Subject Reviews (with PDF compilation) (3 Viewers)

[danjw]

For GEOS1001, I did fuck up my scientific report pretty badly. I didn't do greatly in the course, partly because I didn't really like the course, at all but even then, I would still say that it's a rather easy course and I should get a pretty clear pass.

A lot of people did say they did quite poorly in the mid-sem etc. so should scale alright! But yeah if you didn't like it of course it would have been a bit more difficult. I went into it really not knowing what to expect with no background in any geology or geography and have since discovered I'm a big geoscience fan! May even go on to major in it!
Really nervous about getting the marks back though, hope I push up into a HD!

 

[someth1ng]

MATH1001 – Differential Calculus

Ease - 8/10
The course isn't that difficult if you put in some decent level of effort. If you turn up to the tutorials and lecture, you should be fine. The questions in the exam and the tutorial quizzes are pretty much all covered in the lectures. The content is quite different to what you have been exposed to if you came from 3U but if you came from 4U, it should be quite a breeze, at least, for the first half or so. It gets harder towards the end where Taylor Series is a bit confusing at first but if you think about it, you should be able to get it. I got 9/10 for both quizzes and 20/20 for the assignment.

Lecturer - 9/10
A.Hammerlindl and JW.Parkinson were my lecturers for this course. They were both quite good and I enjoyed it because they were quite clear and easy to understand. On top of that, they were very enthusiastic to teach the unit.

Interest - 7/10
I didn't think it was hard but I didn't think it was THAT interesting but it definitely wasn't a total pain in the ass to follow.

Overall - 8/10
As you can tell from what I have said, it was quite decent. 4U students have an advantage over 3U students. If you want good marks (D or HD), do MATH1901 - they don't scale MATH1001 fairly, at all.

MATH1002 – Linear Algebra

Ease - 8/10
I think it was a bit harder than MATH1001 but they were pretty much the same – different people will think either is harder. Matrices are a bit confusing at first but then you learn how to apply it and how it works – it’s not too bad. It gets harder towards the end. Some questions can be quite hard to solve and you may have some problems but mostly, you should be okay if you turn up to lectures and tutorials, like MATH1001. I got 15/15 and 12/15 for the quizzes, respectively, and 19/25 for the assignment – the assignment marking is VERY picky.

Lecturer - 5/10
I did not like Crossman as a lecturer and it was annoying when he’d stop the lecture when he saw somebody use their phone. He has quite a boring tone and seems as though he doesn’t want to teach that much.

Interest - 7/10
About the same as MATH1001 – to me, they were both just maths.

Overall - 7/10
It wasn’t bad but I didn’t like it as much as MATH1001. 4U students do have an advantage but not as much as it was in MATH1001. If you want good marks (D or HD), do MATH1902 - they don't scale MATH1002 fairly, at all.

CHEM1901 – Chemistry 1A (Advanced)

Ease – 9/10
I found it mostly quite straight-forward but it would be challenging if you don’t like chemistry. Quantum model of the atom can be quite confusing because it is quite new. Lewis structures can be incredibly hard – they don’t give simple ones like NH3 etc. There are lots of formulas that you need to know how to apply and when to apply. I got 10/10 for the first two quizzes and 9/10 for the last quiz. I believe I got most of the marks for the lab and didn’t drop a mark for the prelab (really easy).

Lecturer – 8/10
I would say Tim Schmidt (9/10) was the better lecturer over Chris Ling (7/10) but the lectures did progress quite quickly. Schmidt was funny and interesting – I saw him near the front of the chemistry building helping a student in one of the final weeks which is great. Ling did say “that’s quite easy” quite a lot and missed some things but since I do agree with he says that it’s easy because, usually, it isn’t that complicated.

Interest – 8/10
I would have to take some marks off because of the labs – they were terrible. The labs are really, really boring and the demos don’t care or don’t really know what they’re doing.

Overall – 9/10
I’d say that I really enjoyed it but the labs did take away from that enjoyment. The teachers were good. Last thing, my tutorials were the best and my tutor was Nate – too bad he’s going to Cambridge for his PhD - true Chemistry hero.

PHYS1901 – Physics 1A (Advanced)

Ease – 3/10
It was an incredibly difficult course – it was pretty much the difficulty of all my other courses added into one course. There is a LOT of maths that you need to know. 4U students are at a pretty big advantage over 3U students due to the mechanics topic in 4U. The lab was difficult and more boring than the chemistry ones as it didn’t have clear steps on what to do but my group was quite good – at least it wasn’t all bad!

Lecturer – 8/10
The lecturers were mostly quite good (around equal level) but it did involve a lot of watching the lecturer solve questions which was quite boring. The problem of the lecture theatre (I think it was lecture theatre 2) was that it was quite warm and made excellent sleeping conditions. Tim Bedding gave us some more demos than the others which made it a bit more enjoyable.

Interest – 6/10
I didn’t seem that interested because it was quite boring but I think it was good enough for me to do it for another semester to give physics another chance. A lot of the interest was lost due to the sheer difficulty of the course and the labs took away from it even further.

Overall – 6/10
I would say, overall, it was an okayish course but I would definitely say it wasn’t my favourite course.

GEOS1001 - Earth, Environment and Society

Ease – 7/10
It definitely wasn’t a *hard* course but I found it quite difficult because I am not a good rote learner. Also, I found it incredibly boring (all of it) as it was mostly just a pile of facts and information – not much required conceptual understanding.

Lecturer – 5/10
There were 4 lecturers, each teaching for a few weeks where they had one 2 hour lecture per week – the fact that it was 2 hours made it incredibly boring an staying there for the second hour was a pure waste of precious time. After one hour, you get immensely bored of the lecture – you sometimes get bored after 30 minutes as the course is just that bland.

Interest – 0/10
Linking back to the lecturer section – it was really bad in terms of interest. It was mostly rote learning and you don’t really get much out of it. If I could turn back time, I would have picked something else to do. The field trip of Long Reef was the worst – it was such a disappointment as it was poorly organised – we were never told where we were so it made it difficult when the field trip quiz came. They even asked questions that weren’t covered in the lectures (for the field trip quiz). The tutorials were also pretty bad – using ArcGIS was quite lame and boring. The women were quite good, though.

Overall – 3/10
I would say this is the least enjoyable subject that I did during my first semester – it has left me with disappointment in the School of Geosciences. Considering that I did incredibly bad in a heavily weighted assessment (25%) and still passed, just shows that this unit is one that is easy to pass.

