Subject Reviews (with PDF compilation) (2 Viewers)

[bio_nut]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

that's not very nice tamara, maybe i will like it, you dont know yet !

i dont know, it was just a lot of content, lots of remembering and rote learning and when you do minimal work until about 2-3 days before the test you begin to curse the amount of content it has haha

Yeah, like I said, you'll LOVE biochem then, ahahahahaha

 

[JustAnotherOne]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

Some of the science units I did over the past two years:

MATH2061: Linear Maths and Vector Calculus

Ease: 7/10- Nothing too difficult in this course. The linear maths in particular is pretty straightforward (mainly just plugging numbers into formulae). Vector calc is a bit more complicated, but not too bad either once you get the hang of it. The final exam, though, is pretty intense, and the assignments are marked in the most anally-retentive manner possible.

Interest: 7/10- Vector calc was the more interesting half, because you can at least see how it might be applied to a real-world problem. Otherwise, just more maths.

Lecturers: 7/10- Most maths lecturers are pretty much the same, it seems. None of them are too hard to understand, which is the main thing.

Overall: 7/10- Not too bad a course, and there are definitely worse ones out there. If you want to do physics in third year, you need to do this unit, but fortunately, that's not so bad.

CHEM2911/2916: Molecular Reactivity and Spectroscopy (Adv)

This course has changed for 2010. Lectures are the same as 2401, but labs are different.

Ease- 7/10- This course can get pretty full-on at times, but it's not unduly hard. You'll need to stay awake to survive this one. If you don't have a good physics background, the quantum chem section might be difficult. The final exam was also hard- many of the questions were on pretty fringe concepts. The textbook isn't all that useful (it goes way beyond anything they teach you in the actual course), so you have to rely on lecture notes and tute sheets for revision.

If you are in 2916, you will attend an extra seminar each week on SSP content. These are conceptually very hard, but normally there's plenty of help available for the assessments.

Interest: 8/10- Chemists, it seems, are divided into those who prefer organic and inorganic. This course has both.

Lecturers: 8/10 (Bridgeman 9/10)- The setup of lecturers in this course is pretty good. Bridgeman in particular is one of the best lecturers in the school, and the amount of extra resources he puts on WebCT is amazing.

Labs: 6/10- Four hour labs on a Friday afternoon sound like a drag, but believe me, that four hours doesn't last long. In short, you need to move quickly to finish the thing. There are two parts- an analytical and an organic section. Analytical, which needs spot-on results, is harder. If you are ok at report writing, the organic ones should not be that bad.

Overall: 7/10- It's not a course you can sleep through, but it's definitely worth your while to do if you like chemistry. If you get an offer for SSP, definitely do it, as it's interesting and a good source of marks. And of course, this unit is essential if you want to major in Chem.

PHYS2911: Physics 2A (Adv)

Ease: 8.5/10- I found this course a lot easier than first year physics. Nuclear in particular was very easy (a lot of it was a rehash of HSC physics), and optics wasn't too bad either. There are only two lectures a week in this course.

Interest: 9/10- Definitely more interesting than the the first year material (seems like they wanted to get motion and other boring stuff out of the way last year). There are two topics- optics and nuclear physics, both of which are interesting and fun.

Lecturers: Tim 9/10, Reza 6/10

Tim Bedding is very good. His lectures are great, and he has a set of lecture notes specific to the course that he puts on WebCT, which is really handy when it comes time to prepare. I'm glad he's taking us again in later years.

Reza is unfortunately, his polar opposite. He is so amazingly slow it's not funny, and it's hard to hear what he's saying half the time.

Labs: 6.5/10- Physics labs are still not great, but they're better than 1st year. You have three weeks per experiment, but if you're quick you can finish them in two and take the third one off. There's also a computational lab every week, which is rather boring but straightforward.

Overall: 8.5/10- All in all, a very good course.

 

[Trebla]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

Yay for organic. Like seriously, I thought I was studying to be a metallurgist in the last exam. It was basically all industrial And yeah Chris ling was not very good... I guess i was lucky with Tim wasn't I

But like, Chris Cosgrove ruined diff calc for me

I had Henderson and Mackaskill (who has quite a personality!) which made it interesting. On the bright side, you had David Easdown for Linear Algebra, I had Alex Molev...did not learn a thing about Linear Algebra thanks to him!
That said, Differential Calculus is definitely quite difficult. If I actually learnt anything in Linear Algebra properly, I might have done better in it than Differential Calculus.

