UNSW Subject Reviews. (1 Viewer)

Queenroot

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ARTS1480 - Introductory French 1A

Ease: 3/10

I honestly can't tell you how to do well in this course because I'm pretty sure I failed. Personally do not recommend as a Gen ed.

- Grammar test: If you studied for this it should be ez pz
- Listening/Reading test: Absolutely brutal. I haven't failed anything in my entire uni life and this is what I failed. Even the reading bit was quite hard.
- Writing test: This was okay but I fucked it up because I suck.
- Speaking: This is alright however you need to be well prepared since you get 10 minutes to speak and run out of things to talk about.

Content: 4/10

So much focus on grammar it takes the content appeal away. There is absolutely no english translation for any of the work, everything is in french as soon as you get into a lecture. They won't tell you what half the things mean.The shitty thing about this course is that you're expected to have studied the content that is to be taught on the day of assessment. Now if this was for any other course it would be fine, but studying a new language, you aren't sure of things like how to pronounce words that are new until someone tells you how to pronounce it.

Lecturers:
6/10

I had Caroline. Average lecturer.


Tutors:


Muriel: 7/10 Was alright but a bit intimidating
Sylvie: 6/10 nice but kind of made me uncomfortable
 

Squar3root

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MMAN2400 - Mechanics of solids 1
Ease: 8/10
it is a pretty easy course just need to know how to use the formulas

Content: 9.5/10
very interesting things to know, like what material I should use according to engineering principals, what the diameter of this pipe should be so it doesn't break etc makes you think like an engineer

Lecturer: 6.5/10 in prust we trust
he was alright, lectures explained theory really well so if you want an indepth understanding go to them otherwise not really necessary imo

Tutors: 8.5/10 white guy/ asian guy and then another asian guy who replaced the white guy half way through the sem
they were really good, they knew their shit really well explained concepts clearly and make the course easy to understand

ELEC2141 (dropped the course in week 8 or so but will do again next year)
Ease: 2/10 elec is hard af
pretty hard not much else to say

Content: 3/10
very boring, dry and confusing. things aren't explained well.

Lecturer: 5/10
funny accent, difficult to understand

Tutors (Lab): 1/10 (is negative an option?)
we had 2 tutors. one guy biggest stuck up dumb cunt. All he did was go around to peoples' benches "mark now show me code" run it asks 2 questions and walks away. when you try to ask for advice he will say to you "try harder at it gl". the other tutor was really good, he asked things nicely and when you required assistance he was like "so have you tried this, let me look at your code" etc

Tutorial: 7/10
the asian guy did do a good job explaining things well however he was phd student and went through things vert quickly


MATH2089
Ease: 8/10
fairly straight forward and easy

Content 2/10
stats and numerics pretty boring

Lecturer: 4/10
victoria: not very good at explaining things
asian guy: was alright but didn't do enough examples

Tutors: 3/10
numerics: didn't help much just marked you off. if you needed help or advice they were always busy. didn't reply to emails
stats: had the asian lecturer explained things well

MMAN3200
Ease: 7.5/10
was a pretty good intro course

Content: 6/10
not too interesting

Lecturer: zoran 8/10 asian guy 4/10
zoran explained things well tried to help the asian guy just ran matlab code the whole lecturer didn't explain anything just wrote some stuff down and was like memorise this

Tutors: ?/10
wouldn't know didn't go to any. went to both the passive and interactive ones both were shit
 

Mitsunami

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MATH2089 - Numerical Methods and Statistics

Ease: 8/10

I loathe statistics with a passion back from my high school days, so I am quite biased on it. Very, very, very roughly I can say with a confidence interval of α = 0.99 that this course highly relies on memorizing equations, and it is usually very easy to find answers just by doing so - the problem lies on whether you can remember if the bloody interval requires a t-test or a z-test. So to sum it up, memorize equations.

Content: 6/10

This course is split into two parts - Numerical Methods and Statistics. Both parts have a computing class using MATLAB which alternates weekly with its tutorial class. Attending both is very very highly suggested because it does help you learn concepts and actually apply it very quickly, which will help tremendously in studying for exams.

Statistics deals with probabilities, means, standard deviations, or predictions of a value from a sample, hypothesis prediction and such. Many equations are required, and you need to make use of statistical tables (normal distribution, t tables, f tables, you name it) to find some values for the equation itself. The main difficulty in this part is not the content, but the fact that it requires you to memorize equations. Given that you're provided with some already on the equation sheet, however the ones that you actually do need are the ones not given. Rather wordy for a maths course, because some questions require you to answer theoretically from what you've learned such as the ANOVA test or describing the nature of a plot.

