Subject Reviews (with PDF compilation) (1 Viewer)
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someth1ng
Retired Nov '14
You're like, the sexiest motherfucker on BOS.
Silly Sausage
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- HSC
- 2014
INFO1103 - INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING
Ease: 3/10 for complete beginners, 7/10 for experienced programmers.
This course in now HARDER than ever with the large majority of the cohort unable to complete the last two assignments on time (or if at all). No past papers or useful resources released, they wouldn't even tell us what we would be examined on in the quizzes. Even worse, they wouldn't even release the tutorial solutions up until heaps of people complained about in the mid-semester survey. Assignments are hard, especially for beginners and they are marked automatically, meaning that if you don't remember to put a full-stop or something silly you will be punished. On top of this, lab machines are often faulty e.g. can't log in, terminal stuffing around and not compiling etc so bring your own laptop if you can.
Lecturer - Masa: 6-7/10
His accent wasn't too bad. Goes through material very quickly, and it's kinda hard to hear or see what's going on if you're sitting anywhere near the back of the lecture theater cause the speakers are crap and the projector is unclear. One major complaint is that he often goes on a major tangent when some experienced programming kiddos interrupts him with a load of programming jargon filled question (e.g. "couldn't you just do X method (not even in the course) instead of the method you used?") presumably to show off and confusing everyone else in the process. If you're one of those people, I'd suggest you keep your mouth shut - no-one wants to hear that shit, talk to the lecturer afterwards if you want to stroke your ego. Also, for tutorials, get a tutor who can actually speak English properly and it will make life so much easier. Apparently the unit co-coordinator, John, is very harsh which could explain why it was so hard this year. Also, many of the tutors seem to be oblivious to what we were taught in the lectures or the course structure e.g. using syntax that we haven't learned before or ones that aren't even in the course (and being completely surprised that we don't know it) - "for" loops in week 12 are you serious?
Interest: 4/10
I wasn't interested very much which probably accounted for the difficulty levels. If you're studying a mathematical or physical related science, I would recommend having a look at COSC1X01 or even ENGG1801 as INFO1103 is mainly related to object orientated programming rather than calculations.
As I quote from the first lecture: ""Introduction" does NOT mean "easy": No, it really doesn't. (Would you think "introduction quantum mechanics" was going to be simple?) - I found it way harder than intro quantum mechanics as I was at least interested in it.
Overall: 2/10
Won't really consider doing programming again for a while after this course.
Ease: 3/10 for complete beginners, 7/10 for experienced programmers.
This course in now HARDER than ever with the large majority of the cohort unable to complete the last two assignments on time (or if at all). No past papers or useful resources released, they wouldn't even tell us what we would be examined on in the quizzes. Even worse, they wouldn't even release the tutorial solutions up until heaps of people complained about in the mid-semester survey. Assignments are hard, especially for beginners and they are marked automatically, meaning that if you don't remember to put a full-stop or something silly you will be punished. On top of this, lab machines are often faulty e.g. can't log in, terminal stuffing around and not compiling etc so bring your own laptop if you can.
Lecturer - Masa: 6-7/10
His accent wasn't too bad. Goes through material very quickly, and it's kinda hard to hear or see what's going on if you're sitting anywhere near the back of the lecture theater cause the speakers are crap and the projector is unclear. One major complaint is that he often goes on a major tangent when some experienced programming kiddos interrupts him with a load of programming jargon filled question (e.g. "couldn't you just do X method (not even in the course) instead of the method you used?") presumably to show off and confusing everyone else in the process. If you're one of those people, I'd suggest you keep your mouth shut - no-one wants to hear that shit, talk to the lecturer afterwards if you want to stroke your ego. Also, for tutorials, get a tutor who can actually speak English properly and it will make life so much easier. Apparently the unit co-coordinator, John, is very harsh which could explain why it was so hard this year. Also, many of the tutors seem to be oblivious to what we were taught in the lectures or the course structure e.g. using syntax that we haven't learned before or ones that aren't even in the course (and being completely surprised that we don't know it) - "for" loops in week 12 are you serious?
Interest: 4/10
I wasn't interested very much which probably accounted for the difficulty levels. If you're studying a mathematical or physical related science, I would recommend having a look at COSC1X01 or even ENGG1801 as INFO1103 is mainly related to object orientated programming rather than calculations.
As I quote from the first lecture: ""Introduction" does NOT mean "easy": No, it really doesn't. (Would you think "introduction quantum mechanics" was going to be simple?) - I found it way harder than intro quantum mechanics as I was at least interested in it.
Overall: 2/10
Won't really consider doing programming again for a while after this course.
Last edited:
Amleops
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- 2012
I try
someth1ng
Retired Nov '14
CHEM3910
Ease: 7-8
Conceptually, there isn't anything extremely difficult in this course but there's a lot of information to remember such as reagents needed which makes the subject pretty dull to learn. You learn about DNA (eg cleavage, structure etc), peptide synthesis (coupling regents, protecting groups) and reactions with amino acids (reacting with sugars etc), and spectroscopy that's used to look at biological material (eg XANES, XAFS, SRIXE etc). I don't think much of the course is that difficult but if it's not what you like, you'll be dreading every lecture you go to.
Lecturer: 8, 8, 3
Louis Rendina is a decent lecturer and if you have had him before, you would know he's quite good. I think what made me give him an 8 and not 9 or 10 was that the content was quite boring so I found it hard to be interested in lectures. If you're interested in DNA, you would probably find it much better. I think he could structure his lectures a bit better, though. Richard Payne is quite good, about the same level as Rendina, he's loud and clear and always ready to answer questions - you see him in the 3rd year labs supervising and he goes around and look at how everyone is doing in the lab which is nice. His section of the course has a lot of mechanisms though and not simple/small molecules, reactions of massive molecules is what you'll find in his section. Though, not particularly hard if you have been up to date with previous chemistry you should have learnt in the past. Peter Lay is unanimously considered the weak link of the lecturers in this course. His lecture slides contain big blocks of text which are filled with jargon and his slides have really obnoxious colours which make it much less motivating. His explanations are monotonous and hard to follow - after a few lectures, I never turned up again.
Interest: 6
In terms of how I felt in the course, I felt similar to how I felt in CHEM2403 which wasn't all that great since I personally find biological chemistry quite boring. I know it's not that boring for many people but I personally thought it was pretty uninteresting, at best.
Overall: 6
I mean, this depends if you like this type of chemistry or not - if you liked CHEM2403, I'd say it's very likely that you would like this unit because it's (in a way) built of that class. Students that did CHEM2403 are definitely at an advantage over students that didn't. To do well, you need to rote learn more than HSC - don't bother trying to learn concepts if you want to do well, you need to rote learn hard - especially for section 3, you do NOT need to understand how it works, just random information about it to include in answers.
Mark: 81
CHEM3911
Ease: 9
Nothing in this course is particularly difficult but you does require some logic and basic maths because you do need to do some simple calculations (ie simple algebra) for spectra analysis. I'd definitely say this course is useful and worth learning and you definitely should do this if you plan on doing organic chemistry in future (eg honours). The first part was taught by Kate Joliffe and was the spectra part - if you understand the ideas of what each spectrum is measuring and what it tells you, it's not very difficult to analyse and determine the structure of a given molecule. The second part is taught by Mat Todd - he's also very good and he teaches about organic reactions for smaller molecules - he goes into more depth with E1, E2, SN1, SN2, and E1cb reactions as well as some new phenomena such as "neighbouring group participation". If you did well in the past organic courses, you should have no trouble doing at least decently well in this course. Take note in the exams though, you need to make sure you mention EVERYTHING you know about it like you did in HSC because they expect a lot of information for each reaction in the final exam. Personally, I found there wasn't enough time in the final exam because I wanted to write more than I could.
Lecturer: 9
I mean, neither Kate nor Mat are perfect but they're definitely up there in terms of the best lecturers in the School. I would say they lie between 9 and 10 but I would definitely recommend Mat Todd to use the projector and take advantage of the lecturer recording so we could watch it at home in our own time, if necessary. He likes to write on the board and that's obviously not recorded, he should use a piece of paper and use the projector to show what he's writing, that way, it will come up on the recording.
Interest: 9
I'd say this is the most liked chemistry course in semester 1 - I don't think I know anyone that particularly disliked this unit from our year or any past year. If you have an interest in organic chemistry or are unsure of picking against the other units, this unit will not disappoint. I highly recommend this course.
Overall: 9
The best course I did this semester, definitely take this course. The problem with this course is that the marking requires lots of random bits of information written down to get marks even if you know it. I would have definitely gotten HD if I knew about this - most/all of my spectra and mechanisms were fine but lost marks because I didn't have fully written explanations for every minor step. By explanation, I mean include things like type of reaction step, most electrophilic, most nucleophilic, curly arrows, how conditions affect the reaction. You don't get enough time for the exam to fully write everything.
