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UNSW Subject Reviews. (5 Viewers)

ct92

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I think ECON3104 is more similar to ECON2102, and ECON3101 is more micro-based.

EDIT: I haven't actually taken either of the courses, I'm just guessing based on the past course outlines.
 
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Subject Reviews Semester 1

PSYC1001 (Psychology 1A)

Ease: 9/10. Content is simple to understand and you don't need much background knowledge in order to achieve high marks. It's pretty much like a gen ed course except more contact hours. Textbook helps clarify information from the lectures, but other than that, lecture notes are all you need to read for a high mark. Instructions for the ILS assignment was vague and unhelpful, especially for first year students. Thankfully its only worth 7%. Studying the lecture slides and summaries of the textbook made the multiple choice mid semester and final test pretty breezy. The Half Research report however is quite brutal if you have never done a scientific report before, but luckily the structure of the report is explained well in the tutorial slides.

Content: 9/10. Most topics are interesting. Psychological perspectives was okay, just gives a broad overview of the different types of approaches in psychology. Developmental lectures are only interesting if you want to learn about the psychology of infants. Consciousness was boring. Personality was okay. Emotion was okay. Health lectures were the most interesting followed by social psychology lectures. You even learn how to pick up girls in one of the social psychology lectures ;)

Lecturer: 7/10 All the lecturers were decent but tended to read off the slides, with the exception of the Health Psychology lecturer; Lenny Vartanian. He knew his topic inside out and expressed himself clearly and simply. Also listening to the consciousness lecturer (Joel Pearson) talk made me fall asleep half the time. But probably because his topic was already boring to begin with.

Tutor: Sule 5/10. Boring, has a weird foreign accent and just reads off the tutorial slides. Her feedback on assignments were quite helpful though.

Overall: 7.5/10. Fun course, not too difficult. Only downside is its more contact hours compared to arts or commerce subjects.


CRIM1010 (Introduction to Criminology)

Ease: 7/10. Content is fairly straightforward BUT it is not explained well in the lectures. Rely on the textbook! Although, without the textbook you can still do very well if you have background knowledge. I did HSC Legal Studies for example. The only (non-formative) assessments you do for the whole semester is a major essay and a final exam, both of which can fuck you over. Essay is not hard, BUT you are given little support and instructions. And as I said before, content is not explained well, so studying for the exam requires reading from the textbook if you have no prior knowledge. Marking for the essay is quite strict and expression accounts for a good proportion of the marks given.

Content: 4/10 Pretty dry at times. Its much like the Crime topic in HSC Legal studies but more in depth and you have to learn a bunch of useless theories and a bit of methodology.

Lecturer: Sanja Miliojevic 3/10. Obviously knows her stuff, but she is so boring to listen to and not to mention, half the stuff she says is just repeating what is said on the lecture slides, but in a tad more detail.

Tutor: Sanja 1/10. Learned nothing in her tutorials. Furthermore, the feedback she gives for the essay outline and essay is too vague.

Overall: 3.75/10. A course that really requires you to rely on yourself, but otherwise is not too difficult. If you're good at improvising and have read some of the textbook, you should be fine for the exam. If you're good at researching and writing essays, the essay should be okay given that you include 'critical analysis'..something my tutor explained very poorly.

ARTS1810 (International Relations: Conventions and Challenges)

Ease: 8/10. Not a difficult course. Content is well explained in the lectures and textbook is useful for clarifying these concepts. Exam was straightforward and you will achieve high marks if you answer the question and have a clear argument. The final analysis is quite tedious though and does require a fair bit of research. Know the concepts and theories and how these can relate to what is currently going on in the world. It also helps if you have a good grasp on modern history and contemporary politics. But it is by no means required at all.

Content: 7/10. If you like learning about theories, this is the course for you. It is full of them. Personally, I didn't mind the theories and some of them made some sense while others were full of shit.

Lecturer: Laura Shepherd 8/10. Great lecturer. She explained everything well and clearly. I was madly writing down almost everything she was explaining. Only drawback regarding her teaching style is that she does tend to go quite fast when she speaks and is a little too verbose sometimes. This was sometimes a problem because it was difficult keeping up with her. But she improved on this in the second half of the semester! Because of her, I aced the final exam by only studying a night beforehand, using my lecture notes and a few pages of the textbook.

Tutor: Stephen Mcguiness 9/10. Best tutor I've had all year. His tutes are fun and he is genuinely a funny and approachable guy. Not only do you also learn a lot from the discussions that he starts with the class, but if you want your questions answered, he is willing to allocate time to help his students privately and encourages students to see him. Only downside is that the feedback he gives for the assignments are not particularly helpful. But I couldn't complain since I did quite well for them.

Overall: 8/10. One of my favorite courses. The content itself however, is slightly hard to grasp at times but Laura and Stephen explain them thoroughly throughout the semester.