Final Marks
MATH1001: 77 (D)
MATH1002: 72 (C)
CHEM1901: 85 (HD)
PHYS1901: 78 (D)
GEOS1001: 64 (P)

 

[someth1ng]

A lot of people did say they did quite poorly in the mid-sem etc. so should scale alright! But yeah if you didn't like it of course it would have been a bit more difficult. I went into it really not knowing what to expect with no background in any geology or geography and have since discovered I'm a big geoscience fan! May even go on to major in it!
Really nervous about getting the marks back though, hope I push up into a HD!

Yeah, but to be honest, mid-sem wasn't that bad - I managed to pull of 75% and I felt like I knew nothing :O

Sounds like you'll do really well in GEOS1001 Are you taking 1002 or 1003 next semester?

 

[OzKo]

A lot of people did say they did quite poorly in the mid-sem etc. so should scale alright! But yeah if you didn't like it of course it would have been a bit more difficult. I went into it really not knowing what to expect with no background in any geology or geography and have since discovered I'm a big geoscience fan! May even go on to major in it!
Really nervous about getting the marks back though, hope I push up into a HD!

Very pleased to hear that.

 

[danjw]

Yeah, but to be honest, mid-sem wasn't that bad - I managed to pull of 75% and I felt like I knew nothing :O

Sounds like you'll do really well in GEOS1001 Are you taking 1002 or 1003 next semester?

1903! Definitely not 1002, I think the tutorials would kill me if they're like the 1001's haha.
Apparently the 1003/1903 field trip is really good to!
Will you be taking either or not gonna bother with it again?

 

[someth1ng]

1903! Definitely not 1002, I think the tutorials would kill me if they're like the 1001's haha.
Apparently the 1003/1903 field trip is really good to!
Will you be taking either or not gonna bother with it again?

I'll be taking MATH1003, MATH1005, CHEM1902, PHYS1902 and PHIL1012 so yeah, no more GEOS

 

[LoveHateSchool]

MATH1011-Applications of Calculus

Ease - 5/10
This is framed from someone with a 2 unit background, the course builds on from a 2unit calculus. Obviously, if you did 3U or 4U in school you would rate the ease much higher. This ease is comparative to the biostats course-both quizzes in calc are decent difficulty, and the assignment requires a little thinking, but they are quite pedantic in the marking. The final, the thing that brings the ease down is the timing to do all the question, as although the paper is MC, the MC take a bit of thinking/working and put you under a crunch in 1.5 hrs.

Lecturer - 7/10
Emma Carberry is quite good, a plus is her notes are quite nice. However on the whole, I preferred Clinton Boys explanations. I don't know how Ross is.

Interest - 5/10
Well it's calculus, if you really like calculus you should obviously be doing a higher maths because this will be a formulaic approach maths for you, where you'll want elegant proofs and what not. To the mathphobes who need the 24cp, chances are there will be parts of it that gel with you more than others. I was quite neutral towards it, hence the rating. I liked the partial diff and the series/sequences, wasn't as keen on other things.

Overall - 6/10
Basically, do this if you did 2 unit or above. 2 unit, you'll find it fair as long as you didn't bomb 2unit in HS. 3 unit/4 unit it should be quite straightforward for you but don't zone out completely. If you did Gen Maths, I'd stronly encourage MATH1111 because this would be super hard without having done 2u.

MATH1015 – Biostatistics

Ease - 7.5/10
It's easier than MATH1011(surprisingly as the last time you touch stats in NSW schooling is like Yr 8), you start off with easy mean/medium/mode stuff, the assignment you can easily get close to full/full marks and the first quiz is very, very easy (basic probability and stuff). Second quiz is harder due to timecrunch and just having to use R a bit which you don't use in the final exam. Final exam is similar deal to MATH1011, timing as the MC can munch up time because you'll be referring to the four statistic tables a lot (Standard, Binom, t-test, Chi)

Lecturer -
I don't feel it is fair to do this as a combined one, I mainly did 8AM due to my experience in 11AM.
Jen Chan-1/10 She can't explain a thing and you will be struggling to hear her as she speaks so softly, fast and unclear.
Shelton Peiris-8/10 He's nice, explains things well and makes stat the most absorbable that is possible at 8AM when you may still be half asleep. Gives revision tips, wishes you luck, a nice touch.

Interest - 6/10
Again, it's just a first years fundies maths course. It's introductory, there's a formula sheet et al. Higher on interest because it was something different for me because I hadn't done stats for ages, and you got to play with R for the quizzes. I liked the regression modelling part and elements of hypothesis testing. Also, I did better in it, so it will always have that slight preference for me

Overall - 6/10
Again, go do harder maths if you have the backing for it. Also, the MATH1005 (normal stats in second sem) looks very similar to this course, they only go slightly more in depth, it may have slightly more favourable, not sure. If you just want the maths cp furfilled, it's good to do this.

CHEM1901 – Chemistry 1A (Advanced)

Ease – 0.5/10
I fulfilled the requirements to do it, hence them suggesting me to enrol in it (*cough* Chris Ling at enrolment day). However, if your furfill the requirements but are at the lower bracket of the chem mark requirement, I'd advice to do normal no matter if they try and con you like they did me, oh and also, if you haven't done physics, they will gloss over stuff because they expect you to know it. Also reconsider it if you are doing SSP/Adv in a couple of other units. I'd recommend CHEM1901 to people that did very well in HSC Chem (i.e HSC mark 90+, ATAR 95+), but also an interest in maybe pursuing chem as a major, or at least some intermediate units in it.

The quizzes are okay, assignment is very easy (cause it's common) but the final exam is very, very hard and almost exclusively calculations.

Lecturer –
Okay Tim Schmidt was a really good lecturer, funny and made you understand things-I was devo when we didn't have him anymore (8.5/10). Chris Ling urgh, (3/10) boring, droned on, skipped so much stuff, or didn't explain things well.

Interest – 4/10
Chem labs are boring, very boring for first year, like a cattle call of every chem unit bar the SSP people (i.e Fundies, Pharmacy, Vet Science are all in there). You should get full marks in them though. They don't relate to the lecture materials at all and feel like a waste of time.

I liked the start of semester subject content on the quantum numbers and shells. I liked the equilibrium calculations. Thermochemistry was errrrr....but I'm more of an organic chem person and it was inorganic central.


Overall – 4/10
Well, I don't quite obsessively love Nate as much as dear someth1ng, but he was a cool chem tutor. Like the course has an interesting elements, I just found it hard personally, but I've never been amazing at chem (it was my 'extra' units in yr 12 that didn't count). Just my 2c.

BIOL1911-Concepts in Biology (Advanced)

Ease – 8/10
If you did well in HSC Biology, this course should be quite straightforward and a nice extension into topics. The three main areas covered are Biomolecules, Genetics and Evolution. The prac concepts are well enforced and explained, concepts are explained well in lectures.

