UNSW Subject Reviews. (7 Viewers)

[CNSie]

MATH2111: Higher Several Variable Calculus

Ease: 7/10. Some topics (implicit function thm, inverse function thm) were not studied and hence this semester was supposed to be less intensive than previous ones. However, I still found it to be really hard to grasp initially.
Content: Multivariable Calc 7/10 - Vector Calc 8/10. Not a huge fan of the initial part of the course, especially the proving shit. It gets nicer (more computational) in the later weeks. Fourier series was taught (poorly imo) in a week so I'm still unsure of what is going on there.
Lecturers: Denis Potapov 8/10 - Jan Zika 7/10. Denis is a good lecturer, can’t really complain. I felt that Zika sometimes did not explain quite clearly and I was completely lost in curvilinear coordinates (probably my fault). He uploaded all the handwritten slides to Moodle (thank you!) and he does care for the students. EDIT: Please update those aids-riddled lecture notes from 2014 which are very outdated and contain many errors <3
Tutor: Denis Potapov 9/10. Explained naturally every question we asked and had a decent sense of humour.
Finals: 9/10. Easier than past years imo.
Overall: 7/10. There was huge scaling involved imo cause I was expecting around 5 points lower than I actually got. Enjoyable course sometimes.

MATH2601: Higher Linear Algebra

Ease: 8/10. Found it a bit easier than calculus specially since the assignment was an ‘easy’ 10%.
Content: 9/10. I liked it quite a bit. Proofs were hard sometimes.
Lecturers: 10/10. David Angell. Excellent lecturer with true passion for mathematics. At the beginning I felt like he went through the content way too fast but I got used to the high pace. He marks quite strictly though, so be precise when answering a test.
Tutorials: 10/10. Reverse tutorials! Learned so much more that way and had fun doing the problems with friends.
Overall: 9/10. Quite a good course with lots to learn. I highly recommend doing it if David Angell is lecturing it.

MMAN2130: Design and Manufacturing

Ease: 10/10. Pray for decent group members and you’ll be alright.
Content: 7/10. CAD was cool, TAFE machining was better. Lecture content was meh.
Lecturers: 5/10. David Lyons. Seems like a decent lecturer, however the content was pretty bland and did not attend many of these lectures.
CAD: 8/10. Basic solidworks, had the finals on a Wednesday and were considerably harder than the others but ‘fun’ overall.
TAFE: 10/10. Got Ben as instructor who is a very cool bloke. Only thing I hated was spending 4 hours learning how to measure.
Overall: 7/10. TAFE was the best thing in this course imo.

MMAN2400: Mechanics of Solids 1

Ease: 7/10. You should get 24 free marks tho by doing your homework (PSS) and by doing weekly moodle quizzes. Some of the answers for the homework questions were wrong. Final exam was hard.
Content: 7/10. Alright I guess.
Lecturers: 9/10. David Kellermann. Good lecturer, explained clearly and did many example questions which is always good. His extensive use of digital resources is a very good quality however sometimes would spend 2hrs deriving some equation using some disturbing assumptions.
Labs: 7/10. Annoying. Wished the templates were released earlier.
Tuts(PSS): 9/10. Had two kind souls who taught me the whole course and I'll be forever grateful (Did not pay attention in the lectures most of the time)
Overall: 6/10. Some of the content assessed in the quizzes/final was not included in any homework set (such as the analysis of composite beams and solving indeterminate beams using the elastic formula). Those topics were covered in the lectures but I did not pay much attention which meant I was pretty fucked for those questions.
The finals were a nightmare. Several corrections stated at weird intervals during the test (could have just told us what was wrong before the test started) which really threw me off. And additionally the questions were difficult and had to skip the ones I had no clue with cause I didn’t go to the lectures since I only studied from homework questions ;_; Silly me.

 

[vvvsace]

Hi guys, can anyone please review FINS3637? I have only found one review of this subject so far on the internet. I am planning to take it in summer or next year so any review/tips on FINS3637 are welcome!

 

[Godard]

ECON1101 (Microeconomics
Ease: 8.5/10 - This is supposed to be the easiest core commerce subject. 20% of the marks come from simply completing the Playconomics game (however, the game was really riddled with bugs and server crashes, and I found the game didn't really relate to the content we learnt and was not useful). The two tutorial tests can be quite difficult due to the strict marking criteria. The finals is multiple choice but can have some difficult questions.
Lecturer: 8/10 - Alberto was an engaging lecturer and explained most concepts well.
Interest: 8/10 - Interesting to learn about introduction to basic economics.