Numerical Methods is about calculating stuff that is hard to do conventionally, and as such requires us to learn some approximations to be able to do it by hand. This part is probably even worse than statistics, because you are not given any equation sheets at all. Well, technically the final exam becomes a snooze-fest if you are given, because most questions involve using an equation and..that's it. Working out might be a bit tedious because it has several steps on every calculation, especially if you get to FTCS (Forward Time Central Space) and TDMA (Tri-Diagonal Matrix something) - the steps are a doozy, but very straightforward.

Standard thoroughfare of maths courses apply here; you will get a Maple TA quiz (only for statistics), bi-weekly MATLAB homework for numerical methods (google codes or just modify example code given to get solution - will contribute to your marks so actually do it properly), a final MATLAB test for statistics and mid-semester tests for both. Each part contributes to 50% of the total course marks, with exams counting for 30% for each part (60% total). Try not to fail on one part because you need to pass both if you want to pass this course.

Lecturers:

Part A - Heng Lian: 7/10

An alright lecturer, I didn't go that much because I don't like statistics and I would very much like to stay away from it as far as possible, so it definitely will impact badly on my performance. My hypothesis is proven right when I got rekt'd in the finals. Personally the better lecturer from the other one..

Part B - Baba Yaga Victoria Timchenko: 3/10

Goodness, my hopes of having a better alternative from stats was crushed the very first time I entered her lecture. Do you know the stereotypical 'evil witch' voice in Disney movies and the like? That's how she sounds like. She does some working on-screen, but most of the time the explanations are all over the place and gods, the voice...that aside, she seems like a good thesis supervisor with quite interesting topics. But the voice..

Tutor:

Statistics: 6/10

I have Lenny Chan (?) for stats. I kind of forgot his name, right, but it ends with Chan. He's okay, right, but he always has this annoying verbal tic, right, and this makes me very distracted when studying, right. He is better in the tutorial classes than the labs, but he just writes answers in the tutorial class with a rather hard to follow accent, right. In the labs, he frequently circles the whole room, right, and asks every student whether they're stuck on something, and if you do, he'll explain it which is nice, right.

Numerical Methods: 10/10

You have two tutors for Numerical Methods, I have Jay and Darson. I could confidently say that they are gods in what they do, they explain things extremely well, very chill, and very helpful when you ask help in MATLAB classes. That's probably to be expected from a former University Medal recipient. However, in labs, try to at least understand what you're doing because sometimes they will ask questions about why the value is like that and how to interpret those data. A good alternative is the head tutor, Gim Soh - he's quite good at explaining and is very nice to talk with.

Overall: 7/10

Definitely do past papers, they help a lot especially for numerical methods. Do tutorials for both, and don't forget to memorize equations so you don't get rekt'd only because you forgot if it's supposed to be -T(i+1) + 4T(i) -3T(i-1) or vice versa.


MMAN3200 - Linear Systems and Control

Ease: 7.5/10

A continuous course, previous chapters build up for the next and so is quite comprehensive. Be sure to focus your attention especially after the mid-semester, because the topics are quite challenging if you don't follow it closely.

Content: 7/10

Similar to the above, it's split into two parts. Linear Systems deals with Laplace transformations and seeing the response of a system (anything goes - thermo, fluids, springs) with varying input and how the error or stability comes to play. Control deals with how you interpret and manage those errors so your system does not go kaput.

You'll need to get used to several systems rather quickly, even more so if you haven't studied before. For example, if you're doing Mechatronics you won't need to do MMAN2700 (Thermodynamics) which sadly has some systems that are being analyzed here. Once you get to the end of Linear Systems the way of solving questions get more structured, as in you'll have a set of straightforward rules to apply and you infer your results from those rules (like root locus analysis requires you to always do 9 steps and is quite straightforward if you know what it does each step). Similarly, Control also requires you to do this as well although it's more structured from the beginning compared to Linear Systems. Basically, both has straightforward sections where you just follow the rules and interpret it afterwards - don't take it lightly because it'll be a major part for finals.

You'll only get quizzes and a mid-semester test in Linear Systems. It's a hit and miss for some, some git gud and some git shrekt'd. It depends on whether you follow the lectures and do all tutorial questions or not. Also, it seems to be a trend but the questions are usually recycled for the quiz and the mid-sem, but take it with a grain of salt as always.

They implemented some kind of tutorial system which escapes me, but it's separated into two: 'passive' tutorials which are our usual class, and 'interactive' tutorials where we fight for the tutor's attention to help solve our questions (so the tutor won't explain to the whole class, you have to look for them). Depending on your studying style you might prefer one or the other.