Lecturer – 8/10 (overall)
Danny Liu (10/10)-Danny is amazing and you are so lucky if you ever have a lecture with him or he's in your labs. The most dedicated USYD professor I've met thus far, literally responds to an email in a minute flat.

Ben Oldroyd(8.5/10)-This guy knows his genetics well, his lectures are very engaging and he was sometimes around the SSP labs so I got to chat to him for a bit. I hear his personality is either love or hate though, so be warned, people are very polarised on this front.

Murray Thompson (7/10)-Very enthusiastic, walks around the lecture hall a lot, loves stereogenesis. Sometimes gets too excited and rushes explanations, plus not much in the way of lecture notes, but still good.

Min Chen (3/10)-Oh Min Chen, she knows a lot about photosynthesis but finds it hard to get this excitement across to the students or explain things to student, it's like if PSII is not functioning with light excitement in a chloroplast.

Madeleine Beekman (9/10)-Madeleine is great, funny, knows a lot about population genetics, so passionate about animals. Incorporated the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Simpsons into her slides so props for that.

Nate Lo (8/10)-You don't have many lectures with Nate, but explains mtDNA and electrogelphoresis well, knew him more through the SSP labs.

Interest – 9/10
I adored this class and it was my fave subject this semester because I had a lovely lab bench crew, labs were really great and our lab demo was amazing. Also the content of lectures interested me a lot, and as keen as I was for the genetics part, I actually really loved the evolution/population genetics part of the course.

Overall – 9/10
If you have the credentials definitely do 1911, or alternatively the SSP in this course 1991 (you can only do SSP in one bio as your prac classes are combined).

BIOL1903-Human Biology Special Studies

Ease – 8/10
Again if you did HSC Bio well, you'll be like 'oh yeah, I've touched on the basics of this before and it's just extending it'. The only reason the ease is lower is that the SSP labs take a bit more reading and understanding and involvement than the normal human bio labs. You'll need to understand your stuff to write a good report and do a good group presentation for the prac class.

Oh and just a note, this was the first year they ran SSP in Bio. From what I observed, if you are doing both bios in first sem like I did, the SSP prac course would probably link better doing 1991. See doing Human Bio, it's completely separate from the lecture material, you don't reinforce the lecture stuff with pracs or workshops and we don't have to do HB Online, but then you need to know the lecture stuff really well for the exam. So yeah, something to consider lol. They may take our suggestions on board for the next running of this course. Still I assume the scaling accounted for this because this ended up being my best subject in the end, but just my opinion that I'd probs recommend doing the prac course through 1991.

Lecturer – 7/10
Oh there were so many for this course, you only had them for 2-3 lectures each. Just refer to above for an idea, and I just wasn't a fan of Osu Lilje's lecture style.

Interest – 9/10
Some parts of lecture series mundane, but the prac course was exceptional and I loved it.

Overall – 8.5/10
Getting to do the report on our mtDNA was very open ended and seeing as we hadn't really done prac reports before, a little daunting but very rewarding in the end.

Group work was good in this class, because like...my cohort was like the comb med kids plus other amazing bio students, state rankers and the like. Our group research was very like, use what we taught you in the first few weeks to design and delegate yourselves. It was on wildlife forensics and we got an unknown sample that we had to identify ourselves and look at quarantine and other implications

I'd highly recommend Bio SSP to anyone that got the 90+ in HSC bio or the 99+ ATAR Very rewarding and a great cohort.

 

[TheGreatest99.95]

ECON1001
Ease: 6/10 this subject is easy until about the mid sem, then things go crazy. Its too theoretical and not practical enough for my liking. If more effort were to be put in, no doubt you can go well but its not a subject you can just skip the lectures and is realllly dry
Lecturer: 1/10 Whelan is terrible, fullstop. A wanker and is more than happy to see kids fail. He left stuff out of the lecture slides on purpose and also wrote wrong info on the slides to prove a point to those who didnt show to his lectures. Also the tut teachers are terrible as well; maybe I just lucked out but they didnt do anything and didnt get the class involved
Interest: 2/10 Boring, partly due to whelan being a terrible lecturer
Overall: 5/10 unfortunately its compulsory for a major in economics otherwise avoid at all costs

ECON1002
Ease: 7/10 A lot easier than econ1001. Just do the work and youll be fine.
Lecturer: 7/10 Stella was a no BS lecturer. Got stuff done and did it in a reasonable fashion. My tut deserves a 0/10. Absolute shit, barely showed up with all the equipment he needed and was extremely awkward
Interest: 8/10 very interesting to learn about what you see on the headlines like unemployment, inflation etc and their effects on the economy.
Overall: 7.5/10 Just do the work and youll do fine.

ECMT1010
Ease: 7/10 things start off really really easy then after the mid sem its accelerates really fast. I skipped most lectures after mid sem and still did well. wish i kept up with the work and I could have done much better
Lecturer: 5/10 Simon Kwok is alright, very boring but cope-able
Interest: 3/10 very random and not very interesting unless youre into stats about businesses. Would have been better learning how to apply these stats to improve the business and not just calculating them
Overall: 6/10 once again, do the work and youll do fine.

CLAW1001
Ease: 7/10 pretty easy, just show up and listen. Get notes off the net for the sub and update them as you go. I stupidly did this at the end and not at the start; it would have changed my marks drastically
Lecturer: 10/10 Brilliant! Giuseppe is a god. Best lecturer there is, makes it enjoyable and fun. I could write all day about how good he is but just take my word that you wont be disappointed if you choose this sub
Interest: 8/10 very interesting, you learn a lot of helpful skills and learn youre legal rights etc. You also go over some pretty crazy cases and decisions
Overall: 9/10 would highly recommend!