Mark: 80
CHEM3913
Ease: 3
This unit is a mix of hard and easy and application of past concepts of inorganic chemistry (mostly) and a bit organic chemistry - it revolves around organometallic chemistry, the name speaks for itself. When you mix them together, it gets pretty confusing and random, concepts aren't clear and what you need to do isn't as clear as organic. This unit is the second poorest performing unit in the school after CHEM2402/2912/2916 however due to major changes in CHEM2, this significantly improved last year. Anyway, most people found CHEM3113/3913 quite difficult to grasp, partly because of the mediocre (at best) teaching.
Lecturer: 5
Anthony Masters (4) is a cool and interesting guy to talk to but he's not very interesting in lectures. His lecture slides are very convoluted and the structure of his section is quite erratic. He often goes on tangents in his lectures - his explanations when you ask a question are decent, though. Rob Baker (6) is a decent lecturer and about the same as what he was when he taught us in other classes but I don't think he's as good at explaining this kind of coursework compared to his other lecture courses in carbonyl chemistry (IIRC). Markus Muellner (6) was pretty average, in my opinion - the girls in the class were in love with him though, but that was because he has a German accent and personally, I prefer a native speaker as it's just one less hindrance, especially when you're not that good at the coursework to begin with. Maybe I would have liked him if I had a vagina that was on fire (not an STI, so we're clear).
Interest: 2
Boring course, unless you find these things particularly interesting, I would definitely recommend that you skip this. Students do badly in it for a reason.
Overall: 4
Avoid this course, it's not a good one - I don't think I gained many (if any) useful skills and you pretty much go through it by rote learning. Rote learn like HSC.
Mark: 74
ENVI3911
Ease: 8
Nothing in this course is conceptually hard, at all. The only thing is that you're kind of expected to be cluey about environmental law in Australia, important cases and things like that. If you have that common knowledge already, great, but otherwise, prepare to go through some reading. Personally, I just remembered the names of 3-4 major pieces of legislation (eg EPBC Act) and a few different (about 5) cases for the exam and used some common sense to write answers. The environmental ethics section went through concepts in ethics and applied them in an environmental context which wasn't that hard.
Lecturer: 4, 10
Josephine Gillespie (4) is a pretty boring lecturer, if you ask me but she's a friendly person and somewhat approachable. I didn't really like her as a lecturer because she didn't really catch my interest and much of her content is just raw information to remember and put together to make an essay - not that cool. Gemma Smart (10) is possible one of my favourite lecturers to date, and definitely my favourite outside of chemistry. She explains things (ethics) in a really straight forward way for you to understand and goes into different scenarios and discusses how they would apply - she likes to occasionally do a "show of hands" to see what people think of particular scenarios which is cool to see how uniform or divided the class' opinion on a matter is.
Interest: 4, 9
I was not that interested in environmental law, at all. However, environmental ethics was awesome - ironically for me, taught by HPSC. So you know, assessment is a 3000 word essay for law, 2000 word essay for ethics and a final exam with environmental law only! Unfortunately, the ethics section was only 25% of the course and I really wish it was more since I loved it.
Overall: 7
Basically, environmental law section is very boring but the ethics section is awesome. Gemma Smart gets the someth1ng approval! To do well in this course, rote learn everything in the law section - by rote learn, I mean HSC style.
Mark: 62
Based on what I've seen in 3rd year chemistry at USYD, it's basically a more difficult version of HSC - you learn some chemistry but you learn A LOT of random information to memorise and learn to regurgitate. If you're thinking for a chemistry major, if that's not what you're interested in, reconsider - it's truly a waste of time, in my opinion. If there were a "fairness in grading" criterion, I'd give all of chemistry 5/10, at best because of how they set exams (types of questions).
Ease: 7-8
Conceptually, there isn't anything extremely difficult in this course but there's a lot of information to remember such as reagents needed which makes the subject pretty dull to learn. You learn about DNA (eg cleavage, structure etc), peptide synthesis (coupling regents, protecting groups) and reactions with amino acids (reacting with sugars etc), and spectroscopy that's used to look at biological material (eg XANES, XAFS, SRIXE etc). I don't think much of the course is that difficult but if it's not what you like, you'll be dreading every lecture you go to.
Lecturer: 8, 8, 3
Louis Rendina is a decent lecturer and if you have had him before, you would know he's quite good. I think what made me give him an 8 and not 9 or 10 was that the content was quite boring so I found it hard to be interested in lectures. If you're interested in DNA, you would probably find it much better. I think he could structure his lectures a bit better, though. Richard Payne is quite good, about the same level as Rendina, he's loud and clear and always ready to answer questions - you see him in the 3rd year labs supervising and he goes around and look at how everyone is doing in the lab which is nice. His section of the course has a lot of mechanisms though and not simple/small molecules, reactions of massive molecules is what you'll find in his section. Though, not particularly hard if you have been up to date with previous chemistry you should have learnt in the past. Peter Lay is unanimously considered the weak link of the lecturers in this course. His lecture slides contain big blocks of text which are filled with jargon and his slides have really obnoxious colours which make it much less motivating. His explanations are monotonous and hard to follow - after a few lectures, I never turned up again.
Interest: 6
In terms of how I felt in the course, I felt similar to how I felt in CHEM2403 which wasn't all that great since I personally find biological chemistry quite boring. I know it's not that boring for many people but I personally thought it was pretty uninteresting, at best.
Overall: 6
I mean, this depends if you like this type of chemistry or not - if you liked CHEM2403, I'd say it's very likely that you would like this unit because it's (in a way) built of that class. Students that did CHEM2403 are definitely at an advantage over students that didn't. To do well, you need to rote learn more than HSC - don't bother trying to learn concepts if you want to do well, you need to rote learn hard - especially for section 3, you do NOT need to understand how it works, just random information about it to include in answers.
Mark: 81
CHEM3911
Ease: 9
Nothing in this course is particularly difficult but you does require some logic and basic maths because you do need to do some simple calculations (ie simple algebra) for spectra analysis. I'd definitely say this course is useful and worth learning and you definitely should do this if you plan on doing organic chemistry in future (eg honours). The first part was taught by Kate Joliffe and was the spectra part - if you understand the ideas of what each spectrum is measuring and what it tells you, it's not very difficult to analyse and determine the structure of a given molecule. The second part is taught by Mat Todd - he's also very good and he teaches about organic reactions for smaller molecules - he goes into more depth with E1, E2, SN1, SN2, and E1cb reactions as well as some new phenomena such as "neighbouring group participation". If you did well in the past organic courses, you should have no trouble doing at least decently well in this course. Take note in the exams though, you need to make sure you mention EVERYTHING you know about it like you did in HSC because they expect a lot of information for each reaction in the final exam. Personally, I found there wasn't enough time in the final exam because I wanted to write more than I could.
Lecturer: 9
I mean, neither Kate nor Mat are perfect but they're definitely up there in terms of the best lecturers in the School. I would say they lie between 9 and 10 but I would definitely recommend Mat Todd to use the projector and take advantage of the lecturer recording so we could watch it at home in our own time, if necessary. He likes to write on the board and that's obviously not recorded, he should use a piece of paper and use the projector to show what he's writing, that way, it will come up on the recording.
Interest: 9
I'd say this is the most liked chemistry course in semester 1 - I don't think I know anyone that particularly disliked this unit from our year or any past year. If you have an interest in organic chemistry or are unsure of picking against the other units, this unit will not disappoint. I highly recommend this course.
Overall: 9
The best course I did this semester, definitely take this course. The problem with this course is that the marking requires lots of random bits of information written down to get marks even if you know it. I would have definitely gotten HD if I knew about this - most/all of my spectra and mechanisms were fine but lost marks because I didn't have fully written explanations for every minor step. By explanation, I mean include things like type of reaction step, most electrophilic, most nucleophilic, curly arrows, how conditions affect the reaction. You don't get enough time for the exam to fully write everything.
Mark: 80
CHEM3913
Ease: 3
This unit is a mix of hard and easy and application of past concepts of inorganic chemistry (mostly) and a bit organic chemistry - it revolves around organometallic chemistry, the name speaks for itself. When you mix them together, it gets pretty confusing and random, concepts aren't clear and what you need to do isn't as clear as organic. This unit is the second poorest performing unit in the school after CHEM2402/2912/2916 however due to major changes in CHEM2, this significantly improved last year. Anyway, most people found CHEM3113/3913 quite difficult to grasp, partly because of the mediocre (at best) teaching.
Lecturer: 5
Anthony Masters (4) is a cool and interesting guy to talk to but he's not very interesting in lectures. His lecture slides are very convoluted and the structure of his section is quite erratic. He often goes on tangents in his lectures - his explanations when you ask a question are decent, though. Rob Baker (6) is a decent lecturer and about the same as what he was when he taught us in other classes but I don't think he's as good at explaining this kind of coursework compared to his other lecture courses in carbonyl chemistry (IIRC). Markus Muellner (6) was pretty average, in my opinion - the girls in the class were in love with him though, but that was because he has a German accent and personally, I prefer a native speaker as it's just one less hindrance, especially when you're not that good at the coursework to begin with. Maybe I would have liked him if I had a vagina that was on fire (not an STI, so we're clear).
