UNSW Subject Reviews. (6 Viewers)

[darkwolfzx]

COMP1927
Ease: 6/10 - I guess it was because the assignment was hell (from my perspective).
Lecturer: 7/10 - Jas provides clear concise notes, but unfortunately most of the students prefer to talk among themselves in the lecture theatre.
Interest: 7/10 - Theres a good range of algorithms and how they are suited to different scenarios but sometimes becomes a bit too much
Overall: 7/10

PSYC1011
Ease: 8/10 - Just go to the lectures, listen, cram the notes, you should be cool
Lecturers: 7/10 - As an overall rating. We had a multitude of lecturers from different areas of psychology, because first year courses aim to give you a large spread on what you can focus on in later years. Westbrook, although considered by many in the school to be a genius on animal learning, only managed to attract 20 students max per lecture. The statistics component by Goran was also very dull, difficult to follow and the slides were tricky to understand.
Interest: 7/10 - I have to admit this semesters psyc was duller in comparison to psyc 1a, probably because we were focusing more on the biological aspects of psychology this semester. Still areas such as perception and cognition showed us some very interesting and humourous applications of visual illusions.
Overall: 8/10

PHIL1010
Ease: 8/10 - Very straightforward lectures, although lots of readings. Shouldn't be hard if you make an effort to do the weeks readings for a couple of hours each week. Assignments can be a pain though, as they abhor ambiguity. So bullshitting your way through might help, but won't deliver any respectable marks.
Lecturers: 7/10 - Karen Lai is a lecturer that helps invigorate your interest in what you are learning in the lecture. Her catch is that you do miss out on a great deal if you skip lectures. Phillip Staines is also a decent lecturer, although slightly dry in his delivery. His post lecture transcripts on webct are also handy to go over when doing revision.
Interest: 8/10 - I have to say that this course opens your eyes to many methods of argument, as well as sharpening your bullshit detector in reading news articles and opinions. You can detect how people make false arguments, and how to strengthen your own arguments by pointing their fallacies out.
Overall: 7/10 - The exam was kind of crap, too much reading.

PHIL1014
Ease: 7/10 - There will be some philosophers that you will understand and there will be some you won't. Fortunately when they assess you, you can pick which topic you would like to write your essay on, given a particular question. Life can be a lot easier if you also go beyond the lecture material and visit the reserve section of the library to expand on your ideas for your essay. I've actually found the recommended texts to be better than the internet.
Lecturers: 8/10 - Simon Lumsden tries to deliver his lectures in a slow and steady manner, but often changes tack midway through a concept, which I found very irritating and was the reason why I failed to understand most of the philosophers he taught. Tim Raynor on the other hand is the best philosophy lecture I have ever come across. His analogies and his enthusiasm in delivery make him outstanding in allowing us to understand the material being brought forward.
Interest: 8/10 - There are many good ideas that come from the philosophers at hand. My favorites were Karl Marx and JP Satre.
Overall: 8/10 - There is no final exam, just a 45% essay

P.S the philosophy courses were my science electives, I'm not doing arts.

 

[EdmondDW]

Chem1021
Lecturers:8/10, I don't like the organic part, the lecturer did not provide all the lecture note slides on webct...The inorganic and physical chem parts r fine...
Interest:8/10, If u r interested in chem, u will find this course is interesting...But I do believe most people choose this course not because they r interested in it...
Overall:8/10

Math1041
Lecturers:6/10, There r two streams for course, one is from Salt-lake City, USA. His lectures r pretty interesting, highly recommanded. The other guy is ok, but his handwriting is soooo massive...
Interest:7/10, How to say? I think many people r interested in the chocolate. But they taught how to use the software R, which is pretty useful. (I use it to plot datas for continuous variation spectrum)...So I will say if u just use Excel, u really miss a good chance.
Overall: 6.5/10

Biot1011
Lecturers:8/10, all the lecturers r good, I remember a Greek guy, his lecture is about how to use biotech degrade the pullution, which is highly recommanded.
Interest:7/10, Maybe this is just introduction for biotech, so the content is not professional, so not my type.
Overall:7/10

