random-1006
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wtf,
UNSW Subject Reviews. (4 Viewers)
- Thread starter bringbackshred
- Start date
wtf,
Yeah lol, and if you come to the lecture late he doesn't mark it as full attendance.
Also... the lecture was at 9am.
sinophile
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Eh I'll guess I'll make short reviews of the subjects I'm doing now.
MINE2010 (mining project development): Here is a list of things which you cause you to get fucked in the course:
- Not attending lectures (Hagan DELETES all the online resources after week 13 just to punish those who didn't attend. People who didn't attend the first lecture wouldn't even have known about this)
- Come late to lectures (You'll be forced to stand at the door)
- Not take notes like a beast during lectures (The notes make zero sense without them. No lecture recordings. Lecture notes don't go through case studies, the case studies are only described verbally and the concepts have difficulty takign root in your mind without the case studies)
- Not go on the school field trip (the mining field report compulsorarily needs you to go on some kind of field trip, if you don't take the school-arranged one you must arrange and go on your own. Besides, it'd probably be impossible to get all the info you need for the report purely from second hand resources. The exception: if you take vac work or are otherwise already incredibly familiar with some mining operation. Arrange your transport early or else you'll be fucked in terms of seats and have to take the train on some other day)
- Ignore REPORT STYLE (reports are worth like 50% of the course and style over substance is emphasised. fully read the MEA report writing guide)
MINE2500 (Fluid dynamics and thermodynamics):
- Attend all the lectures and take notes like crazy. If you don't, you'll be fucked because notes for this course do not exist. There is no textbook out there which covers the same topics in this course.
- If Mr. Watson is still teaching this course (I hear he's retiring this year, hes a good guy who deserves it), sit near the front because his voice is quiet and difficult to hear.
GMAT2610:
Pretty easy, just practice the tute questions and you should be able to pass.
ARTS1450 (introductory Chinese A):
This course is incredibly easy if you're a background speaker. Attend all the tutes because they're fantastic for learning, and pick up your easy 2% mark every monday tute for doing the dictation correctly. The lectures are somewhat marginally useful if you already well-prepare your stuff at home. They go through alternative meanings of single characters and cultural references though, which is very good for learning. Yang Mu is a good lecturer, speaks clearly and is genuinely funny.
MINE2010 (mining project development): Here is a list of things which you cause you to get fucked in the course:
- Not attending lectures (Hagan DELETES all the online resources after week 13 just to punish those who didn't attend. People who didn't attend the first lecture wouldn't even have known about this)
- Come late to lectures (You'll be forced to stand at the door)
- Not take notes like a beast during lectures (The notes make zero sense without them. No lecture recordings. Lecture notes don't go through case studies, the case studies are only described verbally and the concepts have difficulty takign root in your mind without the case studies)
- Not go on the school field trip (the mining field report compulsorarily needs you to go on some kind of field trip, if you don't take the school-arranged one you must arrange and go on your own. Besides, it'd probably be impossible to get all the info you need for the report purely from second hand resources. The exception: if you take vac work or are otherwise already incredibly familiar with some mining operation. Arrange your transport early or else you'll be fucked in terms of seats and have to take the train on some other day)
- Ignore REPORT STYLE (reports are worth like 50% of the course and style over substance is emphasised. fully read the MEA report writing guide)
MINE2500 (Fluid dynamics and thermodynamics):
- Attend all the lectures and take notes like crazy. If you don't, you'll be fucked because notes for this course do not exist. There is no textbook out there which covers the same topics in this course.
- If Mr. Watson is still teaching this course (I hear he's retiring this year, hes a good guy who deserves it), sit near the front because his voice is quiet and difficult to hear.
GMAT2610:
Pretty easy, just practice the tute questions and you should be able to pass.
ARTS1450 (introductory Chinese A):
This course is incredibly easy if you're a background speaker. Attend all the tutes because they're fantastic for learning, and pick up your easy 2% mark every monday tute for doing the dictation correctly. The lectures are somewhat marginally useful if you already well-prepare your stuff at home. They go through alternative meanings of single characters and cultural references though, which is very good for learning. Yang Mu is a good lecturer, speaks clearly and is genuinely funny.
Lolsmith
kill all boomers
I'll reserve reviews until after finals are done (so I can put that in the review)
kaz1
et tu
This year the cunts doing it are fucked, I heard the finals are worth 60% now since they got rid of the online mid sem.
Timothy.Siu
Prophet 9
what lecture time are you in?
zehurricane
Capitalism, Ho!
