Subject Reviews (with PDF compilation) (2 Viewers)

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ANTH1001: Cultural Differences
2008 Lecturer: Daryl Feil (for the 1st 6wks, then Gaynor McDonald)

Ease: 8/10
Lecturer: 9 and 7 respectively
Interest: 6/10
Overall: 8/10

Course is a-okay. Lots of readings to do though, most of which required concentration to understand (aka if you can be bothered). Concepts are pretty easy to follow and understand. Darly Feil is an awesome lecturer, he's really funny even if his teaching style seems a bit all over the place. Gaynor's good too but intimidating!


ENGL1000: Academic Writing
It's an online course, so no lecturers.

Ease: 7/10
Lecturer: n/a
Interest: 3/10
Overall: 6/10

This course needs some major motivation on your part to complete the online discussions which contribute to 20% of your grade. Also, it isn't learning to write an essay. It's learning the godforsake history of rhetoric. Final exam should be okay - since I haven't sat it yet - it's open book PLUS you get the questions. All that's required is you marking an essay written the year previous, then writing an essay about the one you've read and asnwering short answer questions.


ANHS1600: Foundations For Ancient Greece
2008 Lecturers: Julia Kindt, Ben Brown, Magaret Miller, Rick Benitez, Peter Wilson and David Pritchard.

Ease: 7/10
Lecturer: 9 for JK, 7 for BB, 6 for MM. I can't comment on the rest because I can't really remember showing up to any of their lectures.
Interest: 6/10
Overall: 7/10

Read your textbook. That's the best advice for this course. Other than that, Ben's pretty cool but never finishes his lectures. Julia is just awesome and will reply to your emails ASAP (within like, 2hrs honestly). Maggie is the cutest old lady ever but she writes essays and reads them so I generally can't follow her lectures. She's really sweet though.




Will review EDUF1018 if requested btw and post up outlines for those classes if anyone wants.

 

[KronWarriorKing]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Please review EDUF1008, I'm simply dying to know what it was like!!!1!1!!

 

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ih8u.

 

[KronWarriorKing]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

:]

 

[blakegman]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Business Info Systems

0/10

 

[CurlyRuby]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ECOP 1001

Ease: 8/10
Lecturer: 100/10 (Frank deserves the highest praise imagineable)
Interest: 9/10
Overall: 10/10

They say that the ecop faculty has had to fight for survival. It shouldn't have to, because the introductory subject, ecop1001 was aMAZing. Hopefully the move to the arts faculty will secure it's place, 600+ students were enrolled this year.
The course is engaging, you look across the history of economic thought, most significantly classical political economy, marxism, neoclassical economics, institutional, keynesian and modern political economy.
The subject matter allows so interesting discussion in tutes, which are normally fairly relevant to what's going on in the lecture, each tute also has a representative who looks after you at faculty meetings- there was a very caring, sharing feel in the course and the tutors and Frank really looked after you.
Lastly, Frank. Frank Stillwell is without a doubt the BEST lecturer I have encountered so far at Sydney. He's witty, intelligent, imaginative, engaging...I can't explain how great he is.
YOU MUST DO THIS COURSE. I can't recommend it enough. 5 stars.

 

[KronWarriorKing]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

more like fOR3V3RPUTRIDDDD

 

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

I got 69 for that, I got marked down cause 2 of my posts were under the word count:burn:

lol. how do we check?
cos when i went to get my essay from the office,
they didnt have my internet mark

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ENGL2632 - British Romantic Literature

Ease: 7/10. It's not hard but you have to keep up with the reading, of which there is a lot, or you'll fall behind like I did. Also would help to have a previous interest in the subject matter because the lecturer would often talk with the assumption that you were familiar with particular poems or authors, which I personally never was. If you don't like poetry this course is not for you, if you do like it you'll have a ball.

Lecturer: 8/10. Will Christie is awesome. 'Nuff said. He's engaging and witty. Interesting dress sense. The only reason he's not a 10 is that I felt his lecture style was a bit all over the place. I prefer lectures to follow a clear structure and the way he just seemed to kind of talk about anything that was even vaguely relevant to the topic left me with some pretty confused notes lol.

Interest: 6/10. Largely dependent on whether you find Romantic literature interesting and how widely read you are in it.

Overall: 7/10

PRFM2601 - Being There: Theories of Performance

Ease: 7/10. Like the above, it's not hard if you keep up with the reading. Some of the concepts take a few goes to fully wrap your mind around but it's not impossible. Assessments are frequent but not worth much. Hand in exam. Word limit for assignments tends to be too low (1000 words for an essay) so if you like to waffle on you'll have to curb the habit.

