USyd Chatter Thread 2017 (1 Viewer)

Katsumi

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I'm very nervous about starting my first year back at University. I'll be working from 11:00AM to 7:30PM Monday to Friday and attending only tutorials in the mornings.

I'm hoping to establish a schedule that allows for 2 hours of non-contact study per day with 6-10 hours on Saturday & Sunday. Given that i'm doing 2 subjects a semester i feel that this will be adequate.
 

Amundies

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I'm very nervous about starting my first year back at University. I'll be working from 11:00AM to 7:30PM Monday to Friday and attending only tutorials in the mornings.

I'm hoping to establish a schedule that allows for 2 hours of non-contact study per day with 6-10 hours on Saturday & Sunday. Given that i'm doing 2 subjects a semester i feel that this will be adequate.
6-10 hours per day? Or 6-10 hours over the 2 days?
 

Katsumi

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6-10 hours per day? Or 6-10 hours over the 2 days?
Per day on the weekends.

University is more of a leisure/professional development project for me than anything but i still want to do very well.
 
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Daemontreu

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Good luck, Katsumi! You sound like you'll be able to apply yourself, no worries. :)

I'm saddest about being stuck on the Mallett St campus for this year. It's so lonely down here. :(
 

sea-r-du

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Just out of curiosity, where are final exam venues generally held at? On campus?
 

sida1049

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Just out of curiosity, where are final exam venues generally held at? On campus?
Everywhere. You can be allocated to anywhere. From Abercrombie Business School, all the way to the vet building, and everywhere in between.
 

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So is it really true that USYD no longer accepts general mathematics for courses in 2019? This is my year so when I discovered mathemathics prerequisites, I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to study Psychology... this was my dream uni too
 

sida1049

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So is it really true that USYD no longer accepts general mathematics for courses in 2019? This is my year so when I discovered mathemathics prerequisites, I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to study Psychology... this was my dream uni too ������
Yeah, a band 4 in 2U has become the prerequisite for a ton of courses. The reason why psychology has the prerequisite is because of compulsory statistics.

You can still enrol into Bachelor of Arts at USYD (which doesn't have the requirement), study psychology units (and if you want, some fundamental level maths) and internally transfer into Bachelor of Psychology after a year. (Or you can major and do honours under B. Arts all the way.)

Alternatively you have the option of studying B. Psychology in other unis, such as UNSW, which doesn't have the requirement, and either transfer to USYD after a year or remain in that psychology degree.

Good luck!
 
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sea-r-du

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sida1049, how are you finding your 2nd year maths subjects? I ask because I may do a maths (non-advanced) major instead of a stats
 

sida1049

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sida1049, how are you finding your 2nd year maths subjects? I ask because I may do a maths (non-advanced) major instead of a stats
I'm currently taking MATH2961 and STAT2911 right now (would totally take more maths but I'm balancing my economics major too).

For me, MATH2961 so far has been fairly breezy, but not uninteresting (generalising anything to n-dimensions is pretty cool). Though we're still in fairly familiar territory, and I'm certain the course will get harder once we get up to the linear algebra part. A lot of students here are actually from the normal stream in first year, so a lot of unfamiliar faces.

Of the ones I'm taking, STAT2911 is definitely the most difficult course right now. The lecturer goes through the content like lightning, but he's pretty good (a lot better than my first-year MATH1905 in my opinion). The content is quite interesting though, so I'm pretty content. The lecturer for STAT2011 is the same I had for MATH1905; he's not necessary bad, but you'll hear some conflicting opinions (I thought he was alright, but in general students tend to be more satisfied with him teaching STAT2011, from what I've gathered). STAT2011 seems to be a lot slower, and definitely dimensions easier than STAT2911.

I totally recommend doing a maths major if you're interested. Statistics is great, but you'll need a lot of persistence because it's unfamiliar for a lot of students, and generally students tend to like maths lecturers more. Nonetheless if you're doing a statistics major, I totally recommend spending some units on maths as well (particularly MATH2061, and any other unit you might find interesting).

