Subject Reviews (with PDF compilation) (2 Viewers)

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

All that is true, but she's a nice lady, which kinda puts a giant dagger through your theory.

 

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

everyones got a nasty to their sweet lady side Neb
Plus, i dont expect anyone to be like crazy Umbridge.

 

[babydoll14]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Absolutely delayed review

Acct 1003-Financial and Accounting Concepts
Ease 9.5/10. The content is not exactly easy but the midsem is 120 repetitive multiple choice questions. The assignment is pretty much a copy and paste exercise. The final exam is so easy! its 50 multiple choice and a few short answer questions which are tutorial questions with different numbers!!!!
Lecturer-10/10 FRANK PORTELLI IS A GOD. He makes accounting somewhat interesting and funny. The lectures are so funny and entertaining
Interest- 5/10 the content is somewhat useful but if youre not doing an accounting major its not much use.
Overall 10/10 It was a great subject. Frank portelli is the best lecturer even though accounting is boring/

ACCT1004- Management Accounting concepts
ease-8/10 not as easy as 1003 was but still VERY easy. Its 1 multiple choice midterm. 1 assignment, 1 presentation where if frank likes you you get 10/10. and a final where its tutorial questions with different numbers.
Lecturer- Frank portelli is why i took this subject. He is wonderful 10/10
interest 4/10- Accounting isnt very interesting but frank makes it interesting somehow
Overall 10/10- I really liked this subject. It was easy and the lectures were so entertaining.

Econ 1001-Introductory Microeconomics
Ease-8/10 its not a very hard subject. Its just solving equations and drawing graphs. Simple ones too. When i did it it was 2 mid sems and a final where the finals is mainly the last few topics.
Lecturer 8.5/10 Jordi was a good lecturer.
Interest- 9/10 no where near as interesting as intermediate micro but there wasnt a topic which wasnt interesting
Overall 8.5/10 I really enjoyed this subject. You can get through with just the lecture notes really.

Econ 1002-Introductory Macroeconomics
Ease-9/10. they don't make this subject very hard. The tutorial questions are easy marks if you have a good group,. The mid sem was very short and easily doable if you attend tutorials and lectures.
Interest 7.5/10- I prefer micro over macro but exchange rates were good
Lecturer- 8/10 Anu is a good lecturer. She can explain things well. But she can;t really control a class i suppose. Michelle is a wonderful tutor!
overall 8/10 Its not a hard subject, somewhat interesting and the exams are straightforward.

Ecos 2201-Intermediate Microeconomics
Ease 8/10- Its not a very hard subject to get marks especially if you have Olleski.
The content is easy and straight forward, although some consumer theory was at times a bit confusing.
Lecturer 8/10- Olleski was pretty good. I liked attending is lectures and he made things simple and easy!
Interest 10/10. The content in this subject is so interesting. All the topics were enjoyable to learn. But i really like microeconomics
Overall 9/10- my favourite subject last semester. I would recommend people who like economics to do this subject

Ecmt 2110- Regression modelling
Ease- 6/10. This subject isnt hard when you undertsand whats going on. But when you dont its really hard to understand. Its pretty much 1020 but strike it up 40% harder with more content. But no time series crap thank god.
Lecturer- Andrey vasnev=1. He makes good quotes but apart from that you dont learn much at all.
Interest 0.5/10. After doing this course i realised i really have no interest or passion for statistics. As much as it is useful it is boring and dry.
Overall 5/10. Dont do this subject unless you like statistics. At least the marks were higher than expected

FINC 2011- Corporate finance 1.
Ease-2/10 This was one HARD subject. The mid sem was bearable. The assignment was so hard, it didnt matter how early you started, the night before you would still be up crunching away at it. The final was even worse, many walked out knowing they had failed, i walked out with about 10% certain. However, the marks were better than expected
Interest 4/10- Im interested in finance but not enough to major in it. Economics is much hotter
Lecturer- 8/10 Julianne is so funny and entertaining. No one can make finance bearable the way in which she can. Frino 6/10 ...knows his stuff but not very entertaining. Tro 0/10 dont even bother going in his weeks
Overall 3/10 definitely a hard subject. Dont do it if you just need to fill an elective. There are other subjects with much easier marks. This is a risky elective as many people fail finance.

