I am a graduate from NUS chemical engineering, who prides themselves as being within the top 30 in the world. But fact is, i think the coursework sucks and almost all the lecturers sucks. Firstly, they teach obtuse stuff that has no practical relevance ( eg, triple integration in spherical coordinates...it's really WTF). They took out important engineering modules that introduces the student to the real stuff outside ( eg, unit operations. I do not even know what how an heat exchanger works when i graduate).
Instead of equipping the student with a working knowledge of engineering, they choose to focus on the science of engineering in way too much details.
Now i am studying in a really ulu university in Australia. It's probably ranked somewhere like 300-400 in the world, but here, the lecturing is top notch ( most of them anyway). When i first came here, i was surprised to see that students here do not print out presentation notes as we do in NUS or NTU. Later, i realized that there isn't a need. The lecturers deliver their presentation so succinctly that you can really walk away from a lecture understanding 70-80% of what they say. Students here write down only stuff they dun understand to research more about it back home or jot down key points.
That's the fundamental difference. NUS and NTU can pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves, but as an alumi, i always cringe when they do that. I will never donate to NUS for that matter, because i think they have never truly given me a good education. I have wrote long letters to the dean of engineering imploring them to make the curriculum more relevant, but receive nothing more than courtesy thanks. And batches upon batches of interns that worked under me has showed me that they are still set in their archaic ways of yesterdays.