Also, come to SUMS! Our maths society has sessions every Thursday 1pm (New Law Annex 106 this week), which includes a half-hour presentation on a topic of maths, and free pizza afterwards! So if you enjoy free pizza and don't mind (or better yet, enjoy) listening to maths, come join us (you don't need membership to come in).

How are you finding your units so far?
 

sea-r-du

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I'm currently taking MATH2961 and STAT2911 right now (would totally take more maths but I'm balancing my economics major too).

For me, MATH2961 so far has been fairly breezy, but not uninteresting (generalising anything to n-dimensions is pretty cool). Though we're still in fairly familiar territory, and I'm certain the course will get harder once we get up to the linear algebra part. A lot of students here are actually from the normal stream in first year, so a lot of unfamiliar faces.

Of the ones I'm taking, STAT2911 is definitely the most difficult course right now. The lecturer goes through the content like lightning, but he's pretty good (a lot better than my first-year MATH1905 in my opinion). The content is quite interesting though, so I'm pretty content. The lecturer for STAT2011 is the same I had for MATH1905; he's not necessary bad, but you'll hear some conflicting opinions (I thought he was alright, but in general students tend to be more satisfied with him teaching STAT2011, from what I've gathered). STAT2011 seems to be a lot slower, and definitely dimensions easier than STAT2911.

I totally recommend doing a maths major if you're interested. Statistics is great, but you'll need a lot of persistence because it's unfamiliar for a lot of students, and generally students tend to like maths lecturers more. Nonetheless if you're doing a statistics major, I totally recommend spending some units on maths as well (particularly MATH2061, and any other unit you might find interesting).

Also, come to SUMS! Our maths society has sessions every Thursday 1pm (New Law Annex 106 this week), which includes a half-hour presentation on a topic of maths, and free pizza afterwards! So if you enjoy free pizza and don't mind (or better yet, enjoy) listening to maths, come join us (you don't need membership to come in).

How are you finding your units so far?
Wow, thanks for your prompt reply! :)

Yeah having a look at the handbook, maths provides more offerings in terms of various topics. There are definitely some interesting diverse topics like DEs (MATH2065?) and a bit of Graph Theory. Both Maths and Stats are of interest to me - I want to work in a data related career (like analytics) after I finish uni, so that's why I chose stats. I don't know, I'll still have a think about it.

Nice! I might come come by sometime soon. Shouldn't have class then.

So far so good. Although I've made some changes to my unit of study for my elective units (like INFS1000 to some other unit) a couple of times over the last week to find the perfect class.

Also how are tutorials generally operated for maths and stats? Does everyone do their own work in tutorials, and tutor go around and help them if asked, something like that? I had a tutorial like that the other day.
 

Amleops

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For me, MATH2961 so far has been fairly breezy, but not uninteresting (generalising anything to n-dimensions is pretty cool). Though we're still in fairly familiar territory, and I'm certain the course will get harder once we get up to the linear algebra part. A lot of students here are actually from the normal stream in first year, so a lot of unfamiliar faces.
Yeah advanced linear algebra is a big step up from vector calculus.

Just be thankful you don't have Ruibin Zhang and Bob Howlett as your lecturers. :haha:

Also how are tutorials generally operated for maths and stats? Does everyone do their own work in tutorials, and tutor go around and help them if asked, something like that? I had a tutorial like that the other day.
Sometimes you may get a tutor that makes things a little more interesting and group oriented (Florica Cirstea comes to mind), but otherwise that's pretty much what you can expect for all maths tutorials.

I had all the solutions to the tutorial questions anyway, so I didn't bother going to tutorials unless I didn't understand what was being done for some of the questions.

where the cumbo kids at
You'll be hard pressed to find any of them here. :haha:

We used to have an OT student here back in the day; he graduated last year though.
 

sea-r-du

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Sometimes you may get a tutor that makes things a little more interesting and group oriented (Florica Cirstea comes to mind), but otherwise that's pretty much what you can expect for all maths tutorials.