Interest: 2
Boring course, unless you find these things particularly interesting, I would definitely recommend that you skip this. Students do badly in it for a reason.
Overall: 4
Avoid this course, it's not a good one - I don't think I gained many (if any) useful skills and you pretty much go through it by rote learning. Rote learn like HSC.
Mark: 74
ENVI3911
Ease: 8
Nothing in this course is conceptually hard, at all. The only thing is that you're kind of expected to be cluey about environmental law in Australia, important cases and things like that. If you have that common knowledge already, great, but otherwise, prepare to go through some reading. Personally, I just remembered the names of 3-4 major pieces of legislation (eg EPBC Act) and a few different (about 5) cases for the exam and used some common sense to write answers. The environmental ethics section went through concepts in ethics and applied them in an environmental context which wasn't that hard.
Lecturer: 4, 10
Josephine Gillespie (4) is a pretty boring lecturer, if you ask me but she's a friendly person and somewhat approachable. I didn't really like her as a lecturer because she didn't really catch my interest and much of her content is just raw information to remember and put together to make an essay - not that cool. Gemma Smart (10) is possible one of my favourite lecturers to date, and definitely my favourite outside of chemistry. She explains things (ethics) in a really straight forward way for you to understand and goes into different scenarios and discusses how they would apply - she likes to occasionally do a "show of hands" to see what people think of particular scenarios which is cool to see how uniform or divided the class' opinion on a matter is.
Interest: 4, 9
I was not that interested in environmental law, at all. However, environmental ethics was awesome - ironically for me, taught by HPSC. So you know, assessment is a 3000 word essay for law, 2000 word essay for ethics and a final exam with environmental law only! Unfortunately, the ethics section was only 25% of the course and I really wish it was more since I loved it.
Overall: 7
Basically, environmental law section is very boring but the ethics section is awesome. Gemma Smart gets the someth1ng approval! To do well in this course, rote learn everything in the law section - by rote learn, I mean HSC style.
Mark: 62
Based on what I've seen in 3rd year chemistry at USYD, it's basically a more difficult version of HSC - you learn some chemistry but you learn A LOT of random information to memorise and learn to regurgitate. If you're thinking for a chemistry major, if that's not what you're interested in, reconsider - it's truly a waste of time, in my opinion. If there were a "fairness in grading" criterion, I'd give all of chemistry 5/10, at best because of how they set exams (types of questions).
Last edited:
sarahinspirit
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2014
- Messages
- 2
- Gender
- Female
- HSC
- 2013
STAT2011
Ease: 4/10
Challenging subject. Although it was pretty manageable until week 7, it got impossibly confusing and difficult after that week. imo this unit requires continuous effort and hard work throughout the semester, otherwise finals will be a nightmare. However, assessments overall were pretty ok/easy if you kept up with lectures and tutes.
Lecturer: Michael Stewart 6/10
Michael is a very knowledgeable lecturer but his lectures could have been structured better. The way in which they were structured greatly inflated the perceived amount of course content, causing a lot of panic towards the end of the semester. However, Michael was really approachable and his consultations were really helpful in clarifying course content.
Interest: 8/10
This unit explored constructing appropriate statistical models involving random variables for a range of modelling
scenarios and accessing the goodness of fit of these models. Some of it is hard to grasp, but when you finally get it, it's pretty interesting stuff
Overall: 7/10
STAT2011 stressed me out the most this semester, but when all the pieces fell in place and I started to understand the course material, I began to enjoy this unit. But don't pick this unit if you are looking for an easy elective.
PSYC2012
Ease: 9/10
Basically revisits MATH1005 content. The research methods part is a minor component of the unit, and recaps experimental design, eg, independent and dependent variables, true and quasi experiements, etc. The only potentially tricky topic is ANOVA which was covered towards the end of the semester. Highly organised unit, plenty of revision quizzes and extra practices were available on Blackboard on a regular basis throughout the semester. There was very little time to complete the in-class quizzes but they were open book. Mid-sem and finals were multiple choice.
Lecturer: Dan Costa (9/10), Ilan Dar-Nimrod (3/10)
Dan is a great lecturer, explains concepts very well and is quite funny too!
On the other hand, I had a hard time staying awake in Ilan's lectures, they were dry and boring.
Interest: 8/10
Research methods part was boring, but I liked the stats
Overall: 9/10
Overall a highly enjoyable and interesting subject, would recommend as an easy elective if you've done an introductory stats course before.
BIOL2021
Ease: 6.5/10
Course content is extremely interesting, but this unit is let down by poor organisation. Assessment information was only released to students close to the deadline (we only got our final exam format during stuvac) and some assessments did not seem relevant to the course at all (eg invertebrate collection which took up too much time and effort and was not fun at all). Some prac sessions were also highly distressing and we were not warned about them until the actual prac started. We had to pith a toad during one of the pracs Some final exam questions also did not seem to have been covered by course content.
Lecturers: Dieter Hochuli 8/10, Matthew Greenlees 6.5/10, Stephen Simpson 10/10, Frank Seebacher 8/10, Ashley Ward 9/10, Murray Thomson 9/10
Standout lecturers for me were Prof Stephen Simpson (he only gave 2 lectures on animal nutrition but he explained the content super well), Ashley Ward (lectured on Animal Behaviour, really interesting stuff) and of course Murray Thomson (though he spoke really quickly).
Interest: 9/10
A very interesting subject! Thoroughly enjoyed all the lectures.
Overall: 6/10
A great unit let down by extremely poor organisation.
BIOL2023
Ease: 7/10
Online quizzes were part of the assessment but you could also use them for revision. The virtual slidebox was really handy for revising for the prac exam, in addition to all the other online material. There were plenty of resources available to us for revision and all the lecturers were happy to answer any additional questions we had. I felt very loved in this subject
Lecturers: Murray Henwood 8/10, Deborah Barton 9/10, Rosanne Quinnell 8/10, Charles Warren 8/10
All lecturers were clear in lecture delivery and explained course content in an engaging manner.
Interest: Started 6/10, ended 8/10
What I enjoyed most about this unit were the plant anatomy pracs which started from week 8 of the sem. There was a lot to do in the 3 hours but it was really fun sectioning plant material and looking at them under a microscope.
Overall: 8/10
A highly-organised subject (opposite of biol2021) with great lecturers and exciting prac sessions! Would recommend this unit
Ease: 4/10
Challenging subject. Although it was pretty manageable until week 7, it got impossibly confusing and difficult after that week. imo this unit requires continuous effort and hard work throughout the semester, otherwise finals will be a nightmare. However, assessments overall were pretty ok/easy if you kept up with lectures and tutes.
Lecturer: Michael Stewart 6/10
Michael is a very knowledgeable lecturer but his lectures could have been structured better. The way in which they were structured greatly inflated the perceived amount of course content, causing a lot of panic towards the end of the semester. However, Michael was really approachable and his consultations were really helpful in clarifying course content.
Interest: 8/10
This unit explored constructing appropriate statistical models involving random variables for a range of modelling
scenarios and accessing the goodness of fit of these models. Some of it is hard to grasp, but when you finally get it, it's pretty interesting stuff
Overall: 7/10
STAT2011 stressed me out the most this semester, but when all the pieces fell in place and I started to understand the course material, I began to enjoy this unit. But don't pick this unit if you are looking for an easy elective.
PSYC2012
Ease: 9/10
Basically revisits MATH1005 content. The research methods part is a minor component of the unit, and recaps experimental design, eg, independent and dependent variables, true and quasi experiements, etc. The only potentially tricky topic is ANOVA which was covered towards the end of the semester. Highly organised unit, plenty of revision quizzes and extra practices were available on Blackboard on a regular basis throughout the semester. There was very little time to complete the in-class quizzes but they were open book. Mid-sem and finals were multiple choice.
Lecturer: Dan Costa (9/10), Ilan Dar-Nimrod (3/10)
Dan is a great lecturer, explains concepts very well and is quite funny too!
On the other hand, I had a hard time staying awake in Ilan's lectures, they were dry and boring.
Interest: 8/10
Research methods part was boring, but I liked the stats
Overall: 9/10
Overall a highly enjoyable and interesting subject, would recommend as an easy elective if you've done an introductory stats course before.