 

[ACKAA]

ECON1001
Ease: 5/10 I found this subject to be quite tough, especially after the mid sem. It wasn't really helped by the fact that I didn't do maths in high school and that the material is covered really fast. Out of all my subjects I spent the most time on this subject, which paid off as I got an 84. I kinda think that they scaled very generously though coz I thought I did terribly in the final.
Lecturer: 0/10 TheGreatest99.95 summed it up pretty well: "Whelan is terrible, fullstop". He really is a terrible lecturer who doesn't seem to give a shit about his students. The number of times he said to ask questions was pointless, as everytime you did ask a question he snubbed you right off. However, my tutor was fantastic and definitely deserves a 10/10. Without him I definitely would have failed this subject (no joke!).
Interest: 2/10 Terribly boring, and something I wouldn't recommend unless you wanted to major in economics (only cause you have to!).
Overall: 3/10 Shit, due to a combination of the coursework and the lecturer

ASNS1601
Ease: 9/10 I really enjoyed this unit It was a great intro into the history of different Asian civilisations and their ways of life. Was able to get a distinction in this unit without much work. This was mainly due to the easy nature of the course structure, where they provided weekly study questions that related to the week 5 quiz and final exam. Would've given it a 10/10 for ease, if it weren't for Adrian Vickers who made it so hard to study for the South East Asia component of the unit.
Lecturer: Have to break this up as their were four separate lecturers:
- Eileen Walsh: 5/10 Eileen covered the China component of the unit and really wasn't to bad. She got through the coursework, but wasn't really engaging and so I stayed home and just listened to her lecture recordings (saved me 2 hrs of boring lectures)
- Matthew Stavros: 9.5/10 Matthew Stavros is a brilliant lecturer! He is engaging, funny and extremely intelligent. Easily the best lecturer I had all semester. Would've given him a 10, but I found some of the stuff he discussed was, at times, a little off track (still fascinating stuff though!)
- Mary Nasr: 7.5/10 Now this is an interesting one. Mary covered the Korea part and during the semester I thought she went way too fast and I really wasn't able to keep up with a lot of the stuff she was saying. However, when it came to the final exam it benefited me greatly as she had discussed so much that I was able to listen to the recordings take some notes, and breeze the final exam
- Adrian Vickers: 0.5/10 Terrible lecturer! Not a dick like Whelan, but was simply a shockingly bad lecturer. He never discussed anything to do with the study questions and spoke utter rubbish when he went off track. Attended the first hour of his first lecture and simply decided after that that I would wing the South East Asia part of the course.
Interest: 9.5/10 Very interesting subject that I would definitely recommend
Overall: 8.5/10 Great unit. Could've been better with some better lecturers, but all in all an enjoyable subject and I will be definitely continuing on with ASNS1602

 

[asianese]

^ Just goes to show how much of a non-arts student I am lols.

(If you don't mind me asking - how'd you go for ASNS1601? PM if you wish, or not at all )

 

[ACKAA]

^

(If you don't mind me asking - how'd you go for ASNS1601? )

Hey mate I ended up with an 81. Wbu?

 

[asianese]

Oh nice congrats!

I got 73 lol...I was hoping for some miracle 75+ but it wasn't gonna happen. I'm just not an essay person and its quite clear lol. I'm actually ridding ASNS1601 from my transcript (via credit transfer) lollll...

 

[madharris]

I don't know if anyone will read these but... I'm bored

HSBH1003 – Health, Behaviour and Society

Ease - 8/10
Doing the bare minimum for this course will most likely get you a credit, it's pretty easy. If you turn up to the tutorials and at least watch the lecture online, then you'll definitely be fine. It's a health sociology and health psychology unit, so at times the content was very broad.
The assignments were written really well, and basically allowed you to research anything you wanted in the specific area given. However, the exam on the other hand was pretty difficult, and required a bit of memorisation which I did not realise.
- I do not recommend buying the textbook (psychology in life), it's a waste of money - borrow if from the library if you want it.

Lecturer - 5/10
The lecturers and tutors taught in a way that made the subject extremely boring. However they were always willing to help when you had trouble and gave some really helpful advice when you needed it.

Interest - 7/10
The content itself was pretty interesting, although a lot of it was common knowledge

Overall - 7/10
Overall, it's a pretty good unit with interesting content and average lecturers. I can see how this relates to all the health courses that do this subject.


BIOS1170 - Body Systems: Structure and Function

Ease – 5/10
The content itself was pretty difficult, it takes quite a bit of effort to get yourself around some of the content. However once you have understood what the content is about, it gets a bit easier from there. If you have done a science (bio, chem or physics) then it will definitely help you in this subject, however it's still no walk in the park. The exam is purely multiple choice however, they are written in a way to trick you, meaning the answer is never straight forward. The labs were pretty exciting at the start of the semester, however this excitement wore off and became very boring which made the content difficult to study.

Lecturer – 8/10
All of the lecturers were quite good, they catered mainly for visual learners as they had lots of diagrams. I found that even though I had made notes, watching the lecturer slides were the best way for me to study and learn the content. They are always willing to help (I spent 4 hours with a lecturer who went over the whole subject for me because I asked for help about 2 weeks before the final exam)

Interest – 7/10
The content was interesting, we learnt about the individual systems in the human body and how various diseases can effect them.
There's some basic things that you have to go over so everyone is on the same playing field such as acids and bases in the body and stuff, but enjoyed the things that we were taught

Overall – 8/10
This subject took up most of my time in semester 1, but the results definitely reflect the work that you put in.


BIOS1168 - Functional Musculoskeletal Anatomy A

Ease - 2/10
LOL! There's so much content in this subject it's not funny. You definitely need to frequently revise or else you will definitely fail. The midsems weren't too bad, I did pretty well in them. The final ID exam was pretty good as well, although a lot of people thought it was really difficult.
However, for the theory exam I thought I was prepared, I actually felt confident... nek minit "WTF IS THIS SHIT!" - it was the hardest thing of my life
The theory exam was extremely difficult, people literally came out of the exam crying...

Lecturer - 9/10
Jan (my prac demonstrator) was amazing! She was the reason why my ID exams were easy for me. She definitely knows her anatomy and teaches you all the little tricks to learn the content. However I heard that a few of my friend's pracs didn't go as well as mine.
The lecturers were also very good and helpful however at times they would go a bit too fast and you would end up getting lost.

Interest - 9/10
Despite the subject being really difficult, I loved the content! The unit has been structured to suit all disciplines in the health faculty.

Overal - 6/10
My recommendation is just to study... a lot!

 

[asianese]

MATH1903 - Integral Calculus and Modelling (Adv)

Ease: 8/10 - most content is from high school - integration and applications of it. Modelling is done in some detail but examples are quite simple. Methods are straightforward. A relatively easy course.

Lecturer: 9/10 - Dave Easdown and Daniel Daners are one of the greats. Can't really fault them. -1 point for 8AM starts..

Interest: 6/10 - quite bland at times since most content done at school.

Overall: 8.5/10. Good first year course.

MATH1905 - Statistics (Adv)

Ease: 7/10 - the course is easy once you get statistical inference properly. More than 2/3s of the course is devoted to this - probability and data account for much less of it. Do all the tutorials and you should be set.

