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UNSW Subject Reviews. (4 Viewers)

wrong_turn

the chosen one
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spehar has unbearable lectures. talks like a fucking rabbit on viagra and her lecture notes are so unorganised
 

Uncle

Banned
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yeah i dno i found math1231 excrutiatingly easy. there were no hard concepts at all. shit like linear maps and subspaces/vector spaces were merely proving 1+1 = 2 most of the time.

lol, does moment of inertia become as algorithmic as the ones in cven1300? i dreaded it cause in saw it in phys1121 textbook and was like omfg wtfux but after doing it in cven1300 (technically second moment of inertia) it was pretty goddamn easy.
yer same method algorithmic and all that, just make sure you paid good attention in class back in CVEN1300.
hopefully you dont have to derive it in the civil version of mechanics of solids using first principles like Ix = ∫ y2 dA, we never did in mechanical.
often you may need to find MoI with respect to the centroidal axis and all that.
again, i got that from CVEN1300.

some simple geometries you must remember
I = bd3/12 for rectangular sections.
forgot the one for circular sections lolz.
 

wrong_turn

the chosen one
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omg carolyn, i think i failed perception and cognition...
 

karoooh

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Sweet, I'll have a comrade with me next year then. :(
 

wrong_turn

the chosen one
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i got GG'd for two of the questions and made shit up =(

and i dont think i answered the other questions that well either.
 

Rekkusu

Currently: Away
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Haha BIOS1011 and BIOS2021 will never change, its always taught so badly. The tutors are crap and don't even know how to teach you to write a proper journal article or whatever shit assignment that you had to do in mid-year.

MATH1041 is a total laugh off, you never ever touch statistics again, in fact all the stuff you learn in 1st year science esp chem, bio, maths is pretty useless. But hey its just like the HSC, its all a joke, something you need to pass before you get to do the real awesome stuff (esp the major) you're interested in.
 

Jago

el oh el donkaments
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omg carolyn, i think i failed perception and cognition...
Guy N. Cognito: Greetings good men, might I trouble you for a drink?
Moe: Oh get out of here, Homer!
Guy N. Cognito: Homer? Who is Homer? My name is Guy N. Cognito.
 

karoooh

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Hahahaha. :)

And Leslie, I left out the question on Metamers and it was SO EASY; I should've read that section in the textbook, but by 4 that morning and I cbb to cram more, so I just skipped it. And I answered the working memory question incorrectly with the Sensory/STS/LTS model. DOOMED. And I didn't finish question 10.

How annoying was it that didn't indicate how many marks each question/part of each question was worth? Hmph. OMG whatever, I'll relax and be happy with all the shows I have to catch up on until December and then I'll decide what to do.
 

wrong_turn

the chosen one
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@carolyn: LOL i already caught up on himym. i am satisfied. and the metamers question wasnt that simple. so i did the other one. metamers i remember were light intensities having different wavelengths and the eye cannot tell the difference since it doesnt differentiate colours or something. and then you insert some stuff about the problem with univariance when you can manipulate light intensities to get a metamer.

and the working memory model, i realised i forgot to put the central executive system. (BTW i know what i did wrong. thats the saddest bit about it =S)

@jason: frigen LOL bro!
 

chewy123

OAM, FAICD, FAAS, MBBS
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ACCT1511 Accounting and Financial Management 1B
Ease - It's not intellectually difficult. But there is a lot of rote-learning involve, and that can take some effort to do. 7/10
Interest - Most people I know thinks it's boring. I kinda liked the first half of the course (cashflow). The latter half is a pain (management accounting). 6/10

ECON1102 Macroeconomics 1
Ease - Again it's not intellectually difficult. There is a lot of content and it's hard to absorb them all before finals. 7/10
Interest - Sometime I wonder why we need to learn some of these things. High interest = lower spending. An easy concept like this can be complicated with dozens of equations. Why? 6/10

ECON1203 QMB
Ease - I feel this course is much more easier than QMA, yet my QMB marks are not far from my QMA marks...why? 7/10
Interest - Some very interesting content, especially hypothesis testing and regression. 8/10
 

tallkid34

In 25 words or less
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ECON3206: Financial Econometrics
-- Overall: 4/10 - Not a fun course at all. The name alone tends to put people off and so it should be.
-- Ease: 3/10 - Tough Course. A lot of the course content is difficult and it is never exactly clear how to derive things unless you figure it out yourself. Doing business forecasting (ECON2209) should be a prerequisite before putting yourself through all the econometric models taught here
-- Interest: 5/10 - It's hard to get excited about ARMA and ARCH/GARCH models....
-- Lecturers: 6/10 - Panchenko is a boring lecturer but a decent course adminstrator. Probably one of the best I've had.

