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UOW #1 Most Satisfactory?! ... NO (1 Viewer)

poloktim

\(^o^)/
Joined
Jun 15, 2003
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They didn't ask me if I was satisfied. :(

ok, I like UOW, I'm going into my 4th year of a 3 year degree (yeah, a few fails and course change)... it's a great uni to go to in the sense that the environment, the culture, the way of life is very relaxed and inviting. Basically it's a nice place to go to uni rather than having to deal with a bustling city with strict guidelines and stressful environments.
Most universities have what you described. I think UTS is the only one with the bustling city part because it's kind-of spread out in the city.

Buuuut, here's what I hate about UOW:
1) The IT infrastructure
--- We have a 500MB download limit per session (1st year I used this in 1 week)
--- We have a 14MB email limit running on an extremely old-school software script
--- The "eLearning" system which is the main software platform to get access to lecture slides and other materials for subjects, is a piece of shit. It is some pre-1999 era, java system that crashes, and is overall a pain in the arse to use
--- First year I lived on-campus (Campus East), and to get Internet access I had to pay $25 for 500MB of download (run-out, buy more) or on a per hour basis... since they were running through an ISP called Chariot which had/has a monopoly over the on-campus net access. That year I must have spent over $1000 for simple Net access
Get Internet at home. Use the Internet on campus for campus purposes. Also, last time I was near building 17 (a while ago), there was a "net cafe" there. Why couldn't you just use that for random browsing. For the on-campus one, you should ask Chariot yourself what options you have. They can be accommodating if you say that you're a power-user.
14MB email? Why not get yourself GMail and forward stuff to your gmail. If you start to reach your quota, since you've got everything on gmail, you can clean up your mirapoint box.

2) The staff

--- I haven't had too much contact with faculty staff, but when I have, I've always felt the full effect of the "business". They don't care about individuals within the university system. They only care about getting the numbers to run the subjects, to pay the professors, and to push the students through the system out the other end with a piece of paper ready for some company to pick them up and have them work to reach upper-middle management.
Not everybody is your friend. Some people have other things to deal with that day. In classes with a large number of students they have other students to see. They'll provide you with some help, but they won't waste a lot of their time on you.

My degree is a Bach of Business Administration. I was doing Computer Engineering and Commerce before but since my goal is to become an entrepreneur I wanted to do an all-round degree in business. I went to the Dean of Commerce and was basically told my decision was stupid, that I should specialise and something about 10 years down the track I will regret my decision. Fat prick of a Dean he was. 10 years down the track he'll have heart disease :)
Perhaps the advice is sound? Specialise in something so if you fail miserably like a lot of would-be entrepeneurs do, you can at least save face and get a job doing your specialy. Adding yourself to the corporate machine because the taxpayer won't fund your failures forever. :) If you succeed then at least you have sound knowledge in one field and hiring people won't be as hard since you'll be good at management/HR/accounting/BIS/BA/whatever.
It sounds like the Dean was preparing you for a statistical possibility that you'll fail.

--- I have had a few professors who see through the university system and actually want to teach and excel students, not just regurgitate the facts in the textbook.
Sadly for some people there's a point where they stop caring about what they do, and only come in because - as you put it - they're slaves to the machine. That being said, they might be more focused (and interested in) the research aspect and are only teaching so that they can continue their research.

3) The business/commerce degree

--- Out-dated, not for me
Drop out. Solved.

--- Both the Bach of business admin and Bach of commerce are the same here: they appear to be structured to train a mindless workforce for those wanting to get jobs at most in upper-middle management in large firms... that is not education people, that is modern-day enslavement
You don't have to do commerce or business, though. Enslavement implies there's no choice. You're choosing to do this outdated and droning degree.

--- The perfect example of the degree being out-dated is the mandatory 2 subjects worth of manual accounting. Yeah, the type of accounting not even accountants have used since the computer was invented. Yes it is nice to know the core basics of accounting, but not 2 subjects worth, and especially when I'm not planning to become an accountant. If I'm thinking of issuing shares or going public with a company, I'm going to employ a f$%king accountant to do that.
In Computer Science you must learn C/C++. A lot of students argue that those languages are outdated and memory-management is deprecated because .NET and Java can do all that for you. The argument which wins is the one you yourself mentioned: you need to know the core basics. To write an efficient program you need to learn how to manage memory properly. I suspect in Commerce to understand how accounting works and to see any shotty accounting that could be done, you need to know enough about it. Two subjects is what it is because it's not any easier to learn the basics than it was twenty years ago.

--- No entrepreneurship degree??! WTF is that. And they only have 1 entrepreneurship subject which I did as an elective. Um, entrepreneurship is the foundation and core of business. Oh no, that's right, they're only training people for upper-middle management.
Be an entrepeneur. Propose an entrepeneurship degree.

4) The "Course Handbook"

--- Students are spending $900+ per subject and the best we can find out about a subject before studying it is the title and a one paragraph description full of ambiguities.
--- e.g. find a subject, have a read: Course Handbook @ UOW
Email or ring the lecturers. Turn up to the first lecture. Enrol in the subject, download the course outline, then if you don't like it unenrol. I think I unenrolled from more subjects than I completed.