Lecturer: 1/10 and 9.5/10 - Shelton Peiris is a deceptive lecturer. He seems like he is making sense, yet he is just repeating words over without any context or motivation. His notes are badly structured (LaTeX doesn't make the notes good - good notes make the notes good) and are largely unmotivated. Garth Tarr is a young lecturer, finishing his PhD this year. He is motivated and knows how to lay out content and concepts properly. His notes are structured and provide for good revision tools. His lecture style is relevant and relatable. VERY good contrast to Shelton. We should have had him for 13 whole weeks.

Interest: up to 8.5/10. Discrete valued function f(X) = X^10, 0<X<1. When Garth came along things picked up and I was motivated to take 2nd year stats.

Overall: 6.5/10. First half was terrible. 2nd half better.

MATH1004 - Discrete Mathematics

Ease: 9/10 - An easy course for those who took MX1 and or MX2. Some of the concepts are tricky at first except once they have been drilled things get easy.

Lecturer: 7/10 - Oded Yacobi is an enthusiastic lecturer from Canada. I found his style a bit predictable but he was good at explaining counting problems.

Interest: 5/10 - Boring, for me. I don't like discrete mathematics ... Prefer my dose of continuity.

Overall: 6.5/10

PHYS1902 - Physics 1B (Adv)

Ease: 4/10 - A very difficult course. Most concepts in the 2 topics (Electromagnetism and Quantum Physics) were done at high school, but in a lot more depth and a lot more mathematical. Integrals, probability distributions, uncertainties were the least of the story - most of the problems are DIFFICULT.

Lecturer: 7/10 - Geraint Lewis - Welshman who has a good way of explaining things. (Electro) 8/10 - Helen Johnston - Motivated lecturer - very good. (Fluids) 5.5/10 - Mike Wheatland - He mostly talked to himself about quantum physics. Concepts are difficult but it was just a bad experience. Aided sleep.

Interest: 5/10 - Concepts were beat to death - ESP in EM which was 3/5 the course. I was sick of it after the first few weeks. Some cool things in fluids and quantum but that was it.

Overall: 3.5/10

 

[Amleops]

MATH1003 - Integral Calculus and Modelling

Ease: 6.5/10

This course was aimed at students with an Extension 1 background, however, I would encourage those with just the 2 Unit knowledge to do this course as well, as it is quite manageable if you are motivated enough. While not a hard course, there lies the potential in the course content for some curve balls. Especially for the final exam, it seems like they picked the hardest type of question for most of the topics (of course this may not be the case for other years). On the whole though the mathematical methods required were easy enough to understand, and if you studied consistently throughout the year, you will be fine.

Lecturer/Tutor: Bob Crossman (0/10), Zhou Zhang (9/10), Andrew Papanicolaou (?/10) / John Nakhoul (5/10)

Avoid Bob Crossman like the plague. My timetable put me into his lecture stream, and after that very first lecture I had already seen enough. He spent most of his time telling off people for talking or having their phones on, and his teaching style was very unenthusiastic and quite often tangential to the actual content. Thank God there was another stream on at that exact same time, otherwise it would have been a painful few months.

Zhou Zhang was one of the better lecturers I have had this semester. He sets out his notes in an easy to follow manner and explained them quite well, plus he was a very nice guy who was more than willing to answer any questions you had after lectures. He has a little bit of an accent which at times was a little difficult to understand, but it wasn't too much of an issue most of the time. I would definitely recommend him as a lecturer for this subject if you can help it. There was one more lecturer for this course, Andrew Papanicolaou, who I'm not familiar with, however his lecture notes do seem quite good in terms of teaching the content.

John Nakhoul was an OK tutor, however the tutorials mainly consisted of working through one question together on the board, after which you completed the rest individually. So while Nakhoul was obviously quite knowledgeable of the content and was willing to help if you asked, I really think the way he structured his class made his role relatively redundant, especially when worked solutions to the tutorial questions were made readily available. Of course, as this was the first junior maths unit I have done, I do not know whether this happens regardless of the tutor, but in any case, Nakhoul didn't really aid my learning as much as Zhang or the textbook.

Interest: (9/10)

Obviously there will be differing opinions on this matter, but at least for me, I found the subject matter to be quite interesting and engaging; especially with the modelling section of the course. I guess with mathematics you either love it or you hate it, and this subject is no different. Nevertheless the mathematics that you learn in this unit is crucial for many second year units both inside and outside the Department of Mathematics, and I think the universality of the content in this unit just makes it all the more interesting for me.

Overall: (7.5/10)

It was a good, relevant course that was quite pleasurable to study. Just remember to study consistently, and not to let Crossman ruin it for you.



MATH1005 - Statistics

Ease: (8/10)

The first section of this course starts off with really basic mean/median/mode type stuff, but obviously, it gets tougher as you go along. Probability may cause some problems if you are not prepared, and for statistical inference sometimes the choice of hypothesis test can be quite subtle. However, if you remember the theory, doing all of the questions shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Lecturer: Di Warren (9/10), Emi Tanaka/Nicola Armstrong (?/10) / Gemma Moran (8/10)

Di Warren was a great lecturer; very enthusiastic, explained everything very well, and had nicely set out lecture notes. Problem is, her notes are too good and detailed that a lot of the time you can afford to skip lectures. Still, it's worth going to the lecture just for that extra bit of clarification. I'm not too familiar with the other two lecturers, Emi Tanaka and Nicola Armstrong, however their lecture slides both seem quite well organised also.

Gemma Moran was a great tutor; she made key summaries of all the concepts on the board before each lesson, which made it quite easy to answer all the questions and understand the content at a much deeper level. In fact you could probably get away with skipping all lectures and relying on her summaries as your main source of reference (of course I definitely wouldn't recommend that you do this ). Only criticism of her is that her tutorials were clearly aimed towards the needs of the average student, which although not a bad thing (in fact this probably benefits much more people), it did mean that she worked through the questions at a somewhat slow pace. Still it's easy enough to work through the questions at your own leisure, and she is more than happy to help you out if you have questions.

Interest: (8/10)

I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed statistics, so much so I might actually consider it as a major. Everything you learned had an obvious practical use, and it was very interesting to see how certain hypothesis tests or data analysis skills could be applied to real life situations. Some may argue the great simplicity of the content at the beginning of the course may get a little tedious, but in my opinion this course was quite fun throughout.

Overall: (8/10)

Quite a solid introduction to statistics which was informative and also quite manageable to learn.



