Subject Reviews (with PDF compilation) (1 Viewer)

[Sarah168]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Just filling in some gaps.

ECOS 3002 Development Economics

Ease: 8/10 Very basic. No nightmare economics graphs or complex equations. Theory based subject (which suits me) and more than a little left-leaning…

Lecturer: 1/10 If it’s Dilip, run for your life. Apparently, lecturers for this subject change a lot but I got stuck with Dilip. Impossible accent to understand (and I have an ACCT major and have had my fair share of accented lecturers!!). Good textbook though and class follows textbook closely so no need to attend really.

Interest: 6/10 Lots to do with poverty/the environment/welfare economics. I found it boring and I’m actually interested in those issues…makes no sense.

Overall: 7/10 Ok I guess. Easy subject to fill up an economics major but I don’t see why you would do it otherwise.

ECOS 3011 Public Finance

Ease: 4/10 NOT a cakewalk. One of the harder economics electives I’ve done. Lots of complex graphs with about 8-10 squiggly lines running in all directions (in all colours!) and you have to understand what happens each time one moves -___- Assessments are also quite harshly marked and I see no evidence of scaling happening in this subject.

Lecturer: 9/10 Stephen Cheung. Pretty good. Not a drone, actually makes an effort to teach. EXCELLENT lecture notes, very organised content, good coverage, fair assessments and good pace. No tutorials though.

Interest: 7/10 Very interesting if you’re into public/govt/fiscal economics

Overall: 7/10 Good subject for the keen but takes a fair amount of effort to get a good mark.

ECOS 3006 International Trade

Ease: 6/10. Very micro-economic based.

Lecturer: 9/10. If it’s still Mark Melatos, it’s still good

Interest: 5/10. Boring because whenever anything interesting is covered, the numbers/graphs get in the way of learning the good stuff. But depends on the individual.

Overall: 6/10. There are easier ecos electives around to take.

ECOS 2201 Economics of Competition and Strategy

Ease: 2/10. No idea what the hell this course was about. Very micro-economics based. Big re-hash of Intermediate microeconomics. Basic assessments (2 mid sems and a final)

Lecturer: 0/10. Nasty lecturer, totally snide and rude too.

Interest: 3/10 I would’ve been more interested if the lecturer wasn’t so awful.

Overall: 2/10. Very misleading subject from the subject description in the handbook. Thought it would be awesome, turned out awful and difficult to boot! Very maths based, be warned.

CLAW 2201 - Corporations Law

Ease: 8/10. Just covering the Corporations Act and important sections. Mostly statutory law, not much case law (different to CLAW1001).

Lecturer: 7/10. Lecturer makes a huge effort to be interesting but structure and time management is godamnawful. Spend 45 mins explaining the definition of one piddly little thing and rushes through 60 slides in the remaining 10 minutes. Textbook sucks too. Ask around for good reccs on textbooks. Lipton and Herzeberg text is stupid. Actually, just read the legislation.

Interest: 7/10. I liked it. Good coverage of corporate collapses (Adler, Adler and more Adler). Much more interesting than CLAW1001.

Overall: 8/10. Good subject though most people wouldn’t care cos they would be doing it for CA/CPA req anyway.

CLAW 2207 - Legal Ethics and the Professions

Ease: 10/10 RIDICULOUSLY easy if you can tell wrong from right/black from white/up from down…you get my drift. Tutorial answers can be written in about 15 minutes flat and get 4/5 or 5/5. Essay is a little long (3000 wds) but is marked really easy. 90% of the class gets Distinctions and 90% of students would be sitting on 50/60 and above by the time final exams roll around. Final exam is open book and piss easy as well.

Lecturer: 3/10 So boring. Bring a pillow to class. If you have notes from a friend, no need to attend. She is also the tutor and you can get 5/5 for tute participation by attending a few tutes just for the sake of it and never turn up again.