 

[Silver Persian]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

SCLG3601 Contemporary Sociological Theory
Ease: 7/10 - This is probably one of the harder SCLG units (which for most people probably isn't that hard). The readings we did on the sociology of space and affect were v. abstract, although other readings were fine. Assessments were a 4000wd essay, a 1500wd literature review and class participation.
Lecturer: 8/10 - I like Melinda Cooper. She's not the most amazingly entertaining lecturer in the world, but she definitely knows her stuff, and she usually manages to make her courses interesting. The seminars for this course are timetabled as being 3 hrs long, however most went for about 2 hrs.
Interest: 8.5/10 - The course was structured around a sociological approach to neoliberalism. We spent early weeks looking at the neoliberal subjectivity, the socioloigy of labour, religious revival and the sociology of migration. The latter part of the course moved away from the focus on political economy - looking at the intersection between race and gender and the sociology of space and affect. I found this course v. interesting - both readings and lectures were thought provoking and well structured.
Overall: 8/10 - Well worth doing

SCLG3602 Empirical Sociological Methods
Ease: 5.5/10 - Apparently the marks that have been given back have been quite low c/f other SCLG subjects. There is a fair bit of emphasis upon the philosophy of research in this course (epistemology, ontology, methodology), which some people found quite challenging. Assessments are a groupwork interview exercise, a research proposal speech and essay, and class participation.
Lecturer: 7/10 - Fran Collyer has a good grasp of the methods literature in SCLG. She has a slightly vague and confused aura, but she is generally well read and capable of explaining complicated ideas clearly. She was, however, not the best at the organisational side of things - a WebCT site would have made the groupwork task a lot easier.
Interest: 6/10 - For a research methods course, this wasn't too bad. This subject had two primary aims - to give students experience at qualitative interviewing and writing research proposals. These were quite useful in terms of giving us an idea of what real live sociologists actually do. However, the lectures and the readings were not particularly inspiring.
Overal: 6/10 - Not too bad. Compulsory for SCLG honours students

PHIL2644 Critical Theory - From Marx to Foucault
Ease: 6/10 - Readings from this course were very difficult. The reader is wholly composed of primary texts from Hegel, Marx, Horkheimer, Habermas, Foucault - and, as insightful as these philosophers may or may not be, they are not clear writers. Having said that, the lecturers discussion of the texts and philosophers were generally more accessible. Assessments were a 2000wd essay, a 2000wd take home exam and a 5-10 minute tutorial speech.
Lecturer: 8/10 - I liked John Grumley for a number of reasons. His lectures were clear and organised, he speaks slowly to allow me to write notes, he puts his lectures online and he gives back helpful comments re: assessments. He is a little boring as a lecturer, but he does a very thorough and clear job.
Interest: 7.5/10 - Looking back at this course, I'm quite glad I took it. It looked at several thinkers who I've encountered before, and examined them in more detail (Marx, Frankfurt School, Habermas and Foucault). The readings are quite difficult, and the lectures are not exactly "fun", but I feel I got quite a lot from this course.
Overall: 7/10 - Solid

GCST3601 Gender, Race and Australian Identities
Ease: 6.5/10 - I always find GCST subjects a little bit difficult - a lot of waffling and painful navel gazing is required. The earlier readings looking at postcolonial theory, critical whiteness studies and writing whiteness are quite difficult, and the lectures did not always clarify the problems. Assessments were a 2500wd journal, a 2000wd essay and class participation.
Lecturers: 6/10 - We had two lecturers for this course, Ann Deslandes and Adam...Something. Both were OK - but tended to speak very quickly, making it difficult to make notes. Sometimes the lectures seemed a little haphazard, other times complex ideas were introduced and not explained clearly.
Interest: 6/10 - I was a little put off by the first half of the course, which is v. theoretical, navel gazing and boring. However, the latter weeks were orientated around more substantive subject matter - such as the War on Terror, the NT Intervention, the Stolen Generations and two fictional texts. Readings ranged from the boring to the fascinating.
Overall: 6/10 - I probably wouldn't have done this course if I had the chance to choose again

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

PRFM 2602 An Audience Prepares

Ease: 7/10. It's by no means hard, but settling into the way of thinking you're supposed to use in this subject was a bit hard at first. You do a lot of practical stuff in tutes, just theatre games and stuff, nothing scary or hard. And more fun than sitting down talking about theories (which you will do but towards the end when they're like omfg exam time). Exam is an essay, and if you've done well in the previous assignments you should do okay here as all assignments for the course are a lead up to this essay.