BIOL2021
Ease: 6.5/10
Course content is extremely interesting, but this unit is let down by poor organisation. Assessment information was only released to students close to the deadline (we only got our final exam format during stuvac) and some assessments did not seem relevant to the course at all (eg invertebrate collection which took up too much time and effort and was not fun at all). Some prac sessions were also highly distressing and we were not warned about them until the actual prac started. We had to pith a toad during one of the pracs
Some final exam questions also did not seem to have been covered by course content.Lecturers: Dieter Hochuli 8/10, Matthew Greenlees 6.5/10, Stephen Simpson 10/10, Frank Seebacher 8/10, Ashley Ward 9/10, Murray Thomson 9/10
Standout lecturers for me were Prof Stephen Simpson (he only gave 2 lectures on animal nutrition but he explained the content super well), Ashley Ward (lectured on Animal Behaviour, really interesting stuff) and of course Murray Thomson (though he spoke really quickly).
Interest: 9/10
A very interesting subject! Thoroughly enjoyed all the lectures.
Overall: 6/10
A great unit let down by extremely poor organisation.
BIOL2023
Ease: 7/10
Online quizzes were part of the assessment but you could also use them for revision. The virtual slidebox was really handy for revising for the prac exam, in addition to all the other online material. There were plenty of resources available to us for revision and all the lecturers were happy to answer any additional questions we had. I felt very loved in this subject
Lecturers: Murray Henwood 8/10, Deborah Barton 9/10, Rosanne Quinnell 8/10, Charles Warren 8/10
All lecturers were clear in lecture delivery and explained course content in an engaging manner.
Interest: Started 6/10, ended 8/10
What I enjoyed most about this unit were the plant anatomy pracs which started from week 8 of the sem. There was a lot to do in the 3 hours but it was really fun sectioning plant material and looking at them under a microscope.
Overall: 8/10
A highly-organised subject (opposite of biol2021) with great lecturers and exciting prac sessions! Would recommend this unit
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- 2014
ENGG1801 - Engineering Computing
Ease (8/10)
Designed for students with no programming experience. Excel part was pretty easy and straightforward whereas MATLAB was a bit challenging towards the end of the course with lots of logic required for the most of the harder codes.
The logic was definitely a speed bump, but once you have that nailed it's all downhill from there and the content isn't really too bad.
3 Lab exams throughout the semester was good revision for the topics learnt and helps with clarifying the concepts you find difficult.
Even though the ENGG1801 website was allowed during the lab exams, giving access to lecture slides, lab exercises etc it wasn't as big a bonus as you think, since the thinking process is the most important however always handy if you forget syntax or a few less common codes.
A double sided 'cheat sheet' is allowed in the final (which is pen and paper).
Lecturer: Jason Chan (10/10)
This guy is a BOSS. He knows his shit and gives clear explanations, allows students to follow along and makes sure they don't get too sidetracked by repeating difficult concepts at least 3 times in the lecture.
Very approachable both at the end of the lecture and outside of class to answer any queries.
Gives a 2 minute break in the middle of the lecture to give students time to regather, as content can be a bit overwhelming at times (especially in the second half of MATLAB).
Motivational speeches might be a bit too much for some but I found them interesting and did not impact on him finishing the lecture on time.
Cool suit.
Interest (8/10)
Excel and MATLAB were both really useful outside of the subject, allows you to process large amounts of data like marks for a subject and where you ranked etc.
Cool applications in first semester maths courses - 3D plotting used in MATH1001 and matrix stuff in MATH1002.
Overall (9/10)
Fun and easy course.
Definitely would recommend to students as an elective or an alternative to INFO1103 if doing engo.
ENGG1800 - Introduction to Engineering Disciplines (Stream A)
Ease (9/10)
Takes you around the different engineering faculties - 4 weeks of Civil and Chemical and 1 week each for Aero, Mechanical, Mechatronics and Biomedical (AMME).
Civil was the most challenging, throwing you in the deep end in the first tute - telling you to do random physics/civil eng calculations with minimal explanation beforehand.
The first Civil eng tute was the most fucked i've ever felt in uni so far (and it was on my first day lol). Box building was shit. Paddlepop bridge was quite fun with moolah if you won.
Chemical was piss easy - just basic HSC mole calculations and formulas to chuck in.
AMME wasn't too bad for the most part. Mechanical quiz had random questions not covered in the lecture. Biomed presentation was boring.
Final exam is a joke.
Lecturers: Civil - Rob Wheen (6/10), Chemical - Marjorie Valix (6/10)
Both lecturers were boring but covered the content they were supposed to.
The mechanical engineering lecturer needs to stop talking shit about other engineering disciplines lel.
Interest (1/10)
Useless for people who have already chosen a discipline.
Overall (4/10)
Shit subject but easily passable.
Good WAM booster.
Ease (8/10)
Designed for students with no programming experience. Excel part was pretty easy and straightforward whereas MATLAB was a bit challenging towards the end of the course with lots of logic required for the most of the harder codes.
The logic was definitely a speed bump, but once you have that nailed it's all downhill from there and the content isn't really too bad.
3 Lab exams throughout the semester was good revision for the topics learnt and helps with clarifying the concepts you find difficult.
Even though the ENGG1801 website was allowed during the lab exams, giving access to lecture slides, lab exercises etc it wasn't as big a bonus as you think, since the thinking process is the most important however always handy if you forget syntax or a few less common codes.
A double sided 'cheat sheet' is allowed in the final (which is pen and paper).
Lecturer: Jason Chan (10/10)
This guy is a BOSS. He knows his shit and gives clear explanations, allows students to follow along and makes sure they don't get too sidetracked by repeating difficult concepts at least 3 times in the lecture.
Very approachable both at the end of the lecture and outside of class to answer any queries.
Gives a 2 minute break in the middle of the lecture to give students time to regather, as content can be a bit overwhelming at times (especially in the second half of MATLAB).
Motivational speeches might be a bit too much for some but I found them interesting and did not impact on him finishing the lecture on time.
Cool suit.
Interest (8/10)
Excel and MATLAB were both really useful outside of the subject, allows you to process large amounts of data like marks for a subject and where you ranked etc.
Cool applications in first semester maths courses - 3D plotting used in MATH1001 and matrix stuff in MATH1002.
Overall (9/10)
Fun and easy course.
Definitely would recommend to students as an elective or an alternative to INFO1103 if doing engo.
ENGG1800 - Introduction to Engineering Disciplines (Stream A)
Ease (9/10)
Takes you around the different engineering faculties - 4 weeks of Civil and Chemical and 1 week each for Aero, Mechanical, Mechatronics and Biomedical (AMME).
Civil was the most challenging, throwing you in the deep end in the first tute - telling you to do random physics/civil eng calculations with minimal explanation beforehand.
The first Civil eng tute was the most fucked i've ever felt in uni so far (and it was on my first day lol). Box building was shit. Paddlepop bridge was quite fun with moolah if you won.
Chemical was piss easy - just basic HSC mole calculations and formulas to chuck in.
AMME wasn't too bad for the most part. Mechanical quiz had random questions not covered in the lecture. Biomed presentation was boring.
Final exam is a joke.
Lecturers: Civil - Rob Wheen (6/10), Chemical - Marjorie Valix (6/10)
Both lecturers were boring but covered the content they were supposed to.
The mechanical engineering lecturer needs to stop talking shit about other engineering disciplines lel.
Interest (1/10)
Useless for people who have already chosen a discipline.
Overall (4/10)
Shit subject but easily passable.
Good WAM booster.
Amleops
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WRIT1001 - Writing and Rhetoric: Academic Essays
Ease: 10/10
This is by far the easiest unit I have done at university. The course basically works up to the submission of a 1500 word essay on a topic of your choice. Apart from the final submission, you'll have various short writing tasks to complete which show the process of you compiling your essay, and also a group oral presentation where you analyse particular rhetorical strategies used in a film shown in class. 20% of your mark (which includes the oral presentation, so don't worry if you aren't good at speeches) is automatically given to you for simply doing the assessment. Other assessments involve learning referencing strategies, essay plans and paragraph drafts. Really, you can get a distinction in this unit without much effort at all. And if you put in some effort, a High Distinction is certainly achievable.
Lecturer/Tutor: 8/10 (Lili Paquet)
It's a bit hard to really go above and beyond when lecturing for this subject, because so much of the content is very cut and dry, and while I didn't find the content particularly boring, I don't think it's the type of material that would benefit from a particularly flamboyant or enthusiastic lecture style. Having said that, I couldn't really ask too much more from Lili, she did everything I expected her too. She was quite approachable and gave quite helpful suggestions towards my essay, and also offered some extra helpful information in regards to the content on the lecture slides.
Interest: 7/10
I didn't expect this course to be particularly interesting, and a lot of the content that was taught seemed to me like common sense. That being said, there were a few different essay approaches that they taught which was new to me, and I enjoyed learning quite a bit. There were some topics, like cross-cultural communication, which were a little dry, but overall the lecture content wasn't too bad. Your interest in this course is really going to be what you make of it; for me, the choice of my essay topic really sustained my interest. Plus it was fun preparing for the oral presentation; I like doing speeches.
