Shaking Paper
Member
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2006
- Messages
- 214
- Gender
- Male
- HSC
- 2005
Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)
ASNS2670: Mass Media in East Asia
Ease: (6/10) The learning objectives were quite clear, as well as the topics being covered. A presentation with essay, and major essay making up most of the marks, though a final exam will be worth 40%, it always seems excessive when two hours can make the difference between a fail and high distinction. It was a bit irritating that by week 12 we’d completed only about 30% worth of assessments, which hadn’t allowed for much feedback. The unit was unexpectedly technical and dry, with very little on the social and cultural side of things, so things could be very boring at times, and the countries being covered often blurred together, with only endless lists of acronyms to differentiate them.
Lecturer: (5/10) Ki-Sung Kwak seems like a pretty nice guy, and the points he was making were usually pretty clear. He went through a lot of PowerPoint slides, which were not provided on-line, so it was sometimes a matter of copying them down before he moved on, and what was there was rarely elaborated on. There was a strange tendency to avoid ending classes early if he finished his prepared lecture early, and seeming unable or unwilling to think of anything more to tell us about than what was on his slides. Tutorials were also extremely awkward, after presentations it was usually a matter of the class being asked questions followed by long silences, and again never ending tutorials early when nobody had anything to say. Readings were many, and usually far too dull to read.
Interest: (3/10) All of the content was extremely dry, the subject was really about listing when different broadcasting technologies entered Japan, Korean, HKSAR and Taiwan, who they are run by, and how they are regulated. Attempts to connect these to the history or culture of each country were quite weak, it was really a matter of memorizing dates, regulatory principles, and acronyms, god, the acronyms. There wasn’t much substance on actual programming content or the experiences of ordinary people with it, it was really just about the bodies running the different mediums, so there wasn’t much of a sense of learning about ‘Asia’ as opposed to generic companies, and having done previous Asian Studies units won’t prepare you for the technical nature of this unit. It was interesting though to have a Japanese journalist guest lecturer who expressed support for systems that earlier classes had shown to be quite detrimental.
Overall: (5/10) Only really recommended if you’re interested in the political and administrative side of broadcasting. Dr. Kwak is easy to understand, but there just wasn’t much of a way to bring the content to life. There was a constant feeling that the course being set in Asia was irrelevant. It would also be a good choice for anyone who really, really likes acronyms.
ASNS2676: Gender in Modern Asia
Ease: (5/10) There was nothing too complicated about the unit, though unexpectedly low essay marks have brought down the score a little. The final exam was worth 40%, too much in my opinion, and essays were returned afterwards with virtually no feedback. Edit: Brought down due to unexpectedly low results.
Lecturer: (7/10) Dr. Yang was an intelligent, clear speaker, with many interesting anecdotes concerning her own fieldwork. My only problem was that too much of the lectures was spent covering the tutorial readings. Tutorials were also pretty informative and readings often appealing (though it was a bit rich expecting us to buy four books). The classes would follow a particular theme, like third genders, commoditised sex, gender in the public sphere etc, and each would be given a few country-specific examples. The result then was a clearer understanding of the concept, but a bit of a limited vision of its relevance across Asia, though providing a good basis for further study.
Interest: (7/10) Definitely an interesting unit, with a lot of variety. It also introduced a lot of the basic theories on gender and sexuality and applied them to different Asian contexts (though an emphasis on China), usually focusing the changing ways that gender have been controlled and by whom.
Overall: (6/10) Interesting course, informative and lucid lectures and tutorials and more than bearable readings. Really only held back by poor assessment structure (70% based on in-class tests and tutorial participation) and some inconsistent grading.
HSTY2670: New York, New York
Ease: (9/10) 10% for tutorial participation, the other 90% from three 1500 word essays, which were delivered evenly across the semester, this has been by far the most organized and accommodating unit I’ve been in, they history faculty really knows what they’re doing. Lectures more or less followed the history of the city chronologically, while tutorials covered specific places (e.g. Five Points, Greenwich Village) or features (Subways, Skyscrapers, Pools), together providing an extremely clear vision of the city. The first essay concerned an event in the city, and the second a place, so each allowed you to combine aspects of lectures and tutorials in a very simple way. Although lectures were recorded, those for the first half of the semester were so soft as to be inaudible on my laptop, the early ones especially cutting in and out a lot, though the problem was eventually fixed. The reader was a bit too large though, particularly factoring in online components, that we were always expected to have read.
Lecturer: (8/10) Stephen Robertson was a great, intelligent and entertaining lecturer, really demonstrating his experience with and love for the city, packing in a huge amount of information but always with clarity. Sometimes it was held back a bit by the impersonal, huge classes. The number of students also meant that tutorial times filled up quickly, class numbers were huge, and accessing resources, even in Fisher Reserve, could be difficult.
Interest: (7/10) Really provided a good sense of the history of New York from its founding to the present, and always seamlessly connecting the greater economic and political changes to the changing experiences of ordinary people, with a good emphasis on cultural trends.
