UNSW Subject Reviews. (1 Viewer)

[SuxMATH]

MATH2099
Ease: 10/10 - Algebra is very plain and straightforward. 8.5/10 - Stats is a bit harder, and the tests could be a bit stuffed-up.
Lecturer: Dr. Lee Zhao for Algebra (8/10) - A bit meh, just goes thru the examples as normal. Huge disappointment that Pahor is not around, but still glad to have his slides.
-- (you'll know when you do it) for Stats (6/10) - Reads off the slides most of the time, with a few examples occasionally. Could be a grumpy dick and very mean with putting up solutions. Absolutely harsh marker.
Tutor: Dr. Bill Ellis for Algebra (9/10) - Very knowledgeable and mainly goes thru those harder questions, so you'll learn a lot. But here are a few tips if you enrolled in his tute (to avoid being yelled/laughed at or losing lots of marks in the tests)
1. Don't sit in the third row (or whichever row that you see no one's sitting in);
2. He will allocate a seat for you in the test - don't just go in;
3. At least have a look at the questions before each tute, as he will call people to answer randomly;
4. Make sure you write down all the steps that you could think of in the test. Full mark is possible;
5. As for asking questions, I haven't seen him shouting at anyone who asks "stupid" question.
No point of changing tute. Heard the other tutor(s) could also be this harsh.
(?). Ken for Stats (5/10) - Massive dick again. Personality is weird, a bit abusive. He looks as if he'd love to see ppl fail, and his marking is harsh af as well. If you see this old man, change to another tute ASAP pretending you have a timetable clash or whatever.
Overall: 6/10 The content itself is not a problem at all. However the staff in this course is like a collection of all the ultimate dicks in the School of Maths who suffer from mental issues of various levels. The final mark tho, would be reasonably good as long as you put the work in (I promise, although the final exam is not that easy).

Wow, not sure if actually legit. I remembered during my time with him, he was the biggest dickhead of a tutor. He never went through questions properly as he preferred us to do it ourselves at home and always told us off for not being able to do the questions (I thought tutorials were suppose to help you with questions you may have but nope). I still laugh today when his class started at 41/41 full capacity and within weeks later the class numbers ended up as 12/41.

 

[Amy R]

Hi, I was wondering if I would need the textbooks for ANAT2111 and PHSL2101 if I have access to notes my friend made for te entire course?

Thanks!!

 

[chadbonham]

ACCT1501 - took in 2017S1

Content: 9/10
Honestly have a genuine interest in accounting and financials so this may be skewed. Pretty much builds a solid foundation for ACCT1511/acc major.

Ease: 9/10
Ez HD if you attend pass classes and use the study guide cuz many questions which were in finals/mid sems were from there.

Lecturers: Youngdeok 8/10
Knows his shit
Chuan Yu 7/10
Knows her shit but goes too damn slow at the start of the lecture and speeds up the last few slides
Conor Clune 8/10
Knows his shit but u gotta really listen out for the hints for the exam and what they like to ask in the finals

Tutor: Kitty 9.5/10
Allows you to get class participation easily and can explain concepts really well

Overall: 10/10
Make sure you really know the concepts well by the end of 1501 as a lot of stuff in 1511 builds up on that knowledge.

ECON1101 - took in 2017S1

Content 8/10
Overall pretty interesting but gets boring after awhile

Ease 9/10
The hard part is phrasing your knowledge into a form that markers like during the class tests. Try to be as specific as possible and you should have no issues with that. Free 20% from playconomics.

Lecturer
Alberto 20/10
Best lecturer ever, explains concepts really clearly and engages students in lectures

Tutor
Roni 10/10
Explains concepts clearly and is pretty much a fair marker for the class test

Overall 10/10
Easy HD but finals were a little tricky. Encourage you to read up online on microeconomics and do those MCQs from other universities if you want to score well.

MGMT1001 - took in 2017S1

Content 7/10
Boring and its all common sense but put into a course

Ease 7/10
Concepts were pretty easy but just boring in nature

Lecturer
Lynn Gribble 8/10
Shares too much about her life story in her previous work experience but is able to link management concepts to that. Vague when it comes to explaining essay requirements
Katherine 4/10
Doesn't follow the textbook and honestly have no idea what is she trying to get at every lecture
Hugh Bainbridge 9.5/10
Honestly really engaging even tho I watched his lectures online. Able to link real-life examples to course content which was fantastic

Overall 8/10
Ended up getting a distinction for this, even though i studied half the textbook. Tip: merge concepts together and look at the big picture when attempting the essay questions in final exam

ECON1203 - took in 2017S1

Content 10/10
Honestly really interesting and you will need to understand statistics esp if you plan to work in finance industry

Ease 7/10
Last time I did high school math was 6 years ago so I had some trouble remembering all my math fundamentals but pass really helped.