ECON1203 (Business and Economics Statistics)
Ease: 5/10 - This is considered by many to be the most difficult core commerce subject. There is an overwhelming amount of new content every lecture and many new formulas to learn (only a fraction of these formulas are provided in exam). Lots of effort, with fortnightly quizzes, a project, a week 11 exam and finals. Make sure to go to the PASS classes - they are really helpful for revising content.
Lecturer: 6/10 - Lecturers weren't the best at explaining difficult concepts.
Interest: 6/10 - Kind of interesting learning how businesses use stats, but mostly not that great.

ACCT1501 (Accounting & Financial Management 1A
Ease: 8/10 - Not too bad, but there is quite a bit of new content to learn if you've never done accounting before.
Lecturer: 7/10 - A mixed bag, with some good some mediocre lecturers due to rotation system.
Interest: 7/10 - Many find accounting boring, but it is kinda interesting learning how a business records all its transactions. Good intro to accounting.

LAWS1052 (Introducing Law and Justice
Ease: 6/10 - Most law students found the course overwhelming due to how much you are expected to learn and do for a first law course. The court report and case note were tough to score highly in. If you are well prepared for the final exam, with good notes and learned the relevant skills, you should be alright.
Lecturer: 10/10 - Jennifer Moore was a really engaging and funny lecturer. She is always so infectious in her enthusiasm for the subject.
Interest: 7/10 - Detailed intro to law but a bit too much history for me.

 

[1008]

Hey guys what do you reckon are the easiest 3 business economics courses to complete a business economics minor?

I have some space left in my degree and wanna fill it up with chill subjects, preferably WAM boosters.

I also have space for one WAM booster in a faculty other than Business School, so I'd like some suggestions on those too.

Thanks

 

[photastic]

Hey guys what do you reckon are the easiest 3 business economics courses to complete a business economics minor?

I have some space left in my degree and wanna fill it up with chill subjects, preferably WAM boosters.

I also have space for one WAM booster in a faculty other than Business School, so I'd like some suggestions on those too.

Thanks

ECON2101 Microeconomics 2 - Absolute joke if you enjoy the quantitative side behind Micro 1, found this easier than Micro 1. You'll need calculus for this course though.
ECON3101 Markets and Equilibrium - "Micro 3" and has the reputation for being easier than Micro 2.
ECON3107 Economics of Finance - The entire course is multiplying matrices and using basic finance you would've learned in FINS courses.

Im currently doing ECON3123 Organisational Economics and it's easy if you like interpreting models and algebra.

 

[Esse]

ECON2101 Microeconomics 2 - Absolute joke if you enjoy the quantitative side behind Micro 1, found this easier than Micro 1. You'll need calculus for this course though.
ECON3101 Markets and Equilibrium - "Micro 3" and has the reputation for being easier than Micro 2.
ECON3107 Economics of Finance - The entire course is multiplying matrices and using basic finance you would've learned in FINS courses.

Im currently doing ECON3123 Organisational Economics and it's easy if you like interpreting models and algebra.

They made Microeconomics 2 much much more difficult. My mate that got 100 in the course last sem looked at the material this sem and struggled to interpret it and do questions

 

[photastic]

They made Microeconomics 2 much much more difficult. My mate that got 100 in the course last sem looked at the material this sem and struggled to interpret it and do questions

Strange, had at the look at the assignments and they were easier than what I did back the days. Mates also said the exams were just the assignments but then again, typical actl kids.

 

[Killua101]

ACTL 2111 - Honestly just FINS 2624 but on steroids with the exam questions. Overall content was interesting and Excel was taught in a nice understandable way (probs coz of my lab tutor Neil, that guy is a legend). However, if your not from a finance background like I was, you might struggle on the later topics on options and derivatives, but then again just ask your mates doing 2624.

ACTL 2131 - cancerous course. Enough said. Honestly, I didn't know the proper Actuarial life until I did this subject, it was freakin hard. To put things into perspective, one of my econ core courses is only ONE of the FOUR modules in this course. If you're in your 2nd year Actl, I strongly suggest doing a simple stat courses such as Econ1203 or from the maths faculty. But then again, the smart students were on the same situation as me, and they still managed to HD. Overall, just make sure you try not to fall behind in the weeks' content, theres so much every week and the finals are fked.

FINS 1613 - nice course, very mathematical though in some aspects, teaches you the basic of financial knowledge. Easy course to HD, although finals for sem1 2018 were kinda fked. Despite this, 1613 inspired me to undertake more finance courses. Although beware in class quizzes can be hard especially quiz 2 and 3.

ECON 2101 - easy HD. I literally left everything to the last 5 days and managed to get a HD. Just calculus coupled with economic reasoning and quite interesting as well (like cournot doupoly and stackelberg). Although ive heard sem 2 is relatively harder but can't really confirm because honestly idt it can get any complicated.

