Subject Reviews (with PDF compilation) (2 Viewers)

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

I know the exam for this subject is tomorrow, but given that I find exams harder than assessments there's no way the ease rating will be revised

ENGL1007 - Language, Texts and Time

Ease - 0/10 and if I could give it a negative number I would do so

This is hands-down the hardest course I have ever taken at university. It has a very, very complex textbook along with a 500-page reader brick, which lets you know from the very outset that this course is going to be not only very intensive and a lot of work, but a lot of hard work.

The assessment is broken down into two grammatical exercises (15% each), in which I failed the first one and by some miracle scraped a pass in the second one. These are ridiculously hard, and vague to boot. I spent longer writing those exercises than I usually do on major essays -- and I still only managed to either guess or Google the answers to half the questions.

There's a major essay (1,500 words; 40%) which is rather difficult because the questions were pretty esoteric, but I found one on intellectual property which meant I could somehow twist it into a political/historical essay. It's scary that the essay was the easiest part of the assessment schedule because it seriously took a lot more work than most do.

The exam (30%) is tomorrow and judging by practice exams available on WebCT, I'll be lucky to salvage five marks from it. Seriously, we're expected to know the phonetic alphabet, a million complex grammar rules, poetry techniques, Old and Middle English and a bunch of semiotics and cram that all into a 90-minute exam. I'm doomed.

To put it simply, I ended up being totally lost by the end of the first two weeks and never recovered. It remains the only subject in which I have ever failed an assessment, and as far as I know I've not spoken to anyone who's really done exceptionally well in it. Even the WebCT anonymous discussion boards are filled with people who are totally lost.

I'm doing two senior English courses this semester and even if you combine them in difficulty it doesn't touch this course. I don't know what the fuck the English department were thinking when they made this a first year course.

Lecturer - Nick Riemer, 5/10

I stopped attending lectures after a while because I got too confused, and Eastern Avenue auditorium didn't have anywhere convenient for me to plug my laptop in so I couldn't type up notes (my laptop has a very, very short battery life) anyway. Nick Riemer is a nice guy and very approachable, but he's softly spoken and doesn't explain things particularly well. He seemed to waffle for a fair bit and launched into insanely complex topics without much background or explanation.

I'd mark him down but the fact he made himself so available for consultation and on WebCT was a real bonus - you really needed the clarification sometimes!

Interest - 2/10

I thought this could be interesting (most first year English subjects are pretty awful and this looked to be the best) but I don't have much to say about it because I zoned out very early on due to the overly technical and complex nature of the subject. The fact that I ended up so lost meant that I stopped being interested very early on. In fact, I wouldn't even be able to tell you what went on in more than one or two of the tutorials because I just ended up daydreaming (or occasionally writing fic on my laptop).

Overall - 1/10

Like I said earlier, this could have been an interesting course but they just crammed too much into it. Not only did they cram a lot of material in, but it was a lot of complex material. This could easily have been two or three courses. It was just too much to learn.

I will never understand why they made this a first year course. It was much more difficult than any senior English unit I have ever done and it would have probably been better as a 3000-level unit - no, I'm not kidding, that's how difficult it was!

totally agree, although i found the lectures and tutes interesting. Actually, i think my total hatred for this subject comes from my shit-tastic ability at it rather than the actual content. I was doing fine in the first two or three weeks and then it was just like WTF is going on, help me superman, aaargh.

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

ACCT1002 - Accounting 1B
Lecturers: Various

Ease: 8/10 - most people were on close to full marks out of 40 before the final, and the final exam was not challenging at all (although there was some time pressure). Marks were also left unscaled, which was surprising. The difficulty lay in remembering the material from all weeks of the semester, as there was no midsem exam splitting the topics. Although you do need to work hard to get good results, hard, in this case, alludes to consistently each week. In ACCT1001 I was overwhelmed by all the new concepts and the plentitude of homework. Here, the homework load is greatly reduced, and you are simply adding to the skills learnt in 1A rather than learning a new way of thinking.