ECON3110: Political Economy
-- Overall: 5/10 - I'm not interested in old men's various economic theories (Marx, Keynes, Kalecki..) but others would be
-- Ease: 5/10 - There's no textbook for the course so you'll be having to do a bit of research and extra reading to get a full idea of each economist's perspectives
-- Interest: 5/10 - This course is designed to let students who have mostly been taught mainstream (neoclassical) economics gain an understanding and appreciation of the unorthodox schools of economic thought. It gives you a new perspective on your 1st-year eco courses but apart from that, it's not particularly useful
-- Lecturers: 9/10 - Peter Kriesler is one of the best economics lecturers around

ECON2111: Globalisation
-- Overall: 7/10 - It's an interesting course, fairly straightforward, and I see it as extensions of everything you would've learnt in Macro 1 and 2
-- Ease: 8/10 - It's not hard at all. If you've done ok in Macro 1 and 2, you'll have no problems here
-- Interest: 7/10 - If you liked macroeconomics, you'll like globalisation
-- Lecturers: 7/10 - Chris Benoit is probably a decent lecturer (I never went to any of his lectures) but his course administration skills leave something to be desired.

MGMT2102: Managing Across Cultures
-- Overall: 8/10 - Just another easy, management course.
-- Ease: 9/10 - There's alot of assessments but none of them were particularly difficult
- Interest: 8/10 - I was interested only because my tutor was an engaging individual who knew how to keep discussions going through 1 and a half hour classes
- Lecturers: NA - It's a management course.....
 
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miaowsha

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Econ1101 - Microeconomics 1
Ease: 10/10 The concepts were pretty easy to grasp, the assessments weren't very difficult. There were 2 class tests for which you knew what the 4 questions were 2 weeks or so in advance, 1 of which you'd be tested on, a submission question (you get assigned a question to answer in a certain week's tutorial; although not compulsory to present the question, it's recommended as apparently pitstop and pass people can't help with it), and final exam (multiple choice questions + "submission question" type questions x 1 or 2 i forget now).
Lecturer(s): Diane Enaharo - 10/10. Made lectures entertaining. Had Peter Nichols for 2 lectures, on game theory - mainly about the prisoner's dilemma, thus collusion. He was good too :) 10/10 for him.
Interest: 5/10 first few weeks of basic crap, 10/10 halfway through +.
Overall: 9.5/10 - interesting course. I went to almost all lectures. Easy enough to get marks in provided you understand and remember the material. Not too mathematical, the most you need to do is use a couple of equations and construct a couple of simple curves.


Acct1501 - Accounting & Financial Management 1A
Ease: 8/10
Lecturer(s): Almost all were good, 8/10+ except for the guy teaching about bank reconciliations completing the accounting cycle - he was a bit boring.
Interest: 6/10 Some lecturers made it as interesting as accounting could possibly be. Others made it worse.
Overall: 7-8/10 It was an okay course; apparently the UTS equivalent covers what we do in 4 weeks over the entire semester... Sigh.

Assessments were 10% perdisco (20+ hour assignment which you can't do overnight but puts the course into practical kinda perspective), 25% mid-semester exam - easy, 5% participation (my tutor divided that into a 2% random quiz on homework and 3% 5 page report on the financial statements of a company and what actions you'd recommend to take with their shares in the stock market... slightly random as none of 1A was really about shares at all), final exam 60% (Could have been much harder, was okay). Highly recommend going to lectures for this course as they teach you how to do things, not just theory crap about "what is accounting for" and such which you will find in the first lecture hehe.

MGMT1001
Ease: 10/10
Lecturer(s): 10/10 for the old guy Michael Quinley - brilliant lecturer; Dr Hugh Bainbridge (blahbridge) 5/10 - had to have 2-3+ coffees before attending his lectures. He pretty much just read off the slides which contained things from the textbook. Blah. Speaks quite softly even with a microphone and monotone voice too.
Interest: 2/10 Very vague on every topic. It seemed like they tried really hard to make this into a real subject but the harder they tried the more they failed.
Overall: 3/10 Had a crap tutor, too. Only do this subject if you have to as there are less boring wam boosters out there. Some tutors mark harsher than others in this subject too. At the start you kinda think they're easing you into the course as some subjects do and get harder but this one never does and it just stays boring. Feel free to skip lectures, they're very much common sense lectures.