The assignments require you to calculate some stuff, and is generally alright. There was supposed to be a lab for Linear Systems, but somehow the lecturer said that it's quite screwed so he decided to give us an assessment in exchange.

For finals part A only requires the last two lectures, and the rest is assumed knowledge, so you might want to focus on that.

Lecturers: 8/10

Part A - Zoran Vulovic: 8/10

The classic KFC uncle. Very nice and usually makes frequent smart remarks and is quite funny in lectures. Gives decent explanations for his topic, and very responsive in Moodle so, as he said in the forums, 'AMA'. Don't be that guy who asks if he prefers facing one horse-sized duck, or one hundred duck-sized horses.

Part B - Ngai Kwok: 7.5/10

Decent lecturer, somehow always makes me feel bad for him whenever I see him. I rarely go to his lectures but his recordings are alright. He writes solutions on-screen, and his lecture notes are very detailed. His tutorial questions come with the solutions which help greatly in studying.

Tutor: 6.5/10

I had Monica as my tutor. She usually alright with explaining, but sometimes (I think in every session at the very least) she gets lost in what she's doing. Still quite okay, though.

Overall: 7/10

Alright content, alright class, mostly okay but somehow I screwed up the exam. Be sure to practice thoroughly on root locus (part A) and bode plots as well as state-space modeling (part B).


ANAT2511 - Fundamentals of Anatomy

Ease: 6-8/10

The level of easiness of this course depends on whether you're good at memorizing names and positions or not. Also artistic skills are quite useful here.

Content: 8.5/10

Since this is an anatomical course, obviously you'll be learning about the human anatomy from top to bottom, inside out. Lots of anatomical terms will fly around the place so be sure to get your basics right (posterior/anterior, coronal/sagittal, prone/supine, etc). You'll start from the bones to the muscles and then go on to looking at each specific system in detail, such as the digestive system or the reproductive system. I really like science and biology in general, so I found this course pretty interesting in its own right. The lecturer also provides adaptive tutorials for each segment and it's useful for revising the topics.

Another aspect of the course is the Histology section - you'll go in a computer class where you can access an online virtual slide system (we're ahead from USyd and UTS who still uses conventional microscopes, heh) where you can annotate on the slide and share it with your friends - very useful especially if you have someone to carry you with their notes.

You will have a video assignment as your semester project. It'll be a 5-member team project that requires you to research a topic and explain it in video form. General consensus seems to be recording someone drawing that particular topic while the rest of the team voices it. Having someone who can do video editing is a great advantage, as well as someone who can draw particularly well.

The laboratory session will involve you studying cadavers, so you'll spend 2 hours with a dead body learning what and how it works and looks like. Pretty okay, may be a bit icky for some, and you get to touch the cadavers to have a feel of the organs (be sure to wear gloves). Before every lab there will be a quiz about that particular topic you're going to do, and it counts for marks so be sure to brush up on the topic before the actual lab starts. After that quiz you'll get a group quiz where you can do it in groups of 4-5 in your lab class.

There are two tests involving the labs (one on mid-sem and one before the end of semester), where you'll get a set of cadavers or histological images with needles put on specific parts and you'll have to answer some questions about its function and name, to name a few of the types of questions.

Lecturers:

Anatomy: 7/10

You have Nalini Pather as your anatomy lecturer. Decent, explains it quite well and is pretty chill. Also helpful in moodle or through emails.

Histology: 8/10

Patrick de Permentier is your histology lecturer. Nice guy, explains topics in good detail but may be a bit too fast for some. Very understanding and very chill, he always goes around in the histology lab class asking you if you are confused about some stuff. Overall a great lecturer.

Tutor: 10/10

Technically your tutor is your laboratory class' teacher. I have Ryan as my tutor. Super chill guy, explains really well and gives you drawings to help understand it (I think most tutors do so as well), and is very knowledgeable. Awesome tutor, and I think other groups' tutors are also good as well. I think the general consensus is tutors here are pretty good.

Overall: 8/10

Don't forget to memorize terminologies, this course relies on your ability to rote learn and cram on the day or before. Finals was pretty challenging, especially the multiple choice questions. Short response questions are straightforward, word vomit that particular topic to cover all grounds.


PHSL2121 - Physiology 1A (Also PHSL2101, PHSL2501)

Ease: 5-7/10

Also a memorizing-heavy course, although you have a bit of calculation type problems here and there. The second half is just pure wafflestomp on your faces, with the most minor of lecture slide content being assessed and it does so with a vicious vengeance, in form of filling in the blanks. You haven't known pure despair and the futility of BSing your answers when you haven't done any filling blanks questions.