 

[Ikki]

COMM1000 Creating Social Change

Ease: 9/10 - Relatively easy course. No final exam, just long research reports and presentations.
Content: 9/10 - Very interesting and useful course to give perspective on social change
Lecturer: 10/10 - Knows her stuff quite well
Tutors: 9/10 - Very interesting, a lot of life experience in the area and genuinely caring. However did mark a bit hard for the first assessment (for everyone).

Overall: 9/10 - Highly Recommended. Engage with the content and take it seriously because you could literally use it as a starting point to create real change. No final.

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COMP3511 - Human Computer Interaction

Ease: 9/10 - Very easy course, just know the concepts and memorise and you’ll smash it.
Content: 9/10 - A unique perspective from the usual computer science subjects
Lecturer: 8/10 - The lecturers are decent and explain things okay
Tutors: 7/10 - Tutors not super amazing but the course is simple enough for you to get by by yourself

Overall: 9/10 - Highly Recommended. Watch out for the harmonic mean scaling in the final exam worth 50% or so. You need to have consistent performance throughout your assessment tasks.

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COMP4920 - Management and Ethics

Ease: 8/10 - Overall the course has easy content, the lecturer has squeezed a lot of stuff into here so there’s a lot of work to be done in different areas. Final project was a hit or miss depending on your group.No final exam though!
Content: 10/10 - Quite interesting content very different to the usual computer science subject. Guest lecturers were quite amazing. The content is actually useful to real life.
Lecturer: 10/10 - Wobkek not amazing but he’s put in good effort to minimise lectures and bring in good guest lecturers where needed.
Tutors: 7/10 - Seminar facilitator was meh. Actual tutor assisting with project was quite good.

Overall: 9/10 - It’s mandatory so yeah. Try to get a good group, otherwise the group will do bad and there’s only so much you can do if that happens. No final.

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INFS3605 - IS Innovation & Transformation

Ease: 14/10 - Depending on your group and how much you can bs you’ll fly through.
Content: NA/10 - What content? lol
Lecturer: 7/10 - George and Michael are okay lecturers not amazing but trying to be fun here and there.
Tutors: 7/10 - Tutor couldn’t really do much anyways

Overall: 9/10 - Highly Recommended. It’s a breeze if you’re able to write very well in terms of reflections and such. The whole subject is essentially the group project so yeah a good team carries. No final.

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MGMT1101 - Global Business Environment

Ease: 9/10 - It’s easy but not so easy that you don’t have to study for it.Theres a few key concepts and chapters you have to get down pat and memorise
Content: 9/10 - Interesting content, a variety of areas covered
Lecturer: 6/10 - Didn’t really go lectures after the first few weeks just use lecture notes to study off and you’ll kill it
Tutors: 9/10 - Very energetic and fun tutor

Overall: 9/10 - Highly Recommended. A WAM booster for anyone concerned. If you can write well you’ll do well in the memos and then memorise for the exam MCQ and done.

 

[photastic]

ECON3123: Organisational Economics

Ease: (7/10). Although there isn't much content for this course (even less than 1st year courses), this course emphasises interpreting algebra and concepts that you cannot find anywhere except for the lecture notes. With only lecture notes and homework problems, you are severely limited with preparation material. For the exams, you will be given scenarios you have never seen before and you are expected to answer them even though you have not been taught how to apply the concepts. I expect this sort of assessment in my actuarial courses but for economics, I don't remember when you needed to apply the concepts this rigorously before. However, if you are up for something different, this will be a refreshing course.

Content: (2/10). The nature of the course material is similar to what you learn in religious studies, you accept some idea/rule/frameworks and you're expected to make different sorts of conclusions. If you are the type that likes some empirical evidence of the concepts, this course is 100% BS and nothing you learn will be applied at all in the real world. The concepts are so abstract that even drawing out conclusions that feel more realistic may not be correct for assessments. Thus, if you're looking for something more interesting and more empirical, avoid this course at all costs. Plus side is there is barely any content because you have to spend more time interpreting and applying that particular concept.

Lecturers: Hongyi Li (4/10). No lecture slides nor any recordings are provided by Hongyi. Now I understand what others feel when they're given barely any material and no way to keep up to date if they couldn't attend the lectures (Hongyi likes 9am starts). His teaching style is dictatorship although he does answer people's questions if one wishes to ask something. Not much material or administration benefits are provided so you are pretty much on your own for this course. However, go to the lectures because when he goes through the material, it is a lot better than reading the provided lecture notes.

Tutors: Amartya Bose (10/10). For some reason, this course has a reputation of having the best tutors. Amartya was almost perfect for what you want for a tutor. He clearly explains everything and knows his stuff really well. He gives a positive vibe and after his tutorials, you feel like Albert Einstein. If you have Amartya, your chances for HD is quite good if you pay attention.