COMD1002 - "Rich World, Poor World", now Arts1751 or something.
Ease: 9/10
Lecturer(s): N/A, didn't bother going.
Interest: 5/10 Great if you believe that you making money means that poor people are poor.
Overall: 6/10 I had a great tutor. I attended maybe 2 lectures but hated them because they were all so... -.- boring. Assessments were essays from memory.
 

seremify007

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I want to add to this but I feel that I am probably too late and too slow... and byt he time its useful to someone the course would have changed. Here are my two recent GENEDS (s2, 2009)

GENS4010 Science and Religion
- interesting content but a bit biased in favour of Christians (not much info on other religions which is what I wanted to learn about)
- science content seems deep but you can pick it up very easily with a bit of Googling and Wiki
- subject rewards independent research especially if you document this in the journal which is assessed (20%)
- online participation in discussions tends to be swamped by people who post way too D&M intimate details but the tutors are quite fair in assessing and participating (30%)
- take home midsem is piss easy if you did the readings and keep Google/Wikipedia open (20%)
- major assignment however is way too vague and difficult to figure out whether you are on the right track or not... i did very poorly in this section even though i researched and borrowed books for this (very rare for a commerce student to go to this effort!) and the lecturers only help was "if u are finding it difficult choose another topic" with no guidance whatsoever (30%)
- all online

GENS5001 Aviation: Behind the scenes
- interesting lecture content and the aviation tour (yep a busride to the airport) was fun; the lecturer is also quite interesting
- airport tarmac tour is assessable but all the questions are easily answered based on info provided by the tour/bus driver on the day (i got full marks) (20%)
- assignment is a bit hard to figure out what he's looking for but still worthwhile; challenge is how u cite ur work and research it (20%)
- final isn't as hard/daunting as i was expecting (60%) as it had MC and short ans; all of which he explains what will be in the final in the final lecture
- worth doing if u like hearing about plane crashes and how technology has changed
- learn alot of interesting stuff like how flight patterns/routes are decided
 
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tommykins

i am number -e^i*pi
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- online participation in discussions tends to be swamped by people who post way too D&M intimate details but the tutors are quite fair in assessing and participating (30%)
what do u mean intimate details...or did i answer my own question
 

whoisurdaddy

Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2007
Messages
256
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
ECON3206: Financial Econometrics
-- Overall: 4/10 - Not a fun course at all. The name alone tends to put people off and so it should be.
-- Ease: 3/10 - Tough Course. A lot of the course content is difficult and it is never exactly clear how to derive things unless you figure it out yourself. Doing business forecasting (ECON2209) should be a prerequisite before putting yourself through all the econometric models taught here
-- Interest: 5/10 - It's hard to get excited about ARMA and ARCH/GARCH models....
-- Lecturers: 6/10 - Panchenko is a boring lecturer but a decent course adminstrator. Probably one of the best I've had.

ECON3110: Political Economy
-- Overall: 5/10 - I'm not interested in old men's various economic theories (Marx, Keynes, Kalecki..) but others would be
-- Ease: 5/10 - There's no textbook for the course so you'll be having to do a bit of research and extra reading to get a full idea of each economist's perspectives
-- Interest: 5/10 - This course is designed to let students who have mostly been taught mainstream (neoclassical) economics gain an understanding and appreciation of the unorthodox schools of economic thought. It gives you a new perspective on your 1st-year eco courses but apart from that, it's not particularly useful
-- Lecturers: 9/10 - Peter Kriesler is one of the best economics lecturers around

ECON2111: Globalisation
-- Overall: 7/10 - It's an interesting course, fairly straightforward, and I see it as extensions of everything you would've learnt in Macro 1 and 2
-- Ease: 8/10 - It's not hard at all. If you've done ok in Macro 1 and 2, you'll have no problems here
-- Interest: 7/10 - If you liked macroeconomics, you'll like globalisation
-- Lecturers: 7/10 - Chris Benoit is probably a decent lecturer (I never went to any of his lectures) but his course administration skills leave something to be desired.

MGMT2102: Managing Across Cultures
-- Overall: 8/10 - Just another easy, management course.
-- Ease: 9/10 - There's alot of assessments but none of them were particularly difficult
- Interest: 8/10 - I was interested only because my tutor was an engaging individual who knew how to keep discussions going through 1 and a half hour classes
- Lecturers: NA - It's a management course.....
Is ECON3206 one of the hardest courses for economics?
 

tallkid34

In 25 words or less
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Is ECON3206 one of the hardest courses for economics?
Yeah, mate.

I've never met anyone who found it easy. There are certainly people who do well but no one stupid enough to think it was simple. I barely passed and my gf just pulled off a credit.

The content is just never clear. But to be fair, the tests and exams are over-simplified versions of the ridiculous notation about econometric models that you learn over the course.

Even then, answering such questions isn't necessarily a walk in the park anyway.
 

whoisurdaddy

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Man I was sorta looking forward to doing it in the future to supplement my studies of finance but from your description it doesn't sound too fun mate. Basically a quantitative course am I right?
 
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tallkid34

In 25 words or less
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Man I was sorta looking forward to doing it in the future to supplement my studies of finance but from your description it doesn't sound too fun mate. Basically a quantitative course am I right?
There's barely any finance in it. It's only called financial econometrics because you use financial data (such as stock returns) in econometric modelling software.

It's highly quantitative as well. You need to be able to derive the econometric theory as opposed to just memorising it at face value.
 

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