I had all the solutions to the tutorial questions anyway, so I didn't bother going to tutorials unless I didn't understand what was being done for some of the questions.
Oh? So there's no tutorial class in which the tutor asks the students at the start of the class which questions you want to go over or have difficulty, and teaches the whole class step-by-step by writing it on the board? That was what I was expecting haha.
 

Amleops

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Sorry, I misinterpreted your question.

It's about half half. For subjects that have tonnes of questions for each tutorial (MATH2961 for example), they'll be more likely to use the approach you mentioned. It also depends on the individual tutor's preferences as well.

Personally I found maths tutorials a waste of time, but your mileage may vary.
 

sida1049

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Also how are tutorials generally operated for maths and stats? Does everyone do their own work in tutorials, and tutor go around and help them if asked, something like that? I had a tutorial like that the other day.
For maths, the tutorials were board tutorials, where students get into groups of no more than 4 and work together with a whiteboard, and the tutor is there to help you if you need (you probable already have these). Everyone's tutorial experiences vary, but I found board tutorials to be useful; I consistently got into excellent groups (partially because the advanced maths/SSP cohort is somewhat close-knitted), and we'd spend most of our time on questions that were confusing or challenging, so I definitely learn things in maths tutorials. I haven't had a maths tutorial where everyone does their own work yet (though you can choose to do so if you wish).

The MATH1905 tutorial was actually in a computer lab, though honestly you're just doing your individual work and using the computer as a calculator. Fairly sure this applies to MATH1005 too. It really depends on your tutor; for the first 3-4 weeks we had the lecturer, and the tutorials didn't really have much structure to it, other than ask for help if you need it. However, we had a change of tutor, and the second tutor was really great; he'd spend about the first 15-20 minutes going through the relevant theory, which we found to be pretty useful. So it really depends on your tutor.

STAT2911 is a unique experience though. We have a tutorial and a lab each week. The tutorial is run by the lecturer, and basically we have to do the tutorial questions before the tutorial, and the lecturer goes through the questions and we have to mark each other's work according to the guidelines. He also records the marks for each tutorial (it doesn't contribute to your final mark, but it apparently he uses it as a criteria to see whether students who apply for special considerations try). The tutorials are pretty helpful, given that this is not an easy course, and the peer-marking helps motivate doing the work (which isn't too much, since we have to go over all of it during the tutorial). The computer lab sessions are used to compliment the weekly computer assignments. I haven't found it to be as useful as the tutorial, since it's easy to just finish the report at home. Free printing though! Not sure if the tutorial aspect of STAT2911 applies to STAT2011, since the former is a smaller course so the lecturer can take a more hands-on approach.

Yeah having a look at the handbook, maths provides more offerings in terms of various topics. There are definitely some interesting diverse topics like DEs (MATH2065?) and a bit of Graph Theory. Both Maths and Stats are of interest to me - I want to work in a data related career (like analytics) after I finish uni, so that's why I chose stats. I don't know, I'll still have a think about it.
Data analysis/science is a good career to pursue, and a good mix of statistics, mathematics and computer science, and a major in one of them should be fine.

If you have a spare unit, and want it to be an easy, WAM-boosting and relevant course, consider taking COSC1003 Computational Science (semester 2). It's a fun unit which revolves around using MATLAB to solve various mathematical and scientific problems. The cohort is usually fairly small and the lecturer is a great guy. You go touch a lot of different topics, so it never gets boring, plus the assessments are marked quite leniently.

Good luck man!
 

sida1049

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Yeah advanced linear algebra is a big step up from vector calculus.

Just be thankful you don't have Ruibin Zhang and Bob Howlett as your lecturers. :haha:
Hahah I was so saddened when I found out that I no longer had Daners, but was ecstatic when I realised I wouldn't be having Zhang either!

Dr Fish is a pretty amusing guy. Just today he randomly dropped his story where apparently he was held up at the US border, and they asked him what he did, to which he responded that he was a mathematician. They then wanted to test him, so they asked him what a parallelogram was. Apparently knowing about parallelograms saved him from being detained haha
 

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