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30 June 2025, 11:41 PM

First of all to start with, my first impression for mass balance course, I really feel like this is one of the hardest subjects. I had no idea, no clue what this subject was about in very first class and made me very clueless during first experience encountering this subject especially it was during online class. By the time went by, I tried my best to understand the fundamental of the subject, the main concept and its background. When we start on physical class for this semester, I feel a bit at ease because I can understand the topic better during face to face class rather than through video and self-learning. At that time, I can really understand the fundamental concept such as material balance, material conservation, degree of freedom analysis and so on. 

       I really thought that the topic material balance calculation: fundamental and single unit was the most important topic in this subject because it was the root to all the other next topic. If I don’t understand or put all my attention for this topic, I cant solve the mass balance related question. In this topic I acknowledge that total mass input must be equal to total mass output , base on the law of conservative of mass. The matter cannot be destroyed nor created. When matter changes it state or goes to chemical reaction, the mass remain constant means that it obey the law of conversation mass. Other than that, I realized that basis is the crucial thing in solving mass balance related questions. Without basis, you cant solve the problem correctly other than your mark will be zero. Next other topic such reactive system, single phase and multiphase system also major topic in this course.

        After few weeks into this course, the more I learnt the more tricky the question becomes. As I remembered our first quiz , Quiz 1 , I cant perform well during the quiz session since I did not prepare well and after some thought I think that I might be still confuse on the concept because I still make some silly mistakes like forgot to highlight the basis, wrong rules for diagram labelling and process stream labelling. This also implied to assignment 1 as well. I took some times to understand the assignment’s question since it my first time trying to solve real question by myself. When I cant think of the solution, I tried to ask my teammates and fellow friends to seek for some solution. After submitting and received the feedback of Quiz 1 and Assignment 1, I can analyze where I always do mistake and it will remind me to not repeat the mistake next time. Dr Azizul also discipline his student while solving the question  we need to always use ruler when drawing line or box of final answer, state the calculation and flow clearly to make sure it easy to understand. This actually improve my solution flow and make it easier to understand and solve the problem. This discipline in diagramming mirrors industry standard for P&ID and prevent costly misinterpretations in the future.

Other than quizzes and assignments, we also assigned to do the peer teaching session by assigned teammates. I found this activity really interactive and interesting because we can solve multiple problems at same time by sharing our own solution for each different questions. In team, this activity really help me to communicate better with my teammates along strengthen our teamwork and bond by each discussion. Theres one time I cant forget about the peer teaching activity is our first peer teaching. We took a lot of time tried to solve the question until the clock almost 3 in the morning. We cant get the last solution and calculation for our first peer teaching question impacting our first presentation. We cant deliver our presentation well since we cant understand the question by ourselves. But by the time went by, we improve our solving skill and discussion to get the final solution and take our first presentation experience as lesson to improve our delivery style. I can see the improvement during our last peer teaching session as I can present our solution confidently because we know that our solution is correct . 

     After quizzes, assignments, and peer teaching sessions, of course we also need to take test to indicate our understanding of the subject. Even the test is open book I think it is useless if I don’t understand the question well other than the crucial time distribution to make sure I manage to answer all the questions. During test 1, I manage to answer 2 from 3 question only because I took mre times to understand each question but gladly I got almost full mark for both questions. After that test, I tried to make sure I can manage time  to understand and solve problem for the next upcoming test which is test 2. Sadly I still cant manage to answer well in test 2 since it becomes more complicated and harder to understand. I honestly felt a bit disappointed that I still cant improve in test 2 but I take it as lesson to make sure I do better and my best in the final. 

     After mid-Sem break, we got our mass balance mini project which is to develop excel to solve the problem. This project was one of the main thing in this course in my point of view. Through this project, I learnt so much new things and experiences either in term of problem solving or in term of teamwork bond. Sincerely, I not really an ‘excel’ person, so I have just basic knowledges of it but thankfully my other teammates have better understanding in excel thus make me gain a lot new things. While completing this project, communication between each team mates was significance to make sure the process move smoothly. This project really make all four head of us work together to understand the main problem and find the solution without relying to the other groups. In our team, each member has their own dominance, some of us fast in calculating solution, some of us have creative techniques to solve problems, some of us better in computer work and more. All this make our team feel complete. This project also taught me to documents assumptions- a practice i can use to justify design choices maybe in my future internship.

     In conclusion, I really enjoy this course so much with all the activities and journey I had either by my own or with my classmates. So much things I learnt and gain from this semester as well as this course even there is hard and happy moment but that’s all the learning curve. I hope I can improve for the next subject related to mass balance cours