Lecturers: 9/10. We had a few. Amanda Card took most of the ones I went to, she's great. Nice casual lecturing style, clear. Tim Fitzpatrick was particularly engaging as was Glen McGillivray (sp?) who was incidentally also my tutor and did a great job. There were a couple of guest lecturers but I think I missed/skipped those lectures so I have no opinion.

Interest: 7/10. Despite the subject title I wasn't expecting it to be quite so theoretical. We did a few practical activities but they were pretty much just demonstrations of a theory we were looking at. However despite this it is actually pretty interesting especially the Embodiment paradigm which I found most interesting.

Overall: 8/10

EDUF2006 - Educational Psychology

Ease: 9/10. Learn the theory, remember the theory, regurgitate theory in exam which is given to you beforehand. Easy. The only possibly hard thing is remembering the many many names of the many many people you will look at. But whatever, I went to about 10% of the lectures and I did fine (exam results pending lol).

Lecturer: 2/10. Richard Walker is the most boring lecturer I've ever had. His voice literally put me to sleep. Hence hardly ever going to lectures.

Interest: 8/10. I enjoyed it. A couple of topics were a bit meh but overall it's good.

Overall: 7/10

EDUF3030 - Australian Secondary Schooling

Ease: 9/10. If you attend lectures and pay attention you will have no problems. It's basically a history course. You get given the exam questions beforehand. Assessment is a 3,000 word essay which is probably the most difficult of the lot and it's a pretty standard essay, albeit longer than I was used to, and they give you detailed advice on how to go about answering all the questions you can choose from along with a list of recommended reading so it's kind of like they've done half of it for you (although you do have to find your own material as well and you have to get to the library early or people will steal all the books). The other assigment is 3 tutorial reading guides - you get assigned them at the start of semester and you read the chapter or article or whatever, summarise it in note form and give copies to the class and your tutor who marks it. You have to discuss the reading during the tute. Not hard.

Lecturers: 8/10. I don't remember the name of the main guy who did it (sorry dude) but he was fine. Helen Proctor took some of the lectures and also has an engaging, clear style.

Interest: 10/10. I really got into it. That's really all I've got to say. It was just interesting. I thought it would be a bit meh and a couple of topics were a bit that way but the interest factor of the rest of it cancels out the boring bits

Overall: 9/10

 

[Triangulum]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ANHS2607 Rome 90BC-AD14: Making A World City
Lecturers: Dr Kathryn Welch, Frances Muecke

Ease: 8/10. Basically average difficulty for an ancient history course, although there was quite a bit of reading. The toughest part was comprehending the ideas behind historical topography and why it's worth studying: once you get past that there's nothing really difficult about the content. assessments were pretty average, 2500 word essay, exam and 1000 word reading journal - it was tough to fit five entries into such a short space for the journal though, because they asked you to do a lot in 200 words.

Lecturer: Kathryn 9/10, Frances 6/10. I love Kathryn. She's a really clear and intelligent lecturer, she has some fascinating ideas, she's really willing to go the extra mile to help out and to make life easier for students (her implementation of e-learning in this course represents best practice imo, really useful without being gimmicky) and she can also be very funny. It helped that she had what I thought were the more interesting parts of the course, on topography, architecture and intellectual history. I didn't attend a lot of Frances' lectures so it may not be fair to judge, but her voice just sends me to sleep. Her lectures also tend to be a bit unstructured and often don't have much of a point. I also wasn't that interested in Roman poetry, which is her speciality, so that didn't help.

Interest: 9/10. How space and architecture were used to make political points = fascinating. How Romans saw themselves, their city and their history, and how this changed as republic changed to empire = fascinating. Really really great stuff for Rome buffs.

Overall: 9/10. A great introduction to modern academic study of Rome and to the politics and ideas of the Augustan settlement. Also teaches you a lot about the Roman mindset in the late republic and early principate. Really awesome course, shame about the poetic sections with Frances but I'm sure they could have been better had they been done by a better lecturer.

 

[Rafy]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Lastly, Frank. Frank Stillwell is without a doubt the BEST lecturer I have encountered so far at Sydney. He's witty, intelligent, imaginative, engaging...I can't explain how great he is.

Shame he is a freedom hating socialist.

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

lawlz. i hope whoever reviewed ease as 8/10 will get fucked by their final exam mark, and fail the subject.

MKTG3116 - International Marketing
Ease: 8/10 - no final exam, 35% video assessment, 20% participation (with bonus quiz if you dont have 20/20 at the end)
Lecturer: 3/10 - Catherine Sutton-Brady wrote the text and seems to prepare the lectures exclusively from it. Quite dry in terms of content delivery.
Interest: 6/10 - Not an interesting course as I knew a lot of the content already. However, the assessments were brilliant fun to prepare (such as the video)
Overall: 7/10 - Assessments were fun, tutorials were great, but the course itself wasn't that good. Still worth taking, though.