Lecturers: I wouldn't know, I had a clash and only went to about 2 or 3. Those ones were ok though.

Interest: 6/10. The theoretical side of it was a bit dry but not tragically boring. The practical side was lots of fun.

Overall: 7/10. I'm not a big fan of how this uni does performance studies to be honest but compared to last semesters unit it's not at all bad.

 

[spence]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ECOP1002 Economy and Policy
Lecturer: Damien Cahill

Ease: 8/10 - I found most of the course pretty easy, despite not having done ECOP1001. Assessments were good, a mini-essay, an essay, tute participation and a 90 minute exam. The exam was good, just had to pick 2 essays from a list of 7, and we got the essay topics in the last lecture
Lecturer: 8/10 - I thought Damien was really good, he explains everything very well, and gives good lecture notes. Not the most engaging lecturer, but still very good. Also had two guest lecturers, one of which was pretty good (Evan), and one was great (Dick)
Interest: 9/10 - I found almost all topics interesting, and the assessment structure basically means you can ignore the ones you don't like. Tute discussions were very interesting
Overall: 9/10 - I really enjoyed it, highly recommended

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

fuck you all! no more uni!

 

[spence]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ANHS1601 Foundations for Ancient Rome
Lecturers: Jeff Tatum, Paul Roche, Ted Robinson

Ease: 7/10 - Most of the exam was pretty good, had to do one out of 11 essays, then a bunch of short answers. I found one of the sections (material cultures) really hard though, as it required a lot of specific information, and had a lot less choice than the other short answer section. Besides that though, the exam was good. Also had 20% tute participation, and a 40% essay which you have two chances to hand in. I'd strongly recommend anyone doing this subject to hand it in for the first deadline, because we got great feedback, and I spent less than an hour fixing it up, and ended up getting an extra 12 marks for it
Lecturers: Jeff 10/10, Paul 9/10, Ted 6/10
Jeff was absolutely fantastic, extremely funny and knowledgeable, I think everyone doing the course loves him. His topics also tended to be the more interesting ones, and he was able to make all of his lectures interesting.
Paul is also really great. He explained things really well, and provided great notes on WebCT. His topics (mostly the literary ones) were also fascinating
Ted was quite a dry lecturer. Not as bad as everyone says, he had some interesting things to say, but his topics (material culture) were by far the least interesting
Interest: 9/10 - I found it mostly very interesting
Overall: 9/10 - Definitely recommended for anyone interested in history.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ENGL2627 Reading Sexuality

Ease: 5/10 - A load of wanky intellectual wankery about crap. We studied quite a few good films which was fun, BUT the lectures were hard to follow and always crammed in too much to think about in one hour. The readings were similarly obscure and half the time had absolutely nothing to do with the films we studied and went off on weird tangents about...I don't even know. Luckily it's one of those "give your own interpretation" kind of subjects so it's not like you were going to fail if you neglected to analyse the films from their wanky perspective but still. It was hard. English nerds would probably disagree with me. I'm just finding uni English in general to be shit. Oh yeah and the exam was a bit WTF as well

Lecturers (mainly Melissa Hardie): 5/10 - As above, lectures were too hard to follow. Points for attempts at humour but otherwise meh

Interest: 5/10 - Some things were interesting, most of it had me scratching my head in confusion or frustration or sleeping out of boredom

Overall: 5/10. Don't do it unless you like over-analysing everything to death in a really weird way

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

im going to wait until i get my results back to rate the subjects again.

 

[symple]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ENGL 1025 – Fiction, Film and Power
Warning: The film of Bliss is not pleasant, and may scar sensitive viewers.
Ease: 7/10 – Essays were straightforward. Plenty of different assignments, so there wasn't too much pressure on any one thing. Exam was also straightforward. The theory became more difficult as the course went on, but I got by alright via occasional name-dropping.
Interest: 9/10 – Tutorials were great, absolutely fantastic tutors. The texts were challenging as well as (mostly) accessible. The Day of the Locust, The Talented Mr Ripley, The Big Sleep and Bliss were ALL interesting texts. Fun stuff.
Lecturer: 5/10 – I don't know because I flat-out stopped going after the first assignment. I don't advise this to anyone who's not a born-and-bred English nerd, as I struggled to make sense of the sparse and cryptic notes on the powerpoints.
Overall: 8/10. Great tutorials, really can't say about the lectures.