Overall: (6/10). Nothing useful but nothing too difficult if you're use to applying abstract ideas. Avoid rote learning because it is perhaps impossible in my opinion. Otherwise, a very unique course.

 

[victorinox]

S1 2018

ECON3106: Politics and Economics

-Ease: 9/10. Honestly the best course I've done at UNSW. Not hard at all, no maths regurgitation like other econ/fins courses. Mainly theory based with some basic maths applications. Lecturer gives out practice midsem and final papers, and exams are very similar to homework assignments.

-Content: 10/10. Extremely interesting content such as voting/election theory, theory of war/conflict, social choice theory/some game theory. It had a very real world focus to it, with examples and studies all over the world. I initially was wary of the course as i worried it might be a political propaganda course like so many other pol/arts courses I've experienced but it was not that at all. No agenda whatsoever, just pure theoretical stuff about political/electoral systems and war/democratic peace.

-Lecturers: 10/10. Gabrielle Gratton. Amazing lecturer, very engaging and down to earth guy that is very passionate about this field. One of the very few courses i actually go to lectures for. He provides great slides and notes since there is no textbook. He said that he does not want this course to be hard or a textbook cram like other courses, he really just wants you to understand political and electoral systems so you can gain some real world knowledge about geopolitics.

-Tutors: 10/10. Adam Solomon (?). Great tutor, explains things very well and very chill.

Overall 10/10: If you can do this course in S1, DO IT. You won't regret it unless you hate political theory or class discussions.

ECON1107: Elements of Environment Economics

-Ease: 10/10. Very easy course, much easier than ECON1101 since this is a course for bio/enviro students and not made for business students. I chose this as I needed one more ECON elective to graduate. Anyone that has done ECON1101 will breeze through this course as the content covered here is like half or a third of ECON1101. Very very basic stuff. Probably more like year 11 Economics. Basic arithmetic and drawing graphs.

-Content: 8/10. Pretty interesting course which was mainly about basic environmental principles/theory and methods business/government uses to reduce pollution such as tax/subsidy/abatement. Basic economic principles like finding equilibrium of D/S of a firm's pollution permits or calculating PV of pollution abatement costs etc. There is a group work component with a speech in which you research any environmental issue you want and give your analysis on it.

-Lecturers: Bianca Bonollo 10/10. Great lecturer, easy going and explains things very clearly. Nice person and very helpful.

-Tutor: Bianca Bonnollo 10/10.

Overall 9.5/10: Great wam booster for business students. Great course in general even if you don't care about the environment since it was more about economic calculations anyway just with the questions adapted to an environmental perspective.

 

[victorinox]

S2 2018

FINS2622: Asia Pacific Capital Markets

-Ease: 8/10 Not hard if you are good at writing essays. Lecturer marks generously, however you may struggle if you are not decent at memorization/essay writing. Questions are always worded in a weird way though since the lecturer perhaps isn't so good at English.

-Content: 8/10 Unlike any other FINS course. No maths at all, literally all just theory about Asian markets and historical/cultural background of Asian business. Much of the course is general knowledge if you keep up with any sort of happenings in China/Asia so the course is not hard at all. There are empirical studies that the lecturer bases his slides off which you need to know and memorize for the essays however. Interesting content though and very easy to learn. I think my notes for the semester from just copy pasting the lecture slides only amounted to 12 pages.

-Lecturer: 8/10 Toan Pham. I didn't go to lectures (9am zzz) but he seems like a very nice person who is genuinely interested about Asian markets.

Overall: 8.5/10. Good if you are strong in essay writing and you enjoy learning about Asian economies and its culture.

ECON3119: Political Economy

-Ease: 7/10. Somewhat challenging course. Weekly essays were a pain to do. Avoid if you don't like learning old theories about communism. 40% of the cohort including me failed the midsem essay exam because we were not allowed to base our essays off online research, only lecture slides. As long as you base your weekly essays and exam essays off the lecture slides and the lecturer's assigned reading list, you will be fine.

-Content: 7/10. Lots of history and economic theories to remember from people like Marx/Kalecki/Keynes/Robinson etc as this course is a direct challenge to everything you've learnt in traditional ECON courses. Political Economy is basically the complete opposite of mainstream economy and so the theory/content learned is totally different.
I personally was not very interested in early weeks as there was a very big communist slant to the course, but later weeks were pretty interesting once we started discussing economic issues such as price/labour/GFC instead of marxist economists. Would have been nice to learn other schools instead of just neo-marxist/post keynesian schools eg Austrian or American schools.

-Lecturer: Peter Kriesler 9/10. Nice person and good lecturer. Only went to one lecture.

