in complete disregard of the flow of the lecture. I also envy his lecture stamina of 2 hrs non-stop lecture that often overshoots the time slot, if only I had such stamina on my date with girls...... Last but not least, Adi even managed to surprise us with an unexpected web development project in a database module, and grade us according to how nicely our frontend is designed + how well a video-presentation was made. Damn!! It’s like a lightweight CS3216 made into a heavy-weight coding component thanks to all the SQL code we had to write to replace an ORM. Prof Ben Leong, you have someone that exceeds you in terms of insanity HAHAHA. Sarcasm aside, I feel that Adi cares for his students, often holding consultations to make sure those who’s willing to turn up eventually understand the topics. Often, I feel that he is just ill-prepared for his lectures, as he mentions that he only prepares his slides into the wee-hours, and that he could have been a better lecturer if he had more time for preparation. Maybe he’s too overloaded with SoC-related responsibilities e.g. organising ICPC, other mods, and research? Idk? I just want to reflect that regardless of the lecturer’s circumstances, students are always the ones that take the greatest hit in a poorly planned curriculum / ill-prepared lecturer. RIP to those that crashed from this mod, but well done to those that survived! The survivors have most likely mastered the art of decryption and web development on top of learning database concepts! How cool is that :)