Lecturers: 6/10 - Rosina, although annoying, is a great lecturer. Paul Blaney was also decent and had his unique teaching style, which was welcomed. However, the other lecturers were of relatively poor caliber. Nonetheless, it was taught significantly well.

Interest: 8/10 - I can't believe I found the course 'fun'. I guess it balanced my very creative humanities-oriented units that I have done in the past. It was awesome knowing that you have a right answer. Whilst doing this sort of stuff over and over again would bore me, in the short term, I quite enjoyed this unit.

Overall: 6.5/10 - Overall, though, the unit wasn't that great. I know my above comments were quite positive, but they also didn't take into account the more boring things we had to learn (such as financial statement analysis) and the horrible lecturers we sometimes had to endure. I can certainly see the relevance to my career though (even though I'm in marketing). Management accounting (the second part) was sadly boring, but relevant for me. Financial accounting was more interesting, but not really relevant.

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

ACCT1001 - Accounting 1gAy

Ease: 8/10 - if you study consistently the whole way through and actually do the homework, you'll be fine. Midsemester was quite tough, but it wasn't too bad. Will be interested to see what my final exam mark will be.

Lecturers:
Abdul: 8/10 Good bloke, although it pisses me off that he kept lying about the average mark for the mid-semester (to get people motivated to study harder he reported it at around 15 marks higher than the true average).
Sharron O'neill: 6.5/10 Easy to understand, but the problem is that she liked finishing an hour earlier. Which isn't too bad, but a lot of the stuff was too rushed.
Rosina Mladenovic: 8/10 - as good as an accounting lecturer could be. Although she was just too happy and cheery, which pissed me off at times.

Interest: 8/10 - whoa. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I liked this subject. It was very different to all my other subjects (essay-based and subjective). It was kind of cool having a correct answer to every question. It was also good to think in a completely different manner, to what I was used to. Although, if I had to do accounting for more than 2 subjects, I'd probably die from boredom. A catch-22, if you must.

Overall: 7.5/10

this is why it's a bad idea to post up reviews before the final. I ended up getting 73 overall in 1A, even though I thought I'd get in the upper D range. Therefore, ease wasn't actually an 8/10, but a 6.5/10

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

im giving your idea a try. i've already got ease ratings in my mind for eduf and engl, but we'll see if they change when the final results are released eh?

 

[cimbom]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

ECOS3003- Hierachies, Incentives and Firm Structure
Lecturer: Dr. Andrew Wait

Ease: 9/10. Very easy. You just need to learn the theory in the textbook and the algebra in lectures. Assessment questions are easy multiple choice mostly based on textbook facts and short answer. No essays. It's all about the theory of the firm, incentive compensation, and decentralisation of decisions. You don't need to do the set readings if you follow the lectures properly because everything you need to know is covered there.

Lecturer: 8/10. Lecturer was okay, he went through all the algebra really well (not that there's alot of it).

Interest: 8/10. Pretty interesting, if you prefer microeconomics to macro. If you like interest rates and the budget, do monetary policy in semester one or international trade or something else, because there's none of that here.

Overall: 8/10. Pretty good, but if I had put more effort in it would have been better. Only two mid- semester exams in week 5 and week 10 that go for an hour, and a straight- forward exam that focuses on material mostly after week 10.


ECOS2902- Intermediate Macroeconomics Honours
Lecturer: Jeffrey Sheen

Ease: 7/10. It's quite confusing and there's alot of content put into each week, so you need to make sure not only to keep up but also relate each week's chapter to what you've previously learnt. Otherwise it's confusing and overwhelming. The honours course attempts to cover the whole book (but we only made it up to ch22) whereas the normal intermediate (ecos2002) only goes up to ch14. 3 multiple choice quizzes throughout the semester, tutorial work 'marked' (checked for completeness), and a midsem exam. Alot of marks go towards multiple choice so master it. No tutorial answers are put up at all, so you have to go by what the tutor might/might not have done in the tute.

Lecturer: 7/10. He goes through the textbook that he wrote with set slides.

Interest: 6/10. I really don't like macroeconomics, though alot of people do.