Lecturer
Jonathan Lim 7/10
Likes to over-complicate the content and just write a whole list of formulas just to derive one formula. Doesn't directly answer questions.

Tutor
Lee2 10/10
Was really strict with assignment marking but to make up for that she taught the concepts really well which helped me to excel in the finals.

Overall 8/10
Pretty much a wam killer though i got a distinction for it - pretty much spent a lot more time on this compared to mgmt1001 and only got 1% higher for overall grade lul.

 

[Hillsdbdsndmldsl]

Wow, not sure if actually legit. I remembered during my time with him, he was the biggest dickhead of a tutor. He never went through questions properly as he preferred us to do it ourselves at home and always told us off for not being able to do the questions (I thought tutorials were suppose to help you with questions you may have but nope). I still laugh today when his class started at 41/41 full capacity and within weeks later the class numbers ended up as 12/41.

Ah damn, that's gross. I wouldn't be surprised to see that happens tho. Luckily it's the last compulsory math subject in my elec eng degree

 

[Queenroot]

Hi, I was wondering if I would need the textbooks for ANAT2111 and PHSL2101 if I have access to notes my friend made for te entire course?

Thanks!!

No the lab books and lecture material is enough

 

[obliviousninja]

MGMT1101

Content: 6/10

• Pretty much a mash of HSC business studies and economics
• Mostly boring but not to the point where it became mind-numbing; ethics topic was alright
• Content was too generalised to be actually useful in the real world

Ease: 9/10

• Written memos: Hard to score high marks in these, but if done properly should get high C or D
• CP/attendance: Didn't participate at all (tutor probably didn't even know my name to record my CP anyways), did decent for this section though.
• Final exam: 60MC; started studying only in the afternoon of the day before; ended up finishing the exam in 30 minutes

Lecturer: ?/10

• As with all my subjects, I am too turnt from the night before to bother attending lectures, so I cannot say anything in regards to the lecturer quality

 

[PurpleTank]

MATH2099

ELEC2142
Ease: 9/10 - Quite dry and straightforward, not a typical ELEC course. Labs are a bit dumb, but written exams are pretty friendly.
Lecturer: Dr. Chamith Wijenayake (9.5/10) - Knows the stuffs very well, explains things clearly. Usually pretty nice to students. Could have sped up a bit in lectures (I always played the recording with 2x speed).
Tutor: Same (10/10). Unlike most EET tutors he has a lot to talk about instead of just writing down the solutions. Also some tute question came up in the final exam almost unmodified. Definitely worth going.
Lab: If you're someone who is serious about your works, this could be the best thing to piss you off. In terms of contents it's nowhere near difficult; it just takes a while to debug sometimes. But when it comes to lab assessment, the marker will ask questions that sound so vague that I'm even doubting whether it's human language (Idk who made up those questions, but no offence to the demos). You'll be really fked unless you ask them to further clarify the questions. The lab exam, which takes up 10% of the course, is even more bs. The questions are like messing around and never get to what they mean. Idk why someone with that kind of English level could be employed to write questions in such an important scenario. Hands up immediately if you find anything in doubt during the exam.
Overall: 9/10 - Pretty chill course, but apparently they're trying to over-complicate it to make it harder so that not many ppl get HDs.
Mark: 90

How did u find out ur 2142 mark already? I thought 2133 and 2142 got added to myunsw at the same time so there was no way to tell which is which? Then again we get our results tomorrow so it wont make a huge difference if i can find out mine now, but still just wondering. Unless ofc u did 2142 before this year.

 

[Traxoom73]

ECON3208
Content - 7/10. You'll either love or hate it. The main idea of the course is to find a workaround to a violation of certain GM assumptions, as well as some advanced applied time series/panel data stuff. An extension of 2206 stuff, and a core for an emetrics major. Assignments generally require you to create and test some sort of model for a data set.
Ease - 6/10. would not recommend cramming this course. The content is a large step up from 2206 and the slides will often leave you scratching your head. There's also quite a bit of it every week. I recommend watching SpartacanUsuals's videos for guidance, and doing the homework every week (there honestly isn't much - like 2 conceptual and 1 or 2 STATA based questions every week), and you'll be fine. However, was kind of annoying how the lecturer couldn't offer answers to finals past papers (because he was independent).
Lecturer - 7/10. Minxian yang - seemed confused at times, although he explained concepts just fine. Only giving him a decent mark because pre-final assessments were marked super nicely which is a caveat of this course - Ive heard horror stories about other lecturers (not gonna mention names) that failed a large portion of the cohort. If you can, try to take it in S1 as I've heard the lecturer is nice.
Overall - 6.5/10. Final was marked harshly or all marks were significantly scaled down, probably because everyone had at least an 80 going into the final lol. Yang's final was alright despite me being 'dafuq is going on' after like Week 6 (NLMs) but I still recommend taking this in S1.

