AY24/25 CNM Courses Review - Skillsets Cluster (Part 1)

Disclaimer: The following reviews are submitted by CNM students who have taken the courses in the specified semesters of AY23/24. Please use this information at your own discretion, as course syllabus may have changed over time.

Aside from cosmetic changes, CNM Society has not made any alterations to the content of these reviews.

Also, do note that this list is not exhaustive. For a complete list of CNM courses, please visit NUSMods. These are the courses and the corresponding number of reviews that this post contains:

• NM2220 (1 review)

• NM3217 (2 reviews)

• NM3230 (3 reviews)

• NM4208 (1 review)

• NM4247 (3 reviews)

• NM4250 (1 review)

NM2220 - Introduction to Media Writing

Workload Rating: 3/5

Difficulty Rating: 4/5

Review: I'm not a writer, but only after experiencing NM2220, I feel like an actual media student. I took this course to learn and be exposed to the journalism side of CNM which I am not familiar with. The lectures are engaging, as the professor is a former broadcast journalist! From time to time, she will use her sample of work as case studies in the lectures. That said, be prepared to speak up in the class as you may get arrowed to do so after a quick 1-2 minutes of individual brainstorming. I like this course as there are no group work, and gradings are assignment based. We had three major assignments: 1 follow-up article, 1 feature story (with optional feature video) and 1 press release. If you want to explore journalism in a safe space, this is for you! (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 2)

NM3217 - Principles of Visual Communication Design

Workload Rating: 5/5

Difficulty Rating: 4/5

Review: This course is pretty different from all the other courses I took under CNM so far. I appreciated that lectures were pre-recorded & projects were individual with critique given in class (it allowed for us to learn from our peers comments). That being said, for someone who has had no experience with Adobe, this course is the most demanding course I've taken and I scored the lowest grade I've gotten in NUS thus far. The learning curve is extremely steep & in hindsight, I would have preferred learning about Adobe on my own rather than taking it as a course in NUS. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 2)

Review: I went into the course not knowing basic functions of Adobe Softwares, but am proud to acknowledge that I've taken away something tangible from the course! The first 6 weeks before recess week are quite light, and the intensity accelerates from there on. After one assignment is down, another comes. That said, as the course is mostly hands-on and less theorectical than the other courses that I've taken so far, I enjoyed every bit of it, the adrenalin rush, the satisfaction of the process and outcome. It's a very rewarding experience. The lectures are pre-recorded online, so that makes reviewing materials a lot more accessible (i.e. rewatch). If you're looking to explore the design side of CNM, this will be something that you will find engaging! I also enjoy taking up this course as there are no group work and gradings are assignment based, while at the same time being able to check-in with your peers in tutorials and learn from each other in our peer critique sessions. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 1)

NM3230 - Digital Storytelling

Workload Rating: 3/5

Difficulty Rating: 2.5/5

Review: Individual assignments consisted of individual writeups and a video, group proj consisted of a final video project. Overall individual assignments were easy as it only focused on your personal creativity. As for the group component, if you have a good group, all should be good as well. There are not many guidelines to the assignments so students have the freedom to express what they desire. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 2)

Review: Filmmaking techniques (building narrative, storytelling, directing, scripting, colour theory, editing, producing, etc. ) this is a very useful course if you want to learn more about videos/film production. For our 1st assessment, we had to create a 3min video using our phones and edit either with capcut (or other free editing software) or use Adobe Premiere Pro provided by school. In my opinion, it's best to familiarise with this industry software as it is much more versatile and the skills learned in class can be helpful in the future. We have seminars once a week and some readings. After every seminar, we had the opportunity to do hands on work (eg. Learning to use cameras, editing on software, filming a short video to practice shooting, directing and scripting skills). Also, we have group project (which carries the most weight in assessment) where we had to produce a non-fiction 5min film (either for business owners or a social cause). Tip: group yourselves carefully to avoid tanking the project, usually your groups are "predetermined' during the first 2 seminars according to your seating arrangement. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 2)

Review: In this course you go through the basics of video-making, such as the technological aspect (how to operate cameras, audio, how to edit, etc) and the theoretical aspect (camera angles, video flow, video planning). It is a good starting point if you are interested in pursuing video-making in the future, but most of the people in the class already have relevant background/experience, so for those people there is nothing new. The class typically starts with a lecture, which can be quite dry, but usually has a hands-on portion in the last half hour which you participate in as a group. The biggest portion of the grade is the final video submission, which you undertake with a group of 5. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 1)