Overall: 7/10.

ECOS2901- Intermediate Microeconomics Honours
Lecturer: Kunal Sengupta

Ease: 8/10. It's not very difficult at all, both the lecturer and tutor are fantastic. A midsem and final exam worth 40% and 60% respectively. Lots of time given for both. Make sure you completely learn tutorial questions. The lecture notes can replace the text book, though I studied both.

Lecturer: 10/10. Couldn't have been better. (10/10 for tutor as well).

Interest: 10/10. So much more interesting than intermediate macroeconomics honours. It's just more straight- forward and clear.

Overall: 9/10

ECMT2120- Analysis of Discrete Choice Data
Lecturer: Hajime Katayama

Ease: 8/10. The hardest thing you need to do is learn how to derive Maximum Likelihood Estimators, but that's not even hard. The rest is interpretation and prediction. Midsem exam, tutorial solutions to hand in each second week. The program that was used is LIMDEP, though SHAZAM has been used in the past.

Lecturer: 9/10. No text book required, the lecturer goes through his excellent lecture notes each week and that's all you need to know.

Interest: 8/10. If you're interested in discrete choice data- where the dependent variable is binary, a probability, multiple choice, a positive integer i.e. not continuous without any limits. Models to suit that- like tobit, logit, probit, count data.

Overall: 8/10. Final exam was pretty good, compared to past papers. If you learn tutorial questions and what the lecturer tells you to learn for the exam, then you'll at least pass.

ECMT2620- Management Science
Lecturer: Daniel Oron

Ease: 10/10. Maybe because I was familiar with linear programming and lagrange equations, but all you need to do is identify decision variables. Then the objective function. Then constraints- for all kinds of problems, networking, transportation. And you put it in excel solver and it produces a result for you. The most tricky thing is binary variables.

Lecturer: 8/10. He went through the text book, and answered questions clearly in class. Tutor is good too.

Interest: 8/10. Very simple problems, though I imagine it would get complicated in the third- year unit. It is interesting to consider those kind of problems, not unbearable..

Overall: 9/10. Take it as I was also advised for easy ecmt.


ECMT2110- Regression Modelling
Lecturer: Diane Dancer

Ease: 9/10. Though the final exam has alot of content and you need to be totally prepared for that. Make sure you never forget how to derive the ordinary least squares estimator. There is also an assignment towards the end of the semester, though Diane Dancer has retired and is no longer taking the course- so I don't know how it will change in the future.

Lecturer: 7/10

Interest: 8/10. Good overall knowledge of linear regression analysis. The text book by Gujarati is dense, and you end up reading half of it. But it is interesting.

Overall: 8/10. You have to take it to complete your econometrics major, or if you intend on doing honours in economics.

 

[stazi]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

has anyone taken any gender/womens' studies courses?

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

No, you bitch.

EDUF1019 - Human Development & Education
Lecturer: Stephen Juan


Ease: 11/10. Half of the essay criteria was made up fo technical stuff (periods, sentence structure), the speech criteria was insanely easy, the exam was essentially spelled out for us in the last lecture and anyone with a computer experience can pass the compulsory computer skills exam. Nothing too taxing, and interesting to boot imo, which makes it easier. There's not too much difficulty to be had in understanding three or so human development theories, which is what the majority of the course was based off, so as long as you do the reading then you'll be fine. Dear Stazi: I was scaled down for this course. I was averaging well into the HD range and was scaled to a high distinction. Doesn't affect the ease of the course, which next to other uni courses, was baby food. Actually, a word here about something else. The fact that this course (among other art/ed subjects) is worth the same as a chemistry or biology angers me a bit. By comparison, I would have spent about five times as long doing chem/bio work than I did doing ed work. That's including class hours though. But seriously, the workload for science subjects >>>> the workload for arts subjects. They shouldn't be worth anywhere near the same. It's dumb. </rant>