-Tutor: Neil Hart 8.5/10. Nice tutor and helpful with feedback but also a tough marker.

-Overall: 7/10. If you like learning about heterodox economic theories based on marxist principles and writing essays all the time then you'll probably like this course.

FINS3648: Banking Finance and Technology

-Ease: 9.5/10. Great course. Very easy online quizzes based on lecture slides, take home assignments. Groupwork presentation was fun to work on as we created our own Fintech company and pitched it to the class. Python coding assignments are very basic and are basically the same as the examples the lecturer puts up. I had no prior coding experience before this course. NO midsem/final exam. NO tutorials. It was all online quizzes, take home python assignments, groupwork presentation, and class participation.

-Content: 10/10. Theoretical course about the Fintech industry as well as some basic python coding and scripting. Very interesting as it was very practical and real world business based. Guest lectures from fintech CEOs such as Simply Wall St, SimpleKYC were great.

-Lecturer: 10/10. Juraj Hric. Great lecturer and very engaging and down to earth who is very passionate about Fintech. He has a lot of real world business experience with Fintech as he is a SVP of a big financial company and also an angel investor

Overall: 10/10. One of the best courses in business school. Highly recommended.

 

[Opengangs]

MATH1131: Mathematics 1A
Handbook: (Can't post links but you can find it by searching "MATH1131 Handbook")
Mark: 76 (DN)
Semester/Year: 1, 2018
Pre-requisites/Assumed knowledge: Combined mark of 100 across both Mathematics and Extension 1 is assumed; no pre-requisites.

Thoughts:
- Ease: 7/10. Relatively easy if you've done reasonably well in both 3U and 2U. A lot of the content in Calculus will be revision of Extension 1 and Extension 2 (e.g. integration by substitution, integration by parts, differentiation) but Algebra covers quite a lot of new content. You start getting introduced to the basics of Linear Algebra - matrices, vector operations, and solving system of linear equations using matrices. For what it's worth, I think it's quite a breezy subject, and if you do the work and attend your tutorials, I don't see why you can't get a HD or DN.

- Content: 8/10. As mentioned above, the content is primarily a revision of 3U and 4U with a little bit of new content. If you're doing the HSC from 2020, however, a lot of the content in the 3U course will be covered in lecture since the new syllabus is pushing to introduce first year university maths into the curriculum. If you found 3U and 4U relatively easy, I highly recommend you consider the higher level course, MATH1141, since there have been discussions about a maximum mark in the 1131/1231 course (or at least, the scaling involved is somewhat unfavourable).

- Lecturer(s): 6/10. I had Dr. Christopher Angstmann for Calculus and Dr. Daniel Mansfield for Algebra. I enjoyed the Algebra lecture but the Calculus lecture felt a bit dry. I felt as though Angstmann focused too heavily on the lecture slides so some of the content felt a bit rushed. Mansfield was super engaging though, but he adds a lot of bAbYlOnIaN filler so sometimes we don't get through the content in time, and so we spend less time revising. But in the end, they're not terrible lecturers at all!

- Tutor: N/A. I forgot who I had lol, but that's mainly because I didn't attend a lot of tutorials. I went in Weeks 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 13 so I don't have a lot to say. If you are struggling, please don't skip your tutorials. They're invaluable to you!

- Overall: 21/30 = 7/10.

COMP1511: Introduction to Programming
Handbook: Again, can't post links D: If someone could, that'd be great! Thank you
Mark: 69 (CR)
Semester/Year: 1, 2018
Pre-requisites/Assumed knowledge: N/A

Thoughts:
- Ease: 5/10. Can't really say whether it's difficult or not -- the first five or so weeks were just an introduction to the fundamentals behind programming. But after that, the difficulty itself increases dramatically. I found myself breezing through the first five labs during the lab time and then just went home early. But after week 5, I began struggling with the labs. That may have been because I felt as though attending the lectures became a waste of time (oops)!

- Content: 7/10. In terms of content, we begin with the syntactical behaviour of programming in C. You would need to install a VPN if you wanted to work from home and they tell you how to do that during the lecture and the tutorial/lab. Alternatively, if you do have a C compiler, you could just manually submit the work on webcms using the "give" command on webcms.

After week 5, you're introduced to the structure of arrays and linked lists, which are also the primary testers in the finals. So if you're familiar with arrays and linked lists, COMP1511 should be a breeze!

- Lecturer: 8/10.

- Tutor: 7/10.

- Overall: 27/40 ~ 7/10

 

[Opengangs]

MATH1231: Mathematics 1B
Handbook:
Mark: 88 (HD)
Semester/Year: 2, 2018
Pre-requisites/Assumed knowledge: MATH1131 is a pre-req.