Most psych courses have over 1 guy to 3 girl correct?...
sinophile
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thursday afternoon, my lecturer is yang mu. why? are you in it too?
Timothy.Siu
Prophet 9
yes. cool lecturer. lol.
sinophile
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never noticed you. i sit right at the front, like on the second row. say hi to me next week!
Timothy.Siu
Prophet 9
oh..... don't think i'm in your one then lol.
I'm at 12-2pm. No one sits in the first 10 rows.
bitumen
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lol yeah. in my psyc tutorial of ~20 people there are 3 boys
jaychouf4n
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LAWS1052- Foundations of Law
Pretty bad course. Just glances over the law in a superficial manner. Spend most of the course talking about the history of law.
LAWS1140- Public Law
Okay course, depends on whether you're interested in constitutional law. I wasn't, so I found it exceptionally dry looking at a 150 year old document. Very little use of case law, a lot of wishy washy talk about Dicey.
LAWS1071- Contract Law
Amazing course. Very interesting to watch contract law develop over time through cases. It's very practical, you end up dissecting your entire day into a bunch of contracts.
ACTL2002- Probability for Actuaries
Difficult course. They rush through the course, so it's very hard to understand a lot of the statistical concepts. Also, the mid semester assignment in R can only be described as HELL.
ACTL1001- Intro to Actuarial Studies
I liked the course, it was nice getting a little introduction to general insurance, life insurance etc. Others did not like the course because it was very brief on each topic, and the progression through the weeks was almost arbitrary.
Math1151/Math1251
Interesting courses. I did not like algebra much, very abstract to imagine lines and shapes in higher dimensions. Math1251 was especially abstract with the study of rank, basis etc of vector fields. I did not like Math1251 very much, too abstract and little application to real life.
Math1081-Discrete Math
Shit. Hated this course, made me switch to law instead of mathematics.
Econ1101-Microeconomics
Very interesting course. It's very logical and it is very nice how they build the concepts week by week.
Mgmt1001-Management
Bullshit course. Waste of time.
Pretty bad course. Just glances over the law in a superficial manner. Spend most of the course talking about the history of law.
LAWS1140- Public Law
Okay course, depends on whether you're interested in constitutional law. I wasn't, so I found it exceptionally dry looking at a 150 year old document. Very little use of case law, a lot of wishy washy talk about Dicey.
LAWS1071- Contract Law
Amazing course. Very interesting to watch contract law develop over time through cases. It's very practical, you end up dissecting your entire day into a bunch of contracts.
ACTL2002- Probability for Actuaries
Difficult course. They rush through the course, so it's very hard to understand a lot of the statistical concepts. Also, the mid semester assignment in R can only be described as HELL.
ACTL1001- Intro to Actuarial Studies
I liked the course, it was nice getting a little introduction to general insurance, life insurance etc. Others did not like the course because it was very brief on each topic, and the progression through the weeks was almost arbitrary.
Math1151/Math1251
Interesting courses. I did not like algebra much, very abstract to imagine lines and shapes in higher dimensions. Math1251 was especially abstract with the study of rank, basis etc of vector fields. I did not like Math1251 very much, too abstract and little application to real life.
Math1081-Discrete Math
Shit. Hated this course, made me switch to law instead of mathematics.
Econ1101-Microeconomics
Very interesting course. It's very logical and it is very nice how they build the concepts week by week.
Mgmt1001-Management
Bullshit course. Waste of time.
pwoh
O_O
Haven't finished these courses yet, but I'm procrastinating so might as well:
COMP1917
Ease: 7/10
It's quite challenging if it's your first time programming. It's awesome once you get past all the problems, but can be quite overwhelming in terms of workload for the assignments.
Lecturer: 10/10
Richard Buckland. What can I say, I'm sure you've all heard the praise. Helpful and entertaining and generally cool.
Interest: 9/10
Material itself isn't inspirational as such but it's the pratical/application component that makes it fun. =D
Overall: 9/10
Awesome course! Take it!
MATH1141
Ease: 6/10
I suppose if you practice enough it's not difficult at all. It seems to be just a whole lot of definitions. But when there is a lot of formulae/definitions without deeper proof/intuition for why they are like that (especially for the algebra component), I find it difficult. The calculus component follows on fairly naturally from HSC maths but the algebra stuff new.