PHIL1012 - Introductory Logic

Ease: (9/10)

This subject seems to attract quite a few students from outside the Arts faculty; it's lack of essays and usefulness in areas such as mathematics probably being the cause of this. The content builds on week after week, so if you keep on top of it, you will find this subject to be quite easy. 50% of your mark comes from 10 weekly problem sets which are short and quite straightforward to do, at the end of the last set I ended up only dropping about 2 or 3 marks out of 50. The other 50% comes from the exam which, while it does have some tricky bits, is certainly doable. If you are more of a humanities person you might find this subject a little difficult, because even though there isn't any maths involved, logic is very different from most other arts subjects and would appeal to a more formulaic mathematical brain. However this subject is certainly within the reach of anyone, regardless of their degree or faculty.

Lecturer/Tutor: Nicholas Smith (6/10) / John Cusbert (8/10)

In addition to being the lecturer, Nicholas Smith also wrote the textbook for this course. The textbook is excellent, and as you would soon find out, Smith comes across much better on paper than he does in person. Smith's voice was a bit dull, however, he taught the content adequately, and his train of thought was easy to follow. You can get by with only reading the relevant chapters in the textbook, however, his lectures are still worth going to for purposes of consolidating the content.

John Cusbert was a great tutor, he summarised the course content well in his tutorials and was able to clear up a lot of ambiguities. The tutorial classes themselves were relatively small which I thought was a good learning atmosphere.

Interest: (10/10)

While the content does come across as a bit abstract and at times a bit useless, I actually found this subject to be extremely interesting with the way everything worked, and particularly how you can prove the validity of arguments. It's such a shame that there probably isn't a wide range of use for this outside academia, otherwise I would definitely have continued on to further study . Nevertheless, this was a very interesting subject, and it is a really satisfying feeling when you complete a particularly long truth tree.

Overall: (9/10)

Would definitely recommend this subject to anyone looking to boost their GPA, or just for fun. And while I know this subject is not for everyone (I would imagine that someth1ng's review will probably be a bit more negative than mine ), I really think there's no harm in giving it a try.



PHYS1500 - Astronomy

Ease: (8/10)

Most of the content is basic rote learning type stuff, however, there is quite a substantial amount of content. If you are not on top of all the content you need to learn, you will struggle come the final exam. Fortunately, the other assessments are much easier than that final exam; online quizzes can be completed at any time and you can refer to the textbook, laboratory exercises are straight forward enough, and tutorials are easy to follow. The final exam itself can have a few obscure questions (fortunately for me that wasn't the case this year), however I would highly recommend that you do the past papers that they provide you, as they do tend to reuse a few multiple choice questions, or ask extended response questions of a similar vein to those of the years before. But on the whole, it was quite an easy subject; there is a little bit of maths but it doesn't require much of a science background at all, so I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Lecturer/Tutor: John O'Byrne (7/10), Elaine Sadler (7/10) / Andrew Jacob (8.5/10)

The lectures for this course took the form of two normal lectures per week, taught by either John O'Byrne or Elaine Sadler in the second, and one extra Special Lecture every week on more specific content, with a different lecturer each week who was an expert on that particular field. Both O'Byrne and Sadler were good lecturers, not extraordinary or anything, but they both taught the content well and made an effort to engage with the students. There weren't any particularly bad lecturers from the Special Lectures either.

The tutorials for this subject were discussion based activities based on the content we learn in class, and Andrew Jacob did a great job in directing the discussion, and also teaching us all of the content. He was also the director of the Night Viewing sessions, which ran smoothly and were quite fun. He was supported in the tutorials and lab sessions by various PhD students, too many to really remember or name, however I would like to give an honourable mention to Joseph Callingham and Ben Jelliffe for being very helpful in tutorials and computer sessions, and for evidently being the two best ones as I remember who you are .

Interest: (8/10)

As a child I was always interested in space, and this subject really gave me the opportunity to learn about it in an academic manner that I found really enjoyable. While you probably won't enjoy every single topic you learn, I can still personally vouch that on the whole it is a very interesting subject. I mean, it's astronomy. It tells us the story of the universe and how we came to be. I can't see how that wouldn't spark anybody's interest.

Overall: (8/10)

I found this to be a truly stimulating subject, and as long as you don't fall behind on the content this subject should be relatively straight forward. Make no mistake though, you will have to put some effort to learn the content in order to do well, so I would only recommend PHYS1500 if you have a true interest in astronomy. Otherwise, you may find dedicating 6 hours a week to this subject quite tedious.

 

[someth1ng]

I would imagine that someth1ng's review will probably be a bit more negative than mine

It will be coming very soon

It's not THAT bad, though.

 

[flashyGoldFish]

MATH1003 - Integral Calculus and Modelling

Ease (7/10)
Amleops description is pretty solid.

Lecturers/Tutors: Zhou Zhang (7/10) Not sure Tutors name- he was an external tutor (8/10)
As stated his accent can be hard to understand but he sets out his notes pretty well and tries to be thorough. Theres a couple things he rushed through but I think that was more through losing lecture time rather than a fault of his own. Tutor was pretty good. One of the best tutors ive had. Always doing questions on the board and willing to help

Interest (7/10)
Decent mathematical subject that seems to lay foundations for any more important maths you need in your degree.

Overall (7/10)
Based on most of my ratings being that

Ease (6.5/10)
Beginning is pretty simple and a lot of HSC probability. Picks up a lot with the statistical inferences and different tests.

Lecturers/Tutors Di Warren (7/10) Emi Tanaka (2/10) Kawai (0.5/10)
Warren is pretty enthusiastic and a fairly decent lecturer. Some things were explained very well others were left a bit lacking. Did go on the odd tangent when using an example.
Emi Tanaka filled in for a week and it was a challenge to stay awake. Notes were decent but delivery of lecturers was horrible and did not learn anything that week.
My tutor was Kawai (cant remember first name). While the rating is harsh because there was definitely bit of a language barrier, if you asked him a question he would make you more confused. Would rub off the notes left on the board from the tutor before but in the semester he maybe went through 2 questions and would normally just stand around and magically disappear when you wanted to ask a question (although i learnt quickly to not do that)

Interest (8.5/10)
Found this subject a lot more interesting than expected. Its also a very applicable subject.

Overall (7.5/10)
Would have been nicer with a better tutor but otherwise a nice subject.

MBLG1001-Molecular Biology and Genetics

Ease (5/10)
Four hour prac exam you say? Some horrific lecturers, very tough content.