Overall: (9/10) Very easy to recommend this course. Provided everything it offered in an entertaining way, everything you could want from a history unit. The assessment structure has been perfected, with options allowing you to pursue the aspects of the unit you found most appealing.
HSTY2765: A House Divided: The American Civil War
Ease: (8/10) Clear, well-structured course. 10% on essay preparation and 40% on the actual 2000 word essay, 35% on a take-home essay and the rest on tutorial participation. There were a lot of options for essay topics on each assessment, though still some competition for non-Reserve resources. Marking was also quite generous, but tutorial readings were a bit heavy.
Lecturer: (8/10) Frances Clarke was a great lecturer, with real enthusiasm for the subject, effectively simplifying and bringing together all of the social, technological and political aspects of the conflict. Lectures were also recorded, which was helpful.
Interest: (7/10) The unit was evenly divided between the antebellum, war, and Reconstruction periods, really seeming to provided the big-picture. Rather than memorizing battle-dates and military figures the unit focused much more on social and political changes, and illustrating the different kinds of war being fought by the different actors, whether politicians, soldiers, blacks, women and those on the home-front, providing a lot of variety. The Reconstruction section was particularly interesting, leaving the narrative on a much more negative note than expected. There was also a revealing discussion on Civil War memory, and the way the event has been manipulated and re-imagined for different purposes in the popular imagination.
Overall: (8/10) A very good course. Well organized, great lectures, with assessments evenly spaced throughout the semester. Perfectly fine choice even if you have no background in American history.
ARHT2642: Art in the Age of the Samurai
Ease: (9/10) 10% for a tutorial presentation, 30% for an essay on that presentation topic, and 60% for a 3000 word essay. What this meant was that it was possible to present in the second week, then have no assessments until the final week of semester. It also meant that there was no incentive to read any tutorial readings beyond that for your presentation as there was rarely any discussion of them.
Lecturer: (3/10) Dr. Ajioka was certainly a nice person, however lectures leant towards incomprehensibility, tending to be little more than a series of images over two hours without much analysis, meaning they were extremely forgettable. There appeared to have been no clear themes for the unit, and only a slight sense of chronology. That attendance was taken for both lectures and tutorials was somewhat of a mystery, as no mark was given for it.
Interest: (6/10) The fact that Japanese art history really is an incredibly fascinating subject simply did not come through in the classes, and an interest in the topic was often all keeping one awake. In the end, the thick, neglected course reader turned out to be quite good, even if unused for the most part.
Overall: (5/10) This was a very unsatisfying unit, when it could have been so much more. Other than for one assessment there was no reason to buy or read the course reader, and really no incentive to attend lectures, which tended to be a slow parade of images with minimal explanation or history.
ASNS2670: Mass Media in East Asia
Ease: (6/10) The learning objectives were quite clear, as well as the topics being covered. A presentation with essay, and major essay making up most of the marks, though a final exam will be worth 40%, it always seems excessive when two hours can make the difference between a fail and high distinction. It was a bit irritating that by week 12 we’d completed only about 30% worth of assessments, which hadn’t allowed for much feedback. The unit was unexpectedly technical and dry, with very little on the social and cultural side of things, so things could be very boring at times, and the countries being covered often blurred together, with only endless lists of acronyms to differentiate them.
Lecturer: (5/10) Ki-Sung Kwak seems like a pretty nice guy, and the points he was making were usually pretty clear. He went through a lot of PowerPoint slides, which were not provided on-line, so it was sometimes a matter of copying them down before he moved on, and what was there was rarely elaborated on. There was a strange tendency to avoid ending classes early if he finished his prepared lecture early, and seeming unable or unwilling to think of anything more to tell us about than what was on his slides. Tutorials were also extremely awkward, after presentations it was usually a matter of the class being asked questions followed by long silences, and again never ending tutorials early when nobody had anything to say. Readings were many, and usually far too dull to read.
Interest: (3/10) All of the content was extremely dry, the subject was really about listing when different broadcasting technologies entered Japan, Korean, HKSAR and Taiwan, who they are run by, and how they are regulated. Attempts to connect these to the history or culture of each country were quite weak, it was really a matter of memorizing dates, regulatory principles, and acronyms, god, the acronyms. There wasn’t much substance on actual programming content or the experiences of ordinary people with it, it was really just about the bodies running the different mediums, so there wasn’t much of a sense of learning about ‘Asia’ as opposed to generic companies, and having done previous Asian Studies units won’t prepare you for the technical nature of this unit. It was interesting though to have a Japanese journalist guest lecturer who expressed support for systems that earlier classes had shown to be quite detrimental.
Overall: (5/10) Only really recommended if you’re interested in the political and administrative side of broadcasting. Dr. Kwak is easy to understand, but there just wasn’t much of a way to bring the content to life. There was a constant feeling that the course being set in Asia was irrelevant. It would also be a good choice for anyone who really, really likes acronyms.
ASNS2676: Gender in Modern Asia
Ease: (5/10) There was nothing too complicated about the unit, though unexpectedly low essay marks have brought down the score a little. The final exam was worth 40%, too much in my opinion, and essays were returned afterwards with virtually no feedback. Edit: Brought down due to unexpectedly low results.
