Comp1917 (1 Viewer)

[danielau]

If you did this subject, how did you find the course? What mark did you get?

 

[Squar3root]

Im doing the course this semester. Its pretty crap, like this moring he just played one of his lectures on openlearning and left lol. I left to in the second hour

 

[froogle]

Done the course. Richard Buckland is great, but things can seem a tad disorganised.
I think he has run out of things to teach, which is why he just plays the lecture videos. Don't bother with the lectures, just watch it in your own time.

That said, the lab exercises are there to stretch you. They will be long, and at times quite hard. It is challenging and ridiculously time consuming. It is really great when you get it out through.

Overall the course is a mixed bag.
- A lot of people hate the lecture video thing, since you don't feel like you are part of the class. Besides, why come to uni just to watch lectures off youtube?
+ The stuff covered is quite interesting.
- The content is time consuming and can be challenging
+ It was probably one of the more interesting first year courses available.
- Openlearning isn't that great. It is more of a mooc thing than a course so you feel like you are a random person in a big ocean. Plus it lags and is slow sometimes.

If Richard actually taught everything, that would make the course great again. If not, it is just him facilitating the course, and not teaching it.

 

[ComputingGuide]

Im doing the course this semester. Its pretty crap, like this moring he just played one of his lectures on openlearning and left lol. I left to in the second hour

He came to the Pioneer Theatre which was a first for us.

 

[Squar3root]

He came to the Pioneer Theatre which was a first for us.

ohh yeah, thats right, he skypes with another class. i guess the university has to make money somehow

 

[Thief]

Im doing the course this semester. Its pretty crap, like this moring he just played one of his lectures on openlearning and left lol. I left to in the second hour

Good thing I skipped that lecture then.

I think he's playing some of the lecture vids every Wednesday, so maybe it's best just to attend the Monday ones.

Richard does tend to ramble a lot though, so the information he gives you over the 2 hour lecture could be condensed into a much shorter period.

 

[D94]

I didn't really like the course, and it is my lowest mark out of all my courses (still managed a Credit). I didn't have Richard though (but I've seen his video lectures), and the lecturer I had was rather disorganised and there wasn't any structure in the course. Luckily the final mark consisted of the final exam and the portfolio so most of my marks were from the portfolio. I had lost interest in learning C, even though the content and code wasn't terribly hard. This was kind of the general gist amongst students in my cohort, and the majority of students who actually did well were doing CS, Software and/or Electrical, where COMP1917 is a core or recommended.

Considering it was completely unnecessary of me to do COMP1917 and given the benefit of hindsight, if I were to choose my courses again, I would not choose COMP1917, but rather ENGG1811 - as extreme as that sounds, excel skills and VBA are valued more in the workplace than C (for most engineering streams actually). The argument of having a challenge and developing thinking skills (etc.) isn't strong considering the same could be had in VBA, and there are 30 or so other relevant courses that could potentially assist you in harnessing those skills.

Overall, whilst I didn't do terribly at the course, personally I would not recommend it to any current or future mechanical engineering student. I think given the new plan changes, ENGG1811 is now preferred (as opposed to COMP1911 when I started).

 

[Squar3root]

@Theif
Yeah I guess I won't be attending anymore lectures until the final exam lol.

@D94
Excellent advice (too bad I can't rep you) but if I were to do it all over again I probably would have put off computing until semester 2 or maybe even 2nd year. Btw, can you do ENGG1811 as an elective or gen ed course?

 

[D94]

If you mean for me, then no because I have done COMP1917 so they are excluded from each other, so only one of them will count. I guess you could technically do the course, but it won't count for anything and you will have wasted time and money. Gen eds in engineering have to be outside of the faculty of engineering (I can't think of any engineering degree, single or dual, where it is administered outside of the faculty of engineering AND there are gen eds you need to take).

 

[Squar3root]

If you mean for me, then no because I have done COMP1917 so they are excluded from each other, so only one of them will count. I guess you could technically do the course, but it won't count for anything and you will have wasted time and money. Gen eds in engineering have to be outside of the faculty of engineering (I can't think of any engineering degree, single or dual, where it is administered outside of the faculty of engineering AND there are gen eds you need to take).

Hmmm, I really don't like comp1917 it is too hard to keep up with and I can barely program, even though they said that you dont need prior experience, you are severely disadvantaged if you don't.

Do you think it is too late to change to comp1911 or engg1811? The census date is 31st march so.....

 

[D94]

You will have to talk to your school office to see if they well allow you to change. Since now is before the census date, changing to COMP1911 should be fine but ENGG1811 may be different. Again best to contract your school and the school of CSE.

