MQ Chatter Thread (9 Viewers)

[andyfg88]

Got this in my email about half an hour ago

Dear student
As you will be aware, we have experienced severe technical difficulties with eStudent over the past 36 hours, which meant many students had difficulty accessing the system and organising their timetable. I apologise unreservedly for the inconvenience this has caused and the additional stress created by this failure.
We anticipated increased demand on our systems and prepared for it: we had a high-performance grid available and engineers on site around the clock. Despite this, we experienced a number of critical system failures. None of these failures took the system offline for long, but to prevent further incidents we had to reduce the number of students able to access it at any one time.
Although the personal experience for students has been unacceptable, the system continues to process class changes, more than 48,000 as at 9.45 this morning.

We do not know what went wrong. We are investigating all aspects of the process to identify the problem and will continue to do so until we isolate it and fix it. I will ensure that this does not happen again.

Many of you have also voiced your concerns over this issue, and they have been heard. I have also met with student representatives this morning to discuss what has occurred and we have agreed upon these immediate action points:

* that eStudent should remain open to accept class changes for those students who have not yet finalised their timetable
* that students who are unable to access eStudent and who have special circumstances which require urgent timetable finalisation can call HELP on 02 9850 4357 or email help@mq.edu.au between 8am and 8pm
* that open and transparent communications with students continue via email, Facebook, the Macquarie website, ask.mq.edu.au, OneHelp and other communication channels that students prefer

Once again, I apologise for the problems you have encountered.
Regards,
Deidre Anderson
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Students and Registrar

No mention at all of any future preventative measures such as replacing the entire system or increasing the servers to better handle the load. That's ridiculous.

 

[Azure]

All three of those measures mean absolutely nothing.

I didn't get that email for some reason.

 

[Flying]

For timetables, am I allowed to pick as many lectures and tutorials as I want? Or does it HAVE to be ONE lecture and ONE tutorial a week?

 

[Azure]

Normally it is one of each (although this will vary for some classes). You can see the requirements for the class when you choose your times.

If you were to theoretically attend more than one of each you would literally be sitting in on repetition.

 

[Flying]

Normally it is one of each (although this will vary for some classes). You can see the requirements for the class when you choose your times.

If you were to theoretically attend more than one of each you would literally be sitting in on repetition.

Ahk thanks. just one more question:

Is it much better to have your tutorials after lectures? Eg. Wednesday ECON111 Lecture, Thursday ECON111 Tutorial

 

[MrBean1561]

Ahk thanks. just one more question:

Is it much better to have your tutorials after lectures? Eg. Wednesday ECON111 Lecture, Thursday ECON111 Tutorial

That really does not matter, as the tutorial will cover the previous week's lecture.

 

[Flying]

That really does not matter, as the tutorial will cover the previous week's lecture.

But, say its the first week of classes at uni and you have your first ever tutorial before your first ever lecture (on the following day). Does that mean that you will be covering 'more in detail stuff' every single week before the basics that are covered in a lecture?

 

[Azure]

You generally won't have your tutorials in the first week. Only lectures.

 

[Flying]

You generally won't have your tutorials in the first week. Only lectures.

What do you mean? I have organised my timetable so that there is both tutorials and lectures in the first week

 

[-may-cat-]

^ tutorials generally do not begin until the second week of semester.

 

[DavDav]

^ tutorials generally do not begin until the second week of semester.

Lol why are people trying to confuse themselves when its that simple! (Not talking about you may-cat)

I think what the poster before is trying to ask is on your very first week of sitting your course as a new undergrad student would you be attending lectures first then tutorials?

And the answer would be yes? No ... ?

 

[Azure]

Question to our law students: Is LAW203 a particularly difficult subject and would you advise one to take it with LAW109? Because of my transfer I'm in a sticky situation where I don't have much choice in regards to what subjects I'll be taking in semester 2. I'll be doing AFIN252 as part of my finance degree (I've heard this can be challenging) along with LAW109 and ECON204. So basically I have a choice between ECON241 (which I would rather do separately from AFIN252) or LAW203. I've heard that it may not be recommended that one take 200 level law units in the first year (despite being able to), but I'm not sure how valid this is. I've also heard that LAW203 is supposed to be relatively easy.

Any thoughts?

 

[FTW]

Sorry Azure, can't answer that one but I also have one myself.

I was making my timetable at orientation and for my STAT171 class and at the moment it says that the prac classes are "not available". This is different to all the tutorials being full (which happened with ECON111) and I was just wondering if anyone knows what this mean. Does it mean there will be no more prac classes for this subject for this session in particular or they just haven't allocated classes for the timetable yet?

 

[misericordia]

Question to our law students: Is LAW203 a particularly difficult subject and would you advise one to take it with LAW109? Because of my transfer I'm in a sticky situation where I don't have much choice in regards to what subjects I'll be taking in semester 2. I'll be doing AFIN252 as part of my finance degree (I've heard this can be challenging) along with LAW109 and ECON204. So basically I have a choice between ECON241 (which I would rather do separately from AFIN252) or LAW203. I've heard that it may not be recommended that one take 200 level law units in the first year (despite being able to), but I'm not sure how valid this is. I've also heard that LAW203 is supposed to be relatively easy.

Any thoughts?

i didnt find law203 to be particularly difficult and the unit convenor makes really thorough lecture notes which helps. but when i did the unit students were assessed through hypothetical questions (as well as class participation) and i think that takes a little bit of getting used to. good luck!

 

[Salliea]

I would think that there would still be STAT171 practical lessons. They'll need to add more times. ACCG100 is all full apart from evening classes lol

 

[Fake-Name]

Hey, I went in to enrol today and was successful and happy with my semester 1 timetable. However they told me not to worry about Semester 2 at the moment. I just checked and i'm able to enrol in semester 2 right now. Should I do it or wait?

If I do it, I'm going to be guaranteed the times I want. But I might pick something that I dont want to take next semester...

 

[-may-cat-]

If you know what you want to do now just enrol in them now, if you change your mind you can always withdraw from them later.

 

[Blizane]

I was making my timetable at orientation and for my STAT171 class and at the moment it says that the prac classes are "not available". This is different to all the tutorials being full (which happened with ECON111) and I was just wondering if anyone knows what this mean. Does it mean there will be no more prac classes for this subject for this session in particular or they just haven't allocated classes for the timetable yet?

Not sure if something has changed or what, but when I did STAT171 there wasn't any practicals.

 

[FTW]

I would think that there would still be STAT171 practical lessons. They'll need to add more times. ACCG100 is all full apart from evening classes lol

Ahh I just checked this afternoon, and they have removed the lesson: "prac_1" from the timetable, giving only 4 contact hours per week as opposed to 5.
Does anybody know what this will mean in terms of assessments? As I was told this had weekly multi choice tests on the computer in the prac lessons, I think.

 

[Azure]

i didnt find law203 to be particularly difficult and the unit convenor makes really thorough lecture notes which helps. but when i did the unit students were assessed through hypothetical questions (as well as class participation) and i think that takes a little bit of getting used to. good luck!

Thanks for that.

I think I may give it a go in semester 2 along side LAW109.