ARTS1452 (Introduction to Chinese for Background A)

Ease: 1/10. Not a very fair course, considering the outline stated that its for individuals with a Chinese background that know fewer than 50 Chinese characters. However, most of the students already know a decent amount of Chinese and a good portion know a LOT of Chinese. I was an idiot for picking this course. Luckily my friends helped me throughout the course or I would have without a doubt failed.

Content: 1/10. You learn Chinese.

Lecturer: Mu Yang 6/10. Funny guy but it is not worth sitting through 2 hours of his lecture. Cracks a few jokes here and there but doesn't exactly teach us much. Goes through like 3-4 characters per lecture.

Tutor: One old Chinese lady and another young Chinese lady (1/10). Not fun for someone like me who was struggling.

Overall: 2/10. Don't take this course unless you already have a solid foundation of spoken and written and read Chinese OR you are willing to study for hours each week to learn the language. Keep in mind you will be competing against many students who are already competent at Chinese but are taking this course because they want a WAM booster. Or maybe its just me. You might be naturally skilled at learning a language. If that's the case go for it!
 
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Riachain

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^ Stephen McGuinness really is a brilliant tutor. I didn't like ARTS1811 at all, but I still always looked forward to his tutorials. ;)
 

4025808

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Yup, a shitload of ppl do Introductory Chinese A for a WAM boost, not that they actually want to learn chinese. IMO that is completely unfair. Luckily intermediate chinese has no fobs, which is fairer, thankfully.
 

Wingardium

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MARK1012

For those that are considering MARK1012 as an option for commerce because they've heard its a massive WAM booster - its not. Instead it can seriously bellyflop ur WAM.
Marketings probably the most ridiculous/stupid/gayest subject you can ever do and is horrendously risky cos 40% of the marks are derived from groupwork. IF u end up with international students who can't speak good english/Local students who ended up with a band4/low band 5 in english, chances are UR GONEEEE!!! Some of the tutors are heaps homosexual and have this mentality that everyone should be given a P/C (cos they wanna make this stupid course seemingly hard) +60% of ur marks are class marks...finals can't really change ur destiny unless u fail that.
If u died in MGMT1001, not a good idea to do MARK1012. If ur an eloquent, blond haired, talkative and highly opinionated fella/debater. Prolly gonna end up ur favourite subject...u could even limit the risk by coordinating ur entire class into Law students. Should seriously rally all ur friends into ur class as taht gives u a confidence boost during presentation. Quiz marking/class mark determination is also really subjective...Marking scheme makes no sense (for a question out of 4 ->if student writes this...1.5, if he does this 0.5...the other 2 marks?!?! no idea)
Another weird issue with the quizzes was that u could easily jig a quiz and do it in 2 weeks provided u had a reason?! lik wtf half the class ended up going on a jewish holiday and did it 3 weeks later...when everyone got their marked quizzes back.

EASE: 9/10 contents easy/boring...just have to memorise loads of useless information(preferably entire textbook/lecture notes lik yeah wtf) and quizzes can sometimes ask the most random crap. Marketing concepts are really supid and gay Dogs,Question marks,stars, wtf subject for fags. Loads of acronyms.
LECTURER:1/10 heaviest indian accent out there this mohammad rozzaque. His a lazy fag who doesnt reply on ANY emails -> diverts u to this discussion board which he rarely replies to as well (and when he does its a one worded reply: Yes/No/Maybe). His final was just copy and pasted from this previous final that he distributed to everyone weeks b4. Tutor was indian as well...guest speakers in lectures were indian...everyone in charge of marketing was indian...youtube videos shown were indian...started reading my own textbook with in indian accent in my head fml. His really careless as well - gave us answers that completely mismatched past papers
INTEREST: 2/10 never again in my life
OVERALL: 1/10

FINS1613
EASE:6/10 some concepts pretty hard but interesting
LECTURER: Kyung 8/10, Humperies 6/10 (he seems like a genius tho)
INTEREST: 8/10
OVERALL 8/10

MATHS1141
EASE:3/10 hardest final out there -> everything else was similar to 1131(ie relatively easy)
LECTURER: 9/10 forgot who they were but they were really passionate bout maths
INTEREST: 6/10 did 4U but absolutely no interest
OVERALL: 5/10
don't touch unless ur maths genius DO 1131 FOR A WAM BOOSTER!!!
 

Wingardium

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Also calculations in marketing makes no sense whatsoever. A price mark up of 40% of something manufactured for $3.5 seems to have two different ways to calculating.
Solutions suggest theres the logical way ie. 3.5x1.4 and then theirs also the What The F*ck Are You Smoking method ie. 3.5/1-0.4.
The Weirdass division method seems to take precedence tho
 

Wingardium

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Contents pretty straightforward except the quizzes ask extremely trippy shit. Some of the questions have no correlation with the textbook or lectures...forcing you to bullshit and screws u over pretty hard. Tutors have 60% of ur mark in their hands + their markings are really subjective and harsh...i've seen stacks of quizzes ending up with fails 12/30, 4/30s.
 

halapenyo

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seems like mark1012 is just like mgmt1001. will steer clear of it. thanks wingardium.
 