 

[Squar3root]

You will have to talk to your school office to see if they well allow you to change. Since now is before the census date, changing to COMP1911 should be fine but ENGG1811 may be different. Again best to contract your school and the school of CSE.

since i am on campus, ill do that now

 

[Khe123]

I find this course is quite like maths in the way it takes up ALOT of your time as you have write, test, check, write, test, find solutions, add your solution into code format, make it efficient etc etc/ and it isn't as set right as something like Commerce or theory based subject.

 

[D94]

Undergraduate tutors are generally selected on the basis of their marks, but that in no way reflects how well they can teach. But there is no simple vetting process that can determine who can teach and who knows their stuff well, so it's easier to get people who got high marks and hope they can teach. Kind of similar to lecturers.

 

[froogle]

^ lol so true.

Some lecturers should stay as researchers and never step into a lecture theater or classroom.

 

[EpikHigh]

eng1811 is the biggest pos course ever... should change to 1911 but 1811 is too ez

 

[Squar3root]

re: not knowing programming puts you at a severe disadvantage. No, I disagree. Obviously not everyone's going to be cut out for it, but I know plenty of people who didn't know programming before this course and did really well (by this, I mean HD). Some people have to work a lot harder for that mark, granted - and sometimes that time just doesn't exist - but having no prior knowledge doesn't put you at a severe disadvantage.

I still have to disagree with this. The case you mentioned may only be like 2 or so students in the entire course. The lecturer (I am keeping names out of it) is a good guy and he puts recorded lectures on openlearning so we the students can watch anytime we want but to watch like 5 hours of video and blog about it and then do activities on it is very strenuous especially if one has not programmed before ie me. Is there way to get course help outside of lectures, I know people say post on openlearning but I don't want to post "can someone help me with like comp1917." I tried to go to the consultation time last Friday in the Ritchie theatre but when I went there, a movie was playing lol
I am not one of those students that slacks of if it gets too hard but when it does get unnecessary hard I lose motivation in what I am doing and usually just give up which is the opposite of the motto of the course lol

 

[ismeta]

I still have to disagree with this. The case you mentioned may only be like 2 or so students in the entire course. The lecturer (I am keeping names out of it) is a good guy and he puts recorded lectures on openlearning so we the students can watch anytime we want but to watch like 5 hours of video and blog about it and then do activities on it is very strenuous especially if one has not programmed before ie me. Is there way to get course help outside of lectures, I know people say post on openlearning but I don't want to post "can someone help me with like comp1917." I tried to go to the consultation time last Friday in the Ritchie theatre but when I went there, a movie was playing lol
I am not one of those students that slacks of if it gets too hard but when it does get unnecessary hard I lose motivation in what I am doing and usually just give up which is the opposite of the motto of the course lol

Heh, the lecturer is pretty much synonymous with semester 1 COMP1917 here anyway. anyway, yeah, I agree that making people watch online videos isn't the best way to go about things. With respect to course help outside of lectures and the consultation time, that's interesting...the consultations aren't in lecture theatres, but in labs. Check out https://www.openlearning.com/courses/99luftballons/Cohorts/ClassOf2014/Pages/ConsultationsInfo - that has definitive information on where the consultations are. I think you might've wandered into the wrong place for the consult. (correct me if I'm wrong here!)

the case I mentioned - perhaps you are right. My samples are all from a COMP1917 years ago, and the course has changed quite a lot in the meantime. but I digress.

tl;dr email your tutor with problems

 

[anomalousdecay]

I will have to do it next semester and have no experience what so ever with C.

Though due to a current course I am doing, I have to practically master Boolean algebra this semester.

But then again I don't think Boolean has much to do with C.

 

[Squar3root]

Heh, the lecturer is pretty much synonymous with semester 1 COMP1917 here anyway. anyway, yeah, I agree that making people watch online videos isn't the best way to go about things. With respect to course help outside of lectures and the consultation time, that's interesting...the consultations aren't in lecture theatres, but in labs. Check out https://www.openlearning.com/courses/99luftballons/Cohorts/ClassOf2014/Pages/ConsultationsInfo - that has definitive information on where the consultations are. I think you might've wandered into the wrong place for the consult. (correct me if I'm wrong here!)

the case I mentioned - perhaps you are right. My samples are all from a COMP1917 years ago, and the course has changed quite a lot in the meantime. but I digress.

tl;dr email your tutor with problems

I think I may have wondered into the wrong lab/theatre. I went up the smll set of stairs before the printer and a black and white movie was playing. The lab doors were closed so I assumed there was nothing going on in there except for the first one but they said they weren't comp1917 students. I will try to express my concerns to my tutor this week but she is also a student and I don't want to be taking up her time, I'm sure she also has to study!

btw, is there like a syllabus for comp1917? The teaching seams to be unstructured and all over the place.

Yes lol the comp1917 lecturer