Overall: 8.33/10
Apparently WRIT1000 is easier, but I haven't done it so I can't really comment. Even so, WRIT1001 is still very easy, and is arguably much more useful than WRIT1000 for university work. Despite the dryness of the material at times I would definitely recommend this unit, if not for the interest, then definitely for the WAM boost.
Ease: 10/10
This is by far the easiest unit I have done at university. The course basically works up to the submission of a 1500 word essay on a topic of your choice. Apart from the final submission, you'll have various short writing tasks to complete which show the process of you compiling your essay, and also a group oral presentation where you analyse particular rhetorical strategies used in a film shown in class. 20% of your mark (which includes the oral presentation, so don't worry if you aren't good at speeches) is automatically given to you for simply doing the assessment. Other assessments involve learning referencing strategies, essay plans and paragraph drafts. Really, you can get a distinction in this unit without much effort at all. And if you put in some effort, a High Distinction is certainly achievable.
Lecturer/Tutor: 8/10 (Lili Paquet)
It's a bit hard to really go above and beyond when lecturing for this subject, because so much of the content is very cut and dry, and while I didn't find the content particularly boring, I don't think it's the type of material that would benefit from a particularly flamboyant or enthusiastic lecture style. Having said that, I couldn't really ask too much more from Lili, she did everything I expected her too. She was quite approachable and gave quite helpful suggestions towards my essay, and also offered some extra helpful information in regards to the content on the lecture slides.
Interest: 7/10
I didn't expect this course to be particularly interesting, and a lot of the content that was taught seemed to me like common sense. That being said, there were a few different essay approaches that they taught which was new to me, and I enjoyed learning quite a bit. There were some topics, like cross-cultural communication, which were a little dry, but overall the lecture content wasn't too bad. Your interest in this course is really going to be what you make of it; for me, the choice of my essay topic really sustained my interest. Plus it was fun preparing for the oral presentation; I like doing speeches
.Overall: 8.33/10
Apparently WRIT1000 is easier, but I haven't done it so I can't really comment. Even so, WRIT1001 is still very easy, and is arguably much more useful than WRIT1000 for university work. Despite the dryness of the material at times I would definitely recommend this unit, if not for the interest, then definitely for the WAM boost.
Silly Sausage
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Yeah I agree that was fuarked with that firetower question lol. First tute for me too. bad experience/10.
Silly Sausage
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WRIT1001 - Writing and Rhetoric: Academic Essays
Ease: 8/10
Almost like HSC English (adv), except you got to choose what you write and how you wrote it. Everyone was pretty much given full marks for the first 5% of the course no matter how bad your essay was and another 5% was for the academic honesty module. Then another 10% was given for the speech (as long as you showed up to present it - doesn't matter if you had a shaky voice or no eye-contact etc...) Just make sure you have your grammar and sentence structure correct beforehand or just take WRIT1000 instead if they're a bit shabby. No final exam, just 4 x 500 words essays worth and 1 x 1500 word essay.
Lecturer: Frances Di Lauro didn't go to any lectures so I wouldn't really know but I've heard great things about her
Except for when I went on two occasions when they were screening the movies : Thank You for Smoking (pretty good) and The Sapphires (Not so good).
Tutorials were just simple writing and reading exercises to help you prepare for your essays.
Interest: 1/10
Overall: 6/10
Ease: 8/10
Almost like HSC English (adv), except you got to choose what you write and how you wrote it. Everyone was pretty much given full marks for the first 5% of the course no matter how bad your essay was and another 5% was for the academic honesty module. Then another 10% was given for the speech (as long as you showed up to present it - doesn't matter if you had a shaky voice or no eye-contact etc...) Just make sure you have your grammar and sentence structure correct beforehand or just take WRIT1000 instead if they're a bit shabby. No final exam, just 4 x 500 words essays worth and 1 x 1500 word essay.
Lecturer: Frances Di Lauro didn't go to any lectures so I wouldn't really know but I've heard great things about her
Except for when I went on two occasions when they were screening the movies : Thank You for Smoking (pretty good) and The Sapphires (Not so good).
Tutorials were just simple writing and reading exercises to help you prepare for your essays.
Interest: 1/10
Overall: 6/10
Silly Sausage
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Oh awks ... not a big fan of modern musicals sorry lol.Really? I liked The Sapphires
My group did the panel discussion on Thank You For Smoking and that was probably easier to analyse.
Our group spent the tutorial afterwards taking turnings reading the script out-loud.
JAKZILLASAURUS
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In your PDF you've got PHIL2620 - Probability and Decision Theory listed as an old subject. Just thought I'd let you know that they're running that subject in 2016.
Evidence: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/sophi/documents/unit_guides/2016/Philosphy_unit_guide_2016.pdf
Evidence: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/sophi/documents/unit_guides/2016/Philosphy_unit_guide_2016.pdf
Amleops
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Ah yes, Arts departments have quite an annoying habit of discontinuing and bringing back old subjects. That's part of the reason why I can't study logic anymore haha.
Cheers, I'll remember to update that at the end of the year.
Cheers, I'll remember to update that at the end of the year.
egress
Member
I'll start for this semester!
ECON1002 - Introductory Macroeconomics
Ease: 9/10
It's just fiddling around with some basic models, nothing all that difficult.
Lecturers: 8/10
Dr Mark Melatos is pretty solid - stops during the lectures and quizzes the audience about trends, etc. Prof Ed Nelson is also a cool guy.
Interest: 8/10
It would've been nice to be introduced to more models, such as IS-LM. The brief introduction to monetary economics was definitely taught far better than I expected, and the introduction to Solow-Swan was nice, but overall it did seem a bit lacking.
Overall: 8/10
I saw an interesting piece the other day that questions the actual utility of teaching first year students macroeconomics, and it does hit home a bit. ECON1002 is a pretty solid unit for anyone who's interested in how the economy works in general terms, but I'm not sure how strong of a foundation it gives for people who want to learn economics seriously (a lot of this can probably be blamed on the lack of adequate maths prerequisites though).
ECMT1020 - Introductory Econometrics
Ease: 8/10
It's not too difficult for the mathematically inclined.
Lecturers: 9/10
I appreciate Dr Exterkate's attempts to make the course more rigorous, and to teach more basic statistical theory. I believe he's going to be the only lecturer starting next year. Kadir Atalay is a super nice guy.
Interest: 7/10
In general it's a pretty solid consolidation of ordinary least squares regression. There could've been better coverage of more advanced topics though, and I would've enjoyed it more if it introduced more theorems, etc.
Overall: 8/10
I still maintain that they should use R in conjunction with Stata.
FINC2011 - Corporate Finance I
Ease: 7/10
To be honest, and I have no idea why, I didn't expect the course to essentially be applied microeconomics. Points deducted for my own silliness - being the first business school subject I've taken, I didn't realise that the assignment was supposed to be written in the way that an actual report would be written in the real world, rather than the academic mumbo-jumbo that I actually turned in.
Lecturer: 8/10
I liked Dr Kortian.
Interest: 8/10
I guess I had an interest in the topic area beforehand, so I found it quite enjoyable.
Overall: 8/10
Overall, the course is a pretty solid introduction to the topic.
MATH1903 - Integral Calculus and Modelling
Ease: 7/10
It's certainly a lot easier to wrap one's head around this compared to, say, linear algebra.
Lecturers: 9/10
Anne is fantastic, and Florica has a nice accent.
Interest: 8/10
I'd give it a nine, but it seems to tease one about second year maths units slightly too much. Integral calculus is definitely interesting, whilst modelling was perhaps slightly more mechanical than it should have been.
Overall: 8/10
Made me keen to take some intermediate units.
MATH1004 - Discrete Mathematics
Ease: 9/10
Combinatorics problems can be made arbitrarily difficult, but apart from that, the problems are quite simple.
Lecturers: 9/10
Stephan Tillmann never fails to entertain.
Interest: 7/10
The course content was absolutely fascinating - Boolean algebra, classical logic, set theory, generating functions, etc. But the treatment was too shallow.
Overall:8/10
They should reintroduce MATH1904.
I just noticed I gave everything an eight, overall. That wasn't intentional haha.
ECON1002 - Introductory Macroeconomics
Ease: 9/10
It's just fiddling around with some basic models, nothing all that difficult.
Lecturers: 8/10
Dr Mark Melatos is pretty solid - stops during the lectures and quizzes the audience about trends, etc. Prof Ed Nelson is also a cool guy.
Interest: 8/10
It would've been nice to be introduced to more models, such as IS-LM. The brief introduction to monetary economics was definitely taught far better than I expected, and the introduction to Solow-Swan was nice, but overall it did seem a bit lacking.
Overall: 8/10
I saw an interesting piece the other day that questions the actual utility of teaching first year students macroeconomics, and it does hit home a bit. ECON1002 is a pretty solid unit for anyone who's interested in how the economy works in general terms, but I'm not sure how strong of a foundation it gives for people who want to learn economics seriously (a lot of this can probably be blamed on the lack of adequate maths prerequisites though).