Thaler

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Hi guys,

Anyone done ECON3101 (Market and Public Choice) and ECON3104 (International Macroeconomics)?

Not sure which one to choose for next semester. I did very well in ECON2102 - Intermediate Macro, so would like to pick a course similar etc.

Thanks in advance!
Haven't done 3104 but I can tell you that whilst 3101 is interesting it's also as easy as shit. I got 92. It all just plugging numbers into formulas and finding *basic* first derivatives.
 

Shadowdude

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MATHS1141
EASE:3/10 hardest final out there -> everything else was similar to 1131(ie relatively easy)
LECTURER: 9/10 forgot who they were but they were really passionate bout maths
INTEREST: 6/10 did 4U but absolutely no interest
OVERALL: 5/10
don't touch unless ur maths genius DO 1131 FOR A WAM BOOSTER!!!
1131 for a WAM booster?

Dude, you don't even have your final results yet.

Plus, is it 1141 or 1241?
 

Wingardium

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1141.
i did it last semester so i thought i'll chuck a random review in
all my friends that did 4U and then 1131. absolutely gunned it with no problem
 

D94

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MATH1141:
Ease: 8/10
Lecturer(s): 8/10
Interest: 8/10
Overall: 8/10 Over half the course is closely related to MX1/MX2, Algebra was uninteresting. Final exam was alright, a few tough questions which separated students, but it was a solid course. A lot of content though, so it seemed rushed when we completed 5 topics in like 3 weeks.

PHYS1131:
Ease: 8/10 In hindsight, it was actually a really easy course.
Lecturer(s): 7/10
Interest: 7/10
Overall: 8/10 Alright course, doing 1121 would have been better since there wasn't any considerable scaling, so there really wasn't any advantage doing Higher Physics.

COMP1917:
Ease: 6/10
Lecturer(s): 6/10
Interest: 5/10
Overall: 6/10 Don't do this course if you're not a computing major, and even if you think you like computing. It was very rushed in the second half of the semester. Very deceptive course - the first 6 weeks are really easy, so you don't even consider dropping down to COMP1911, and then the last day for moving courses passes, then they ramp it up with much harder concepts in a shorter amount of time. It seemed very disorganised.

ENGG1000:
Ease: 10/10
Lecturer(s): 5/10 Didn't really tell us much nor provide us with guidance for the project. (Materials project)
Interest: 5/10
Overall: 1/10 Whilst it was easy, it was the biggest waste of time and the biggest waste of money, AND it is a core. This was probably the best way for the Faculty of Engineering to gain an easy $1006 x 1000 students ≈ $1 million. For the projects, we had to provide resources, so that's more money out of our pockets, it's a rort despite their claims that it will help us with engineering design.

MATH1241:
Ease: 9/10
Lecturer(s): 8/10
Interest: 9/10 for Calculus, 4/10 for Algebra
Overall: 9/10 Calculus parts of the exam were easy, the Algebra sections were tippy; if you didn't know the proofs and theory behind matrices, then you've basically lost 25% of the exam already. A lot of "show that" questions in Algebra, so you know you've lost marks when you can't get what they want you to show.

ELEC1111:
Ease: 8/10
Lecturer(s): 5/10 Very uninteresting, two hour lectures were the worst.
Interest: 7/10
Overall: 7/10 Exam was relatively easy compared to tutorial questions and mid-sem. Lecturers were probably deluded for most of the semester - the whole Keith Burrows Theatre was packed with 400 students, surely one might considering turning on the AC on hot days...no they did not. Obviously they, standing down at the lower half of the room wouldn't feel the heat, but at the top, you could hardly pay attention, and then they wondered why...

MMAN1300:
Ease: 9/10
Lecturer(s): 10/10
Interest: 10/10
Overall: 10/10 Solid course, exam was relatively easy, it would have been better if the exam was much harder since most students technically have passed the course - the exam was worth 35%. There may be a lot of D's and HD's considering, so that's not good for students trying to get into classes for next sem and the good times are gone.
 

Shadowdude

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1141.
i did it last semester so i thought i'll chuck a random review in
all my friends that did 4U and then 1131. absolutely gunned it with no problem
Well, if you say so...

lol... math1131 is a joke. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics and the ability to learn could get a D+ in that course
I think you severely overestimate the amount of mathematically literate people there are in the world.


Personally though, if you're good at maths - and you do maths subjects at uni and do the work and all that, they will definitely boost your WAM.
 