 

[Clarinrin]

TABL2741
Ease: 8/10. Concepts and cases were straightforward. The hard work was in memorising a lot of criteria and lists. The quizzes asked about small random details, so it was a bit difficult to prioritise your study. But the course was way easier than Business Taxation.
Lecturer: 8/10. Dotte was engaging and good at explaining things. In the tutorials she gave us clear steps for solving problems and mapping everything out.
Interest: 7/10. I liked the topics with a lot of cases, while all the other topics were dry or pretty much learned in another course (e.g. corporate governance and business and the law).
Overall: 7.5/10. Pros: Good coverage of corporate law with some interesting cases. The individual assignment was alright.
Cons: The quiz MCQs asked for details in the slides I thought were really trivial. On the other hand, I spent a lot of time studying the last two weeks' content but none of it was in the final exam.

 

[aoc]

FINS1612
Ease: 8/10, concepts are straight forward, calculations are just memorising formulas, nothing conceptually difficult
Lecturer: 7/10, im not a fan of lecturers who make lectures compulsory and are strict to the point of not letting people leave the lecture half way through but regardless of that she was pretty good at explaning concepts and the 2nd lecturer was good as well and a lot more casual
Interest: 7/10, some topics were interesting, some were just rote learning, some were flat out boring. It really depends if you like finance and learning about hedging strategies etc
Overall: 6/10. Lecturers are the biggest snakes around, most of the questions in the quizzes they have are things they dont teach but content that is briefly mentioned in the textbooks. So if you want to do good in this course youll need to throroughly read the textbook and make sure you understand it well, the calculations they give you in the quizzes are also quite different from the easy examples they show you in class

Chem1011
ease: 6-8/10. Some topics were very easy, others were hard, it really depends on your chemsitry ability. For example i found gases and the light topic easy since it was mostly theory but for acids i struggled a bit.
Lecturer: 7/10 Some were better than others, i feel like some of the content they test you on is not covered by the relevant lectureres/lectures, but for the most part they do a good job at simplfying concepts.
Interest: 6/10. I dont really like chemsitry so this is explanatory but if you like chemistry it will be interesting. Some topics were interesting though such as gases.
Overall: 6-7/10 This cohort got lucky since our finals were EXTREMELY easy, so i expect they will make the finals a lot harder from now on. I also feel like a lot of people are left confused on a lot of concepts since they arent covered properly by the lectures and they expect you to understand it anyways.


Acct1511
Ease: 7/10 - Kinda hard but a lot of it is memorising
Lecturer: 7-8/10 - They cover the content and do their job but they are super boring and dull well i guess accounting in general is boring to me...
Interest: 5/10 - Extremely boring, but i personally do not like accounting. A majority of this course is memorising slides and rules.
Overall: 7/10 - The quizzes are usually alright with some poorly worded questions or tricky questions that catch you off guard, the finals were pretty fair as well and the lecturer covers the content decently but for some complicated topics they do a poor job in my opinion.

 

[brendan10x]

MATH1241
Ease: 6/10 Calculus was fine, but I really struggled on Algebra (except for the probability/stats)
Lecturer(s): Didnt go (probs why i did bad)
Interest: 6/10
Overall: 6/10

CVEN1701
Ease: 8/10 . 50% finals, and 2 assignments 25% ea. Ass 1 was easy and just number crunching how much CO2 your household released and talk about it. Ass 2 once again easy just interpret some long journal article. Overall these assignments are easy and not your typical researching ones. Finals was surprisingly not that bludgy, you definitely had to at least go through the tutorial questions if you wanted to pass, and if you did it would be easy
Lecturer(s): Various (Dont need to attend lectures at all)
Interest: 5/10, pretty boring
Overall:6.5/10

CHEM1011
Ease: 7/10 (I did HSC chem, so i only had to learn the new stuff (which was only a few weeks of content I)
Lecturer(s): Didnt go
Interest: 6/10

