Some of these are probably double-ups of previous reviews for these subjects, but whatever, here's a second opinion.
BABS1201 (Molecules, Cells and Genes)
Ease: 8/10 If you did HSC Bio, quite a lot of the lectures for this course basically build on the content you've previously learnt. Some of it can get a bit complicated, but if you concentrate and can grasp the main ideas, you'll be right. The assessments were also very very easy. The labs were also not too difficult, very relaxed.
Lecturer(s): 9/10 Pretty much all of the lecturers for this course were excellent, very easygoing, and explained things fairly clearly.
Interest: 8/10 I found most of it pretty interesting...however this could be because I'm a bit of a biology nerd. I did hear a few comments of "I'm SO over this", etc, when waiting for lectures to start.
Overall: 7/10 Ridiculously easy to get
at least a pass in.
BIOS1301 (Ecology and Environmental Sustainability):
Ease: 6/10 I guess it's not actually very difficult, however there is a LOT of lecture material (4 hours of lectures per week) to remember, and a pretty nasty scientific report you have to write up about bugs living in leaf litter. The labs were incredibly draining, but thankfully they only go for five weeks of the semester. In fact I really hated those labs, come to think of it. Ugh.
Lecturer: 7/10 for one of them - he's a decent lecturer, and I guess it's not really his fault the course is so uninteresting, however he does seem overly fond of using Comic Sans almost exclusively in his lecture slides. 4/10 for the other lecturer, who (essentially) didn't provide lecture notes on WebCT, so you had to really try and concentrate on what he was actually saying, and write/type as quickly as possible to get all the important stuff down. Occasionally he comes out with some unexpectedly very dry-humoured remarks (he was the one who informed us that there are magic mushrooms growing on campus), which was about his only saving grace. There were also a lot of different guest lecturers who I can't really give a score for.
Interest: 3/10 The course content is unbelievably boring, and the course overall is amazingly disorganized. It's also depressing - "In this lecture, you're going to hear about how we've stuffed up the planet." "In this lecture, you're going to hear about how we've stuffed it up
even more!" And so on.
Overall: 3/10 What a horrible subject.
(...wow, that turned into a bit of a vent, eh. Sorry
)
ARTS1300 (Understanding Science, Technology and Society):
Ease: 8/10 Initially I thought this course would be tedious and boring, but it turned out to be pretty interesting. If you're interested in philosophy as well as science, this combines the two quite nicely. As long as you can grasp the key concepts - and you don't have to be a natural philosopher for this - the course overall isn't too hard.
Lecturer: 8/10 for the main lecturer, who I thought was excellent. 2/10 for the other lecturer, who was a pain in the arse.
Interest: 7/10 Some of it seemed like unecessary philosophical waffling on for no apparent purpose, but it was mostly interesting nonetheless.
Overall: 8/10
CHEM1011 (Fundamentals of Chemistry 1A):
Ease: 2/10 It's no secret that I hate chemistry. I mainly hate it because it is so hard. (For me, anyway.) There is a LOT of content to try and absorb and get your head around.
Lecturers: I really can't give an overall score for this, since we had...4? I think...different lecturers, whose lecturing/teaching ability varied greatly.
Interest: 1/10 Yeah. Not a fan of chem.
Overall: 2/10