Content: 7/10

This is an introductory second year course to physiology. You'll have 6 topics in the course with 5 different lecturers. You'll also have tutorial classes for that particular topic before you move on to the next (tutorial classes take up your lecture time). Lab classes involve you working in groups, and happens bi-weekly because there are a lot of participants in this course (a mix of MedSci, Biomedical Engineering and such). The topics are about excitable tissues, muscle, blood, ANS (autonomic nervous system), cardiovascular systems and neurophysiology. At the end of every topic you'll have a one-week online quiz where you need to get 90%+ to get it counted in your participation marks. Tedious but straightforward because you have unlimited tries. A very important thing to know is that for mid-sem and finals the multiple choice will be taken from here so be sure to memorize it.

There are 7 lab sessions, with one extra session that is done in your own time on the day (it's not supervised, you work with your group or alone on a computer-based tutorial). The labs will have random pop quizzes, there will only be 3 throughout the semester and it'll take the average of that as your mark. The quizzes are separated into individual and group parts but the group questions are basically the individual questions. A good team makes this class fun, and manageable. An important thing to note is that you will have your lab practicals assessed in finals in form of MC questions, so be sure to learn that because it comprises the majority of the MC questions. Note that the 'self-work' lab session is assessed in your finals, so don't skimp on it (or at least find someone to carry your lazy bum)

You will have a midsem and thankfully the final exam will only assess the second half of the course (everything before mid sem does not count). The final exam answer responses usually have 3 questions on 3 topics, and each question has two parts, a and b. You only need to do part a or part b for that particular question, so focus learning on that particular topic is quite useful to prepare you for the exam.

Lecturers:

You get five lecturers for the six different topics:

Excitable Cells: Andrew Moorhouse (9/10 explanation, 7/10 slides, 8/10 questions). Very nice guy, very responsive and helpful in moodle and explains things very nicely. Gives you reasonable questions for the midsem which actually assesses what he taught you. Expect sketches of action potential to be assessed in one way or another.

Muscle: Stewart Head (rekt/10 explanation, shrekt/10 slides, rip in pieces6/10 questions). Lecture slides are what you would see on the list of failed student submissions - his lecture slides are very unorganized and unprofessional. It doesn't help that he is also boring and drones on in his explanations making it very hard to continue concentrating on the topic. Despite this severe lack of competence, his midsem questions range from okay to doable to almost straightforward, which is a saving grace if you study on the topic. Prepare your muscle sketching skills!

Blood: Lesley Ulman (7/10 explanation, 6/10 slides, 2/10 question selections). Decent lecturer, she's also the course coordinator. Explains things pretty decently and her slides are very organized - tends to be a bit wordy though. She also takes half of the Cardiovascular system lectures. Tends to give you fill-in-the-blank questions for the finals, and the blanks are very, very hard to guess (not all of them but most of them).

ANS: Richard Vickery (8/10 explanation, colorful/10 slides, think outside the topic/10 questions). Nice lecturer, explains the topic decently. His lecture slides are very colorful - however, that's the extent of it. Despite the color code helping with segmenting your studies, it lacks severe detail in each segment and he always gives you the 'think outside the notes (there is a severe lack of it though)' questions. Do not treat minor parts in the lecture as minor - it has good chance to appear in the finals and screw you up.

Cardiovascular System: Tim Murphy. I did not go to his lectures, but from what I've heard he's a tad bit dull in explaining the topic. The lecture slides are barely readable compared to Head, but still just as bad. Exam questions tend to be processes and explaining concepts behind equations, so you should look at the textbook or google for better explanations.

Neurophysiology: This one is also taught by Vickery, slides are very 'useful' (only the color codes are, and don't forget to proceed with extreme caution).

Tutor: 9/10

I somehow forgot his name. He is an European guy, very tall, and very enthusiastic in teaching the topic. Explains things in good detail as well.

Overall: 7/10

As with anatomy, don't forget to revise and memorize - although physiology is more process-oriented so you might have to learn a bit more compared to anatomy. Don't forget to study the lab practicals because they are assessed in the finals. You'll get a compilation of past paper questions at the end of your lab book which is very useful for revision purposes. Pray that you do not get the blank passage filling questions. Draw diagrams to illustrate your answers whenever possible in hopes that you can get those few meager marks.

Edit: PHSL exam rekt me. Be sure to revise past papers!
 
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dust3

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COMP1917
Course (8/10) A pretty intense intro to programming course. About 3/4 of our lectures we have to watch online Youtube via openlearning - which I like because it's pretty flexible and you could rewind and pause parts you don't understand. The other 1/4 of the course, we are taught by Angela who is really helpful and nice!

Lecturer:
Angela (9/10) - see above
Richard (10/10) - don't need to explain this LOL.