EDUF 1019 – Human Development and Education, w/ Dr. Steve Juan

Ease: 9/10 – Assignments required an understanding and implementation of the entire course. This was really useful, as working on the essay also prepared us for the exam. The lectures were accessible and the theories were interesting =)
Interest: 9/10 – This course overlaps a lot with the more interesting and accessible parts of psychology. It was all relevant and up-to-date =)
Lecturer: 10/10 – Great stuff. He also emailed us his entire lectures, word-for-word, so cramming for the exam was about as painless as cramming will ever be.
Overall: 9/10 – This was SOOO much better than education 1018. However, I did not enjoy the tutorials/seminars, otherwise would have been 10. I'm worried about teaching now, because my seminar presentation marks are consistently low. =(


HSTY 1089 – Australia: Colonies to Nation (1788-1970s), w/ Richard Waterhouse

Ease: 7/10 – Source analysis was a piece of cake after modern history in the HSC. Essay was extremely boring to research and boring to write. Exam was relatively painless, as we got given a choice of 3 out of 12 essay questions, all of which we were given word-for-word in the last lecture.
Interest: 9/10 – I missed almost all the lectures, but I listened to them on Lectopia and they were clear, accessible and interesting. Yes, Australian history was actually INTERESTING, brought up some fascinating stuff. Many thanks to our lecturer, who by the way has an awesome Australian accent =)
Lecturer: 10/10 – I already said this, didn't I?
Overall: 7/10 – Adored the lectures on Lectopia. Unfortunately, did not enjoy the tutorials at all - too many people to make your voice heard. Also did not enjoy any of the assessments.

However, if you *have* to do Australian history, this one won't scare you off. MAYBE even the opposite.


PHIL 2649 – The Classical Mind, w/ Rick Benitez (ANHS1600 students got an offer to attend this class without the prerequisites)

Ease: 8/10 – The course depended entirely on primary sources, which were fascinating. However, I had *major* panic attacks with the assessments, especially as it was 50% essay and 50% exam. Lots of pressure. Luckily we were encouraged to have our own interpretations of the source texts, so it was doable.
Interest: 10/10 – Primary material was great. ~$70 for the textbook, a bit annoying but turned out to be worth it. Tutorials were fun.
Lecturer: 9/10 – I enjoyed the lectures and the smaller lecture class. Great stuff. He really seemed to care whether we turned up or not, which is rare sometimes.
Overall: 9/10 – I'm sure the second and third year students had a great time, but it was a bit of a shock for me. ><"

I'm not expecting fantastic marks, but I'm kind of happy with my subjects this semester =)

 

[Trebla]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

I'm bored might as well add some:

CHEM2401/2911 Molecular Reactivity and Spectroscopy (Adv)

Ease: 6/10
Large majority was organic chemistry which I disliked personally. However, aromatic chemistry was quite easy. Quantum Huckel Theory and Spectroscopy were quite difficult to understand but once you understand them, everything falls in place quite nicely. The final exam is horrible. There was way too much stuff to learn and study for. There is only so much we poor students can fit into our brains. Labs were a bit of a pain overall. I preferred the analytical over organic labs because there was no report writing for homework...
Interest: 6/10
Organic chemistry is like the biggest yawn for me. Thank god for Spectroscopy and Quantum theory. Even though they were hard to understand, the colourful lectures were far more interesting than the black and white overheads in the organic lectures.
Lecturer: McErlean: 6/10, Joliffe: 8/10, Schmidt: 7/10, Kable: 9/10
McErlean is such a showoff and makes hard exam questions. I particularly hate it when he says organic chemistry is so easy so frequently. He goes through the lecture rather quickly as well and that's worse for me as I do not like organic chemistry in the first place. He does show glimpses of a good lecturer, but its an uncommon sight.
Joliffe was a very good lecturer. She went through the lectures at a slower pace and really she really knows her stuff. She asks straightforward questions in exams which is an added bonus.
I've heard bad things about Schmidt but I never saw them in his lectures. He can lecture quite well and went at an alright pace. One thing I do like about him is that he was lazy enough to set the exact tutorial questions as the exam questions....LOL
Kable is an awesome lecturer. He provides heaps of support and is committed to helping us understand the material. He does make the lectures engaging and interesting. Unfortunately, he also likes to ask hard questions in exams....
Overall: 7/10
Organic was hard and boring, except for aromatics which was easy (but still boring) and the physical chemistry (quantum and spectroscopy) were very interesting but takes a while to understand. Final exam was hell, there's far too much content that can be examinable.