NM4208 - Strategic Communication Design

Workload Rating: 4/5

Difficulty Rating: 4/5

Review: Little need to be said about Kai's teaching. He knows what he's doing and strives to deliver the best to his students - which really shone through during my time taking this course. Unlike other 4k courses, this course was relatively light in term of assessment number, but this meant that the percentage for each assessment was really high. For example, for the last assessment (final project), it took up around 60% of my total mark - so this can really make or break students' final grade. Tips for future students: planing your timetable wisely so you have time to finish the assessment decently. Kai is usually quite chilled with extending the deadlines, but try not to your homework last minutes since there were A LOT OF demands in each assessment. Also, NEVER IGNORE THE GUIDELINE!! You can easily miss out one of Kai's requirements if you don't pay enough time and attention reading and analysing the guideline. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 2)

NM4247- Creative Writing in the Marketplace

Workload Rating: 3/5

Difficulty Rating: 3/5

Review: This course offers a fresh breather from the mundane academic essays. Prof Jinny encourages us to think creatively and explore different ways of creative writing. Our readings are highly related to reading examples of the form of creative writing we would have to submit (if we are submitting a flash fiction, we would read one or two of it for class discussion). This class will be fun if you participate [25%]. For the assessment, it's usually 3 manageable essays (micro essay [600-700 words, 10%], flash fiction [600-700 words, 15%], personal essay [1,500 words, 20%]). Prof Jinny would read out some of the top scoring essays and I think it's really helpful to hear the different writing styles. The most fun assessment would probably be the group video script [30%] if you have prior experience in filiming. There isn't a need to actually film, but rather explore film terms like camera angles to help better portray your ideas in the video script. For this project, the presentation is a live demo of your script (you could just read it out or really get into your character and act it out - everyone usually goes for the former). If your class is in the morning, please bring some snacks to class. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 2)

Review: you will be exposed to various type of writings and writing technics during the course. This course will be a bit more suitable to those wanting to become editors, or working in the news industry. For those who want to go to the advertisement industry and become a scriptwriter, this course will not give you enough practice. TIPS FOR FUTURE STUDENTS: for your final project (which is a group project), do try to finalised your script ideas and brand as early as possible and spend time going through the script. This will allow you more time to detect any possible flaw in your logical thinking. Ask as many people as possible to read through your advertising script, so you can have a general understanding on whether your idea is communicating and promoting the brand/products clearly enough. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 1)

Review: The workload was higher than average and I had to submit 1 1500-word personal essay, 1 personal essay draft, 1 700-word short story, 1 750-word short personal essay about a childhood place and a video script group project. On top of that, due to the extra 25% assignments implemented for the 2023/2024 CNM cohort, we had to submit a pitch for our personal essay and a reflective piece about personal voice. Personally, I was a little disappointed because I assumed the course would be more about creative copywriting for advertising or social media. However, it was more on non-fiction creative writing, which has its merits but wasn't what I signed up for. The main challenge I faced was writing about myself in a structured narrative. It's not easy combining my scattered memories into a neat narrative arc. To overcome this, I'd recommend reading personal essays written by other writers to have a sense of how you should write your story. For students who journal and write about themselves often, this course would be a breeze! If you're more nterested in fictional writing, be warned that there's very little fictional writing involved except for the short story assignment. However, I'd recommend that you take this course if you're interested in developing your personal voice. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 1)

NM4250 - Data Journalism and Analysis

Workload Rating: 5/5

Difficulty Rating: 5/5

Review: Extremely high and difficult workload that requires a lot of ideation, news writing and data analysis. There's no math involved but you'll need the ability to discern data trends and craft a news story from that. The course will teach you to visualise data using excel, tableau and orange data mining. For students keen in journalism, public relations and marketing, this will be a very useful course. To lighten the workload, I'd recommend starting early and staying updated on the latest news trends. Ultimately, the assignments require you to have a good news angle so the ideation stage is extemely important. To do well for this course, try and get feedback from the professor after each assignment if you're not confident in your news writing. Before moving forward with your assignements, it would also be good to check in with the professor on your news angles. (Taken in AY23/24 Semester 1)