Interest: 6/10 Not as bad as I thought it would be. It’s about how ethics in the professions of lawyer/accountant/auditor/banker/business person blah blah. And a little re-hash of ethics from Accounting 1B.

Overall: 7/10Good filler subject for CLAW major or people looking for easy electives to finish off their degree in the E+B Faculty.

 

[bustinjustin]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ECOP3018 Economic Policy
Ease: 6/10 The material seemed straight-forward enough, but the marking criteria standards were a little unclear. There was a group essay worth 30% (unlike in 2007 under Frank), a 2500-3000 final essay (35%), a final exam worth 30%, and only 5% of 'bonus' marks for voluntary post-lecture discussions (in lieu of a tute participation mark). Exam topics were given beforehand, but the marking standards were perhaps more stringent because of this. It was a really small cohort of less than 30.

Lecturer: 6.5/10 Evan Jones (who came out of retirement to cover for Frank Stilwell, who was inundated with work from the doubling of enrollments in ECOP1001). Evan is quite a character, full of vitriol and always explicit about his bias. This got a little tiresome at times, but the man was genuinely concerned for people's intellectual welfare, and took the time to write up comprehensive lecture notes and discussions. To the more conservative, I wouldn't say that he shoved his views down our throats (edit: but if he sensed you may feel this way, he'd announced whenever he was giving his opinion). But he nonetheless encouraged one to be more discerning with theories (both inside and outside the course).

Interest:7/10 In true ECOP form, lectures and reading material were a mixture of post-war Australian economic history, sociology and politics. Several were a bit of a drone. There were no compulsory tutorials, but rather post-lecture group discussions that often meandered through awkward bouts of silence and confusion, or random, less relevant tangents (for instance, private, religious schools vs public secular education in the week on Privatisation). This was owing to a disconnect from the prescribed readings (which were rarely referred to in discussions), and perhaps a lack of direction from the lecturer himself. These discussions only began midway through the course - the first half was devoted to groupwork, where groups could remain in the lecture room and discuss projects, or "work elsewhere" at their discretion.

Overall 7/10: Had high expectations, but finished the course feeling a little disappointed, and feel like I should probably lower it to 6.5/10. Also, I was doing another ECOP course which covered some more fundamental topics in a lot more depth (and caused the other 'pass' ECOP courses to pale a little, in comparison). I guess it's like sliced white bread, it's 'Economic Policy' after all.

 

[sandersen]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

lawlz. i hope whoever reviewed ease as 8/10 will get fucked by their final exam mark, and fail the subject.

well arnt you nice

How did you end up going then

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

me? I did well, which shows that it's silly rating your subjects on ease prior to the release of final marks. I gave brand management a lower ease than it would be after I received my mark, as obviously it wasn't marked as harshly as his other units

 

[jb_nc]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

CHEM2404 Atmospheric and Environmental Chem.

Do not do this subject. Not even worth reviewing.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Ease is of the subject itself is hardly influenced by the student cohort which changes from year to year. The content material is what determines ease, ponce.

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

uhhh no. ease can apply to a number of things. if the content is easy as all fuck, but 99% of students fail than is the subject easy or not? no, as you need to know everything to a much higher standard, despite the content being easy.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

lulwat? If the subject is easy but 99% of students fail, then yeah, it's easy. wat?

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ease of content may not equate to marks given out. if im a nazi lecturer I may grade people too harshly.

when people look at the ease rating, they are aiming to see what subjects are incredibly easy to take in terms of assessment load, content difficult and ultimately the marks given out (after all ease = easy marks to most people).

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Just how many markers out there fail such a great proportion of students? Subjects I've taken mostly have a criteria that they mark towards, so that failing such a large number is impossible. The rest get scaled, which makes the ease mark even less oriented towards the marks given out.