Chem2839
Lecturers:8/10, Dr.Stride and Dr.Colbran r both active researchers. So sometimes, they can link the lecture content to the real research, which is pretty good. Dr.Stride is focus on physical chem, so his part is a little bit hard for people who r not good at calculation and just have limitted physics knowledge, make sure u understand all the formules about simple harmonic oscilation before taking this course. Dr.Colbran's part is focus on complex structure, which is relatively easy, but still need a lot of work.
Interest:9/10, I enjoy this course, especially for the lab work.
Overall:8/10

 

[darkwolfzx]

Ok I've updated the pdf, after lunch I'm starting up a wiki, we're gonna move this thread over.

 

[Mumma]

Re: 回复: Re: 回复: Re: UNSW Subject Reviews.

I can be quite impulsive in my decisions, it was first Electrical, then Civil and now Mechanical (enrolled in flexible first-year).
However when I tried to enrol in 1st year Mech Eng subjects for session 2 there were severe problems so I decided to enrol in the Civil Eng subjects taking advantage of flexible first-year.
As a result of this I missed out on MMAN1300 and MMAN1130.

You dont want to miss out on MMAN1130 Design for Manufacture. From an hands-on engineering viewpoint it was the most useful course I've done, although the lecturs were fucking shit and the tutes even more useless - the TAFE component makes up for it. If you didnt know you get to go to TAFE and make stuff in the workshop, and most probably your group project will be a pneumatic/hydraulic pump. Make sure you do it first semester next year. Its a group-project based course (no final exam), and is a good introduction to CAD. MMAN2100 (another design based subject) will fuck you over if you don't do MMAN1130 IMHO, cause you will be learning the very basics of CAD/Design while everyone else will be zooming along with a 12-week head start.

 

[Icestorm]

ACCT 1B : Easy. Not very interesting, but much better than 1A.


MACROECONOMICS 2B: The new lecturer (Alex Dimitriev) changed the course. Made the assessments ridiculously easy compared to previous years. Much more interesting course as well.

ECONOMETRIC METHODS: Much harder than Introductory econometrics, but quite interesting if you like playing around with computer statistical packages.

Applied Corporate Finance: Make sure you get a good group for the group project (25%) and you are set. Quite interesting, but the lecture delivery is somewhat tedious.
Beware of Kingsley Fong's special: one-slide trick questions not covered in the book, that appear as 20% long answer questions in the mid sem and finals.

 

[fat_penguin]

These reviews are great! Has anyone done ACCT3563?

ACCT3563:

Ease: 5/10 - this isn't an easy course; that being said, it isn't incomprehensible either. I'm assuming you've done 2B? It probably falls smack bang in the middle of the difficulty of 2A and 2B, if that gives you any indication.
Lecturers: 6/10 - some of the lecturers are good, some - well, not so much. Remember 2B - and those handwritten overheads? Well, they don't return, but the man behind them does And he brings along a stack of lecture slides that are completely ripped off from the textbook, in addition to being like seriously 60 pgs long.
Interest: 6/10 - accounting sucks, it's hardly ever interesting.
Overall: 6/10 - it's better than 2B :]


EDIT: So I could put up some psych reviews - since it seems like no one else past first year frequents these forums..!


PSYC2001 (Research methods 2):
Ease: 6.5/10 - How easy you find this subject will really depend on how good you are at statistics. Quite a few people fail this course each year, but if you study everything thoroughly and work through the examples each week, you'll be fine.
Lecturers: 8/10 - Considering how most psych students don't really like math, the lecturers did an admirable job of dragging us through all the concepts.
Interest: 2/10 - come on, it's stats!
Overall: 5.5/10 - PSYC2001 is a prerequisite for all the third year courses - basically there's no way around it and it is a pretty boring subject. That being said, the lecturers (Julie Henry and some one else - can't remember who it was in my year) are pretty good, and it'll definately help with the results section of all your reports, so it's bearable