Riachain

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^ Like me. I'm illiterate when it comes to any type of math. Except for the basics, like addition, subtraction, fractions, that sort of thing. Sometimes I wonder why I'm doing Commerce when I have to take a business statistics core course... (If I ever took that MATH1131 course, I'd completely bomb it. By bombing it, I mean failing it, of course.)
 
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kaz1

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lol... math1131 is a joke. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics and the ability to learn could get a D+ in that course
not really, it's not that easy

any course where you have to learn complex numbers (a 4unit maths topic) in 2 weeks I wouldn't say is easy.
 

Wingardium

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Nah complex is easy peasy lemon squeezy. Questions usually repeat and you could prolly memorise the step-by-step answers given and apply that to all types of complex numbers questions (only if u dun geddit tho)

Also people, i have a theory about subjective courses like mgmt1001 and mark1012.
When tutors have a stack of essays to mark...theres always some point when their mind fogs up as they take on these incredibly boring/repetitive readings. And during their befundled state of mind they suddenly hand out really random marks. If they start giving out to loads of people good marks...theres this moment when they realise "Shit, im being too lenient, more then half my class got 16+" and the next half would end up getting really shit marks disregarding the quality of their writing.
Also marks given out to essays are relative to the best writer in your class. If ur entire class is shit and you show any ability to write...you'll prolly get inflated marks and vice-versa. if everyone in ur class are godlike writers and ur slightly crap you'll get heavily penalised.
Tutors are always trying to distribute the same range of marks in different classes and that makes subjective courses risky.

Nevertheless...im only assuming. xD
 

Midori-Days

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Semester 1 2012

MATH1131:
Ease: 7/10 Not bad if you've already done 4 unit maths
Lecturer: 7/10 I stopped going after 6th week to lectures but both lecturers were rather decent. I can't say much about the second half of the semester
Interest: 6/10 Meh
Overall: 6.5/10

COMP1917:
Ease: 4/10 The first half is easy then they just ramp up the difficulty 2 weeks after the deadline for dropping courses. GG
Lecturer: 8/10 Tim Lambert - Funny and chill
Interest: 6/10
Overall: 6/10 Oh and you have to pass the final prac exam. A load of my friends did not get through this on the first try, they provided lots of supplementaries though (about 5 I hear)

MGMT1001:
Ease: 5/10
Lecturer: All 1/10 except for that rather old Asian man, 9/10
Interest: 1/10 It's management
Overall: 1/10 If writing essays is your thing, this may be your haven. Oh and the Everest thing, be prepared to have a fellow member not turn up and result in you getting pissed off

ACCT1501:
Ease: 7/10
Lecturer: Asian guy and White guy 1/10, but Asian woman 6/10
Interest: 3/10 It's accounting
Overall: 6/10 Meh, not much to say. Just do your homework and participate and you'll be sweet

Semester 2 2012

PHYS1121:
Ease: 6/10 BUT Finals were hard as, making this 5/10
Lecturer: 2/10, Mr Wolfe - not my thing. I stopped going 2nd week. I don't know who my problem solving teacher was because I never went.
Interest: 5/10 It's not that bad
Overall: 5/10
Note: First lab will be hard because people generally underestimate the time-constrictive nature of this, so prepare beforehand with the videos they place online and you'll be okay. The WebAssign quizzes aren't too bad, there are lots of answers online already so just copy that, note however, some are wrong so unless you wanna follow them, then actually learn how to do it. As said above, the exam was pretty hard so just aim to get 85-90% in Labs and the Online Webassign Quizzes and you should be fine. I don't know anything about scaling but after hearing the whole cohort being distressed upon leaving the exam room, you should see marks get scaled up.

MATH1231:
Ease:9/10
Lecturer: 7/10 This score is not reliable as I stopped going second week to lectures
Interest: 6/10
Overall: 8/10 Much, much easier than 1131 because you are not presented with as much new topics as 1131. Instead it just builds upon 1131.

ECON1101:
Ease: 7/10
Lecturer: Diane was her name, I'd give her a 8. Stopped going after 7th week.
Interest: 6/10
Overall: 7/10 A semi-repeat of both Year 11 and 12 Economics. Do take care however, as one mark in tests/exam is literally worth 1%. So if you get more than 15 multiple choice questions wrong in the finals (assuming you've gotten a perfect score so far), see ya HD.

MARK1012:
Ease: 6/10
Lecturer: Razzaqueeee my man! 1/10
Interest: 0/10
Overall: 1/10
Note: This got a 1 for the fact that the exam was made pretty easy. Literally half the exam hall left before the time restriction of leaving. 37% of the course weights upon groupwork which is pretty good, unless you land in Fobland where they'll just leech off you. The 2 class tests are very rigid and austere in terms of marking, so it'd be best to not bullshit alot.
 
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