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Obviously 99% was hyperbole. However, I have taken subjects which seemed very easy but the markers were unusually harsh and I'd end up with a credit or a low d.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ENGL2632 - British Romantic Literature

Ease: 7/10. It's not hard but you have to keep up with the reading, of which there is a lot, or you'll fall behind like I did. Also would help to have a previous interest in the subject matter because the lecturer would often talk with the assumption that you were familiar with particular poems or authors, which I personally never was. If you don't like poetry this course is not for you, if you do like it you'll have a ball.

Having received my result I'm upping this to 8. My exam responses were such a crock I had to stifle the lols while I was writing. Evidently if you use flamboyant sentences with unnecessary big words and imply that the poets you studied were vacuous cunts you win brownie points. Extra marks if your writing is so neat and your responses so short that it's obvious you were taking your damn sweet time to say basically nothing, lol.

Not a criticism, I'm just pleased I got away with it and that I won't have to do it again

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

^ yeah, see neb. it also works the other way

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Fair enough I spose. I'll continue to write my reviews before I get marks back though, as that's the way I view ease.

 

[goony]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Hokkay, the marks are in. I don't think there are many people who'd be interested in random 2-3rd year subjects but here we go:

COMP3520 - Operating Systems Internals
Ease: 8/10
Pretty easy course, the assignments are just extending the skills learnt in COMP2129 (making a simple shell and threads and synchronization, so it does incorporate bits of INFO2120 in it too, i suppose). All the rest is boring rote learning. I probably could've done a bit better on the rote learning part.
Lecturer: 2/10 Bing Bing Choi
DO NOT WANT. One of the worst lecturers i've ever had. I couldn't understand what he was saying most of the time and all he did was read off the lecture slides found on the textbook's website (the EXACT same slides too). To be fair though he marked our stuff (asides from the final exam) fairly quickly. Textbook is pretty handy for the rote learning stuff. No tutors and tutorials were optional. No-one turned up after the first week to tutes, and the lectures shrank from about 45ish to less than 5-10 within a couple of weeks.
Interest: 5/10
The assignments were interesting (2 of them, programming in C), but that's about as far as interesting goes for this course.
Overall: 6/10
If you were mildy interested in COMP2129 and the serializable stuff in INFO2120 then this course will probably appeal to you. I guess it's a plus since you don't have to turn up to any contact hours if Bing Bing's running it next year (unless he finds tutors or something). I guess good filler credit points towards a computer science or IT major?

ELEC3305 - Digital Signal Processing
Ease - 5/10
Everything up to the mid sem is easy enough to get your head around. Then it's a total mindfk for the last few weeks. Yash took it this year and made a buggery of a final exam. Think about the last 2 questions on a 3-4unit maths paper. The final exam had 7 of those questions (10 total). Scaling does heaps though. I only finished half the questions and i'm pretty sure i only answered about 3 properly (needed 45% to pass), yet i walked out with 61.
Lecturer - 8/10
Yash is a brilliant guy. He mightn't have known much about circuits in first year but signals/control/dsp is supposed to be his speciality. He was very quick to reply to emails and his tutorials were very helpful.
Interest - 7/10
The labs were the most interesting parts. But you had to trudge through the mundane tutorials for the first 6 weeks to get to the good parts. Digital filter design if you're interested in that stuff.
Overall - 7/10
Basically ELEC2302 with easier maths (unless you actually like all that continuous stuff) and real life applications.

INFO2820 - Databases 1 (adv)
Ease - 9/10
Mostly straightforward database stuff. A few arts students that had to do the course had trouble with grasping syntax and stuff, but if you've done any sort of databases or programming before you shouldn't have too much trouble. Advanced stuff was easier than the standard stuff imo, plus you don't have to do quizzes, so if you can get into advanced, go for it.
Lecturer - Alan Fekete (9/10), Sanjay Chawla (6/10)
We had alan for the majority of the course. He was very quick to answer to emails and was equally helpful (replied emails within 5-10 minutes prior to an assignment submission, i think that guy lives in the school of IT or something). Sanjay's lectures were a bit tangential and the advanced stream kinda fell behind the material for the first couple of assignments. No tutors for the standard stream of this course (but i heard they assigned some about halfway through the semester).
Interest - 8/10
SQL, JDBC/database apps etc, analysis of transactions, storage and relational algebra...advanced stream dabbled into datalog. Not that hard to fall out of interest with really.
Overall - 9/10
I liked this course, might do 3rd year databases if my degree can accomodate it. Course outcomes, marking schemes and exam layouts were very concise, kinda makes me miss 2nd year subjects (3rd year ones i did didn't seem to have much clarity this year).

