Lectures at USYD? (1 Viewer)

[kayven]

Hi guys,

I am interested in studying B Engineering and B Science at USYD next year. People say that UNSW is much better at Engineering, however, im more interested in Science (mathematics) than engineering. However, i'd like to give Engineering a go because it does seem interesting after all. Also, I heard that USYD there are not long lectures and they mostly just go for 1 hour tops for B Engineering/B Science, my friend told me that unlike UNSW, USYD splits up the lectures. So if a lecture at UNSW was to go for 3 hours, USYD would split it up into 1 hours....

My questions are:
1. Is it good to study the courses I have chosen at USYD? Why (facilities etc) ?
2. Is it true of how USYD splits up the lectures? Will it change next year or not?
3. Due to the course, would I be attending USYD 5 days a week ?
4. Are the times for my course and USYD flexible so that I can perhaps rearrange my classes within a 3-4 day a week, period?

Please help me guys!

Much appreciated,

Kayven.

 

[Blue Suede]

My questions are:
1. Is it good to study the courses I have chosen at USYD? Why (facilities etc) ?
2. Is it true of how USYD splits up the lectures? Will it change next year or not?
3. Due to the course, would I be attending USYD 5 days a week ?
4. Are the times for my course and USYD flexible so that I can perhaps rearrange my classes within a 3-4 day a week, period?

Please help me guys!

Much appreciated,

Kayven.

1. USyd has a great reputation, and decent facilities for undergrads. You also get lovely sandstone and the whole 'prestige' thing. I'd say the quality of learning and academic outcomes are the same as those at UNSW. Other things like social life/clubs and societies/etc are much more developed at USyd than UNSW.
2. Yes, as far as I know, they try to keep lectures to an hour. This may mean that you have multiple lectures per week for a single subject though.
3. Engineering and Science combined would suggest 5 days a week as very likely. Some of those may be short days.
4. You're in first year so you basically have to deal with whatever times they give you. Considering the number of pracs and labs and stuff that an engineering/science student has to do, it will be unlikely you'll get 4, and absolutely NO chance of getting 3 days. In some cases you might only have one or two lectures on a single day and can choose to skip coming in that day, but it's up to you.

 

[kayven]

Wow, well, at UNSW, would I be going 3-4 days a week there?

 

[Blue Suede]

Wow, well, at UNSW, would I be going 3-4 days a week there?

As I've said, with science/engineering, you have zero chance of getting a 3 day week. This is primarily because you'll have approx 20-25 hours of class per week which would be absolute HELL if you had it all crammed into 3 days and you'd likely have a lot of clashes and things like that.

I don't know if you would be able to fit it into 4 days because I'm not a unsw student.

 

[Caviar]

Hi guys,

I am interested in studying B Engineering and B Science at USYD next year. People say that UNSW is much better at Engineering, however, im more interested in Science (mathematics) than engineering. However, i'd like to give Engineering a go because it does seem interesting after all. Also, I heard that USYD there are not long lectures and they mostly just go for 1 hour tops for B Engineering/B Science, my friend told me that unlike UNSW, USYD splits up the lectures. So if a lecture at UNSW was to go for 3 hours, USYD would split it up into 1 hours....

My questions are:
1. Is it good to study the courses I have chosen at USYD? Why (facilities etc) ?
2. Is it true of how USYD splits up the lectures? Will it change next year or not?
3. Due to the course, would I be attending USYD 5 days a week ?
4. Are the times for my course and USYD flexible so that I can perhaps rearrange my classes within a 3-4 day a week, period?

Please help me guys!

Much appreciated,

Kayven.

4. In first year you will have a 5 day week at USYD with virtually no exceptions. As in first year you only get 1 elective unit as you will be doing physics/chemistry, mathematics and engineering units. However, IIRC i had 2 long days which had my labs and were generally 9-5 or 9-4 and 3 short days which were basically 9-12 and consisted of 2 lectures and a tutorial usually. If you get your timetable so that you have 9-12 on a thursday/friday it'll help split your week up and make it a lot more manageable.

I'm doing BE (Chemical)/B Sci (Chem + Math) and just finished second year. You'll more then likely have a 4 day week in second year as I did my 2nd year chemistry units this year and even with 4 hour chem labs + 2 x 3 hour engineering labs I had a 4 day week. If you do your mathematics units in your second year you'd probably end up with 4 days as well (depends on timetabling changes but it's generally fairly constant).

In terms of flexibility, in first year you have a bit of room to move due to the sizes of classes. Come second year, if you're doing basically any engineering units there will be little to no flexibility. They generally only run one series for each unit as the class sizes for say chemical eng or mechanical eng are < 100 in each year so they don't have to run multiple streams. In the science faculty (math units etc) you will have a choice between 2 lecture streams as well as a multitude of choices for tutorial/practice classes. So basically engineering = inflexible due to class size, science = quite flexible. I believe you would find the same true of UNSW as the uni isn't going to waste money running extra classes when they don't need to.

 

[froogle]

1) Acedemically USYD and UNSW are very similar. Both are very good at the sciences and you would not be disappointed at either. If you like the old type of buildings, sandstones, etc then go to USYD. If you prefer a more modern environment go to UNSW. UNSW also has a very vibrant and rich international community. Expect lots of people coming and going on exchange as well as a fair flock of Asians, Caucasians and various Europeans doing their degree there. If you prefer local then stick with usyd.

2)Most unis these days do split up the lectures, and it depends on the course as to how long per week in total are for lectures.

3) That said, there is going to more likely be a spread of lectures, and when you put in labs you would expect to be there 5 days a week. You may be able to adjust your labs to squeeze between lectures to minimise the days but that may be cramming too much. This is the same with most unis though.

4) see above.

 

[Riproot]

My questions are:
1. Is it good to study the courses I have chosen at USYD? Why (facilities etc) ?
2. Is it true of how USYD splits up the lectures? Will it change next year or not?
3. Due to the course, would I be attending USYD 5 days a week ?
4. Are the times for my course and USYD flexible so that I can perhaps rearrange my classes within a 3-4 day a week, period?

I study BMedSc/BE so I'd probs be able to answer your questions.

1. Mathematics, especially pure has a good reputation at USyd. So studying there is good. But like, it depends on your personal preference as well.

2. All of my lectures were 1 hour this year (first year). I think second year is the same.
I had a few 2-3 hour tutorials for engineering and 3-4 hour pracs for science (not for maths so it depends on your electives)

3. Most-likely, yes. But it depends on the subjects you do. But you'd be there for an absolute minimum of 4.

4. You can sort of rearrange classes, but as an engineering student you'll need to do regular maths which pretty much always runs on mon-tues, thurs-fri so you're only going to have a chance at getting Wednesday off.

 

[Riproot]

Wow, well, at UNSW, would I be going 3-4 days a week there?

at least 4 lol

I looked up BSc/BE timetables there at the beginning of the year and the best I could get was 5 days. I would have had to skip two lectures to get 4 days.