CHEM2402/2912 Chemical Structure and Stability (Adv)

Ease: 7/10
Personally for me much easier than the CHEM2401/2911 in terms of understanding the content. However, the exam questions for the metal complexes part are quite difficult. Quizzes were heaps hard though. Average for quizzes over the entire cohort was a FAIL...eep! Thermodynamics (statistical and classical) was easy (though we had to learn some formulae off by heart), though I'd imagine it would be difficult for those without a strong mathematical background. The carbonyl organic chemistry was somewhat easier than I expected. I liked the fact that this time everyone provided answers to their sections of past exams (except for Harrowell lol) which made life a lot easier.
This time the labs were organic (lvl5) and physical (lvl3) rather than organic and analytical (lvl4). Labs were similar to CHEM2401/2911 in difficulty for organic and physical was more about using computers to analyse results rather than experimentation which I guess made it a bit easier.
Interest: 8/10
The metal complexes section was quite interesting and because it's inorganic chemistry I definitely had more interest in it. Statistical thermodynamics was quite neat and interesting as well. I didn't expect Classical thermodynamics to be so easy and interesting. Carbonyl organic chemistry made me fall sleep.
Lecturer: Beattie: 7/10, Bridgeman: 9/10, Harrowell: 6/10, Hudson: 8/10, Baker: 8/10
Big problem I had with Beattie was trying to understand what he was saying. He was always mumbling the lecture rather than speaking out loud. If you can actually understand his mumbling then some of the stuff he says makes his material easier to understand.
Bridgeman is very committed and supportive. He provides extensive answers to virtually everything and actively participates in the discussion board. He explains things rather well as well and goes through the stuff very slowly. He does set some difficult questions though...
Harrowell is an absolute a-hole because he chucks a tantrum everytime someone talks in the very slightest. His actual lecturing is good; he can explain things well, but his lack of tolerance and his impatience just gets in the way too much.
Hudson explains things decently and is very supportive. He usually asks easy questions in the exam (which were mostly plugging numbers into formulae). I liked his "flash quizzes" and his unusual "word of the day" presentations lol, some were quite interesting.
Baker took the organic carbonyl chemistry section. As much as I find organic chemistry hard, he actually made it quite easy. His exam questions were generally quite easy. However, he didn't make it anymore interesting though. It was quite monotonic...
Overall: 8/10
Definitely prefer this unit over CHEM2401/2911. Most of the material was more interesting (though some of it was quite hard to understand) and the lecturers were more supportive (overall). There's a bigger emphasis on inorganic and physical chemistry which favoured my way of thinking a bit more. Final exam was still horrible though; far too much material to study for.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

^Beattie is shit. He mumbles and sends everyone to sleep. He's a dinosaur and needs to retire. Hudson is similarly shit imo. I don't give a fuck about word of the day, and his lectures did not correspond to the exam questions.

I'm worried about teaching now, because my seminar presentation marks are consistently low. =(

Eh, these are easy if you do as they ask. Take questions, plan activities, go slow and whatever. That's what I did and I got high marks. Just don't throw out candy - place it on the desks.

Kable is an awesome lecturer. He provides heaps of support and is committed to helping us understand the material. He does make the lectures engaging and interesting. Unfortunately, he also likes to ask hard questions in exams....

Absolutely. Kable is a legend.

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

IBUS3102 - International Risk Management
Lecturer: Sandra
Ease: 7.5/10 – No exams, but there is quite a bit due. The online game takes up a lot of time, but is only worth 10%. Which is teh lame. Whilst nothing is really difficult about the subject, she marks quite harshly and based on a marking criteria that we weren't told to refer to: I.e. it turns out we weren't meant to answer the questions, but answer the same generic marking criteria for each assignment :s
Interest: 8/10 – She teaches interestingly, but the problem is that she targets it at a high school level: i.e. content is oversimplified. The assignments were fun.
Lecturer: 9/10 – She's a great person, and very responsive to student feedback, but she did, again, make content too simple
Overall: 7/10 - it left me feeling a bit empty, as I didn't learn very much, but did have fun.