ISYS2140 - Information Systems
Ease - 8/10
Easy enough, couple of fairly tedious assignments, but you work in groups. Final exam is rote learning.
Lecturer - 6/10 Byoungu Choi
Strange accent and weird analogies of e-commerce terms aside, Byoungu was a decent lecturer. Granted i didn't go to most of the lectures (9am start ftl), but the content and assignments were straightforward in what was expected. Marking was quick for the first assignment, but we never got the second assignment back.
Interest - 5/10
Tutes consisted of a presentation and 'debate' (you did 1 of each for the entire semester). Only about half the topics sparked my interest so i guess 5/10 reflects that.
Overall - 7/10
Well you have to do this one if you want to do anything related to information systems. I'd say easy brownie points, but on retrospect, the group assignments could get pretty hardcore if you wanted good marks. I'd say this subject would be easy to pass but you'd have to do quite a bit of work to get 80+.

 

[bustinjustin]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ASNS2618 Remaking China 1949 - Present
Ease: 9/10
Not sure how well the rest of the cohort did, but if you've done some social or critical theory, and epistemology, this is a remarkably easy course. It's fairly interdisciplinary, and so would suit a range of academic backgrounds. Even so, the assessment structure makes it a cinch. Tute particpation is 15%, a 'critical reading' assignment (1000 words, 20%The final exam is a noteworthy mention - an in-class test in Week 8, one-hour, 2 questions, 20%, which you can ace so long as you've merely done tute readings. In the exam I'd managed to completely misconstrue the author of the mandatory textbook, but still managed to only just miss on an HD.

Lecturer: 9/10
Dr. David Bray knows his stuff well. Lectures included videos in some weeks. Basic lecture-slides, but lecture recordings were also posted. Hongwei Bao took tutes, and was quite a character, but also had plenty to offer.

Interest:9/10
This course provides an overview of from China's Maoist past to its transition to a so-called market economy. Was highly relevant, particularly during the heightened interest in Tibet, and especially with the focus on China during the upcoming Olympics.

Overall: 10/10
Easy marks, coherent course structure, reasonable readings, and lectures that were regularly interesting and insightful.

ASNS2661 History of Modern Indonesia
Ease: 8/10
During the semester, the course seemed more difficult than what my marks suggest - there were just so many complex issues to cover (much like the country itself), and each weeks topics and readings opened up a pandoras box of more considerations. Indonesian history is so complex and anarchic that one is often forced to completely discard what they've learned thus far. But it's still reasonably easy to do well. The exam was weighted heavily at 45%, but topics were given beforehand (2 questions, and one was able to take the course reader in). Most people barely studied for it. Again, I don't know about class averages, but I managed to HD by my calculations. The other marks come 30% from the essay 15% on a tute presentation based on your essay topic, and 10% on tute participation. This assessment structure will probably change as Adrian Vickers has professed a dislike for exams.

Lecturers: 8/10
A remarkable character (much like the rest of the Asian Studies staff), Dr. Adrian Vickers would often meander through his talks and talk off the cuff without lecture slides, as if he was telling stories rather than giving a proper lecture. This made for some fascinating lectures (with exception of the week on Indonesian historiography, in which Adrian systematically listed all universities and key academics on Indonesia). Half of the lectures were also taken by Liz Jackson, whose structured lectures (complete with power-point slides) complemented Adrian's old-school style. Eve Warburton took my tute instead of the lecturers (though she's not teaching it next year). Lectures were also recorded.