Integral Calculus on the other hand, was the most super ridiculously easiest course ever!!!

MATH1903 - Integral Calculus and Modelling Advanced

Ease: 9/10. If you liked Mathematics Extension 2 and did well in it, then this course may seem too easy. About 80% of it covers material already learnt in the HSC course. The only new stuff was solving linear differential equations and second order differential equations.
The quizzes were a bit of a joke since we did the same quizzes as the normal level. Just to give an idea around half of the total candidature were on full marks before the final exam in 2007. The only reason I stopped short of 10/10 for ease, was because the final exam was difficult (understandably).

Lecturer: 8/10. David Galloway explains things very clearly. However, sometimes when he does a worked example, he diverges into irrelevent contexts of the example rather than the maths. Also, he does not know how to be assertive in the lecture room which results in everyone talking and him losing his temper at times.

Interest: 10/10. Only because I like Maths, especially this type of calculus...

Overall: 10/10. Easy stuff...possibly the easiest uni course for my entire degree.

 

[lamingtons]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

that is good news about 1903
i'm doing 1003, and i did extension 2 maths so it should be good

 

[spence]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

PSYC2012: Statistics and Research Methods for Psychology

Ease: 7/10
I didn't think it was too difficult, but it does require you to work throughout the semester. It gets steadily harder for the first 9 weeks, but then gets easier after that imo. There are 3 in class, open book tests, which I found were not too hard, there is a bit of time pressure though (you only get 15 minutes for each iirc). The midsemester was pretty hard, it was multiple choice and partial open book, but there were some tricky questions. The group assignment requires quite a bit of work, and you can't really start it until the last 2 weeks of semester, so it was a bit hectic finishing that. And the final was very reasonable imo, multiple choice and closed book, but most required formulas were provided. You really need to understand all the tests conceptually, rather than just memorising formulas.
If you do struggle in the subject, there are a lot of resources to help you.

Lecturers: 9/10
Dan Costa takes the stats lectures, he's pretty good, explains everything well, and is quite funny at times. He provides good lecture notes, but you need to go to the lectures to get them.
Alex Russell teaches Research Methods, and he's great, and very entertaining. He also does a few revision lectures before assessments, which really help to clear everything up. He puts notes for RM lectures online.

Interest: 8/10
I was really surprised by this, but I actually enjoyed the subject. Research methods was really interesting, and even the stats component is taught in an interesting way.

Overall: 8/10
Much better than I expected, and I found it really helped with my other psych subject.

 

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

ENGL2655: Modern British Literature (Peter Marks)
Ease: 7/10
Reading material is easy, tutorials are okay (hopefully you get a good group!). Only problem is the first assignment is a whooping 40% then an in-class presentation with report which is 25% and the final is 35%. The reading material for the first few weeks isn't as interesting as the material later on in the semester.

Lecturer: 6/10
Peter Marks is a pretty dodgy lecturer. He mixed up a lot of the assignment dates and put most of them on public holidays. He also got stuck in London during the volcano ash thing and that really messed up the order for lectures/tuts/reading. He's really nice though, records all the lectures + puts up the powerpoints. He responds pretty quickly to emails as well.

Interest: 5/10
We studied Ian McEwan, Jeanette Winterson and looked at Monty Python, Bridget Jones' Diary, Atonement and Bend It Like Beckham. These were all in the latter stages of the semester though. The beginning had a lot of poetry.

Overall 6/10
Easy easy English credit class. Take home exam was the bessssst but the first 40% assignment was a killer. Readings were relatively easy each week too.




ENGL2611: Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries (Nicola Parsons)
Ease: 5/10
Too much reading. We got through 5 Austen novels by the end of the semester. I actually read three of them. Weekly tutorials also required us to bring in two questions relating to the novels/lectures as well meaning you had to do some work on it every week. You can't use the same text for the assessments so that also forces you to read the texts or look them up.

Lecturer: 5/10
So, as per usual, I didn't really attend the lectures. The few I went to, Nicola was her amazing articulate analytic self and raised a gazillion awesome points. Then she put them up on WebCT so that was good. There's two other lectures, Will Christie and someone else. Will Christie is really bad. Honestly, the man spoke really quickly and discussed about a bunch of useless, unrelated material to his original point which I've already forgotten by the end of his rambling. He also didn't put up notes.