SCLG2606 - Media in CUNTemporary Society
Ease: 9/10 - relatively easy, even though they gave me a crap mark for my essay. Don't need to do any readings.
Lecturer: 1/10 - I hate her. She invented her own referencing system. She has only ever published one academic work. She believes the Redfern Riots didn't happen; how it was all some conspiracy. She randomly wouldn't come in for her own lectures and tutes. She didn't respond to emails because she broke her arm (even though it wasn't even her writing arm). She included the bibliography in the word count.
Interest: 4/10 - would have been much more interesting if I didn't have her as my lecturer
Overall: 3/10 - my first arts subject and I hated it.

 

[historykidd]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ENGL1000 - Academic Writing


Ease - 9/10 - Incredibly easy.

Lecturer - 9/10 - Essentially was my computer. Wasn't a complete lefty nut like my HSTY 1045 lecturer and wasn't too boring like my HSTY 1025 lecturer.

Interest - 0/10 - Polynesian rhetoric.

Overall - 2/10 - Gas yourself to death before you do this subject.

 

[Silver Persian]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

SCLG2604 Social Inequality in Australia
Ease: 7/10 - This course is pretty average in terms of difficulty. There are a few weeks where you will be going through stuff you've already learnt, so these rehash weeks are pretty easy. There was one week in particular that was very difficult, when we were learning about the political theory of Ranciere. But mostly its fairly standard difficultywise. Assignments were a 2000wd essay, two short 750wd essays and tutorial participation.
Lecturer: 8/10 - Melinda Cooper is a very good lecturer. She actually puts a fair amount of effort into coming up with the course content. She doesn't just summarise the readings for the week, or recite some sociology textbook, but actually gets some interesting/new content that she's been looking act and talks us through it. She isn't the most engaging speaker in the world, but I didn't find her difficult to listen to at all. My main gripe with her is that she takes _forever_ to get assignments back to you.
Interest: 7/10 I was expecting this course to be much less interesting than it was. There were really interesting issues covered regarding the history of racial science, clashes between cultural and human rights and the move towards recognition as a political goal. However, as I said earlier, there was bit of repeated material, which wasn't the most interesting.
Overall: 7.5/10 Solid course, better than I expected.

SCLG2607 Social Movements and Policy Making
Ease: 7/10 - We covered so little substantive content in this course that, as long as you turned up to the first few lectures, you will know everything you need to know. The ideas were really shallowly developed. On the flipside, the marking criteria that Annette uses is a mystery, so it can be difficult to get good marks because you don't know what you are meant to be doing.
Lecturer: 2/10 - Annette Falahey is by far and away the worst lecturer I have ever had. Her lecturers were rambling, she would spend 5 seconds talking about a theory and then spend the next 20mins talking about a tangentially related example, she included the bibliography in the wordcount for one of our assessments and gives 5 seconds notice when she cancels a class. She spelt embassy "embassey" on the chalkboard at the front of the lecture theatre. The comments she gives on assessment tasks were v. unhelpful, and left me wondering where I had gone wrong. I would thoroughly recommend that people avoid any course run by Annette.
Interest: 4/10 - I don't know why I chose to do this course. It really wasn't interesting at all. Readings were long and repetitive, lectures were poorly structured and rambling, tutorials involved listening to classmates and no group discussion at all. The content was really not engaging.
Overall: 3/10 Really useless course. Do not do it.

PHIL2647 Philosophy of Happiness
Ease: 7/10 - This was the first PHIL course I've ever done and I didn't find it too difficult. Mostly the content was very clearly explained in the lectures, and the readings were well chosen. Some weeks the amount we had to read was excessive. Assessments were a 2500w essay and a 2500w take home exam.
Lecturers: - 9/10 We had two main lecturers for this course - Caroline West and David Braddon-Mitchell. Both were very informative and entertaining to listen to. Lectures were generally well structured, and were actually worth turning up to. Almost up to Frank Stilwell standard. We also had quite a few guest lecturers, who were all good as well.
Interest: 8/10 - There were a lot of interesting issues/questions covered by this course. The first half of the course is devoted to the philosophy of happiness - and basically involves running through the various theories that different philosophers have provided. This does get a little dull after a while, but by the middle of the course you turn to more interesting questions like the psychological research about subjective well-being and the social correlates of happiness etc.
Overall: 8.5/10 Highly recommended. As an aside, there are no prerequisites for this course, so you can enrol in it without having done any philosophy before.