 

[nick1689]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ANHS1601 Foundations for Ancient Rome
Lecturers: Jeff Tatum, Paul Roche, Ted Robinson

Ease: 8/10 - It was pretty easy, none of the ideas, or concepts, or anything, really, was hard to understand or grasp. Though the list of assignments questions were pretty hard, I found that I could only answer 1-3 of them without having to go the extra miles to get all the info you would need. The exam was fine, though the material culture section was a bit of a bitch - it required very specific knowledge.
Lecturers: Jeff 10/10, Paul 8/10, Ted 4/10
I think ill just copy and paste what spence said, since it's exactly how I feel about Jeff: "Jeff was absolutely fantastic, extremely funny and knowledgeable, I think everyone doing the course loves him. His topics also tended to be the more interesting ones, and he was able to make all of his lectures interesting." (thanks spence!)
I enjoyed Paul, even though I know a couple of people who found him dull; he did put up all his lecture notes on webct. There's not that much bad things I can say about him.
I couldnt stand Ted's lectures - boring, dry, uninspired; but then again, he did do all of the material culture lectures, so there wasnt much he could do for them - he just didnt seem to have any passion or enthusiasm for what he was doing.
Interest: 7/10 - I probably found about 2/3rds of the course interesting; some of it though was pretty dull - it also made me realise all the specific, and dull, knowledge you would need to know if you ever wanted to major in ancient history (well, Rome anyway).
Overall: 7/10 - It was a good course, recommended for anyone interested in Rome.


ECOP1003 International Economy and Finance
Lecturer: Bill Dunn

Ease: 7/10: Personally, I found that this wasnt the most easiest course, but thats probably because I never did economics in high school, or was ever that economic-literate (if you know what I mean). But after reading over everthing I found that most of it was pretty straight forward, well, thats until you get down and dirty into the advanced elemnts. And the exam would have been hard, if Bill didnt generally outline what to expect in the exam.
Lecturer: 8/10: I liked Bill, he had a passion for what he was teaching, and he was never really boring to listen to.
Interest: 8/10 - Ive never been that economic-litrerate, so studying this was in my intersst just to learn the basic of int economics - and I did. It was really interesting in the end.
Overall: 8/10 - Definitely recommended.


HSTY1044 Twentieth Century Politics and History
Lecturers: Judith Keene, Margaret Poulos

Ease: 7/10 - Everything was pretty straight forward, there were no curve balls in any of the subjects or anything. But I guess, there was alot of info packed into one course. The first assignment was one of those historiography type questions; the actual question though was worded real wierd, and got a bit confusing sometimes, I found. There were a crap load of questions to choose fro for the major essay, so that was a plus. The exam was easy, but thats only because my tutor told us pretty much exactly what each question was beforehand; if not, I guess the exam would have been pretty hard.
Lecturers: Judith 7/10, Margaret 5/10
Judith was pretty goood, she had an enthusiasm for what she was doing. She was a bit too feminist, though, for my liking, and a bit leftist. Many of the subjects were explained in ways that you would think would be reserved for a senior, and more specialised unit.
Margaret... meh. She was boring. Also a bit leftist - she took a marxist view for explaining the Nazi state for crying out loud!
Interest: 6/10 - I was interested in it at the beginning, just becasue I hadnt much in modern history, but I was slightly disappointed overall..
Overall: 6.5/10 - The problem with this unit was that it was way too leftist... Alot of the readings were from a feminist perspective, and the lectures. Some of the views taken just seemed to be out of place with the subjects; sometimes it just made things confusing. I dunno, for a junior course, they just should have explored the basic points of the twentieth century, atleast the basic ideas and facts for each subject; yet the course seemed to look at the more abstract ideas that (I would think) should be reserved for senoir units.


GOVT1105 Geopolitics
Lecturer: Diarmuid Maguire

Ease: 8/10: Pretty straightforward, you just have to adapt your brain to think about everything in a geopolitical sense (which was kinda hard at the beginning of the course). The assignments werent overly hard, but the exam was pretty tough - you needed to have extensive knowledge of the readings; I actually found the essays to be easier than the short answers in the exam. Plus, for me, I had a tutor that was a really hard marker.
Lecturer: 7.5/10: Diarmuid is a bit of a mixed bag; at times he was great, wasnt ever boring, made some jokes that were pretty funny at times, and he kept lectures contemporary. Though he did have the tendency to trail off, mumble and whisper at the end of a sentence, which made things difficult sometimes.
Interest: 10/10 - I loved the content of this course, its exactly the kinda thing Im interested in.
Overall: 9/10 - Great course overall. The only negative thing I have to say about it, is about my tutor. He was a great guy and everything, but he just tended to treat as like children at times. And he was a very, let me say that again, VERY strict marker, which put a damper on things, especailly when I thought that my essay deserved a higher mark than it got. Ah well. But yeh, definately recommended for anyone interested in govt and int relations.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