Interest: 7/10
Austen is surprisingly interesting. I really enjoyed the tutorial discussions.

Overall 7/10
Bumping the overall up to 7 because you can sparknotes/wiki all Austen's novels so it's not too hard to complete the course. Also it got me to appreciated Austen, so it must be pretty good.

 

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

Woooo reviewing Education subjects for third year, because no one has done this yet. :/


EDSE3044: Teaching English I (Jacky Manuel)

Ease: 3/10
This class really sort of sucks. They're not clear with what you have to do most weeks. You have a 1hr lecture then a 3hr seminar/tutorial. In the 3hr tut, you're required to operate as a normal tut class in the 1st hr then for the next two hours, you're part of three groups doing three different things - that don't count towards anything at the end. Also ALL your assignments are due in the same day. The word count is ~6000 words but trust me, you NEED to disregard that word count. Even Jacky + your tutor will tell you this. I ended up writing 13,000 words.


Lecturer: N/A
Okay so I didn't attend any lectures bar the 1st week's lecture so you really shouldn't look to me for answers. Jacky Manuel was pretty .. enthusiastic in the first lecture but she didn't teach us anything. Does this make sense? She's like, yeah, English teachers, woohooo! And that was it. BTW, none of this is on sumo.

Interest: 5/10
The textbooks besides the A - Z English suck. I learnt some "practical" skills to apply in the classroom but we didn't really go much into depth. Waiting for Teaching English II next semester to expand in this.


Overall 5/10
I don't understand why this class had to start in week 7 and run until stuvac week (all the classes were canceled during stuvac week cos apparently you can't hold classes during this week). I wish they spread it out over the semester so we weren't stuck doing 4 hours a week! Also, the class has a 90% attendance rate. HOWEVER, since it only started in week7, you're only allow to miss 3 out of the 4hrs. Make sure you go to class man. Or get someone to write your name on the roll. They always mark the roll in both lectures and tuts.




EDSE3040: Teaching History I (Carmel Fahley/Young)
Ease: 5/10
If you have Tim Allender as your seminar leader, I'm telling you to swap classes right now. Do it. Don't even question me. Anyway, this class sucks because the first assignment is due quite early into the course and you haven't learnt anything yet. It really pissed me off because the answers to the assignment were given to us in subsequent lectures after the assignment was due. It's like... why would you do that? Why don't you teach us this first and allow us to show you we've learnt it in the assessment? That was also worth 50%.

The readings are really good by the way. Both lecturers from EDSE3040 and EDSE3044 write their own textbooks. Carmel basically sums up the readings for you in the lectures but you still need to do individual readings for the tutorial class. Oh, the structure of this class is as follows: 1hr lecture, 1hr tut, 1hr seminar. The seminar is really helpful because it's were you learn to draft lesson plans and assessment tasks and pick sources etc.


Lecturer: 4/10
You'll be surprised but I went to every single lecture for this class - mainly cos my 2hr seminar was directly after it. Anyway, Carmel is a great lecturer. I really enjoy her stuff. Tim sucks. He skips slides and information because there's no time. All the lecture material will NOT be available on sumo. So basically, do your readings.

Interest: 7/10
Actually learnt really good stuff for teaching history!


Overall 6/10
Only slightly better than Teaching English I because Carmel was on the ball with everything. Don't ask Tim for help with your assignment. He told me to google the answer. I kid you not.

 

[spence]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

PHIL1011: Reality, Ethics and Beauty

This subject is split into 3 sections. Each is worth 30% and class participation is worth 10%

Ethics: 9/10
Lecturer: Caroline West

I found this section of the course really interesting, and Caroline is a really good lecturer. The content is interesting and easy to understand, and she explains everything well. Assessment for this is a 2000 word essay.

Metaphysics: 8/10
Lecturer: Adrian Heathcoate

This section is quite interesting, but gets pretty confusing at times. I didn't understand a lot of the content the first time around, but when you read over it again it starts to make more sense. There are some very interesting topics such as free will and God. Adrian's very good, although his lectures were a bit confusing. Assessment for this is two short essays in the final exam.

Aesthetics: 7/10
Lecturer: David Macarthur

This was the least interesting of the topics, but still wasn't too bad. I didn't go to a lot of the lectures, but David was pretty good in the ones I went to. Assessment for this is two essays in the exam.