Lecturers: 7/10
Algebra lecturer: Dr. Greenhill. I think I'm just slow but I don't think there was enough time given for the definitions (which seemed quite arbitrary to me at first) to sink in. But explanations of examples etc were fairly clear. She's pretty cool =D
Calculus lecturer: Prof. Cowling. Pretty good explanations. Made me sleepy though Z_Z. Good with answering our questions. Gets annoyed at late people/distracting people easily which is fair enough most of the time.
Interest: 7/10
Not terribly exciting, but necessary/fundamental. The new algebra stuff was interesting I guess.
Overall: 8/10
You probably don't have a choice in taking this anyway. It's a useful foundation, not presented in the most exciting way but still good.
MATH1081
Ease: 8/10
I found this easier than MATH1141. I don't know why everyone hates this, I think it's awesome and makes a lot of sense. Maybe it's because I have good lecturers.
Lecturers: 9/10
Prof Wildberger was awesome and fun, everything made sense. Dr Chan was pretty clear too.
Interest: 10/10
I loved this! All of the material just seems like a natural way to define/do things.
Overall: 9/10
Why all the hating! It's an awesome branch of maths!
PHYS1111
Ease: 8/10
I took physics for noobs because I felt I was a noob. Getting good marks is easy. The concepts weren't explored deeply enough for me to get a full comprehension though - was basically a crash course. The lack of calculus was semi-annoying.
Lecturers: 6/10
Michael Burton - I think he repeated things a bit too often without going into a different explanation, which I think would have been more helpful. Went through the material in a pretty straightforward manner.
Krystyna Wilk - tried to engage the class and went into pretty detailed explanations I think.
I didn't really listen to either of them though as the textbook explained things more clearly to me.
Interest: 7/10
I like some topics better than others. It wasn't a very deep course so not super interesting. But being physics, was pretty fascinating at times.
Overall: 7/10
COMP1917
Ease: 7/10
It's quite challenging if it's your first time programming. It's awesome once you get past all the problems, but can be quite overwhelming in terms of workload for the assignments.
Lecturer: 10/10
Richard Buckland. What can I say, I'm sure you've all heard the praise. Helpful and entertaining and generally cool.
Interest: 9/10
Material itself isn't inspirational as such but it's the pratical/application component that makes it fun. =D
Overall: 9/10
Awesome course! Take it!
MATH1141
Ease: 6/10
I suppose if you practice enough it's not difficult at all. It seems to be just a whole lot of definitions. But when there is a lot of formulae/definitions without deeper proof/intuition for why they are like that (especially for the algebra component), I find it difficult. The calculus component follows on fairly naturally from HSC maths but the algebra stuff new.
Lecturers: 7/10
Algebra lecturer: Dr. Greenhill. I think I'm just slow but I don't think there was enough time given for the definitions (which seemed quite arbitrary to me at first) to sink in. But explanations of examples etc were fairly clear. She's pretty cool =D
Calculus lecturer: Prof. Cowling. Pretty good explanations. Made me sleepy though Z_Z. Good with answering our questions. Gets annoyed at late people/distracting people easily which is fair enough most of the time.
Interest: 7/10
Not terribly exciting, but necessary/fundamental. The new algebra stuff was interesting I guess.
Overall: 8/10
You probably don't have a choice in taking this anyway. It's a useful foundation, not presented in the most exciting way but still good.
MATH1081
Ease: 8/10
I found this easier than MATH1141. I don't know why everyone hates this, I think it's awesome and makes a lot of sense. Maybe it's because I have good lecturers.
Lecturers: 9/10
Prof Wildberger was awesome and fun, everything made sense. Dr Chan was pretty clear too.
Interest: 10/10
I loved this! All of the material just seems like a natural way to define/do things.
Overall: 9/10
Why all the hating! It's an awesome branch of maths!
PHYS1111
Ease: 8/10
I took physics for noobs because I felt I was a noob. Getting good marks is easy. The concepts weren't explored deeply enough for me to get a full comprehension though - was basically a crash course. The lack of calculus was semi-annoying.
Lecturers: 6/10
Michael Burton - I think he repeated things a bit too often without going into a different explanation, which I think would have been more helpful. Went through the material in a pretty straightforward manner.
Krystyna Wilk - tried to engage the class and went into pretty detailed explanations I think.
I didn't really listen to either of them though as the textbook explained things more clearly to me.
Interest: 7/10
I like some topics better than others. It wasn't a very deep course so not super interesting. But being physics, was pretty fascinating at times.