MATH1131
Course: (8/10) This was an okay, I'm not really a math person but if you did Math Extension 1 in school, and cover a bit of the new material that is covered in this course, you should be fine.

Lecturer:
Kress (Algebra) 8/10 - Explains clearly, is pretty good.
Coster (Calculus) 6/10 - I sometimes have a hard time understanding what she's trying to explain.

Tutor:
Woodhouse (Calculus) 8/10
can't remember his name (Algebra) 7/10


MATH1081
Course: (7/10) this math course is a bit different from MATH1131, in that it deals with logic and reasoning rather than solving an equation like you did in school. It's a pretty good course that I liked, but some topics i didn't like, like Topic 1: Set Theory, which i thought was a bit dry.

Lecturer:
Britz (8/10) - Great guy, funny and makes maths fun.
Dennis (5/10) - Literally reads everything from the sides (word-by-word), without differentiation.

Tutor:
Mary (4/10) - Needs to speak louder.


ENGG1811
 
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Queenroot

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PSYC1001 - Psychology 1A

Ease: 6/10

- SSP assignment: Seems simple enough, but they mark you down harshly because it is so straightforward. You answer some questions on a video and take a few screenshots.
- Media Assignment: This was alright as well, just make sure you back up all your arguments since they are pretty anal about it during marking.
- Mid-sem exam: This was okay, if you've studied, should be fine.
- Rationale assignment: This assignment was just weird, had to write an introduction to a journal article of our own. Did badly in this, so can't really say how to do well.
- Research participation: Very important if you want to boost your final mark, do the full 12 hrs of participation it is a life saver. But it's very tedious and you have to make a lot of time for it. Sign up for studies ASAP since spots get full very quickly.
- Final exam: If you are a rote learner/regurgitator this exam should be easy for you. If you are on the end of the spectrum where you understand concepts rather than remember definitions, what year which experiment was done and who did it and the fancy name of models/theories, then you are going to have a bad time. So, memorise.


Content: 8/10


Content was fucking great if only they didn't have 3 hours of lectures each week, I found everything very interesting but my ass hurt sitting down for 3 hours listening to these lectures.

Lecturers: 9/10

All of them were pretty good, I particularly liked Leigh Mellish even though people thought his content was controversial.


Tutor: 8/10


I had Peter. Yeah he was good in teaching, pretty open and approachable. Harsh marker tho so watch out, he stings.
 
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mreditor16

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PSYC1001 - Psychology 1A

Ease: 6/10

- SSP assignment: Seems simple enough, but they mark you down harshly because it is so straightforward. You answer some questions on a video and take a few screenshots.
- Media Assignment: This was alright as well, just make sure you back up all your arguments since they are pretty anal about it during marking.
- Mid-sem exam: This was okay, if you've studied, should be fine.
- Rationale assignment: This assignment was just weird, had to write an introduction to a journal article of our own. Did badly in this, so can't really say how to do well.
- Research participation: Very important if you want to boost your final mark, do the full 12 hrs of participation it is a life saver. But it's very tedious and you have to make a lot of time for it. Sign up for studies ASAP since spots get full very quickly.
- Final exam: If you are a rote learner/regurgitator this exam should be easy for you. If you are on the end of the spectrum where you understand concepts rather than remember definitions, what year which experiment was done and who did it and the fancy name of models/theories, then you are going to have a bad time. So, memorise.


Content: 8/10


Content was fucking great if only they didn't have 3 hours of lectures each week, I found everything very interesting but my ass hurt sitting down for 3 hours listening to these lectures.

Lecturers: 9/10

All of them were pretty good, I particularly liked Leigh Mellish even though people thought his content was controversial.


Tutor: 8/10


Yeah he was good in teaching, pretty open and approachable. Harsh marker tho so watch out, he stings.
Queenroot, with a decent amount of effort for PSYC, what sort of mark would one be looking at? ie wam booster? etc.

Content looks interesting, but just curious about the marks side of things before I choose it as a gen ed.
 

Queenroot

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Queenroot, with a decent amount of effort for PSYC, what sort of mark would one be looking at? ie wam booster? etc.

Content looks interesting, but just curious about the marks side of things before I choose it as a gen ed.
Content is really good and interesting, at least to me it was. I didn't even know psychology had so many fields under it and they take you through each one. For marks, tbh I think you will be fine, it is kind of annoying because there is an assignment every 2 weeks. It's not all that bad really, mostly rote learn and you should be good. If that's your thing then do it.
 

mreditor16

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Content is really good and interesting, at least to me it was. I didn't even know psychology had so many fields under it and they take you through each one. For marks, tbh I think you will be fine, it is kind of annoying because there is an assignment every 2 weeks. It's not all that bad really, mostly rote learn and you should be good. If that's your thing then do it.
That's the thing, I'm interesting in learning this content and being exposed to topics that do interest me. The problem is I'm not much of a good rote learner, hence my concern with assessments and marks for PSYC.
 