Overall: 8/10
Solid first year course

 

[symple]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

PHIL 2600 20th Century Philosophy

Ease: 7/10
1 essay, on Ayer's book Language, Truth and Logic. Great book, sadly also, very wrong, which is even more fun. No research, just re-explain Ayer's ideas. (EDIT: It's a *small* book, and it's very clearly written, stay calm )
Exam, write 3 40min essays. All 10 possible questions are given in the last lecture and explained in detail.
Readings, sometimes difficult, sometimes not. Usually entertaining. You can get away with not doing them, because the lectures are so good.
Pretty solid course, some tough concepts, but explained clearly in lectures.

Lecturer: 10/10
McDermott is pretty awesome, he totally knows what he's talking about! His lecture notes AND audio recordings are all put up on WebCT pronto. He explains things clearly and is entertaining as well, although can be a bit intimidating in tutes, because he knows everything. (I'm serious)

Interest: 9/10
History of rise & fall of empiricism / analytic philosophy. Very interesting, some fun concepts. The logical positivists (1st half of course) are pretty hilarious. Middle stuff is a bit tricky before finishing with resurgence of metaphysics, fun stuff. Covers important ground.

Overall: 9/10
Really liked this course, some work involved though (oh noes! =P)


PHIL 2606 Knowledge, Reason and Action
Forget reason and action, this is all about knowledge.

Ease: 7/10
7x 500-word exercises, 1x 1000-word essay, all handed in end of Stuvac. Exercises look easy to start with (but aren't) and definitely don't look easy at the end (they still aren't). Generally based on 1 reading each, which allows you to really 'get' the material. 500 is nicely bite-sized and 1000 is pretty manageable.

Lecturer: 7/10
Wylie's lecture notes are so good, you don't need to go to the lectures, just print them off. They're fantastic, very clear. He expects YOU to write in the same way. Sadly his lectures are not fantastic, he's just reading out his lecture notes. Oh well, can't have everything. Lots of free-for-all discussion though, pretty good. Tutes are a bit annoying, if you find arguments annoying, but then why are you doing philosophy.

Interest: 7/10
Some of it seems a bit hair-splitting, but hey, the cases and countercases are always at least mildly interesting. Useful intellectual exercise.

Overall: 7/10
Pretty good, reccommend if you want a lighter courseload during semester. Clear explanation of concepts, learned a lot.

 

[michellemma]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

ENGL 1002 - Narratives of Romance and Adventure

Ease: 7/10

It wasn't debilitatingly difficult, but I was somewhat uncertain about how to address the questions and ideas we encountered, at least in essay form. The medieval section is perhaps the hardest. The essay questions were reasonable, and the exam was ok so long as you could talk about narrative theory.

Lecturers: 7/10

Lawrence Warner, the co-ordinator of the course, is wonderful and hilarious, though some people found his style a little haphazard. The others were less dazzling after Lawrence, but good nonetheless.

Interest: 7/10

The texts are really good, though I wasn't enthralled by the medieval texts that had to be read in the original old english language - Gulliver's Travels was my favourite text of the lot. When we analysed the texts, the guiding ideas of "romance" and "adventure" were hard to grasp, given the terms were never really defined. It all seemed a little vague, which made the exam difficult to approach. I did like the texts and lecturers, though, so I still recommend it.

Overall: 7/10

It was interesting, and a good introduction to university English. Given the choice between this subject and Aust Lit (the other English unit available Semester 1), this one was the easier and more popular option.

 

[symple]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

MUSC 1503 Fundamentals of Music I.

Ease: 9/10
Assessments are weekly online quizzes, two aural tests (LOTS of in-class practice is given), 1 written exam, 1 composition, 1 chordal analysis assignment.
It's a lot of work, but each individual task is very straightforward. (Plus exam is in W13!)
A complete lack of any prior music knowledge is completely OK, although there is a pretty sharp learning curve & it gets complicated fast.

Lectures: 9/10
Matthew Hindson is great. Lectures are interactive and well-structured. Daniel R. (sp?), the tutor and secondary lecture, is also great. 1 mark off because you have to attend every single lecture (and tute), and also you have to write EVERYTHING down, although they make that as easy as they can.