CVEN1300
Ease: 6/10. Funny story.Think this is the last semester you can do it, but basically I had a 90% weighted final. Wei Gao had this policy were if you didnt attend the 2 quizzes (20% each) and didnt do the assignment (10%) it'll be added on to the 50% final, hence making mine worth 90%. No medical certifcate/reason was needed, just dont attend and the weight would be automatically shifted to the finals. Me being a bludger throughout the semester and always behind, decided to skip all the quizzes and didnt even bother with the easy 10% assignment. Exam day comes, and Wei Gao gave a really nice and easy exam and had similar qs to past papers (Also keep in mind, that the dude is really nice and made it unlimited open book (which i abused the living hell by printing out all the solutions to past papers,tuts,etc)). So ye I did pretty good due to Wei Gaos kindness
Lecturer: 6/10 Wei Gao, thick accent makes it hard to understand sometimes, but can tell he cares for his students
Interest: 6/10

 

[CNSie]

COMP1511: Introduction to Programming

Ease: 7/10. There were like 3 times for you to get full mark for the practical components (Linked Lists & Arrays) which made them seem pointless. The final theoretical test was alright however the "practical" component could be better designed (marks distributed into more questions) as there was only one 'impossible' question which made me consider suicide. Also I don't have any fucking clue how the assignments were marked and got quite low compared to what I was expecting.
Content: 10/10. Having no background on computing it was quite good and fun how the concepts learned were applied in the assignments.
Lectures: Andrew Benett 7/10. Jashank 8/10. Both okay guys however Jashank projected his voice better. The lectures are recorded and uploaded on YouTube which is much better than Echo. The lecturers were quite eager to help and friendly as well as the other tutors in the lecture (Curtis, etc.). However, the lectures were consistently interrupted by the equipment not working as expected (Mics not working, projectors not displaying properly, computers not behaving) and if your lectures are like mine, come 30 mins after your class starts and you'll still be on time.
Tutor/Labs: 9/10. I reckon all the tutors were quite good overall. A+.
Overall: 6/10. Sadly it was definitely the worst course I've had to take so far. We did not get any of the assignment marks until months later (2nd and 3rd were released after Dec 1) and the practical test for the finals was above me.

MATH1241: Higher Math 1B

Ease: 8/10. Same as 1141, had great internals but didn't do so well in my finals
Content: 8/10. Okay if you like maths I guess.
Lecturers: ?/10. Shief/Mak?. Stopped going after 1st week. Quite dull impression so yeah can't comment.
Tutor: 10/10. Not sure the name of my tutor but she was excellent at explaining the important concepts and was quite thorough.
Overall: 8/10. Meh. I guess it was a bit better than 1141 as I found the maple component to be easier for the 1241 iteration.

ELEC1111: Elec & Telecomm Eng

Ease: 9/10. Honestly very easy course if you practice regularly. The content builds itself up onto the previous concepts so master the basics and you'll be sweet.
Content: 10/10. LOVE THEM CIRCUITS.
Lecturers: 10+/10. Arash Khatamianfar. Amazing guy, very knowledgeable and quite humble. The guy is very keen to help whenever he can and he truly seems to enjoy what he does. Cannot emphasize enough how good this guy is.
Labs: 9.5/10. Very helpful tutors and the lab exam was quite easy if you've been paying attention the whole semester. Still don't know how to operate an OP-AMP tho.
Tuts: 10/10. Had Arash and Michael Phillips (Lab Head Demo). TBH, Michael taught me everything important in the first weeks with such ease that I found the rest of the course easy so mad props to him. Arash was Arash so yeah.
Overall: 10/10. Best course I've taken so far. Really tempted to switch into the electrical stream but it was mostly cause Arash.

MMAN1300: Engineering Mechanics

Ease: 7/10. Block tests at 7PM sometimes straight after a COMP test were not fun and lost lots of marks there. You should get 24 free marks tho by doing your homework (PSS) and by doing weekly moodle quizzes.
Content: 8/10. Statics was a bit bland and but it got better once we got to dynamics.
Lecturers: 9.5/10. David Kellermann. Quite good lecturer, explained clearly and did many example questions which is always good.
Labs: 7/10. Annoying. On the last lab I got heavily penalized for not using MathLab to compare graphs even though in the lab sheet it said you could use EXCEL so I'm a bit salty about that. The lab templates were released a week before they were due and you basically could not do anything until they were released.
Tuts(PSS): 9/10. Had Harrison/Ellington. Quite good at explaining things however would have loved if they did the questions before hand ;_;
Overall: 8/10. Alright course but it can get sometimes really tricky. Would have loved if the marks for the block tests were released sooner. 12 major concepts which were each studied in a week and reinforced with PSS homework was a very efficient way of teaching so I'm pleased with that. The finals felt like a nightmare but overall were alright.

 

[eating]

^^thats a shame with COMP1511, It was pretty good with Andrew Taylor, despite being slightly impromptu. We had our marks come out at reasonable times.