Queenroot

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That's the thing, I'm interesting in learning this content and being exposed to topics that do interest me. The problem is I'm not much of a good rote learner, hence my concern with assessments and marks for PSYC.
Well I'm sure you'd do better than me, I kinda lost my time management this sem so that may have been a factor as to why I didn't do well. The assignments aren't related to the content so I'm sure you'd be able to do well in those.
 

mreditor16

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Well I'm sure you'd do better than me, I kinda lost my time management this sem so that may have been a factor as to why I didn't do well. The assignments aren't related to the content so I'm sure you'd be able to do well in those.
Hmm alright, thanks heaps! (Y) :)
 

Confound

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TABL 2741

Ease: 9/10

I consider this one of those content emphasised courses where there is little problem solving involved and more memorisation. As long as you do the minimal readings, you should do very well.

Content: 10/10

Very case laden. However the cases are engaging and interesting so it is easy to absorb.

Lecturers: 9/10

Anil Hargovan = best lecturer
+
Pamela Hanrahan = decent

Tutor:

All of the tutors are basically rubbish. You honestly don't need them as the course is very straight forward.

Overall: 9.5/10. You should be landing between 75 - 83 final mark in this course.


ACCT3708

Ease: 2/10

Worst course ever. This course is horribly taught and strictly marked. It is the worst wam destroyer in all of the business faculty. Forget management or fins2624 or whatever, this course is 1000xtimes worse. STAY AWAY FROM AUDITING

Content: 2/10

No comment

Lecturers: 0/10

****** Avoid this lecturer's class at all cost!!! he is the worst lecturer on campus. I have never witnessed such horrible and condescending teaching. Go to the other lecturer's class. I forgot his name but AVOID this lecturer.

Tutor: 0/10

Forgot my Tutor's name but she was utterly rubbish. Would not recommend. However in the next semester, Leonard Lau is tutoring audit on Fridays. He was my 3563 tutor and was frking excellent. IF YOU ARE TAKING IT NEXT SEM MAKE SURE YOU TRANSFER INTO HIS CLASS. He is the best and you will regret not being in his class for auditing. That I can promise you

Overall: 0/10. Would not recommend this course upon my worst enemy. I only took this because it was a CA requirement. I should have left it until the last semester cos my wam will be totally fucked after it. Expect to get between pass and low credit for this course.


ACCT3563

Ease: 10/10

This is by far the 2nd easiest accounting course. Definitely a wam booster.

Content: 10/10

By far the 2nd most interesting.

Lecturers: 8/10

Demi. She is alright


Tutor: Leonard Lau 10/10+++

best tutor ever

Overall: 10/10. You should be landing 90+ final for this course
 
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4025808

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MATH3831 – Statistics for Market and Social Research

Ease: 8/10 – tbh this course is actually the easiest statistics elective course that a Statistics major can pick. It’s not only useful but it’s fun, so makes it easier as a Statistics elective. The level of content doesn’t require much but to know how to do hypothesis testing and knowing how to use a formula, knowing which variables to substitute and what not.

Content: 8/10 – you learn a lot of methods on how to sample for various situations. There’s quite a bit of content for this course that you have to cram, most of which is initially quantitative but becomes more qualitative towards the end of the semester (week 10-12 had factor analysis and cluster analysis, mostly qualitative based stuff). You also briefly need to learn how to use SPSS (statistical analysis software by IBM) for the assignment, and to know how to interpret the SPSS data for the final exam.

Lecturer: Feng Chen – 5/10 – he’s not very engaging, reads pretty much what’s on the notes. But if you go to his consultations then he is very good and can help you quite a bit. That said he goes through quite a bit of proofs on the lectures, so if you’re bothered enough then I suggest go to his lectures.

Tutor: Feng again. His tutorials were kinda, ehh. But they’re enough to get by. Tutorial solutions get posted online anyway so not much of a need to go.

Teaching Resources: He had a sample midterm (tested weeks 1-6) and a sample final (tested weeks 7-12) uploaded. But tbh we would like more past exams to be released (since the questions can easily be changed from year to year). Lecture slides were uploaded very early during the semester, which was very good (lecturers should be always doing this).

Overall: 8/10 – easy statistics elective and useful to the workplace too. I would recommend as long as you sufficiently study well enough for the midterm and final exams.
 

obliviousninja

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TABL 2741

Ease: 9/10

I consider this one of those content emphasised courses where there is little problem solving involved and more memorisation. As long as you do the minimal readings, you should do very well.