Overall: 7/10
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GEOS1701
Ease: 9/10 <--several lab assignments, but everyone collaborates on them and depending who you get as lab demonstrator, some pretty much give you the answers. Water use assignment is the only one that really differentiates, but everyone in our class passed. Midsem exam was great in that we were given midsem break to study for it (not that it stopped me from cramming anyway) and any stuff that was examined in it is not examinable in the final. So pretty easy to pass and do well in, but conversely I've got a suspicious feeling it'll scale negatively because of this.
Lecturer(s): 10/10 for everyone. They're all great communicators and all really passionate about what they teach. Rob Brander, the course coordinator, is really genuinely nice--he was like don't sweat if you can't make midsem, just email in and we'll see what we can do, and the midsem was exactly as he said it would be.
Interest: 10/10
Overall: 10/10
PSYC1001
Ease: 8/10 <--there's not many assessments, but two of them are just *sigh*--the ILS and half research report. I know they're necessary because they develop our skills in reading and writing scientific reports, but it's just so tedious, especially if this is not your first science subject. Experimental component is easy to get full marks for, just need to be organised. I got all 10hrs done I think by week 6, and only 6 of those hours are compulsory (the other 4 you get bonus marks for). Midsem was very specific, and I didn't like that the questions were the same for all tute classes, so obviously those later in the week would be advantaged, but it's ok.
Lecturer(s): we've had so many I can't remember their names, but I doubt the lecturers or topics would change much from year to year--developmental (10/10), consciousness (6/10)--he just wasn't very engaging but I think it was also the most abstract and hardest topic to comprehend so I'll cut him some slack, social (10/10), personality (8/10)--he wasn't particularly approachable when I asked him a question at the end, cross cultural (8/10), health (only given one lecture, but 10/10 so far). Oh and I suppose experimental (5/10)--very boring lecturer.
Interest: If I could--11/10
Overall: 9/10
Ease: 9/10 <--several lab assignments, but everyone collaborates on them and depending who you get as lab demonstrator, some pretty much give you the answers. Water use assignment is the only one that really differentiates, but everyone in our class passed. Midsem exam was great in that we were given midsem break to study for it (not that it stopped me from cramming anyway) and any stuff that was examined in it is not examinable in the final. So pretty easy to pass and do well in, but conversely I've got a suspicious feeling it'll scale negatively because of this.
Lecturer(s): 10/10 for everyone. They're all great communicators and all really passionate about what they teach. Rob Brander, the course coordinator, is really genuinely nice--he was like don't sweat if you can't make midsem, just email in and we'll see what we can do, and the midsem was exactly as he said it would be.
Interest: 10/10
Overall: 10/10
PSYC1001
Ease: 8/10 <--there's not many assessments, but two of them are just *sigh*--the ILS and half research report. I know they're necessary because they develop our skills in reading and writing scientific reports, but it's just so tedious, especially if this is not your first science subject. Experimental component is easy to get full marks for, just need to be organised. I got all 10hrs done I think by week 6, and only 6 of those hours are compulsory (the other 4 you get bonus marks for). Midsem was very specific, and I didn't like that the questions were the same for all tute classes, so obviously those later in the week would be advantaged, but it's ok.
Lecturer(s): we've had so many I can't remember their names, but I doubt the lecturers or topics would change much from year to year--developmental (10/10), consciousness (6/10)--he just wasn't very engaging but I think it was also the most abstract and hardest topic to comprehend so I'll cut him some slack, social (10/10), personality (8/10)--he wasn't particularly approachable when I asked him a question at the end, cross cultural (8/10), health (only given one lecture, but 10/10 so far). Oh and I suppose experimental (5/10)--very boring lecturer.
Interest: If I could--11/10
Overall: 9/10
MooshyMoosh
Member
Since there isn't many reviews of GEOS courses here (besides above, and one that I saw ages ago), figured it might help any budding geos or earth science peeps.
GEOS2171 - Earth Structures
Lecturer: Paul Lennox - 6/10
His lectures are sometimes alright, other times boring as hell. His voice is monotonous but you get used to it, and once you get to know him better he's actually a really nice and funny man. He's a structural geologist, and he's much better tempered out in the field - which is evident on the field trip - then cooped up in a classroom.
Content: 6/10
I thought GEOS1111 was hard, this course made it seem piss easy. There is a hell of a lot of content, which is put to practice on the field trip to Bermagui. The textbook is near useless, so don't bother buying it (which I didn't, as I got a *cough* e-copy), you only need the course manual, and a book called Stereographic Projection Techniques for Geologists and Civil Engineers by Lisle (from memory). Get that book, it will save you.