 

[akkatracker]

COMP1511: Introduction to Programming

Ease: 7/10. There were like 3 times for you to get full mark for the practical components (Linked Lists & Arrays) which made them seem pointless. The final theoretical test was alright however the "practical" component could be better designed (marks distributed into more questions) as there was only one 'impossible' question which made me consider suicide. Also I don't have any fucking clue how the assignments were marked and got quite low compared to what I was expecting.
Content: 10/10. Having no background on computing it was quite good and fun how the concepts learned were applied in the assignments.
Lectures: Andrew Benett 7/10. Jashank 8/10. Both okay guys however Jashank projected his voice better. The lectures are recorded and uploaded on YouTube which is much better than Echo. The lecturers were quite eager to help and friendly as well as the other tutors in the lecture (Curtis, etc.). However, the lectures were consistently interrupted by the equipment not working as expected (Mics not working, projectors not displaying properly, computers not behaving) and if your lectures are like mine, come 30 mins after your class starts and you'll still be on time.
Tutor/Labs: 9/10. I reckon all the tutors were quite good overall. A+.
Overall: 6/10. Sadly it was definitely the worst course I've had to take so far. We did not get any of the assignment marks until months later (2nd and 3rd were released after Dec 1) and the practical test for the finals was above me.

MATH1241: Higher Math 1B

Ease: 8/10. Same as 1141, had great internals but didn't do so well in my finals
Content: 8/10. Okay if you like maths I guess.
Lecturers: ?/10. Shief/Mak?. Stopped going after 1st week. Quite dull impression so yeah can't comment.
Tutor: 10/10. Not sure the name of my tutor but she was excellent at explaining the important concepts and was quite thorough.
Overall: 8/10. Meh. I guess it was a bit better than 1141 as I found the maple component to be easier for the 1241 iteration.

ELEC1111: Elec & Telecomm Eng

Ease: 9/10. Honestly very easy course if you practice regularly. The content builds itself up onto the previous concepts so master the basics and you'll be sweet.
Content: 10/10. LOVE THEM CIRCUITS.
Lecturers: 10+/10. Arash Khatamianfar. Amazing guy, very knowledgeable and quite humble. The guy is very keen to help whenever he can and he truly seems to enjoy what he does. Cannot emphasize enough how good this guy is.
Labs: 9.5/10. Very helpful tutors and the lab exam was quite easy if you've been paying attention the whole semester. Still don't know how to operate an OP-AMP tho.
Tuts: 10/10. Had Arash and Michael Phillips (Lab Head Demo). TBH, Michael taught me everything important in the first weeks with such ease that I found the rest of the course easy so mad props to him. Arash was Arash so yeah.
Overall: 10/10. Best course I've taken so far. Really tempted to switch into the electrical stream but it was mostly cause Arash.

MMAN1300: Engineering Mechanics

Ease: 7/10. Block tests at 7PM sometimes straight after a COMP test were not fun and lost lots of marks there. You should get 24 free marks tho by doing your homework (PSS) and by doing weekly moodle quizzes.
Content: 8/10. Statics was a bit bland and but it got better once we got to dynamics.
Lecturers: 9.5/10. David Kellermann. Quite good lecturer, explained clearly and did many example questions which is always good.
Labs: 7/10. Annoying. On the last lab I got heavily penalized for not using MathLab to compare graphs even though in the lab sheet it said you could use EXCEL so I'm a bit salty about that. The lab templates were released a week before they were due and you basically could not do anything until they were released.
Tuts(PSS): 9/10. Had Harrison/Ellington. Quite good at explaining things however would have loved if they did the questions before hand ;_;
Overall: 8/10. Alright course but it can get sometimes really tricky. Would have loved if the marks for the block tests were released sooner. 12 major concepts which were each studied in a week and reinforced with PSS homework was a very efficient way of teaching so I'm pleased with that. The finals felt like a nightmare but overall were alright.

Lol just saw this now when I was looking for Arash's room on google.

Deadset legend. I cannot put in words how good he is (and given that sem was the first time he lectured a course iirc - he's onto something).

Not the official 2134 lecturer but hosted 3 livestreams (where you could drop in and out and ask questions) on Fri, Sat and Sun before the 2134 midsem to help everyone out. He goes above and beyond and is a fucking good teacher too. I would 100/100 take another course with him - a shame he's not teaching anything this year but if he was put permanently on 1111 I think the amount of Elec Eng students would dramatically increase as the usually 'hard' first year course would become really enjoyable.

I think pass rates rocketed S2 17 1111 (not only because the final was a bit easier than previous years imo) but because Arash explained everything so clearly, and was willing and did help anyone out when they wanted it.