Content: 10/10

Very case laden. However the cases are engaging and interesting so it is easy to absorb.

Lecturers: 9/10

Anil Hargovan = best lecturer
+
Pamela Hanrahan = decent

Tutor:

All of the tutors are basically rubbish. You honestly don't need them as the course is very straight forward.

Overall: 9.5/10. You should be landing between 75 - 83 final mark in this course.


ACCT3708

Ease: 2/10

Worst course ever. This course is horribly taught and strictly marked. It is the worst wam destroyer in all of the business faculty. Forget management or fins2624 or whatever, this course is 1000xtimes worse. STAY AWAY FROM AUDITING

Content: 2/10

No comment

Lecturers: 0/10

****** Avoid this lecturer's class at all cost!!! he is the worst lecturer on campus. I have never witnessed such horrible and condescending teaching. Go to the other lecturer's class. I forgot his name but AVOID this lecturer.

Tutor: 0/10

Forgot my Tutor's name but she was utterly rubbish. Would not recommend. However in the next semester, Leonard Lau is tutoring audit on Fridays. He was my 3563 tutor and was frking excellent. IF YOU ARE TAKING IT NEXT SEM MAKE SURE YOU TRANSFER INTO HIS CLASS. He is the best and you will regret not being in his class for auditing. That I can promise you

Overall: 0/10. Would not recommend this course upon my worst enemy. I only took this because it was a CA requirement. I should have left it until the last semester cos my wam will be totally fucked after it. Expect to get between pass and low credit for this course.


ACCT3563

Ease: 10/10

This is by far the 2nd easiest accounting course. Definitely a wam booster.

Content: 10/10

By far the 2nd most interesting.

Lecturers: 8/10

Demi. She is alright


Tutor: Leonard Lau 10/10+++

best tutor ever

Overall: 10/10. You should be landing 90+ final for this course
solid reviews. v useful
 

4025808

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MATH3801 (MATH3901) - (Higher) Probability and Stochastic Processes

Ease: 4/10. It's pretty difficult if you're starting off new and afresh (if you did ACTL2102, might be somewhat easier for you). Unlike the other maths and statistics subjects (where it is mostly a grind), this is very problem solving based. Probability section is quite difficult, but eventually sorta becomes easier as you get used to the thinking style of the course. If you aren't good at probability then this course is going to be very difficult. If you are then this course might be easy for you. The easiness of the course is also conditional that you do your tutorial questions every week and actually try to solve class test questions on your own, as well as to understand them in and out. Midsem was very difficult due to time constraints and thus the average for that Midsem was a 12/30 for 3801, while the 3901 stream it was 17/35. Final wasn't too hard if you eventually got used to the thinking style, also conditional that you did the past papers and did the tutorial questions.

Content: 9/10. The content you learn in this course is actually very interesting but can be somewhat difficult as they seem to be missing pieces of information here and there. So a run down - first three chapters are introduction to probability, expectation (expected value), conditional expectation (so all of your MATH2801/2901 stuff here). The next several chapters are Markov Chains, Exponential and Poisson Processes, cont. time Markov chains, queuing theory, Brownian motion and Martingales. A lot of these applications are very interesting and insightful as to how they can apply these into the real world. This course does require a very good foundation of statistics, so if your foundation is rusty I suggest you start revisiting your MATH2801/2901 stuff beforehand.

Lecturer: Gery Geenens - 8/10. Very good lecturer, explains things quite well. Not much else to say except that I didn't like the handwritten formula sheet policy. I'd rather just type it up since it is neater and nicer to look through. Gave lots of resources for us students to work on as well.

Tutor: Leung Lung Chan - 5/10. He pretty much copied the solutions word for word from the tutorial answers so no point going into tutorials.

Teaching Resources: Lecture notes were generally good but should have more examples. Midsems and Final exams of the past 4-5 years were provided to us so that's actually very generous of Gery to do that. But it should be done either way since the nature of the questions can be changed very easily. Gery provided solutions and guidance as to how to do the 2015 final exam. Apart from that no solutions to finals and midsems, so you'll need to leech of previous years or work with other people to get solutions. Also see your tutors and Gery for consultation.

Overall: 8/10. I actually liked this course despite its difficulty. Something I actually enjoyed somewhat. Also a very good insight as to how stochastic processes work, as well as its applications into the real world. That said if you have to take this course do not expect this course to be a WAM booster; if anything it will kill your WAM but you'll learn a lot from it. Also highly suggest you work in large groups and try to study with other people.
In the lower stream, your final exam has 6 questions for 2 hours, while in the higher stream, your final has 7 questions for 3 hours. Final in the lower stream has slightly easier questions but higher stream's finals had much harder questions.
 