Interest: 10/10.
Readings often reflected the lecturer's personal interests and were skewed towards Indonesian social and cultural histories. Despite the randomness of some readings (short stories, and plenty of first-hand accounts), the course nonetheless covered colonial, post-colonial, Islamic, political, economic and regional Indonesian histories. The class perhaps reflected the general interest in Indonesia, or perhaps lack thereof - there were less than 30. In some ways it was disappointing to see such apathy towards Indonesia, but it made for nice a small class (and only 8 people in my tute, though there were about 15 in the other).

Overall: 10/10
I recommend this course at the risk of letting everyone else on a hidden gem of a course. If you're doing some sort of arts or social sciences (history, asian studies, govt, ecop), it's a refreshing change.

 

[symple]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ANHS 1600 - Foundations for Ancient Greece
Ease - 8/10
Lectures are (mostly) easy to understand, readings not so much. The essay was fairly easy, they are very understanding of first-year problems. =)
TURN UP TO YOUR TUTES. They constitute 20% of your total mark.
Lecturers
JK - 9/10. Clear & interesting lectures, with lots of WebCT backup. Approachable, very sincere.
MM - 8/10, only because I find archaeology to be boring.
Philosophy guy - 9/10. Very interesting, although not very useful.
BB - 7/10. He's great fun in tutes - if you start him ranting about America and Iraq, you can keep him happily occupied for half an hour at a time.
Unfortunately he only has one lecture style, involving text-heavy slides and many incomprehensible five-syllable words, often in ancient Greek. =(
The two guest lecturers on drama, democracy & women in Athens were quite dull.
Interest - 8 / 10. Lecturers are quite good. Guest lecturers, however, boring.
Overall - 8 / 10. The exam short answer questions were needlessly pedantic - too many meaningless names and dates - but the exam essay questions were nice and broad.


ENGL1007 - Language, Texts & Time (aka English grammar, English history & basic linguistics)
Ease - 6/10. Quite difficult, this one. Assessments are VERY much 'trial and error' & 'hit and miss'!
Lecturer - 8/10. I enjoyed most of the lectures. Guest speakers were good, Nick Riemer was good also. LOTS of note-taking though. =(
Interest - 6/10 overall. Some bits were 8/10, some bits were 3/10. Opinions vary.
Overall - 7/10. Only for those who really LOVE English, and I mean the language itself, not the writing-wanky-essays part.
The exam was very difficult, by the way. =(


PHIL1011 - Reality, Ethics & Beauty
Ease - 9/10. Easy to talk about, mostly easy to explain, sorta easy to write argumentative essays on.
Lecturers - Reality guy 10/10, Ethics lady 8/10 (got boring after a while), Beauty guy 7/10 (very boring, but covered everything we needed to know very well).
Interest - 8/10, maybe 9/10. Great stuff.
Overall - 9/10. Tutorials were great fun - easy to make friends, easy to discuss. Exam wasn't too bad either. =)


EDUF1018 - Education, Teachers & Teaching
Ease - 6/10. I really didn't like this course. The essay was boring and difficult, the exam was really boring and really difficult. You have been warned.
Lecturers - I skipped most of these. Some of 'em were good. The Curriculum lady was incredibly boring, way too much like Umbridge.
Interest - 7/10. Historical stuff was very interesting, curriculum stuff was dull. Some people may disagree. *shrugs*
Overall - 6/10. NOT what I was expecting. Only do this if you need it for teaching.

 

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

SYMPLE! AHAHAHA. ROBYN THINGY. EWING OR WHATEVS.
Ohmygod, yeah she was like Umbridge

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Ewing is nothing like Umbridge. Read Harry Potter again. Do not collect $200.

 

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

whatever!! she LOOKS like the hollywood recreation of Umbridge.
AND she does the whole talking to young children voice.
and god, suffering her lectures is like using the cutting into skin quill.



i cant believe you like HP neb.