Field trip: 8/10
I have to say that we weren't adequately prepared for this field trip. We had to put all that we had learned so far into practice, and the conditions weren't exactly safe (our group had to scale up and down a rock face to get in and out of the study area) but we managed. It does help in bringing everyone together (geos and es students aren't that numerous so everyone eventually gets to know each other). The trip is definitely helpful as it teaches students what fieldwork is like and preps you for GEOS3131 which from what I have seen and heard, is bigger, more stressful but better than Bermagui.
Overall: 7/10
GEOS2181 - Earth Materials
Lecturer: Ian Graham - 8/10
You can learn a lot from his lectures, as they're brief and to the point. He covers recent and interesting examples of earth materials and processes and probably the only course I've ever not fallen asleep or gotten bored in.
Content: 8/10
It is easy to pass this course, as long as you pay attention to the lectures. The only hard part was using the petrographic microscopes to recognize mineral and rock samples, which is different to recognising them in hand specimen, and a whole question in the exam is usually devoted to this, so best make good notes in the labs for these. Assessments have ridiculous weightings though eg. 5% reports from 10-20 pages in length.
Overall: 8/10
Will review GEOS2821 eventually. BEES2041 has already been complained about before, so I won't bother; the only thing I will add is that it is still just as bad as previous, except this time studying the past papers was completely pointless, as they got rid of a large chunk (ANOVAs) and replaced it with GLM. >:[
GEOS2171 - Earth Structures
Lecturer: Paul Lennox - 6/10
His lectures are sometimes alright, other times boring as hell. His voice is monotonous but you get used to it, and once you get to know him better he's actually a really nice and funny man. He's a structural geologist, and he's much better tempered out in the field - which is evident on the field trip - then cooped up in a classroom.
Content: 6/10
I thought GEOS1111 was hard, this course made it seem piss easy. There is a hell of a lot of content, which is put to practice on the field trip to Bermagui. The textbook is near useless, so don't bother buying it (which I didn't, as I got a *cough* e-copy), you only need the course manual, and a book called Stereographic Projection Techniques for Geologists and Civil Engineers by Lisle (from memory). Get that book, it will save you.
Field trip: 8/10
I have to say that we weren't adequately prepared for this field trip. We had to put all that we had learned so far into practice, and the conditions weren't exactly safe (our group had to scale up and down a rock face to get in and out of the study area) but we managed. It does help in bringing everyone together (geos and es students aren't that numerous so everyone eventually gets to know each other). The trip is definitely helpful as it teaches students what fieldwork is like and preps you for GEOS3131 which from what I have seen and heard, is bigger, more stressful but better than Bermagui.
Overall: 7/10
GEOS2181 - Earth Materials
Lecturer: Ian Graham - 8/10
You can learn a lot from his lectures, as they're brief and to the point. He covers recent and interesting examples of earth materials and processes and probably the only course I've ever not fallen asleep or gotten bored in.
Content: 8/10
It is easy to pass this course, as long as you pay attention to the lectures. The only hard part was using the petrographic microscopes to recognize mineral and rock samples, which is different to recognising them in hand specimen, and a whole question in the exam is usually devoted to this, so best make good notes in the labs for these. Assessments have ridiculous weightings though eg. 5% reports from 10-20 pages in length.
Overall: 8/10
Will review GEOS2821 eventually. BEES2041 has already been complained about before, so I won't bother; the only thing I will add is that it is still just as bad as previous, except this time studying the past papers was completely pointless, as they got rid of a large chunk (ANOVAs) and replaced it with GLM. >:[
Mature Lamb
wats goin on
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- 2010
- Uni Grad
- 2015
I found Cowling boring so I switched to the other stream for Calculus. Greenhill was cool. Peter Brown was a lot better though when he took her place a couple of times.
I found Chan was slightly boring for discrete maths. Wildberger was absolutely amazing though. Best lecturer I've had for my first semester of uni.
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Shadowdude
Cult of Personality
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- 2010
SCIF 0/10
LATE ENTRY MARKS?! NOT HAPPY.
Only redeeming thing about the course was the people - but that's not affected by the course admin. Pej - my tutor - was pretty cool though. He made it less unbearable.
LATE ENTRY MARKS?! NOT HAPPY.
Only redeeming thing about the course was the people - but that's not affected by the course admin. Pej - my tutor - was pretty cool though. He made it less unbearable.