HSTY2678 Race Around the World
Ease: 8/10 - This course is fairly straightforward. The subject matter revolves around placing Australian race relations in an international context - which might sound a bit strange and obscure, but its fine. The main difficulty I had with the course was that some of the readings were quite dull and long - creating some concentration problems. Assessments were a 2500w draft essay, and then a major assignment that was based upon your draft. For this, you could chose to do a 10min speech, a 3000w essay, an opinion piece, a documentary or a website. The last assessment was a 1500w reflection on the course, as well as a tute participation mark.
Lecturers: 7/10 - We had two lecturers for this course. Kirsten McKenzie is definitely a high quality history lecturer. She structures her presentations well, chooses interesting subject matter and communicates clearly. Penny Russell is not qute as good. She tends to ramble a fair bit, and tries to put too much content into her lectures so that she races in the last 10minutes and makes it difficult to concentrate.
Interest: 6/10 - There were some really interesting weeks at the start of the course - esp. looking at performing savages, early intercultural encounters and the history of race science. But I found the last half of the course - which focuses more on Indigenous political activism - to be fairly uninteresting. As mentioned above, readings could be a little bit dull.
Overall: 7/10 A pretty good course.

 

[Triangulum]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

GOVT2119 Southeast Asia: Dilemmas of Development
Lecturer: Dr Lily Rahim

Ease: 8/10. basically no theoretical content so the material wasn't hard to learn. in terms of assessment, i thought there was a tad too much: 30 minute presentation with a partner, 4000 word report on your presentation done in your pair, 2000 word essay, mid-semester test and end of semester exam. the 4000 word report was epically pointless because it was basically a written version of the pres. final exam was heaps easy, she basically told us the questions in the final lecture.

Lecturer: 7.5/10. lily is a reasonably good speaker who gets through a lot of content in her lectures, but they're basically just listings of facts and figures without much analysis or theoretical insight to make the course about more than just getting a general knowledge of the region. she definitely has her own opinions, though, and it's worth researching stuff yourself to ensure that you're not taking her particular opinions as gospel. (the material on guanxi is a case in point - she presented it very postively, but people in my tute with experience of the guanxi system said that in some cases it's just systematised corruption.)

Interest: 7.5/10. varied. each week is on a different topic - which is either a country or a theme like islam or democracy - so it really depends on how much you're interested in each one. overall it's reasonably ok if you're interested in the region. i would have liked coverage of vietnam, the philippines, cambodia and so on - the focus was almost exlusively on the archipelagic states.

Overall: 7.5/10. i don't really have strong feelings about this course in either direction. i'd recommend it to govt majors because knowledge of the region could really come in handy, but it's nothing to write home about.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ENGL1000 Academic Writing
Lecturer: Rebbca Johinke/PC

Interest: 0/10 Online lectures are dull. Essay topics are dull. Marking is anal, and dull.
Lecturer: 5/10 Rebbeca did a fine job of writing clear lecture notes, which is good because there aren't any actual lectures. Still, learning from a computer screen kinda sucks balls.
Ease: 5/10 Pretty hard to get a fantastic mark for writing when they mark you down over pedantic crap. Also the lack of interest.
Overall: 1/10 Easy English credit points lol. Shit subject. Tutor was a self-centred bitch. Tutorial discussion was dull, duddy and one sided, and worst of all didn't even count towards the end mark. No speech despite heavy emphasis on public speaking. Essay subjects were shit. Don't do it!

 

[Silver Persian]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

When people are coming up with their ease marks, are they thinking about how difficult the course content is to understand or how difficult it is to get a high mark?

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

i use both. if course content is easy but everyone fails, then the ease is obviously decreased.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

For me; both, plus a little more. There's how hard it is to grasp, how easy it is to learn (very different things), how hard it is to be interested to get a good mark, how easy it is to get a high mark, how easy it is relative to the discipline (eg: quantum chemistry is hard for a chemistry student, but easy for a physics students), how easy it is to bludge and do well...

 

[blakegman]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

MKTG1001 Marketing Principles

Ease 9/10 - Already passed course before final exam which is worth 33%. Assesments and tests are easy as long as you have a decent group and the concepts aren't to different from HSC business studies if you did that.
Lecturer 9/10 - Geoff Fripp i think it was. Lecture slides were a bit general, but he was a good speaker and gave very good examples to emphasis his points. Would be happy to ever have him again.
Interest 8/10 - Found lectures and the marketing sind rather interesting, the textbook made it fucking dull though. But pretty interesting overall compared to most subjects.
Overall 8/10 - Core subject so comm students have to do it anyway but it's a pretty good course.

INFS1000 - Business Information Systems

Ease 4/10 - I lived in fear before every assesment because i literally had no idea what could be asked or the topics. For a long while though i could easily fail the course but i might even end up with a credit so wtf.
Lecturer 0/10 - She was fucking shit. thought her subject was the best in the world and did things very crappily.
Interest 0/10 - If i wanted to do databases i would have done an IT course
Overall 0/10 - Should not be core. Was painful and i didnt even go to a lot of lectures.