Lecturer: 9/10. Ahhh Dr. Stephie. I found what he said to be interesting. I found the way he said it to be fun and engaging. He's one of those public speaker people who goes around giving speeches and frequently appears on TV, he has his own books, so he's got experience on how to talk and he uses it well. Does he have the tendency to ramble? Yeah, he does, but most of his ramblings are on the subject. And in any case, they liven up the lectures quite a bit. imo, none of the stuff was really in need of too much attention in lectures. However, if you think that lectures need to remain on subject (that's what you're paying for) and if you don't like his ramblings on human development and whatever, then i can understand. Malfoy's criticism of the mans lecturing style was understandable. I, however, loved his style, loved what he had to say and loved his style. He couldn't maintain control, which is what brings him down to 9/10. Oh, and he emailed out totally comprehensive and well written lecture notes. So kudos for that.

Interest: 9/10. The only part I didn't find interesting was the crap on birth statistics and such. That only took up one lecture though. You'll cover all human development theories and the development of a human in general, so it's pretty interesting. What would have been more interesting, is if they cut out some of the early childhood stuff and talked more about adult behaviour, but that wasn't within the confines of the course so I can't really fault Juan for not putting it in there. Tutorial discussions rocked too. Margarita is a totally awesomtastic tutor, and if you get her you're lucky to have her. She stops presentations frequently so we can talk about the topic, which is actually very beneficial for teachers-in-training. When she stops it, if you're able to get a class discussion going then she'll pretty much butt right out of it. This is fantastic in this course, because the tutorial discussions that arise from the topics (we had a great talk about genetic engineering in a speech about teenagers, I believe) are absurdly interesting. My most fond memory of the course was doing some irl trolling and getting the class into a debate about the supposed benefits of engineering all humans to be alike so that they're as happy as can possibly be. Probably a bit philosophical really, but damn it was an interesting debate and the class had one every week. Fantastic tutorials. I loved them to bits. The ICE component (computer skills) was pretty shitty though, but I got an exemption since I did HSC computers, heh.

Overall: 9/10. Great course. ICE (computers) was shit, but that's it. Lecturer was fun, subject matter was interesting, assesments were [too] easy. I loved it! I reccomend the course to everyone looking for a stimulating, rewarding and easy course to do

EDIT: A rambling review for a rambling course.

 

[Trebla]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

I'm bored, might was well contribute some...

MATH1903 - Integral Calculus and Modelling Advanced

Ease: 9/10. If you liked Mathematics Extension 2 and did well in it, then this course may seem too easy. About 80% of it covers material already learnt in the HSC course. The only new stuff was solving linear differential equations and second order differential equations.
The quizzes were a bit of a joke since we did the same quizzes as the normal level. Just to give an idea around half of the total candidature were on full marks before the final exam in 2007. The only reason I stopped short of 10/10 for ease, was because the final exam was difficult (understandably).

Lecturer: 8/10. David Galloway explains things very clearly. However, sometimes when he does a worked example, he diverges into irrelevent contexts of the example rather than the maths. Also, he does not know how to be assertive in the lecture room which results in everyone talking and him losing his temper at times.

Interest: 10/10. Only because I like Maths, especially this type of calculus...

Overall: 10/10. Easy stuff...possibly the easiest uni course for my entire degree.


MATH1905 - Statistics Advanced

Ease: 8/10. The only difficult part is understanding the concepts in the first place. Once you've done that, the rest is just easy routine applications.

Lecturer: 6/10. Marc Raimondo is monotonous and his accent doesn't help either. Even if you can get past that, the explanations themselves are just slightly better than mediocre.

Interest: 8/10. It's actually interesting in a mathematical way as well as its relevance to many contexts. The central limit theorem is quite an interesting theorem. Unfortunately, the lecturer doesn't portray it that way.

Overall: 7.5/10. It's alright I guess and it is useful in real life situations.

 

[Silver Persian]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

has anyone taken any gender/womens' studies courses?

I took suffragettes to cyborgs (GCST2602) - I wouldn't really recommend it. I think I reviewed the subject a few pages ago.

 

[Rafy]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

I've updated and revamped the pdf. Hopefully some of you will find it useful.

Keep the reviews coming.