ECMT1020 - Introductory Econometrics
Ease: 8/10
It's not too difficult for the mathematically inclined.
Lecturers: 9/10
I appreciate Dr Exterkate's attempts to make the course more rigorous, and to teach more basic statistical theory. I believe he's going to be the only lecturer starting next year. Kadir Atalay is a super nice guy.
Interest: 7/10
In general it's a pretty solid consolidation of ordinary least squares regression. There could've been better coverage of more advanced topics though, and I would've enjoyed it more if it introduced more theorems, etc.
Overall: 8/10
I still maintain that they should use R in conjunction with Stata.
FINC2011 - Corporate Finance I
Ease: 7/10
To be honest, and I have no idea why, I didn't expect the course to essentially be applied microeconomics. Points deducted for my own silliness - being the first business school subject I've taken, I didn't realise that the assignment was supposed to be written in the way that an actual report would be written in the real world, rather than the academic mumbo-jumbo that I actually turned in.
Lecturer: 8/10
I liked Dr Kortian.
Interest: 8/10
I guess I had an interest in the topic area beforehand, so I found it quite enjoyable.
Overall: 8/10
Overall, the course is a pretty solid introduction to the topic.
MATH1903 - Integral Calculus and Modelling
Ease: 7/10
It's certainly a lot easier to wrap one's head around this compared to, say, linear algebra.
Lecturers: 9/10
Anne is fantastic, and Florica has a nice accent.
Interest: 8/10
I'd give it a nine, but it seems to tease one about second year maths units slightly too much. Integral calculus is definitely interesting, whilst modelling was perhaps slightly more mechanical than it should have been.
Overall: 8/10
Made me keen to take some intermediate units.
MATH1004 - Discrete Mathematics
Ease: 9/10
Combinatorics problems can be made arbitrarily difficult, but apart from that, the problems are quite simple.
Lecturers: 9/10
Stephan Tillmann never fails to entertain.
Interest: 7/10
The course content was absolutely fascinating - Boolean algebra, classical logic, set theory, generating functions, etc. But the treatment was too shallow.
Overall:8/10
They should reintroduce MATH1904.
I just noticed I gave everything an eight, overall. That wasn't intentional haha.
Librah
Not_the_pad
I think the way they determine marks for regular/advanced is the same, so "scaling" is pretty similar for both.
FINC2012 - Corporate Finance II
Ease: 5/10
A very hard subject, group assignment was marked relatively harshly, midsem was challenging as was the final. I found it fair but hard. The final didn't seem as hard as last semester's final but was still very challenging and definitely tried to test your understanding of the course. Received a 70, lowest mark this year for me (WAM was 77.5 this year).
Lecturer: 6/10
Amy was a great lecturer, unfortunately she got stuck with all the boring weeks. First 2 weeks are revision and the capital budgeting/taxation is very uninteresting. Hui was atrocious, don't even know why I bothered showing up he spends about 20-30minutes turning late, talking about useless things like Turnitin or other admin crap and finishes early too. Could easily condense his lectures into an hour if he wanted.
Interest: 7.5/10
At the time, a lot of cap budgeting was boring as anything especially calculations for tax shields. But after doing the course a lot of the content was exceedingly useful for finance, Pecking order theory, yields, risk/return, financial distress, debt/equity etc.
Overall: 6/10
Essential course for finance (and required) but boring at times and VERY hard. Be prepared, study hard and hopefully it wont drag down your WAM too much if you want to major in Finance.
ECMT1020
Ease: 10/10
Easiest course I've ever done at university, got my first HD despite cocking up the final majorly.
Lecuterer: 7/10
First lecturer (i think exerkate) was fine but very slow/boring as was the whole course. Second lecturer (french guy, I think Atalay) was hard to understand as well as being slow/boring. If you struggle with statistics then Exerkate would be good for you, i think he's teaching the whole course next year. If you're good at statistics like myself, dont bother with any lectures.
Interest: 9/10
Very slow but a lot of interesting applications of stats esp. multivariable regression.
Overall: 9/10
Great wam booster if you're solid at stats, no work and good marks couldn't ask for much more.
STAT2012
Ease: 7.5/10
The course is exceedingly easy to stay on top of, and do well in the first 35% of the course. It is well structured and taught well in terms of assessments. I thought the final was a little tricky but very doable but after receiving my mark I was quite disappointed so i'll check my paper tomorrow. Some friends did very well though.
Lecturer: 4/10
Jennifer Chan was impossible to understand and her English was quite poor. Went to 1 or 2 lectures in week 1 and never again. Lecture notes was amazing, best i've ever used so they were more than enough for me.
Interest: 7.5/10
If you like stats, the course is reasonably interesting. A bit theoretical though, not much application.
Overall: 8/10
Good and useful course, not too difficult either.
MATH2970
Ease: 7.5/10
All assessments were ridiculously easy, the final was fair but very hard. Luckily they marked easily so I did quite well.
Lecturer: 8/10
Georg: Didn't go to many because I fell behind in material but he seemed quite good and funny. A touch hard to understand but not too bad. His lecture notes was really hard to read because of his poor writing though. I think buying the book might help.
Interest: 8.5/10
As someone with a finance background, i found the course quite interesting and the material was good.
Overall: 7.5/10
If you have an interest in finance and strong maths background I'd recommend this course. It was quite challenging to stay on top of all the material though as was the final.
Ease: 5/10
A very hard subject, group assignment was marked relatively harshly, midsem was challenging as was the final. I found it fair but hard. The final didn't seem as hard as last semester's final but was still very challenging and definitely tried to test your understanding of the course. Received a 70, lowest mark this year for me (WAM was 77.5 this year).
Lecturer: 6/10
Amy was a great lecturer, unfortunately she got stuck with all the boring weeks. First 2 weeks are revision and the capital budgeting/taxation is very uninteresting. Hui was atrocious, don't even know why I bothered showing up he spends about 20-30minutes turning late, talking about useless things like Turnitin or other admin crap and finishes early too. Could easily condense his lectures into an hour if he wanted.
Interest: 7.5/10
At the time, a lot of cap budgeting was boring as anything especially calculations for tax shields. But after doing the course a lot of the content was exceedingly useful for finance, Pecking order theory, yields, risk/return, financial distress, debt/equity etc.
Overall: 6/10
Essential course for finance (and required) but boring at times and VERY hard. Be prepared, study hard and hopefully it wont drag down your WAM too much if you want to major in Finance.
ECMT1020
Ease: 10/10
Easiest course I've ever done at university, got my first HD despite cocking up the final majorly.
Lecuterer: 7/10
First lecturer (i think exerkate) was fine but very slow/boring as was the whole course. Second lecturer (french guy, I think Atalay) was hard to understand as well as being slow/boring. If you struggle with statistics then Exerkate would be good for you, i think he's teaching the whole course next year. If you're good at statistics like myself, dont bother with any lectures.
Interest: 9/10
Very slow but a lot of interesting applications of stats esp. multivariable regression.
Overall: 9/10
Great wam booster if you're solid at stats, no work and good marks couldn't ask for much more.
STAT2012
Ease: 7.5/10
The course is exceedingly easy to stay on top of, and do well in the first 35% of the course. It is well structured and taught well in terms of assessments. I thought the final was a little tricky but very doable but after receiving my mark I was quite disappointed so i'll check my paper tomorrow. Some friends did very well though.
Lecturer: 4/10
Jennifer Chan was impossible to understand and her English was quite poor. Went to 1 or 2 lectures in week 1 and never again. Lecture notes was amazing, best i've ever used so they were more than enough for me.
Interest: 7.5/10
If you like stats, the course is reasonably interesting. A bit theoretical though, not much application.
Overall: 8/10
Good and useful course, not too difficult either.
MATH2970
Ease: 7.5/10
All assessments were ridiculously easy, the final was fair but very hard. Luckily they marked easily so I did quite well.
Lecturer: 8/10
Georg: Didn't go to many because I fell behind in material but he seemed quite good and funny. A touch hard to understand but not too bad. His lecture notes was really hard to read because of his poor writing though. I think buying the book might help.
Interest: 8.5/10
As someone with a finance background, i found the course quite interesting and the material was good.
Overall: 7.5/10
If you have an interest in finance and strong maths background I'd recommend this course. It was quite challenging to stay on top of all the material though as was the final.
Amleops
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MATH2065 - Introduction to Partial Differential Equations
Ease - 8/10
Not particularly difficult by any means, but the assessments, particularly the exam, did throw quite a few curve balls. That ended up affecting my mark a little bit. If you keep on top of the work then you should be fine; the tutorial questions cover a wide range of styles so you should get some good practice.