CHEM2403 Chemistry of Biological Molecules
Lecturers: Peter Rutledge, Ron Clarke, Peter Lay

Ease: 7/10 Nothing too hard. The organic chem is easy enough to learn, and the inorganic material is a mixture of first year stuff and trivia. Only difficult part would be the physical chemistry, but luckily the exam questions are identical to previous year's, so you just have to know how to use the formula (and remember how to use them, rather than forgetting that in the final exam). Final exam was a bit tough compared to what I thought it'd be like, but nothing that challenging.
Lecturers: 8/10 Peter Rutledge is fantastic. Interesting, funny, good slides, makes lots of references to drug design and other practical applications. Peter Lay is good too. He writes on the blackboard, distributes handouts (with graphs and whatever), makes detailed lecture notes and generally makes things pretty interesting. Ron Clarke is the weak point - he's kinda shit. Faces the blackboard, reads off slides and whatever. Overall the two others raise the overall mark.
Interest: 9/10 Yeah interesting subject. Organic chem was lots of fun, inorganic chem was surprisingly interesting (learn about the chemistry of teeth and cool stuff like that), but physical chemistry was a bore.
Labs: 5/10 Eh. Pretty crud. Demonstrators were shit and didn't give very good advice. Labs were long and boring and kinda not that related to the lectures. Plus they do them on level 4, and there's a distinct lack of fumehoods on level 4, which makes things cramped. Oh, and feedback was nonexistent.
Overall: 8/10 Apart from the labs and the physical chem, it was a very good subject. Highly reccomended.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

EDUF2007 Social Perspectives on Education

Ease - 9/10 They pretty much feed you everything they want you to know (which leads to immense boredom but I'll go into that in a sec). You get the exam questions well in advance. The content is hell easy, if you can handle it being annoyingly biased at times you will be cruising. The only reason its not a 10/10 is because of the research project which is probably the reason that everything else is so easy. If you get yourself a dodgy partner or are not organised it'll be a nightmare, but I found it pretty sweet. You'll probably be up all night before its due but whatever. You're only allowed to miss one tute without a doctors certificate which is probably standard in a lot of faculties anyway.

Lecturers - 4/10. Craig Campbell is a nice guy but his monotone is, well, monotonous. And he has this really annoying way of kidding around, idk if it bugged anyone else but :S The lectures pretty much consisted of slides which summarised the textbook chapters, read out nearly word for word with the odd painful joke. Protip: get the textbook and don't bother with lectures til the last week when he hands out the exam. I only went to about 3 and probably slept through them.

Interest - 4/10. The aforementioned lectures made it boring. Also once you worked out what angle each social issue was being approached from you could almost parrot the lecturer as they talked, v. predictable.

Overall - 6/10. Very easy but not sure if ease is worth being bored to death for 3 hours a week

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

EDSE2001 Craft Knowledge and Professional Practice 1

Ease - 8/10. Do the reading, go to the lectures (compulsory and Kelly Freebody in particular seemed to be a hard-ass about it) and you'll be fine. Nothing you can't handle (if you can't handle it you might be in the wrong degree). There's a school visit in like week 4 or something make sure you go to it. Assessments are 2 online discussions, a case study analysis and a 10 minute mini lesson. No exam. You can knock over the readings in about an hour a week so it's all good.

Lecturers - 8/10 Michael Anderson is a funny guy, <3 him. Kelly Freebody is kind of scary but she's nice. Both of them gave pretty effective lectures. There were a few guest lecturers but I don't really remember them well.

Interest - 8/10 Pretty good. Some stuff predictable and boring but I was mostly engaged so yeh

Overall - 8/10

 

[imyh]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

Can anyone review on BMED 2801 to BMED2808 please?

I've read reviews about MATH1002 (Linear Algebra) and MATH1015 (Biostatistics). Somebody please help me decide which one should I be taking? I pre-enrolled on biostats but having second thoughts now. but i hate vectors. argh.

i'll be very very grateful with any help. *kneels* haha.

 

[Rafy]

Re: Subject Reviews (PDF updated 16/01/09)

I've done a significant update of the pdf. It now includes all reviews made in 2008.

There are some really great reviews in there. I thank all who have contributed.

Keep them coming!