RenegadeMx

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MATH3121 PDEs

Ease: 4/10
Some topics seem relatively straightforward and methodical but it's hard to do it in the exam. Small mistakes were heavily penalised

Content: 7/10
As you would expect, standard PDEs

Lecturers: 3/10

QT Le Gia: Forces you to attend all classes and write everything down; lecture slides were fairly useless, writes everything on the board. Isn't very good at explaining things, often justifies things on the lines of "I don't know why, it's just the method, remember it"

Overall: 5/10

MATH3311 Math computing for finance

Ease: 9/10
One of the easiest math courses I've done. Content is easy to learn without attending class and there isn't that much of it. Matlab exam is a decent percentage and very simple, similar to past exercises.

Content: 7/10
Due to ease of it, it didn't seem majorly useful to me. Not enough depth. Made it more interesting that it was more focussed on mathematical computing than strictly finance

Lecturers: x/10
cant remember name and lecturer has changed now so i wont bother


Overall: 7/10
I dont regret taking it but wouldn't recommend it if you really want to push yourself


MATH3101 Mathematical Computing

Ease: 7/10
Pretty average. Will be easier if you have programming experience. There is a lab exam with generous partial marking.

Content: 9/10
I found it to be very interesting and there were clear applications for the real world

Lecturers: 8/10
Tran: Good at explaining things; professional


Overall: 9/10
thx for these, will probably skip pdes for something easier
 

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MATH3811/MATH3911 – (Higher) Statistical Inference

Ease: 6/10 – The first five chapters of the course are actually difficult to go through, especially with the tutorial questions. The midsem afaik is difficult for a lot of people, and if you are not given previous midsems from other students then you may have a hard time studying for it. The latter five chapters though are ezpz and are crammable within 1-2 days of study. Assignments are pretty easy since if you get previous years stuff then you can twist and tweak some stuff - true for 3811 but for 3911 they have extra questions that they change every year. For the final exam, the first four questions of both papers are the same, then in 3911 you have two extra questions in which they are very difficult. That said if you answer the first four questions completely correct with a somewhat decent pre-final mark (i.e. 30-35/40) then HD (85) is definitely achievable.

Content: 7/10 – A lot of content is pretty dry up until the last 5 chapters. A lot of content, but in which a lot of it isn't assessed in the final exam (i.e. bootstrap, jackknife and robustness). The last 5 chapters are actually relevant to research fields in medical science, biology, biostatistics, etc, and you can see quite a bit of overlapping content with it.

Lecturer: Spiridon Penev – 7/10 – If you don't mind his accent then he is actually pretty good. Explains things alright but can get confusing. Also generally good in the way he sets assessment tasks (very fair assessment tasks) such that you can scrap a HD if you work well enough but just hard to get above 90.

Tutor: Heng Lian - never went to tutorials so would have no idea about what he is like.

Teaching Resources: The assignment solutions were released for each of the two assignments (very good), the midterm solutions were released, but past midterm exams should also be released for the sake of fairness for other students. The 2006 finals for both 3811 and 3911 were released, but you had to work out the stuff on your own, that said fair enough it should be easy to work out provided you know your stuff well enough inside out.

Overall: 8/10 – Your mark in this course can highly depend on your ability to scab the correct resources from previous students. So get resources off people who have previously done this course. Passing this course is ezpz but most people taking this course should aim to get DN/HD.
 

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MICR2011 - Microbiology 1:

Ease: 7/10


- Session tests: If you do a thorough level of study, it is ez pz.
- Project justification: Just see how a rationale is written up in several scientific journals, the layout should be straightforward.
- Course project: Confusing as hell. Not sure of what to include or exclude, poor guidance given. I did really badly on this despite working on it for 6 weeks so I can't really say how to do well, not sure what they were looking for. All I can say is that it is worth most of the assessment weighting, so start early and put most of your efforts into this.
- Final exam: If you've studied thoroughly you should do well. Be warned, make sure you know a few specific species of organisms that aren't the common ones you have learnt in class, and their methods of respiring/metabolism. Also the whole exam is written (short answers mostly) so prepare for some wrist pain.

Content: 9/10


Loved it, learnt so many new fascinating things.

Lecturers: 8/10

There's so many lecturers, overall they're all pretty good, albeit not understanding their heavy accents sometimes. But one that stood out is the lecturer who did the virus lectures for me, I think he was Peter White.


Tutor: 11/10


Omg I had Astrid, she is the best tutor I have ever had in my entire university life, period. She is very fair with marking, open, approachable and is always willing to help (And clean up after our mess in labs).
 

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