USYD Unit of Study Reviews (PDF)

 

[just-a-stranger]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

7/10 for Ben......
Ben... oh, Ben. I hated hated hated him for most of the course, because I thought his lectures (particularly the ones on Homer) dwelt unnecessarily on meaningless abstractions, but listening to them again while preparing for the exam I realised that he actually has a lot of really interesting things to say. Approach his lectures with an open mind. He's an appalling tutor - just talks for the whole hour instead of trying to stimulate discussion, so I gave up on doing the readings eventually - but some of the things he said in tutes were quite handy, like demonstrating to us the process by which the Cyreneans might have rewritten their history with reference to the example of Gallipoli.

I had him today for ANHS1600: Foundations for Ancient Greece... talked about the poetic world of homer - horrible!
i don't know how im going to get through this subject, i chose this as a filler.. because first year subjects suck. i didn't do ancient history in the HSC and history hasn't really been my area... -___-" ..just thought i'd complain. if anyone else is taking this class, am i the only who seems to be screwed here? share your thoughts pls?

 

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

I had him today for ANHS1600: Foundations for Ancient Greece... talked about the poetic world of homer - horrible!
i don't know how im going to get through this subject, i chose this as a filler.. because first year subjects suck. i didn't do ancient history in the HSC and history hasn't really been my area... -___-" ..just thought i'd complain. if anyone else is taking this class, am i the only who seems to be screwed here? share your thoughts pls?

I took it. If you read the introduction to the Odyssey you should have been able to follow him. I had Ben last year for an ancient history study day and ohmygod, thought he was horrid. He was okay today though! I basically knew what he was talking about and could follow it. The class should be pretty good. Just hoping I don't get him as a tutor.

I'm a first year. Hahaha.

 

[just-a-stranger]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

I took it. If you read the introduction to the Odyssey you should have been able to follow him. I had Ben last year for an ancient history study day and ohmygod, thought he was horrid. He was okay today though! I basically knew what he was talking about and could follow it. The class should be pretty good. Just hoping I don't get him as a tutor.

I'm a first year. Hahaha.

just got the book...i have A LOT of reading to do.
but if that was him being "okay".. then someone kill me now.

 

[jayadore]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

just got the book...i have A LOT of reading to do.
but if that was him being "okay".. then someone kill me now.

Are you cramming for tomorrow's tutorial? I have to do that soon. Hey do you remember if the lecturer said to bring the book to our tuts or..? It's thick and I really don't want to drag it around.

Yeah I don't like his lectures much either, hope we don't get him too much! I thuoght he was finishing up when he had like, 5 slides to go. Ugh.

 

[just-a-stranger]

Re: Subject Reviews - UPDATED WITH .PDF on first post

Are you cramming for tomorrow's tutorial? I have to do that soon. Hey do you remember if the lecturer said to bring the book to our tuts or..? It's thick and I really don't want to drag it around.

Yeah I don't like his lectures much either, hope we don't get him too much! I thuoght he was finishing up when he had like, 5 slides to go. Ugh.

..late reply but im not sure about the book.
and i thought JK said there's no preparation needed for the first/introductory tutorial? ...i better hope not coz i can't read homer in one night :/

 

[jannny]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ENGG1800

It's so hard to learn from someone who cant express the main ideas properly and in order. The tutor sucks as hell, some chinese guy damn u!

Lecturer: 6/10
Tutor: 0/10 (seriously)
Interest: 5

 

[velox]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

ENGG1800

It's so hard to learn from someone who cant express the main ideas properly and in order. The tutor sucks as hell, some chinese guy damn u!

Lecturer: 6/10
Tutor: 0/10 (seriously)
Interest: 5

If you find that subject hard, you're screwed.

 

[jannny]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

If you find that subject hard, you're screwed.

whoa so half the people from the class are screwed

 

[A High Way Man]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

stop reviewing first year engo subjects. this thread is meant for obscure subjects from other faculties

 

[velox]

Re: Subject Reviews (Updated PDF on first post)

whoa so half the people from the class are screwed

Probably, yes. Try harder