Lecturer - 7/10 (Peter Kim)
Peter Kim was a decent lecturer; he had very nice written lecture notes and was able to explain concepts quite well. Unfortunately he would have to have been a very exceptional lecturer to keep me motivated to come to 8am lectures everyday, which he wasn't. But he kept his online resources well organised and up to date so I can't complain too much.
Interest - 8/10
Differential equations play a very important part in the study of applied mathematics, and there are many different applications in a wide range of areas from science, engineering and finance. That was enough to keep me interested in the course. You'll review ODE's from first year, and be introduced to transforms, convolution, PDE problems and Fourier series, the latter I particularly liked. After this I'm definitely looking forward to MATH3063 and MATH3078.
Overall - 8/10
Would definitely recommend. The course would benefit from a better timetable and slightly better lecturer, but it's much too crucial a subject in the study of mathematics to ignore.
MATH2070 - Optimisation and Financial Mathematics
Ease - 9/10
This subject was a lot easier than it could have been. Quite a few topics, particularly the Capital Asset Pricing Model, had been left out of the exam. Which isn't too tedious to learn, it's just all of my lectures clashed for this subject so I was slightly behind in teaching a lot of the concepts to myself. In any case, the optimisation sections are just about following certain steps, and the financial maths questions could be in a style that you perhaps may not be used to, but it's not extremely difficult at all. Computer labs weren't difficult, but were a little tedious. You're taught to use MATLAB, but in the end it's easy enough to Google all the relevant commands you need when you get to the final project.
Lecturer - 9/10 (Georg Gottwald)
Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of Georg due to clashes and work commitments. But when I was there, he was extremely helpful in explaining new concepts, and I couldn't really ask for anything more. I agree with Phyre that his lecture notes are a little hard to read, but really, they're more or less copies of what is in the lecture notes, so you can get by with those just fine.
Interest - 8/10
It's always good to learn maths that is directly useful to things. A lot of the optimisation strategies you learn can actually be put to good use in day to day activities if you feel confident enough to formulate your own problems. And the financial mathematics section is quite interesting too, and would be very useful if your career prospects are that way inclined.
Overall - 9/10
Definitely would do again. Probably the easiest 2nd year maths unit you can do, so you could definitely use it for a WAM booster if you are good at maths.
MATH3061 - Geometry and Topology
Ease - 7/10
Being a pure mathematics course, the lectures are quite focused on theory. Even though this is a normal stream course, you do go through quite a lot of proofs in lectures which don't really show up in the assessments too much at all. I would definitely focus on the tutorial questions, and old resources if you have them, in order to practice your understanding of the theory you go through. If you can understand the content then the assessments are really not that bad, topology particularly so.
Lecturers - 5.5/10 (Laurentiu Paunescu 3/10, Andrew Mathas 8/10)
Paunescu took the geometry section, and I didn't like his lectures at all. He didn't really bother to implement any sort of structure within his lectures; he just rambled on from one concept to the next, and his explanations were quite hard to follow. Plus he didn't upload any lecture notes, so you were pretty much forced to go to his lectures. Mathas was a lot better; he took the topology section which was a bit more theoretical, but he gave everything context which made his lectures far more engaging than Paunescu's.
Interest - 7/10
It's interesting thinking about space and objects from mathematical standpoints you haven't really considered before. Geometry, particularly transformations and isometries, and topology introduce ways of seeing such things as movements, change in state or formations from a mathematical perspective, which I enjoyed. The depth you cover the material is a little more shallow than what you would expect in the advanced stream, and it does get a little abstract at times, but it's certainly interesting to learn.
Overall - 7/10
Good course. If Paunescu's not lecturing then definitely consider it. If he is, be wary that you may have to put in a little more effort to understand things.
Ease - 8/10
Not particularly difficult by any means, but the assessments, particularly the exam, did throw quite a few curve balls. That ended up affecting my mark a little bit. If you keep on top of the work then you should be fine; the tutorial questions cover a wide range of styles so you should get some good practice.
Lecturer - 7/10 (Peter Kim)
Peter Kim was a decent lecturer; he had very nice written lecture notes and was able to explain concepts quite well. Unfortunately he would have to have been a very exceptional lecturer to keep me motivated to come to 8am lectures everyday, which he wasn't. But he kept his online resources well organised and up to date so I can't complain too much.
Interest - 8/10
Differential equations play a very important part in the study of applied mathematics, and there are many different applications in a wide range of areas from science, engineering and finance. That was enough to keep me interested in the course. You'll review ODE's from first year, and be introduced to transforms, convolution, PDE problems and Fourier series, the latter I particularly liked. After this I'm definitely looking forward to MATH3063 and MATH3078.
Overall - 8/10
Would definitely recommend. The course would benefit from a better timetable and slightly better lecturer, but it's much too crucial a subject in the study of mathematics to ignore.
MATH2070 - Optimisation and Financial Mathematics
Ease - 9/10
This subject was a lot easier than it could have been. Quite a few topics, particularly the Capital Asset Pricing Model, had been left out of the exam. Which isn't too tedious to learn, it's just all of my lectures clashed for this subject so I was slightly behind in teaching a lot of the concepts to myself. In any case, the optimisation sections are just about following certain steps, and the financial maths questions could be in a style that you perhaps may not be used to, but it's not extremely difficult at all. Computer labs weren't difficult, but were a little tedious. You're taught to use MATLAB, but in the end it's easy enough to Google all the relevant commands you need when you get to the final project.
Lecturer - 9/10 (Georg Gottwald)
Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of Georg due to clashes and work commitments. But when I was there, he was extremely helpful in explaining new concepts, and I couldn't really ask for anything more. I agree with Phyre that his lecture notes are a little hard to read, but really, they're more or less copies of what is in the lecture notes, so you can get by with those just fine.
Interest - 8/10
It's always good to learn maths that is directly useful to things. A lot of the optimisation strategies you learn can actually be put to good use in day to day activities if you feel confident enough to formulate your own problems. And the financial mathematics section is quite interesting too, and would be very useful if your career prospects are that way inclined.
Overall - 9/10
Definitely would do again. Probably the easiest 2nd year maths unit you can do, so you could definitely use it for a WAM booster if you are good at maths.
MATH3061 - Geometry and Topology
Ease - 7/10
Being a pure mathematics course, the lectures are quite focused on theory. Even though this is a normal stream course, you do go through quite a lot of proofs in lectures which don't really show up in the assessments too much at all. I would definitely focus on the tutorial questions, and old resources if you have them, in order to practice your understanding of the theory you go through. If you can understand the content then the assessments are really not that bad, topology particularly so.
Lecturers - 5.5/10 (Laurentiu Paunescu 3/10, Andrew Mathas 8/10)
Paunescu took the geometry section, and I didn't like his lectures at all. He didn't really bother to implement any sort of structure within his lectures; he just rambled on from one concept to the next, and his explanations were quite hard to follow. Plus he didn't upload any lecture notes, so you were pretty much forced to go to his lectures. Mathas was a lot better; he took the topology section which was a bit more theoretical, but he gave everything context which made his lectures far more engaging than Paunescu's.
Interest - 7/10
It's interesting thinking about space and objects from mathematical standpoints you haven't really considered before. Geometry, particularly transformations and isometries, and topology introduce ways of seeing such things as movements, change in state or formations from a mathematical perspective, which I enjoyed. The depth you cover the material is a little more shallow than what you would expect in the advanced stream, and it does get a little abstract at times, but it's certainly interesting to learn.
Overall - 7/10
Good course. If Paunescu's not lecturing then definitely consider it. If he is, be wary that you may have to put in a little more effort to understand things.
Librah
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PHYS1500-Astronomy
Ease - 7/10
There's a lot of content to remember and most of the concepts aren't too difficult to understand, except a few things that are just really confusing if you made an attempt to learn the mechanisms. The 2 hour computer labs are reasonably easy, the manual will guide you through how everything works, you can work ahead and avoid going to the labs for the last 3-4 scheduled weeks. The mid-sems test and lab test, both weighed 10% are fairly simple, the latter is an open book test, and your allowed to google info, though you probably won't need to. Finals are worth 80% and consists of 20 MC and 80 marks in short response. Despite cramming 13 weeks of missed lectures and content into a span of 3 days, I still scraped an 80 for this subject, so if your worried you haven't caught up the entire semester, just skim over everything and do the past papers they give you and you should be set for at least a pass.
Lecturer-?/10 (John O'Byrne/other guest lecturers)
Haven't been to many lectures to give a fair review.
Interest- 6/10
I like space/cosmology, but the way the course is made makes it feel more suited for an arts student. Some of the tutorials are reasonably interactive/discussion based and involved some role playing and was fairly relaxed. The night viewing wasn't too spectacular IMO.
Overall- 6/10
You can do this subject from any faculty really. I wouldn't say this subject is a WAM booster though.