Cannot rate him more highly (I've had some great lecturers too - Taylor and Buckland in Comp are great but nobody cares as much about the students as Arash. You ask any student who took 1111 that sem and I don't think anyone has anything bad to say about him (except maybe we missed 1 minor topic vs the s1 cohort).

Also had Michael as a lab demo (not Arash - but he'd pop into our 9am labs sometimes). Another great guy, good lab demo who took the time to explain and made sure we knew what was going on (which can be a bit of an issue in a first year course)

 

[photastic]

FINS2643: Wealth Management
Ease: 10/10. Very very easy to get a DN but hard to get a HD (based of historical results). Free 30 marks from weekly blogs, tutorial participation and presentation, marked very leniently. Exams were mostly from textbook questions and the slides.

Content: 5/10. The content was dry and it felt like I was googling finance jargon online. Fortunately, I learned a lot of the stuff from work experience so didn't need much effort to study this course. The stuff from this course is quite important if you are interested in financial services and at work you will confront things from this course again.

Lecturers: 5/10. Nidal Danoun. He is a financial planner himself with his own practice so he brings in his experience into this course which is a pro. However, the course was administered poorly (i.e. the weekly blogs were not explained well and the tutorial homework was utter useless for the exams, no consultation and was inaccessible).

Tutor: 6/10. Shakib. As a person, he was great and marked leniently. However, he only went through the tutorial homework and nothing else. Had other tutors who were way worse.

Overall: 8/10. Nothing hard but nothing exciting. Probably the easiest HD I got and perhaps the easiest finance course. If you like quantitative stuff, stay away from this course since there wasn't any point bringing calculator into the exams. I guess the reason why there aren't many HDs for this course is probably the quality of the students, there were students who still had trouble accessing the course resources even though its a level 2 course and the top kids tend to do the corporate finance and derivative courses. But if you want a wam booster and you like reading, this is the course for you.

ECON2101: Microeconomics 2
Ease: 9/10. If you know how to differentiate, equate it to 0 and solve for x, this course is a joke. However, if you do not have a strong math background, this is gonna be a tough road since nearly everything from this course is differentiation and graphs, which is why I am not giving it a 10/10. Concepts are straightforward and build on consumers and suppliers from micro 1.

Content: 5/10. The concepts were extending parts of Micro 1 so nothing exciting. However, it gives students a good foundation with applying frameworks using calculus in a world where there are assumptions and theorems.

Lecturers: 9/10. Hodaka Morita. Absolute legend if you want an easy time with this course. Dr Morita was very resourceful, gave out past papers and even indicated which textbook questions were examinable which I don't recalling any economics lecturer (or any commerce lecturer tbh) does nowadays. His lecture delivery was sufficient and even shared his memos. Only problem is his resources and memos felt like cheat sheets since half the exams were just similar questions so this doesn't give much challenge to fully think about the concepts comprehensively but rather felt the students who memorised the answers could still do well.

Tutor: 8/10. Bora. Quite good if you're used to accents. He fully explains questions and felt like a good revision session during his tutorials.

Overall: 10/10. As mentioned, if you have solid math skills, this course is a joke but not practical. However I have heard in semester 1, this course is a nightmare so this rating probably reflects Dr Morita's easiness rather than what the actual course is. So if Morita is teaching, do it then.

 

[Chucky5]

Has anyone done PHYS1231 or PHYS2111? Are they any good?

 

[photastic]

MGMT1001: Managing Organisations and People

Update: This semester (2018 S1) is the first time any major changes have been made for this course over the last decade. These changes have been very positive for the learning experience with greater communication with the MGMT team although it is not perfect. I will be quite comprehensive with this review as well as provide tips since there are some good things but also many bad things with this course.

Ease (The 2 Reports): (Flip a coin/10). The two infamous reports are still worth 45% and probably will never leave this course. However, rather than an abstract management essay and the Everest report, this semester's reports are self-reflections which focus on skills you want to develop and how you developed them during the first semester by applying management theorems. This is probably easier to prepare than the previous year's reports. However, your results for these reports are most likely based on luck since they are very subjective since they are marked by your tutor. I am not saying you have to get along with your tutor to earn marks but going to their consultation may give you an advantage due to the bias nature of the marking. I do suggest this since I did very well for these reports despite only spending one or two nights writing them whereas other group members spent the week but earned a lot lower. Of course, this depends on how much proficiency you have with academic writing so if you had prior experience developing material such as market reports or journals, you'll have an advantage. You need to be perfect with everything such as language, writing with an engaging tone, formatting and referencing, any mistake and this will cost you 10-20% of your marks. So just pretend you're preparing a report/essay for the most stuck up marker. I can't complain since I HD'd these reports, perhaps could be due to the bias my tutor had with me (wore a suit one day coming from work and since then the tutor wouldn't stop asking me questions), but I am in my final year so my writing skills are a lot better than my first year. Although many people hate these reports, the average is maintained at a credit level so as long you are in the top pack, then you'll most likely receive a DN or HD. A positive change this semester whereas I have heard averages were in the pass range for past years.