Thoughts:
- Ease: 9/10. MATH1231 is basically a continuation of 1131. In terms of easiness, I found it a lot more intuitive and easier than 1A (haha, I don't know why ) so if you did well in 1A, you'll do reasonably well in 1B. If you found 1131 TOO easy, maybe try going for 1241 I feel like that will be a lot more rewarding to you if you're really seeking for a challenge!

- Content: 8/10. Yeah, basically a continuation of 1131, so know your 1131/1141 content and keep it at the back of your mind when you're doing 1231 and 1241.
With Calculus, you will do further work with integration (partial fractions, trigonometric substitution, reduction; all of this can be found in the 4U syllabus sooo), as well as series and sequences and how you can tell whether a series converges/diverges. You also dive into Taylor series, which uses polynomial expressions to approximate non-polynomial functions.

With Algebra, you dive into the idea of vector spaces and what it means for a vector space to be a subspace, linear mapping/transformation, and some probability. I thought this made more sense than the content we learned in 1A, so I enjoyed the content in 1B more than I did in 1A.

- Lecturers: 7/10.

- Tutor: N/A. Again, didn't really go to many tutorials.

- Overall: 24/30 = 8/10

MATH1081: Discrete Mathematics
Handbook:
Semester/Year: 2, 2018
Mark: 72 (CR)
Pre-requisites/Assumed knowledge: Co-requisite is MATH1131/1141/1231/1241/1151/1251 (ie you either have to do one of these courses along with 1081, or have already completed one of the courses to do 1081)

Thoughts:
- Ease: 6/10. For the most part, the course was relatively easy but it's so abstract. Unlike 1XX1, 1081 does not have a "recommended HSC mark" and just because you did well in HSC maths doesn't mean you will do well in 1081. Also, since each topic is discontinuous to the previous, you will need to keep up with the work if you want to perform well in 1081. And that means, just because you struggle with topic 1 doesn't mean you will struggle with topic 2 or 3. They're completely separate and the course is not done in a streamlined way.

- Content: 9/10. Oh man, as hard as it was, the content was so interesting. It's basically a different way of thinking to your normal 1XX1 and the more creative/logical you are, the better you will perform. The course is split into 5 different topics: Graph theory, Number theory, Enumeration and Counting (Perms and Combs), Set Algebra, and Recurrence Relations and Functions (on the top of my head; might be more), and each one is just as interesting as the previous!

- Lecturer(s): 8/10.

- Tutor: 9/10.

- Overall: 32/40 = 8/10.

 

[MajesticMemes]

Semester 2 2018

MATH1231 - Mathematics 1B
- Ease: 8.5/10. As many others have said, this isn't a difficult course as long as you keep up with the content. Like 1131, class tests are very basic, and with a bit of study (i.e. doing the sample class tests at the back of the course notes and keeping up with tutorial problems), you should get at least 26/30 for the class test component. MAPLE lab test is 1:1 with the sample test they give (same questions, different parameters), you'd have to fuck up real badly (or not do the sample test at all) to get anything less than 90% on it. Weekly online tutorials can be a bit annoying and may take a while, but infinite attempts, a spammable "is this right?" button and probably someone who will post the working on a facebook group, and it should be an easy 12% contribution to your final mark. Whether you get a HD depends on the final. Some past papers had challenging questions, but 2018 was pretty straightforward, and I got a 93. No double pass bullshit, just hit that 50 and you're good (or hit at least 45 and you get a supplementary provided your tutorial attendance is good)

- Content: 7/10. It's just more math. Functions of two or more variables is pretty cool, but honestly nothing else is that spectacular, but still interesting regardless.

- Lecturers: Mansfield (10/10) for Algebra. Always classy, fun and interesting, if you have anyone else, fuck off your other lecture stream and either attend/watch Mansfield. John Roberts (9/10) for Calculus. Voice made for radio, very smooth. Very knowledgeable person, learn some very cool math phenomenons as a side to the content. Got a bit rushed towards the end of calculus, but was still great.

- Tutor: 9/10. Can't remember her name, but went through problems, albeit a bit slowly, could of covered a few more questions, but no
accent, responsive, pretty much everything you could ask for.

- Overall 8.5/10.