5) Parking
--- Don't bother. If you live within an hour walk/ride you may as well ditch the car, parking spaces are a rarity
Grow a set and take the bus or train. Or just ride your bike or walk. If people stop associating public transport in Wollongong with the undesirables of society then it'll become a viable form of transport. The bus networks are comprehensive enough to go to UOW - there's even an interchange there! Stop your bitching and take one. There's a bus from North Wollongong station to UOW (if you're that lazy that a five minute walk will kill you).
The only people I can understand driving are those who need to work straight after uni so have to drive quickly to wherever it is and public transport would fail to get them to work on time (who wouldn't need to drive when they don't have work); the disabled who drive because they've got no choice; and those who live in an area that is not serviced by adequate public transport (for example, Campbelltown's bus to Wollongong imo is unsatisfactory).

6) Clubs and societies
--- ... are all too politicised and "formal" to actually work
Don't join them. Leave the members to their own devices and if they want to use clubs and societies to bolster their political standing, that's their choice.
 

jessmooka

don't leapfrog unicorns.
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just interested (off the topic but oh well)
you said that parking space is bad, i am interested in UOW next yr for a performance/communications degree,but i live in Parkes, central NSW and i am hesitant to leave my beautiful new car at home! if i took it, are there parking spots at the on campus accomadation? even if i took pub transport, i would like my car to drive to sydney for music lessons or back home. what do other people do in this situation? btw im v excited bout uni, just the issue of the HSC then the getting in!
jess
 

puma2009

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My problems with UOW...


- Too many international students who don't have the English skills to be there. I have had my marks dragged down because of international students in my group so many times I stopped counting. I have had to sit through hundreds of presentations that I could not understand. That takes away from my learning and it is just generally a waste of my time.

- Some of the staff have absolutely no business teaching. They may be good at their research but their knowledge in the area they have been assigned to teach is poor. Also, too many of the lecturers are from overseas and are too difficult to understand. It is impossible to learn anything when you can only understand every 4th word that a lecturer says. There are some excellent staff but good luck getting one.
I am an international student who stumbled upon this forum .

Blame the uni for accepting international students who have weak command of english. International students are UOW's cash cows. However, there are plenty of international students with strong english skills. I had my fair share of locals who

a )backed out of presos last min (one on the day of actual presentation.

b)refused to take responsibility for their part in the group work which resulted in a credit instead of a distinction

c) There were also times when my international student friends and myself (individual experiences) have had to cover the parts of the project allocated to unresponsive local students in our goups. Luckily, we managed to secure the desired grades .

In conclusion, by highlighting the experiences of international students, I would like to point out that both sides (locals and international students) experience difficulties and frustations in group work.

I agree with you on your second point. I absolutely feel annoyed that I have to pay $10,000 per sem to sit through lectures and tutorials where the intructors use rehased and old teaching materials. One of the teaching staff has confided in me about some lecturers who are just simply lazy ( and yes, they are some in high teaching positions)
 

ziparific

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I agree with you on your second point. I absolutely feel annoyed that I have to pay $10,000 per sem to sit through lectures and tutorials where the intructors use rehased and old teaching materials. One of the teaching staff has confided in me about some lecturers who are just simply lazy ( and yes, they are some in high teaching positions)
I would have to agree with this, though I'm not sure anyone would dare disagree.

As an example this session I have a particular CSCI lecturer (Tianbing Xia if anyone is interested) who has stolen his lecture notes, assignments and tutorials. I don't usually use the word stolen to represent lazyness between lecturers (and to be fair, Tianbing has taken his lecture notes from Luke McAven, someone who taught the subject formerly and is an excetional staff member --) but this is a unique case.

Assignment 1, for example, is 100% stolen from some random learn cryptography 101 paper published in '96 by the international cryptography association; Tianbing happily claims at his own. In an effort to explain matrix inversions and identities, he has happily copy and pasted wikipedia (errors included) in to a PowerPoint presentation which he again quite happily presented as his own work. If I was an international student paying full fees I would be severly upset at that -- sorry Tianbing, I can read Wiki at home for free.

In regard to the UoW IT Infrastructure (a quote above, I lost it -- sorry) I can pretty much guarantee that UoW can afford to both economically and technologically expand their infrastructure to keep up with technology; ex. $30 million network infrastructure project.
 

oksteph

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Thanks for this:)

I'm going to UOW next year, but I'm kinda scared cos I don't want to be the only Asian there.
The only one of youre issues that would affect me would be the teachers, but again, like unis in the city are the same.
Either way, im contemplating whether or not to go to UOW or stick for something in Sydney.
 

Hakz

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Thanks for this:)

I'm going to UOW next year, but I'm kinda scared cos I don't want to be the only Asian there.
The only one of youre issues that would affect me would be the teachers, but again, like unis in the city are the same.
Either way, im contemplating whether or not to go to UOW or stick for something in Sydney.
hahaha lol no offence but asians dominate UOW, come to informatics you'll think your in china lol
 

oksteph

Member
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oh serious?
Thats good then i guess,
Asians aren't my crowd but as long as their there,
i wont be the only one :)
 

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