Lecturers: Danny Liu (7/10) Gareth Denyer (4.5/10) Sashi Kant Vanessa Gysbergs Jenny Saleeba (all 1/10)
Lecturers will be drab monotones making it their life goal to bore you to death and make fairly interesting content painfully boring

Interest (7.5/10)
Subject itself is pretty interesting. How its run though is not

Overall (6/10)
Horrible lecturers destroying interesting content

CHEM1102- Chemistry 1B

Ease: (6.5/10)
Challenging but interesting. Mechanisms are horrible though

Lecturers: Matt Todd (4/10) Anthony Masters (6.5/10)
Todd has notes which are decent if he didnt leave so many spaces to 'fill in during the lecture.' Problem being hed very rarely use his lecture notes and just lecture from his head on what he thinks the lecture covers. Then a week or two later he will be like 'oh yeah i forgot someone on this lecture a few weeks ago' so it was a bit disjointed.
Masters is exceptionally enthusiastic and loves his job. Was a bit dry especially with the acid base stuff and chucked in a few too many Sydney Swans references in his lectures.

Overall (7/10)

 

[LoveHateSchool]

MATH1013-Mathematical Modelling

Ease - 3/10
This is framed from someone with a 2 unit background. Yes, I'm one of those people just doing maths because it's compulsory for my degree. The quizzes and the online homework are relatively easy, but the final written Q in our exam was absolutely brutal and beyond what we'd looked at in Qs. And the saddest part was that it wasn't a 'Prove the model is this' so then you couldn't just pick up the result for the later parts

So in short, do well in the quizzes and do your online h/w because the written part of the exam can be quite tricky under time! (if you aren't maths inclined/good like me)

Lecturer - 8/10
Mary Myerscough-is an encouraging sweetheart. She's like a kindly old HS teacher feel. Shows some interesting model examples from her psych papers.
Andrew Crisp-Gives a maths lecture the best theatric projection you could hope for. He's probs my fave lecturer though, and you'll hear more about him below.

Interest - 5/10
Well some parts of it are interesting (with the iterations), but I really couldn't care about a peak oil example. Logistic function and epidemic models are interesting if you are bio inclined. So I'd say you're likely to find different parts appealing-I was much better at the second half of the course with the first and second order DEs, and APs/GPs etc. than the first half.

Overall - 5/10
Well if you didn't like MATH1011, you'll hate this more (general consensus). Likely you're taking this to fulfil your 12CP of maths required, but it's not a bad course. The being able to solve a pair of first/second order differential/difference eqns is fine if you are competent at basic algebra.

MATH1014 – Intro to Linear Algebra

Ease - 8/10
Oh doth hail my favourite fundies maths unit. Even though you'll have never done linear algebra in HS (2 unit background)-this is the most intuitive to me and made immediate sense. Then it's just some practice. First quiz super easy, second quite easy, and assignment just a little bit of mulling but very achievable. Final exam is fair, MC section not too taxing and the written section is ok.

Lecturer -
Brad Matthews: Monotone voice but good at explaining and goes through lots of examples. Nothing more or less than what you expect.
Andrew Crisp: Well yeah, went to a few of his lectures when I couldn't make the other lectures and he's great. Also total props if you can get him as a tutor, he's really great at explaining things after the lecture or the tute, or where things are applied. He will actually answer a Q that's beyond the confines of the course for your interest. (Opposed to some tutors being like 'Go away fundies student, you are below me maths scum' attitude and not being able to explain something)

Interest - 8/10
Well it was my favourite fundies maffs course <3 I'm probably just a weird sort that finds EROs soothing like how I find micro-pipetting really peaceful. I liked the working in different Z planes, the error code checking and the Gauss-Jordan elimination problems. It all just made a lot of sense to me, which as a normal maths blonde was nice haha.

Overall - 8/10
To surmise, I found this the easiest fundies maths unit, followed by MATH1015, MATH1011 and then MATH1013.

BIOL1902-Living Systems (Advanced)

Ease – 5.5/10
It's not so much hard, but the outcomes of what you have to learn can be vague at times as well as the organisation. Especially when there was no practice quiz for plants.

The final exam was fine though, the written part much easier than the MC imho. The quizzes in sem were actually harder due to a very high degree of specificity though.
Just as a comparison, most found it a decent degree more difficult than Concepts in Bio.

Lecturer–7/10
Overall, you have a couple and they are all relatively good.

Interest – 4/10
It was probably just an interest thing for me (out of the three major sections of animals, plants and ecology)-I only liked the ecology section, the animals one was fine but the quiz on it was recalling obscure nomenclature essentially. I hate plants, and just as an fyi, it is actually a third of the course (they pass it off in first sem as having a little plants) and if you do Adv, the major self designed prac report will lend itself to be on plants again due to it being on disturbance or pollination. Plants also crop up a little in ecology.

The labs can be boring sometimes, especially when they keep you stuck there for a discussion when the actual lab only takes 2 hrs. The animal dissection lab is good though and the ecology lab on the deep sea assemblages. Not a fan of the plant anatomy labs, unless you like cutting flowers up.

Part of doing Adv is the field trip to Crommelin Field Station which everyone loved- regrettably I could not go which is a shame because it was probably the nicest part of the course

Overall – 6/10
I liked ecology-the rest ehhh. I was expecting to like it as much as Concepts and it was just fell a little flat in expectation.

MBLG1901-Molecular Biology and Genetics(Advanced)

Ease – 2/10
No ease, the way the prac book is set up has to be one of the greatest hindrances of ease because going through it to actually find the 'In your lab notebook' things is very annoying. Ideally you'd do it after taking an organic chem course too(instead of concurrently like most people), that would make a lot more sense. Calculations are hard imho, because you are expected to convert very well. Conceptually, it's not terrible difficult, it's just tedious with things due everything fortnightly in labs. The final exam is quite a drainer imho though, a long MC section for theory, and then theory of prac as well as written theory Qs. There's also negative marking that will make you a little paranoid. Also, the prac exam is long and tedious with the calculations work, but the Excel and Spectro section are straightforward. I found the theory assignments fine however, as well as all the little lab reports

The greatest resource is the Piazza though, that thing was great to look up student/prof responses when I didn't get something. Danny is a legend for answering so many questions on that. So pro tip: Make your practical class not one of the first few of the week, as a 2nd week prac class I could often look up any concern Qs well in advance of my class.

Lecturer – 6/10 (overall)
Okay Sashi is a terrible explainer and rushes through things. Had to go over the protein stuff extensively by myself to get it. Danny is a legend, his tetris animation will make you understand restriction enzymes for life. Also a nice interesting section explaining applications, as well as getting the class to participate through asking MC questions through out. Vanessa Gybers is also a great lecturer and explained things like pKa well in her tutorials. Jenny Saleeba (sp?) who talks about DNA and I am name blanking on atm is ok, albeit a bit monotone. Tony Weiss (sp?) is very knowledgable but does rush through the content a bit and is monotone.

Interest – 5/10
It's a hard course, but I did find the applications and DNA parts interesting. I'm not much of a protein biochemist though, so ehh that part not so exciting.