CVEN1300 - Engineering Mechanics for Civil Engineers
- Ease: 7.5/10. Course takes a 65% Statics / 35% Dynamics split. Statics is mostly straightforward, but you need to do a lot of practice questions to get your head around the intricacies of concepts such as shear force and bending moment diagrams on frames especially. Dynamics is basically phys1121 mechanics but easier. Projectile motion, force/acceleration, work & energy, momentum, impulse. Nothing challenging. The statics and dynamics test are typically easy, but potentially a challenging final question. Should grab at least 70% on both. Hand-in-assignment is a bit challenging and long (don't leave it until the last minute), but if you're smart, you'll be in a group chat where you can help each other (and psst, if you have the connections, the worked solutions are out there). Weekly assignments are lengthy and sometimes challenging questions, but aren't impossible. If you're lazy, someone in the group chat will provide the numerical answers (again, the worked solutions are out there), but still do the questions at a later date, as they are good practice. The final in recent years (2017 onwards) has gotten easier where there's more questions, but they are easier and less in depth. 2018 had a harder question, but I managed to hit 89. Keep all your worked solutions in a workbook, and bring it in to the final as its open book. Note you need 40% in the final to pass.

- Content: 6/10. Alright I guess, mostly applied math course with forces and shit, nothing mind-blowing, but nothing which will put you to sleep.

- Lecturer: Wei Gao (6/10) Very passionate lecturer who wants everyone to do well, let down by his incredibly thick Asian accent. It's not impossible to listen to him in person, but I'd honestly recommend watching lectures online so you can hear him directly and without everyone's chatter making it harder to listen. Otherwise, goes through some nice examples and covers the content well. Should be noted that Wei lets you skip the tests and the hand-in-assignment (but not the weekly assignments), and allocates their weighing to the final exam if you choose to not show up. I honestly think it's a bad idea to do a 90% final, but whatever floats your boat.

- Tutors: 3/10. Show up, watch two people write the worked solution on the board with little interaction and leave after 40 minutes. Attendance isn't marked, I didn't attend after the first one. If you don't attend, be sure to do the workshop problems as they are helpful, answers are posted a week after the workshop commences. Most of the questions are from the textbook so if you have the textbook answers (don't buy it, save your cash), the answers are there.

- Overall 7.5/10

MATS1101 - Engineering Materials and Chemistry
- Ease 6/10: I want to make it very clear before I start, if you did not do HSC chemistry in highschool, do not enroll in this course. The course is divided 67% material science and 33% chemistry. The material section is insanely content bulky, and should be enough for the course, but they decided to throw on an additional chemistry strand which mostly covers HSC chem (mole calculations, acids, redox, organic chem, etc). My mates who didn't do HSC chem were inundated, having to keep up with materials, while trying to learn the chemistry (which I learnt in 2 years at high school) in about 12-ish lectures. My heart wept for them. The chem labs were for some reason more difficult and involved than the ones in chem 1A, even I struggled with them. The materials content ranged from average to outright "did I accidentally enroll in a fourth year course?", but I found it got a bit easier towards the end. The materials labs are watch someone do a practical, get their data, do some calculations and maybe create a graph on excel, due a week later, nothing too bad. The mid-semester and final are all multiple choice, but were the kind of 'fuck you' multiple choice with deceptive wording, 5 answers and the kind that go "Both A and B" or "All of A, B and C". Still, if you maintain solid note-taking throughout lectures, study well and rote learn the sample questions they give, you can do very well. Lab attendance is compulsory, and you need a certain attendance plus 40% correct answers between the mid-sem and exam to not fail.

- Content 8/10: As much as I ragged on before, the content is actually very interesting. The tensile testing and fracture stuff is probably the only thing you'll need from this course for Civil Engineering, but its cool to learn about the intricate material properties.

- Lecturers: Nagarajan Valanoor (8/10) taught materials for about 6 weeks. Tries to make things interesting through analogies and by involving (very reluctant) students into discussions. Covered the content nicely. Pretty funny guy, advocates harassing Bing Lee and Bunnings employees with your superior materials knowledge. Don't walk into the his lectures late, otherwise he'll get mad and tell you to fuck off. Danyang Wang (5/10) covered the rest. On his own, he's fine, but compared to Naggy, is pretty dry. Still covered stuff alright. Hongxu Lu (5/10) for chem, again, dry and a bit of an Asian accent, but covered the chemistry fine.

- Tutor: Don't know the guy's name (10/10) but bless him for going through the fucking ridiculous equations in the final chem lab. I only managed to do that lab because of his help. Also helped with the harder chem stuff which I found difficult. Also was someone who went through materials questions, but I never showed up to it (9am on a Friday, not much else to say).

- Overall 5.5/10: Don't pick this course as your elective unless you REALLY want to do it.