Interest: 9/10
It's all about How Music Works! It's very very interesting!!! Overview of Western music notation system, harmony, orchestra instrumentation, and a little bit of super friendly basic composition. Your mileage may vary on the rote learning exercises.

Overall: 9/10
Fantastic introductory course. You do have to put in a lot of work, but it doesn't require much thinking, which is great for me, although you are allowed to disagree. Lectures and tutes are friendly & awesome.

 

[jet]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

MUSC 1503 Fundamentals of Music I.

Ease: 9/10
Assessments are weekly online quizzes, two aural tests (LOTS of in-class practice is given), 1 written exam, 1 composition, 1 chordal analysis assignment.
It's a lot of work, but each individual task is very straightforward. (Plus exam is in W13!)
A complete lack of any prior music knowledge is completely OK, although there is a pretty sharp learning curve & it gets complicated fast.

Lectures: 9/10
Matthew Hindson is great. Lectures are interactive and well-structured. Daniel R. (sp?), the tutor and secondary lecture, is also great. 1 mark off because you have to attend every single lecture (and tute), and also you have to write EVERYTHING down, although they make that as easy as they can.

Interest: 9/10
It's all about How Music Works! It's very very interesting!!! Overview of Western music notation system, harmony, orchestra instrumentation, and a little bit of super friendly basic composition. Your mileage may vary on the rote learning exercises.

Overall: 9/10
Fantastic introductory course. You do have to put in a lot of work, but it doesn't require much thinking, which is great for me, although you are allowed to disagree. Lectures and tutes are friendly & awesome.

Wow you got lectured by Hindson? That's pretty cool. Did he make you listen to heaps of his stuff? That might have annoyed me lol.

 

[symple]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

Wow you got lectured by Hindson? That's pretty cool. Did he make you listen to heaps of his stuff? That might have annoyed me lol.

Lol no, you wouldn't have known he was an internationally-important-VIP at all (I mean that in a GOOD way!). I can see how some lecturers in that sort of field would go on and on about their own stuff, but he was great. =)

To keep this from being off-topic:
ENGL 2650 Reading Poetry
I may have *some* useful comments to make, even though I didn't go so well in the exam.

Ease: 7/10
Reading lots of poetry is important. It's all in the textbooks though, you don't need to look elsewhere (although the Norton Anthology is very heavy).

Lecturer: 8/10
It might even be higher, except the lectures = all there was: no audio files, no slides (except for sonnets guy), no PDFs. Just talking.
We had Bruce Gardiner, Barry Spurr, and, umm, the shakespeare sonnets renaissance drama guy. They're all pretty good, they just cover a LOT in every lecture and it's hard to get it all down. But that's OK because you're not being tested on the lectures.

Interest: 6/10
Sonnets: 8/10 I really liked this part of the course, the first few weeks. Sonnets are very interesting, very small and bite-sized so easy to get through
Yeats: 3/10 The lectures were good (Bruce Gardiner I think?) and the poetry is at least slightly interesting, but still. Kinda dreary.
Victorian religious poetry: 5/10 Kinda vague, also some of the poems were REALLY long.

Overall: 7/10
It is not a bad course at all, I just found the poetry kinda hard to get through once we got past the easy little sonnets. Your mileage WILL vary because I understand they pick a different form, poet and period for every year.

 

[Resident]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

ANAT3006 Forensic osteology
Ease: 6/10
Although the concent of hte course is not particularly difficult, the volume is large and parts are quite dry. Some of the practical methods are highly subjective e.g. feeling the surface of the pubic synthesis to determine age. Assessment is one 1.5k word critical review of a published paper in forensics, two 5% quizzes, theory and prac exam, and a group case study where you are given a box of bones had have to determine sex, age, stature etc and submit a report.

Lecturer: 8/10
Very similar set up to comparative anatomy (second year subject) in that it is run by Denise Dolon. Guest lectures for specific topics, forensic odontologist, barrister, coroner police officer etc. Handouts always provided ahead of time

Interest: 8/10
Quite cool to be able to tell age, sex, and race by simply looking at a few bones. Enjoyable twice weekly prac and tutorial.

Overall: 7/10
Enjoyable class if alittle dry at times. Archeology people tend to do this and enjoy it. Class is probably a good segway into second semester musculoskeletal anatomy with Richard Ward. Worth mentioning that you now need to have a credit in comparative anatomy and have done ANAT2008.