MATH1903- Integral calculus and modelling
Ease-9/10
Probably the easiest first year math subject. The weighed quizzes were almost identical to the sample quizzes. The assignment was a little more difficult, but you have a long time to figure it out. The finals were just a speed race. There's some form of scaling involved in this subject, otherwise I probably wouldn't have gotten a final mark in the 90's based on how I went in the finals.
Lecturers- (Anne Thomas-7.5/10, Florica Cirstea-10/10)
Florica's a great lecturer. Have only been to 1-2 of Anne's lectures, but she's good.
Interest-7/10
Content seemed a little dry and repetitive, but I enjoyed it for the brainless algebra/integration and lack of rigour.
Overall-8/10
You don't have to be all that "mathematically inclined" to do well in this subject but I think i'm going to quit math while I'm still ahead.
MATH1004- Discrete Mathematics
Ease-7/10
I actually found this subject a little challenging despite so many people saying it's a "very easy" subject. Especially some of the combs/perms and things involved with sets and number theory with prime numbers and such. (though hasn't been assessed in the past exams I've seen) The final exam was fairly easy this year, seeing as how they didn't include a comb/perm question in the short response.
Lecturer-9/10 (Stephan Tillman)
Stephan makes an interesting lecture.
Interest-7/10
The logic/truth topics and number theory were interesting.
Overall- 7.5/10
It was ok, i think MATH1905 might've been more useful to me and most people though.
CHEM1902/1904
Ease-9/10
There's a lot of reactions to memorise, but they become almost second nature around when stuvac begins. Organic was a pain, and I found physical chemistry easier to learn. Neither are that difficult though. The assessments/lab marks are dead easy to get, and you should be able to get close to full marks before the finals. The finals are worth 60% and is where you'll lose your marks. Your pretty much guaranteed a pass due to the free 35-40% before the finals, as long as you don't bomb the exam completely. In terms of assessments, the only difference between CHEM1904/CHEM1902 are the labs, which you'll probably get close to full marks anyway.
Lecturer- (Chris Mcerlean-9/10 Lou Rendina- 9/10)
Both are pretty good.
Interest-7/10
Organic chemistry mainly focused on reaction mechanisms and reagents and introduced "curly arrows" which can explain almost every mechanism there is in organic chemistry. Physical chemistry focused more on equilibrium/solubility/structures and rates and involves some simple to moderately difficult calculations. I didn't enjoy the seemingly random experiments done in labs that had almost no relevance to the course, the equipment was sub-par quality and those god awful pre-lab quizzes made the lab component of this course unbearable.
Overall- 8/10
Fair subject.
PHYS1902
Ease-6.5/10
The main difficulty came with quantum physics, a lot of the concepts I just took for granted, and didn't bother to understand much of it at all, but still managed to pull off an HD. Electromagnetism was initially a bit difficult to understand as some of the ideas were quite abstract, but everything kind of falls into place once you get the gist of it. Fluids wasn't too troubling. I don't think your math has to be that great to get through this course, you only need to know how to make some lengthy algebraic manipulations and know how to integrate/differentiate with some simple trig identities/substitutions. So if you didn't do math in highschool, your probably doing some kind of math unit at uni for your degree that will cover what you need to know. Also for some reason they decided to remove scaling this year.
Lecturers- (Geraint Lewis-9.5/10, Helen Johnston-8.5/10, Mike Wheatland-3/10)
Geraint and Helen explained things reasonably clearly and were very knowledgeable. I think someone mentioned this in another review, but Mike mostly just teaches himself physics in the lecture, hogging the right side of the lecture room for some reason and nothing was really explained properly, it didn't help that most of the lecture notes he went through were derivations and he just scrolled through them on the PowerPoint, it just felt really rushed.
Interest-8/10
A lot of this course had to be learned from scratch, and most ideas can't be figured out using your common sense, you probably won't enjoy this subject if you don't enjoy physics.
Overall-7/10
I still don't know what a particle in a box is.
Ease - 7/10
There's a lot of content to remember and most of the concepts aren't too difficult to understand, except a few things that are just really confusing if you made an attempt to learn the mechanisms. The 2 hour computer labs are reasonably easy, the manual will guide you through how everything works, you can work ahead and avoid going to the labs for the last 3-4 scheduled weeks. The mid-sems test and lab test, both weighed 10% are fairly simple, the latter is an open book test, and your allowed to google info, though you probably won't need to. Finals are worth 80% and consists of 20 MC and 80 marks in short response. Despite cramming 13 weeks of missed lectures and content into a span of 3 days, I still scraped an 80 for this subject, so if your worried you haven't caught up the entire semester, just skim over everything and do the past papers they give you and you should be set for at least a pass.
Lecturer-?/10 (John O'Byrne/other guest lecturers)
Haven't been to many lectures to give a fair review.
Interest- 6/10
I like space/cosmology, but the way the course is made makes it feel more suited for an arts student. Some of the tutorials are reasonably interactive/discussion based and involved some role playing and was fairly relaxed. The night viewing wasn't too spectacular IMO.
Overall- 6/10
You can do this subject from any faculty really. I wouldn't say this subject is a WAM booster though.
MATH1903- Integral calculus and modelling
Ease-9/10
Probably the easiest first year math subject. The weighed quizzes were almost identical to the sample quizzes. The assignment was a little more difficult, but you have a long time to figure it out. The finals were just a speed race. There's some form of scaling involved in this subject, otherwise I probably wouldn't have gotten a final mark in the 90's based on how I went in the finals.
Lecturers- (Anne Thomas-7.5/10, Florica Cirstea-10/10)
Florica's a great lecturer. Have only been to 1-2 of Anne's lectures, but she's good.
Interest-7/10
Content seemed a little dry and repetitive, but I enjoyed it for the brainless algebra/integration and lack of rigour.
Overall-8/10
You don't have to be all that "mathematically inclined" to do well in this subject but I think i'm going to quit math while I'm still ahead.
MATH1004- Discrete Mathematics
Ease-7/10
I actually found this subject a little challenging despite so many people saying it's a "very easy" subject. Especially some of the combs/perms and things involved with sets and number theory with prime numbers and such. (though hasn't been assessed in the past exams I've seen) The final exam was fairly easy this year, seeing as how they didn't include a comb/perm question in the short response.
Lecturer-9/10 (Stephan Tillman)
Stephan makes an interesting lecture.
Interest-7/10
The logic/truth topics and number theory were interesting.
Overall- 7.5/10
It was ok, i think MATH1905 might've been more useful to me and most people though.
CHEM1902/1904
Ease-9/10
There's a lot of reactions to memorise, but they become almost second nature around when stuvac begins. Organic was a pain, and I found physical chemistry easier to learn. Neither are that difficult though. The assessments/lab marks are dead easy to get, and you should be able to get close to full marks before the finals. The finals are worth 60% and is where you'll lose your marks. Your pretty much guaranteed a pass due to the free 35-40% before the finals, as long as you don't bomb the exam completely. In terms of assessments, the only difference between CHEM1904/CHEM1902 are the labs, which you'll probably get close to full marks anyway.
Lecturer- (Chris Mcerlean-9/10 Lou Rendina- 9/10)
Both are pretty good.
Interest-7/10
Organic chemistry mainly focused on reaction mechanisms and reagents and introduced "curly arrows" which can explain almost every mechanism there is in organic chemistry. Physical chemistry focused more on equilibrium/solubility/structures and rates and involves some simple to moderately difficult calculations. I didn't enjoy the seemingly random experiments done in labs that had almost no relevance to the course, the equipment was sub-par quality and those god awful pre-lab quizzes made the lab component of this course unbearable.
Overall- 8/10
Fair subject.
PHYS1902
Ease-6.5/10
The main difficulty came with quantum physics, a lot of the concepts I just took for granted, and didn't bother to understand much of it at all, but still managed to pull off an HD. Electromagnetism was initially a bit difficult to understand as some of the ideas were quite abstract, but everything kind of falls into place once you get the gist of it. Fluids wasn't too troubling. I don't think your math has to be that great to get through this course, you only need to know how to make some lengthy algebraic manipulations and know how to integrate/differentiate with some simple trig identities/substitutions. So if you didn't do math in highschool, your probably doing some kind of math unit at uni for your degree that will cover what you need to know. Also for some reason they decided to remove scaling this year.
Lecturers- (Geraint Lewis-9.5/10, Helen Johnston-8.5/10, Mike Wheatland-3/10)
Geraint and Helen explained things reasonably clearly and were very knowledgeable. I think someone mentioned this in another review, but Mike mostly just teaches himself physics in the lecture, hogging the right side of the lecture room for some reason and nothing was really explained properly, it didn't help that most of the lecture notes he went through were derivations and he just scrolled through them on the PowerPoint, it just felt really rushed.
Interest-8/10
A lot of this course had to be learned from scratch, and most ideas can't be figured out using your common sense, you probably won't enjoy this subject if you don't enjoy physics.
Overall-7/10
I still don't know what a particle in a box is.
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