Ease (Everything Else): (10/10). The remaining 55 marks consist of a 30% final exam and other assessments. The final exam has also changed with no more essay questions. This makes the exam an utmost joke, with only multiple choice questions and short answer questions, who provided us the topics to focus on for the short answer questions. A very easy exam as you only need to know the management theorems at a general level (rote learning is all you need and you should get 100% in the MCQ). Why I also say the final exam is a joke is the introduction of an online textbook and online homework (ACT exercises). The ACT exercises are quizzes with unlimited attempts and count 12% of your final mark, pretty much free marks that you can actually complete before the semester begins. These exercises are quite similar to the MCQs. The remaining 13 marks are a video submission, marks from your peers and management participation. This is again free marks and a good tip is for the video submission, it is marked by other group members in your tutorial so pretty much collab with them to give each other full marks so regardless what video you submitted, free full marks. Therefore, by taking advantage of the free 25 marks and the easy final exam, you can pretty stronghold your position for a guaranteed DN. However, to earn a HD, unfortunately, your marker for the 2 reports can either help or destroy your chances so flip the coin.

Content: (?/10). The textbook coursework is pretty much grabbing common sense and make it into a theory that explains it.... Absolutely useless (unless you don't have common sense). In particular when you prepare for the final exams and you start to memorise fancy terminology that explains culture and groups... which you have no choice but to swallow. I think this course is quite interesting for maybe little kids who want to know a bit about business but for university students, I don't think we need to study common sense. However, I do think the self-reflections are quite helpful for the younger students since you would need to think about behavioural questions for interviews etc. It is important to occasionally plan your future and think about the job recruitment. This is where the simulation can be quite handy, which is an opportunity to experiment your skills unless your group isn't as committed, so I would say take advantage of the simulations and test your expertise. Hence, it is quite refreshing to do simulation compared with mundane exams. Overall, content was nothing challenging nor engaging.

Lecturers: Catherine (5/10), Markus (7/10), Hugh (8/10). I didn't go to the lectures physically but overall, they were good enough but not anything special. Catherine was "Great projection but this isn't a good summary of the textbook," Markus was "Better summary but can you upload all the slides?" and Hugh was "Wow this is all I need but some stuff is outdated." The lecture recordings would be the first place to go to and cross reference with the textbook. Overall, you could get away with not even watching the lectures except for the final week since they give you guidance and tips for the final exam.

Tutor: Xiaoli (NA/10). I don't quite blame her for how useless the tutorials are as they do not help you for any of the assessments (I am not kidding, you can sleep in the tutorials and do nothing and it won't matter but you have to attend cos 80% attendance rule), otherwise I wouldn't have bothered going. Some weeks you do some random activities which may involve you sitting down and watching a video. The only useful week was the 2nd week which required us to write a quick report and provide us feedback so that it can prepare us for the 2 reports. Otherwise, develop rapport with your tutor since they mark the reports. As for Xiaoli, she's the type who looks like a very nice person but can destroy you with her marking and standards. If you have Xiaoli, you can still do very well (like myself), but with my other group members, she will kill your mark if you aren't careful. Like I said, a flip of a coin and I am sure other tutors are like this. Fortunately, I was told prior that she was going to be harsh since you cannot switch tutorials for this course once the semester begins.

Overall: (5/10). Unless you are majoring in MGMT, this course is pretty much done, dusted and tossed away after the final exam. Your mark for this course won't necessary reflect your effort nor skills due to the luck based nature of the 45% reports and this I don't think is a great way for students to prove themselves and earn high marks objectively. Unfortunately, this is pretty much the standards of the MGMT school, benchmarking students to an average since it is pretty hard to mark an essay objectively. Hence, I still recommend you read the above information if you want a HD but if you do earn high marks for the reports, you're pretty much sweet and probably only need 70s in the final exam for an overall HD.