Lecturer: (7/10) Dr. Yang was an intelligent, clear speaker, with many interesting anecdotes concerning her own fieldwork. My only problem was that too much of the lectures was spent covering the tutorial readings. Tutorials were also pretty informative and readings often appealing (though it was a bit rich expecting us to buy four books). The classes would follow a particular theme, like third genders, commoditised sex, gender in the public sphere etc, and each would be given a few country-specific examples. The result then was a clearer understanding of the concept, but a bit of a limited vision of its relevance across Asia, though providing a good basis for further study.
Interest: (7/10) Definitely an interesting unit, with a lot of variety. It also introduced a lot of the basic theories on gender and sexuality and applied them to different Asian contexts (though an emphasis on China), usually focusing the changing ways that gender have been controlled and by whom.
Overall: (6/10) Interesting course, informative and lucid lectures and tutorials and more than bearable readings. Really only held back by poor assessment structure (70% based on in-class tests and tutorial participation) and some inconsistent grading.
HSTY2670: New York, New York
Ease: (9/10) 10% for tutorial participation, the other 90% from three 1500 word essays, which were delivered evenly across the semester, this has been by far the most organized and accommodating unit I’ve been in, they history faculty really knows what they’re doing. Lectures more or less followed the history of the city chronologically, while tutorials covered specific places (e.g. Five Points, Greenwich Village) or features (Subways, Skyscrapers, Pools), together providing an extremely clear vision of the city. The first essay concerned an event in the city, and the second a place, so each allowed you to combine aspects of lectures and tutorials in a very simple way. Although lectures were recorded, those for the first half of the semester were so soft as to be inaudible on my laptop, the early ones especially cutting in and out a lot, though the problem was eventually fixed. The reader was a bit too large though, particularly factoring in online components, that we were always expected to have read.
Lecturer: (8/10) Stephen Robertson was a great, intelligent and entertaining lecturer, really demonstrating his experience with and love for the city, packing in a huge amount of information but always with clarity. Sometimes it was held back a bit by the impersonal, huge classes. The number of students also meant that tutorial times filled up quickly, class numbers were huge, and accessing resources, even in Fisher Reserve, could be difficult.
Interest: (7/10) Really provided a good sense of the history of New York from its founding to the present, and always seamlessly connecting the greater economic and political changes to the changing experiences of ordinary people, with a good emphasis on cultural trends.
Overall: (9/10) Very easy to recommend this course. Provided everything it offered in an entertaining way, everything you could want from a history unit. The assessment structure has been perfected, with options allowing you to pursue the aspects of the unit you found most appealing.
HSTY2765: A House Divided: The American Civil War
Ease: (8/10) Clear, well-structured course. 10% on essay preparation and 40% on the actual 2000 word essay, 35% on a take-home essay and the rest on tutorial participation. There were a lot of options for essay topics on each assessment, though still some competition for non-Reserve resources. Marking was also quite generous, but tutorial readings were a bit heavy.
Lecturer: (8/10) Frances Clarke was a great lecturer, with real enthusiasm for the subject, effectively simplifying and bringing together all of the social, technological and political aspects of the conflict. Lectures were also recorded, which was helpful.
Interest: (7/10) The unit was evenly divided between the antebellum, war, and Reconstruction periods, really seeming to provided the big-picture. Rather than memorizing battle-dates and military figures the unit focused much more on social and political changes, and illustrating the different kinds of war being fought by the different actors, whether politicians, soldiers, blacks, women and those on the home-front, providing a lot of variety. The Reconstruction section was particularly interesting, leaving the narrative on a much more negative note than expected. There was also a revealing discussion on Civil War memory, and the way the event has been manipulated and re-imagined for different purposes in the popular imagination.
Overall: (8/10) A very good course. Well organized, great lectures, with assessments evenly spaced throughout the semester. Perfectly fine choice even if you have no background in American history.
ARHT2642: Art in the Age of the Samurai
Ease: (9/10) 10% for a tutorial presentation, 30% for an essay on that presentation topic, and 60% for a 3000 word essay. What this meant was that it was possible to present in the second week, then have no assessments until the final week of semester. It also meant that there was no incentive to read any tutorial readings beyond that for your presentation as there was rarely any discussion of them.
Lecturer: (3/10) Dr. Ajioka was certainly a nice person, however lectures leant towards incomprehensibility, tending to be little more than a series of images over two hours without much analysis, meaning they were extremely forgettable. There appeared to have been no clear themes for the unit, and only a slight sense of chronology. That attendance was taken for both lectures and tutorials was somewhat of a mystery, as no mark was given for it.
Interest: (6/10) The fact that Japanese art history really is an incredibly fascinating subject simply did not come through in the classes, and an interest in the topic was often all keeping one awake. In the end, the thick, neglected course reader turned out to be quite good, even if unused for the most part.
Overall: (5/10) This was a very unsatisfying unit, when it could have been so much more. Other than for one assessment there was no reason to buy or read the course reader, and really no incentive to attend lectures, which tended to be a slow parade of images with minimal explanation or history.
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