ENGG1400 - Engineering Infrastructure Systems
- Ease 7.5/10: Between people on this site, higher years I've spoken to, and my mates, there's some real mixed opinions about this course. Some say its fucking horrible. I can definitely see where they come from, but personally I found the course to be fine (and in the end, a nice WAM booster). Essentially a course that tries to optimize certain logistical problems (optimizing production, finding the shortest/cheapest path, locating and opening facilities in regards to demand centers, portfolio investments, critical path analysis, etc) through mathematical modelling. You're taught to implement these models into a program called AMPL which enables you to actually obtain the optimal solution. In some instances, you're taught by-hand methods which either result in the optimal solution or a pretty good (but not optimal) solution. It's these by-hand methods which you need to remember for the final as AMPL implementation isn't tested (but recently in 2018 have introduced multiple choice questions which test your understanding of the properties of linear programming - what AMPL uses to solve these problems). There are two submissions, one individual and one with a team, but pretty much include questions seen in some form in lectures. Since they 'changed' the structure of the final exam (by adding five multiple choice at the end, lol), we got to see past papers unlike the others before us. My final was laughable, straight up had a question from a past paper, same values, same answers, another question was very similar. Easy HD.

- Content 7/10: Kind of interesting, if you're into optimization, it's honestly pretty cool, but has a lot of mathematical notation and symbols which you need to wrap your head around.

- Lecturers: David Rey (6/10), hon hon hon, la baguette, french accent but you can understand him fine. Kind of dry, but his diagrams do help understand stuff. Divya Jayakumar Nair (6/10), same as David, dry, but teaches the content fine.

- Tutors: What's his name and what's her name (9/10), both very good, and really helped understand AMPL and the implementation of the mathematical models. My mate's tutors were shit according to him, so don't expect to get someone good.

- Overall: 7.5/10

 

[Opengangs]

Semester 2 2018
probably someone who will post the working on a facebook group

Hmmmmm I wonder who this could be

 

[CNSie]

MATH2621: Higher Complex Analysis

Ease: 8/10. Basically further techniques with complex numbers. There is also some overlap with MATH2111 in regards to contour integration. Zero idea on conformal mappings.
Content: 9/10. Yeah, quite interesting integration techniques, also some discussion on the RH.
Lecturers: Otazzi 7/10. Cowling 9/10. Basically slide presentations but Cowling engaged better with the class in general.
Tutor: Cowling 10/10. Very knowledgeable and explained everything at a proper pace.
Overall: 9/10. Happy with the finals, internals were a bit tricky. Need to remember specific definitions to do well since you will get tested about them.

MATH2221: Higher Theory and Applications of Differential Equations

Ease: 9/10. Not too bad. Starts getting hard at the end of each section.
Content: 9/10. Cool, interesting math topic.
Assingment: 9/10. Was challenging but rewarding once I finished it.
Lecturers: 9/10. Jan Zika. Much better than when I encountered him last sem. He's a young lecturer but has improved vastly. Provides practice tests/exams with solutions! <3
Tutor: 9/10 Zika. Same as above. Pace was a bit too slow for some of the questions imo.
Overall: 9/10. Good course! Finals were completely fine if you did the past papers.

 

[RyanT7]

Hey guys, transferring into UNSW commerce this year ( Finance and accounting will be my majors )

Can anyone tell me a good 4-8 units that I should do or avoid , that will make it the easiest road for a 70+ WAM this year, and will contribute to my degree ? ( So far not touching econ 1203 )

Maths level : About average 2 unit maths student

I really want to do exchange for 2020, so I want to maximise my chance of achieving at least a 70 + WAM

 

[aoc]

If you mean the flex-core courses econ1102, acct1511, fins1613 and infs1602 should be pretty good. All are level one courses and they arent too hard. Fins1613 and econ1102 do have a bit of math but its mainly rearranging equations/multiplying etc so you should be fine there. Infs1602 is no math but is usually short responses and essay type things.

For finance/accounting i dont think theres anything you would need to avoid since the level 1 courses arent too bad. Perhaps you might want to dodge fins1612 since they set hard tests nowadays (but check if its a pre-req for anything you have to do next year).

 

[BHLee]

Need some insights on ECON2209 - Business Forecasting

_______
ACCT3583 - Management Accounting 2
Less quantitative than Management Accounting 1 & obviously it became more qualitative which basically means, memorizing the business strategy framework, there's no one-way answer in this course. How easy it is depends on how well you can remember lol. 90% qualitative 10% quantitative contents.


ACCT3708 - Auditing & Assurance Services
Heavily theoretical based, I would say its harder than Management Accounting 2 due to the fact there are lots of rule-based approach in solving whatever audit question there is, which it also implies on requiring memorization. 99% qualitative 1% quantitative contents.

_______
In my opinion on ACCT difficulties: 2542 > 3563 > 2522 > 3708 > 3583 > 1511 > 1501.
I'm most likely opting for ACCT3610 - Business Analysis & Valuation next year, trimester be screwing up my availabilities for the required TABL courses :'>
Anyway, good luck to future Accounting majors, may the mind-numbing be with you!