 

[photastic]

FINS3635: Options, Futures and Risk Management

Ease: (10/10). If you have Dr David Colwell as your LIC, this course is dumbed down considerably compared with other LICs such as Dr Joakim Bang. For Colwell's assessments, you are given very easy excel assignments who literally tells what to do and exams which are simply his lecture slides and practice problems. So pretty much, as long as you understood the lecture material and did the homework, you'll find this course a joke. However, this course is quite mathematical and heavily focuses on problem solving rather than number crunching even though formula sheets are provided. So if you aren't mathematically inclined, you may struggle whereas actl and math students will probably laugh since we learn much more difficult concepts.

Content: (7/10). The course material wasn't quite difficult nor interesting since it felt rather old school than contemporary finance. The idea of implementing strategies using derivatives is sort of intriguing to a point where you start to realise that real-world applications are far more complex. The course extends what you learned from FINS1612 and FINS2624 such as option strategies, binomial trees and black scholes so if you enjoyed these concepts, you will probably enjoy this course. Overall, although the course was straightforward, I found some concepts bland but nothing was difficult. Just a heads up, most if this course is dedicated to options even though this is the derivatives course.

Lecturers: David Colwell (9/10). It's been a while since I had a great finance lecturer, explained concepts very well, everything was very organised and you can't ask for a better lecturer if you are type who doesn't lectures (in the echo360 recordings, you'll be able to watch him comment and annotate his slides, later even scans his annotations and gives out plenty of hints whether youre at home or at the lecture). My only issue (probably not even an issue) with Dr Colwell was he literally spoonfeeds the exams and assignments, so not much of a challenge but for mark purposes this is an upside. Otherwise, he was always assessible when you needed him but man you can tell he's overdue for a holiday

Tutors: Hang Wang (1/10), Arseny Gorbenko (7/10). If you have Hang, don't even bother going to his tutorials (unless tutorials are compulsory) he wasn't quite a helpful tutor and what he teaches has no relevence with the lectures. Thus, I decided to switch to Arseny, a much better tutor with helpful slides for revision. The issue with tutorials for this course is you don't really need to go since David covers the content very well, so as long you just stick to what David wants you to know for the exams and assignments, it kinda makes the tutorials redundant. On the other hand, the tutorials with Arseny are quite good if you want to test your knowledge. However, next semester there are tutorial marks so you can't skip like you would've been able to do in previous semesters.

Overall: (9/10). Definitely a wam booster if you like mathematical concepts and using these concepts when applying and solving abstract problems. However, if you are looking for something more applicable for finance, I'd suggest the corporate finance and valuation courses but they are considered more difficult as a result. I would say this course feels like a course you would consider if you are more interested in academics. Otherwise, fairly straightforward and easy course if you have David Colwell. My tip is to dot point David's slides, it will make preparations for the exams a lot easier.


FINS3636: Interest Rate Risk Management

Ease: (9/10). A very similar course to FINS3636 except you learn more concepts in depth. Again, exams and assignments are simply based off what David wants, his slides and his practice problems, so you shouldn't be surprised with the midterm and final exam questions.

Content: (8/10). Again, the course material felt rather old school than contemporary finance (content has be recycled for more than a decade). There is quite an overlap with FINS3635 in terms of the overall concepts such as forwards, futures, options and swaps. It is definitely slightly harder than FINS3635 due to the amount of content there is for this course (doubled the amount tbh). However, I found this course more interesting with some relevence to real world applications. Again, quite mathematical but for exam purposes, you aren't really calculating despite the formula sheet but rather problem solving. Rather than focusing on equity securities in FINS3635, FINS3636 focuses on fixed income securities such as bonds and treasury bills which is surprisingly more easier to model in real life but I reckon more complex in academics. So despite the school saying overlap is minimal, due to the same overarching concepts you learn such as black scholes, futures, forwards, when doing this course with FINS3635, it feels like I am studying one course rather than two separate courses.

Lecturers: David Colwell (9/10). Read the above review for FINS3635. Colwell is GOAT.

Tutors: (NA/10). There are no tutorials for this course.

Overall: (9/10). Again, very similar to FINS3635, slightly harder but more interesting. Read the above review for FINS3635.

 

[photastic]

FYI, MGMT1001 has been dumbed down since prior, it had a reputation as being the wam killer.

From this semester's LIC:

MGMT1001 students did very well. For this course, the S1 average mark was 70.26% (remember a credit is a good mark at UNSW!). Furthermore, we had 37% of the students obtain a D, and 5% of the students obtain a HD.

 

[RenegadeMx]

FYI, MGMT1001 has been dumbed down since prior, it had a reputation as being the wam killer.

From this semester's LIC:

MGMT1001 students did very well. For this course, the S1 average mark was 70.26% (remember a credit is a good mark at UNSW!). Furthermore, we had 37% of the students obtain a D, and 5% of the students obtain a HD.

gotta make sure they pass their cash cow asians