Overall – 5/10
Well, yes it does have tedious 4 hr fortnightly labs and is a hard subject, but getting 6cp of mblg down is needed for a lot of int/snr units.

Don't enter if you are umming or arring over doing it-don't go in half hearted. It's definitely the hardest first year bio course by a long shot.

GEOS1902-Introductory Geography (Adv)

Ease – 9/10
Very easy, no I didn't do HSC Geo.

The online quizzes (6 iirc) after your tutorials are very simple MC-worth 20% and I got almost full marks.

The group work component of GEOS1902 was good as it is an Adv course, the people you do groupwork with in are likely more intelligent than yourself, so it makes it a breeze. Everyone pitched in and did their respective part and we scored well overall. (this is the only part that differed to normal, if you do normal it's a 30% individual essay). We got to pick our own project and each of us a section of interest for it.

The final exam is 3 essays in 2 hrs (yes flashbacks to HSC english). I was a bit rusty from not having done an essay since being at uni (lol #sciencelyf) but managed to get down about 10 pages with some pretty diagrams, as the questions were quite broad, you had scope to bring in a large range of examples.

Lecturer – 9/10
Well Kurt is probably my second favourite professor of all time (after Danny). You know when a 2hr lecture feels shorter than your regular 1hr lectures, they are lecturing well.

Dale has also had a really interesting background in natural hazards and makes his lectures very interesting as well.

Dan's a bit boring at times, but he only lectures a little compared to the other two.

Interest – 8/10
The series of lectures are very interesting.
Firstly you begin with looking at 'What is Geography?' and its key concepts/perceptions have changed.
Then we had a 3 lecture series on Hurricane Katrina which was probably my fave of the course. I loved the second part looking at the social vulnerabilities of NO in particular. For the physical geographers, there was a lot on hurricane formation and migration.
Then there was a lecture on the risk of Tsunamis in Australia.
There was a two part on Haiti Earthquake that was also interesting.
There was a two part lecture series on Desertification in Darfur which I also liked a lot.
Also a lecture on Pacific Climate change and a two part lecture series on Mega Deltas.

Only points of for interest was that the 'pracs' (they are really tutorials) are a waste of time, my tutor was bleh. Boring because people would take like 50 mins to finish the readings and I'd be done in 10 mins.

Overall – 9/10
This subject was like having pina coladas on the beach and I'm so glad OzKo recommended I take it *thumbs up*

I really enjoyed it and Geography is going to be a major for me.

 

[Rythen]

OMG I KNOW YOU LOVEHATESCHOOL !!! I still haven't figured out who asianese is... I'll find out.

MATH1903 - Integral Calculus and Modelling (Adv)

Ease: 8/10
Most of the content has been done in HS (esp. if you've done 4U), but I felt that some of the final exam questions this year were tricky, so that's why I gave it a 8. It's not that bad

The quizzes were too easy.

Interest: 5/10 - It's boring when you have to relearn most of the material.

Overall: 7/10



MATH1905 - Statistics (Adv)

Ease: 9/10 - I surprisingly found this easier than MATH1903; was exposed to statistical inference in psyc.

Lecturer: 1/10 and 9.5/10 - Shelton really could have done his lectures better - why were their gaps in his notes? I want to see the working out. I understand if he wanted to do the questions (which he did...except went super fast on the hard bits, and super slow on the easy bits ). He missed a lecture and NEVER went back through it. Can't even learn it because he didn't even have a recording and there were gaps in the notes.....

Garth has his notes structured, actually revised with us with past papers. His lecture style is relatable to us (probably because he is young). Sometimes he went a bit fast with concepts, but it's stats so there's a lot of info to go through. But most importantly, he was passionate about stats - that's essential for a lecturer, or any person in their respective field.

Interest: 9/10. I actually like stats. It's extremely useful in psychology (my degree). 1st half was boring because of the lecturer than anything, but 2nd half was highly motivating and actually fun (I have no life )

Overall: 8/10.


MBLG1901-Molecular Biology and Genetics(Advanced)

Ease – 5/10
There is a RIDICULOUS amount of work for the marks that were assigned. Why was the prac exam 4 hrs??? And then we had a prac component in the final exam? There is a lot of material (although most didn't get tested in the final exam).

Interest – 8/10
Unlike many other of my friends, I liked the last lecturer's content - I really like the idea of epigenetics and genetic counselling/profiling (she had a monotone voice though). I went into MBLG thinking it would be more like this. The first 7 lectures on protein folding/biochem was boring, but I really enjoyed the central dogma content

Overall – 7/10
It's ok...but don't pick it as an 'extra' subject. It's NOT NOT NOT easy. definitely requires effort


BIOL1902-Living Systems (Advanced)

Ease – 6/10
It's easy in that it's not 'conceptual' like mathematics or psychology. It's hard because there is an amazing amount of material to be rote learnt.
The quizzes were extremely difficult in comparison to the exam.

Lecturer– 8/10
I loved the ecology lecturer and Ashley Ward for animals. I personally found the plants lecturer very drone-like - that's probably because I don't like plants...

Interest – 4/10
TOO MANY PLANTS - I DIDN' T KNOW THERE WAS THIS MUCH.
Ecology and animals was engaging.
Labs were a bit boring - though the dissection lab was fun! The field trip was fun.

Overall – 6/10
It was a lot of material to be learnt - if they'd remove plants + added more of the other two I would have been satisfied.



PSYC1002

Ease - 7/10 - Contrary to popular beliefs (and the sheer amount of people doing 1st year psychology) it's not as easy as it may seem. There is a lot of material - rivals MBLG and Living Systems. The report this year was brutal for 'artsy' students, because we ourselves had to review evidence and provide theories to explain results in a report. It was scientifically rigorous, especially since it was about learning principles.

Also since they are psychology lecturers, their 100 final mc exam was designed to mindf*ck. Trust me - if you don't know your material well enough to recall adequately they will screw you over by presenting distractors (which vary by one or two words). They also present a LOT of 'none of the above', 'all of the above' and 'A and B but not C'. You have to know your material. In chem/phys you might get partial marks for working out or showing you remember some formula but not in psyc.

Interest - 10/10. Psychology is always fun - never a boring moment Except the amount of studies you have to memorize...

Lecturers -9/10. This semester's lecturers have been good - except maybe Bruce, mainly because he was a bit too soft. Not a problem since I sat at the front.

Overall - 9.5/10 It's a good subject - you need this for any psychology major.

 

[LoveHateSchool]

Oh hello biol1902 lab buddy

Also doing human bio and MBLG with me solidarity.