ANAT3007 Visceral anatomy
Ease: 5/10
I found this course quite easy but I would give it a 5 simply due to the amount of content. there are no learning out comes and aside from 6 quizzes (best 5 of which go towards 10% of your mark) its entirely assessed by a theory and prac exam.

Lecturer: 9/10
Some people hate her but I really liked the lecture (Robin Arnold). Course booklet includes everything you need to know and lectures although dense do illustrate what she is likely to asses you on. Two lectures for the autonomic nervous system are by Kevin Keay.

Interest: 9/10
If you like blood and guts then this is the course for you. Covers the anatomy of the thoracic, abdominal and pelvic cavity in great detail. Pracs are standard anatomy set up.

Overall: 9/10
Hugely enjoyable course covering some of my most interesting anatomy in my opinion. This is newly a prerequisite for Cranial and cervical anatomy in second semester and results from this course determine admission to the 10 advanced places which have weekly dissections.

 

[Trebla]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

FINC3017 - Investments and Portfolio Management

Ease: 4/10
The lectures are deceptively easy and brushed over very quickly. However, this is not what is reflected in the assessment tasks. They are delibrately designed to trick you as they are supposed make you "think" and test if you really understand everything clearly. There are hardly any straightforward questions at all. It's one of those subjects where you can study for the entire course early and still not get half the questions in the exam. Also, there are REQUIRED readings of specific journal articles (In particular, the Roll paper to criticise CAPM) which are directly examined in the final exam (much like HSC English where you have to read a text and then get asked questions about it). I did not like reliving those days of regurgitating an analysis of a prescribed text.

Lecturer: 5/10
Kerry is an evil witch. She's okay at lecturing and often gives some quite entertaining anecdotal examples. That's probably the only good thing I can say about her. However, she is ruthless when it comes to exam questions and she enjoys it. She has one of those "arrogant grumpy old lady" personalities and always tries to assert her views onto the lecture. For example, this course is supposed to be about fund management and ironically she has a grudge against active fund managers for ripping people off because they never beat the market in their portfolios. For fks sake why lecture this course if that's how you feel about them?

Interest: 7/10
Not exactly interesting, it's just about extensions of CAPM and pricing models along with portfolio management strategies, derivatives, bonds and hedging. However, I did find the behavioural finance lecture very interesting (basically psychology and finance put together). There should really be a behavioural finance unit in 3rd year.

Overall: 6/10
This unit was not what I expected it to be. Before Kerry came along, apparently this course used to be really easy. Thanks to her for killing it.

 

[04er]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

^ That blows, average for finc3017 was around 80 two years ago - it was piss easy.

 

[04er]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

LAWS3403 - Advanced Corporate Law
With Saul Fridman

Ease: 9/10
Lecturer is extremely laid back and doesn't record attendance. If you do attend class, you don't need to worry about the content (no need for typing it down) - all assessments are entirely research based and have an extremely narrow focus. You can choose from A) Presentation and short summary (100%) OR B) Research essay (8000 words) (100%) OR C) Take-home exam (4500 words total) (100%).

Lecturer: 9/10

Interest: 9/10

Overall: 9/10

LAWS3412 - Australian Income Tax
With Celeste Black & Micah Burch

Ease: 9/10
There is a lot to cover with this subject - but if you attend all the seminars, read the lecture notes, read both prescribed texts, and make summaries, you can't go wrong. The hardest part of the course was the mid-term - there was so little time that all marks were scaled up by 5 marks.

Lecturer: 10/10
Excellent lecturers - very thorough and lucid.

Interest: 9/10
Coming from a commerce background, I enjoy tax law.

Overall: 9/10

LAWS3413 - Banking & Financial Instruments
With Roger Magnusson

Ease: 5/10
Very hard to study for this subject - the seminar goes all over the place, you have to refer to handouts, overheads, multiple textbooks, confusing legislation and reading materials all at once.

Lecturer: 7/10
Although the lecturer points you in the right directions - he points you in too many directions.

Interest: 6/10
The content itself is pretty interesting - but that interest wanes as you discover how difficult the course is.

Overall: 6/10

LAWS3436 - International & Comparative Jurisprudence
With Klaus Ziegert

Ease: 8/10
Difficult at the start to choose a topic and do the research (the assessment was a 5000 minimum word research thesis with absolute freedom as to content) - but overall it is relatively easy compared to other law assignments.

Lecturer: 7/10
Laid back lecturer, very approachable, but hard to understand sometimes.

Interest: 10/10
Subject allows you to research what you find to be most enthralling.

Overall: 9/10

 

[UncoKane]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

PHSI2005 - Integrated Physiology A

Ease - 5/10 - The content itself isn't that hard to understand, it's just taught so poorly. What's worse is the mid-semester examined us on stuff we'd never seen before. They warped the questions so that we just couldn't understand them with the knowledge we had, hence why the average was a fail. There was a lot of content shoved into a few lectures, like for haematology and the autonomic nervous system, though we were supposed to know a LOT so that we could answer a range of questions by the exam. If you do pharmacology, psychology or immunology it would be a little easier because there's a bit of content that crosses over.

Lecturers - 3/10 - There were many lecturers, but I give them this rating overall. The worst lecturer didn't put any notes up, just the recordings. His lectures were just diagrams which he would talk about, and he got angry if anyone took notes while he was talking, plus he didn't even cover everything he was supposed to.

Interest - 7/10 - I found the content was actually very interesting when I started studying by myself. The lecturers make it seem a lot more awful than it is.

Overall - 4/10 - Just because it's the most poorly run unit of study I have come across so far. They cancelled a lecture without telling us once. The discussion boards were just constant complaining about how bad it is. No past exam papers, just a few short answer questions. There were a LOT of cardiovascular multiple choice, which helped though. The tute/pracs are a snore fest. There are only three actual pracs the entire semester, one of which I spent running on an exercise bike... the rest are 3 hour long tutes. The first two were on statistics - so painful. The demonstrators in them never seemed to agree on anything which made getting answers for anything extremely difficult. Any assessment took as long as possible to come back to me. When I got it back, I just didn't care anymore. The marking schemes for the assessments were ridiculous as well, on top of us not being able to format our reports because we had to use a template, which made them look disgusting. My advice, avoid this subject unless you ABSOLUTELY have to do it.

 

[Claudeski]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

PHSI2005 - Integrated Physiology A

Ease - 5/10 - The content itself isn't that hard to understand, it's just taught so poorly. What's worse is the mid-semester examined us on stuff we'd never seen before. They warped the questions so that we just couldn't understand them with the knowledge we had, hence why the average was a fail. There was a lot of content shoved into a few lectures, like for haematology and the autonomic nervous system, though we were supposed to know a LOT so that we could answer a range of questions by the exam. If you do pharmacology, psychology or immunology it would be a little easier because there's a bit of content that crosses over.

Lecturers - 3/10 - There were many lecturers, but I give them this rating overall. The worst lecturer didn't put any notes up, just the recordings. His lectures were just diagrams which he would talk about, and he got angry if anyone took notes while he was talking, plus he didn't even cover everything he was supposed to.

Interest - 7/10 - I found the content was actually very interesting when I started studying by myself. The lecturers make it seem a lot more awful than it is.

Overall - 4/10 - Just because it's the most poorly run unit of study I have come across so far. They cancelled a lecture without telling us once. The discussion boards were just constant complaining about how bad it is. No past exam papers, just a few short answer questions. There were a LOT of cardiovascular multiple choice, which helped though. The tute/pracs are a snore fest. There are only three actual pracs the entire semester, one of which I spent running on an exercise bike... the rest are 3 hour long tutes. The first two were on statistics - so painful. The demonstrators in them never seemed to agree on anything which made getting answers for anything extremely difficult. Any assessment took as long as possible to come back to me. When I got it back, I just didn't care anymore. The marking schemes for the assessments were ridiculous as well, on top of us not being able to format our reports because we had to use a template, which made them look disgusting. My advice, avoid this subject unless you ABSOLUTELY have to do it.

Argh I kinda have to do it. Is it likely the feedback from the students will have any effect for next year in any area?

EDIT: Although I'll actually be doing all the subjects you mentioned that cross over.

 

[UncoKane]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 17/01/09)

Argh I kinda have to do it. Is it likely the feedback from the students will have any effect for next year in any area?

EDIT: Although I'll actually be doing all the subjects you mentioned that cross over.

For your sake I hope they improve it, but any time someone complained about anything they seemed to just get shitty, rather than appreciating feedback.