PSYC2061 (Social and Developmental Psychology):
Ease: 8/10 - There isn't a massive leap between first year and second year psych - they're taught in much the same way, cycling through lecturers and topics to give you a better idea of the third year courses you want to take. If you read your lecture notes carefully (you don't really need to do textbook readings, although some lecturers *cough* Helen *cough* do ask questions from the textbook)
Lecturers: 8/10 - It really depends on what style of lecturing you like; most of the lecturers in this course for 2007 were really good. All of them were really engaging - the only complaint I would have is that one was a tad disorganised. Forgas' accent was a little hard to understand - you might have to re-listen to his lecturers.
Interest: 8/10 - learning about how psychologists test how babies learn was heaps interesting and imo, nothing can beat the social material - incredibly interesting stuff. You might recognise quite a bit from first year though.


PSYC2081 (Learning and Physiological Psychology):
Ease: 7/10 - There is a fair bit about the brain in this course, which increases its difficulty. Out of all the psych subjects (excluding stats), the neuropsychological stuff is amongst the hardest you can study.
Lecturers: 1/10 - This is by far the worst run psychology course I have ever come across. Lecturers were adding to the assignment a couple of days before it was due, if that's any indication. Westbrook is not that bad a lecturer - but he's very disorganised and in this course, it doesn't help. The female lecturer who took the second part of the course was even worse - I can't remember why (I may have blocked out those horrible memories ) but I distinctly remember not enjoying her lectures.
Interest: 7/10 - could a psych subject not be interesting? If you like to know how the brain works, this course is for you
Overall: 5/10 - it's an interesting course but it's horribly disorganised and the lecturers kinda suck.


PSYC2101 (Assessment and Personality):
Ease: 7/10 - most people found that the final assignment for personality was the worst psych assignment ever. The assessment stuff is quite easy to learn; there is a lot of content because you're learning about all kinds of psychological tests. Personality is quite easy too, but again there is a lot of content because you're taught every theory of personality under the sun.
Lecturers: 8/10 - the lecturers are pretty top notch - easy to understand and to follow, slides organised etc
Interest: 7/10 - the assessment part was really interesting; in tutorials you get to play around with parts of the WAIS and it's all very fun. The personality part didn't really appeal to me at all, which surprised me; you basically learn about every kind of theory there is, eg psychodynamic (I hate that stuff -_-) and learn what those kinds of theorists would say about some form of behaviour.
Overall: 7.5/10


Will do 3rd year subjects tomorrow I'm all worded out for tonight..!

 

[lover189]

not many arts subject reviews! boohoo

here are mine:

HIST1021- 20th C World History
- Basically covers 20thC, mostly European stuff but also broader themes rather than events/places etc eg/ colonization, total war, fascism.
- Assessments pretty straightforward- a bibliography/research task, a major essay, class test and tute participation

Ease-8.5
-if u attend lectures etc quite easy
Lecturer-8
there were 2 lecturers, both quite straightforward. lectures sometimes abit rushed as alot of subject matter to cover in short period of time
Interest- 9
if u like modern history/ hsc history u will like this. i really liked this subject!
Overall- 8.5


HIST1010- SE Asian History
- pretty much covers a couple hundred years of se asian hist mainly Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia


Ease- 7.5
Content isnt hard but the way they space out assessments is so annoying! you have to do 8 mini comprehension tute responses worth 5% each! plus a major essay plus class test and participation!

Lectures- 7
Can be quite tedious and boring. also no podcasts and no lecture notes. only an overhead projector with a brief summary on it. literally fell asleep in some of these lectures!

Interest- 6
u really have to have a passion for se asia for this subject. it can be very dry and its very different to east asian studies (which i hoped it would be like so thus i had little interest in!)

Overall- 6.5

 

[bringbackshred]

PHIL1010
Ease: 8/10 - Very straightforward lectures, although lots of readings. Shouldn't be hard if you make an effort to do the weeks readings for a couple of hours each week. Assignments can be a pain though, as they abhor ambiguity. So bullshitting your way through might help, but won't deliver any respectable marks.
Lecturers: 7/10 - Karen Lai is a lecturer that helps invigorate your interest in what you are learning in the lecture. Her catch is that you do miss out on a great deal if you skip lectures. Phillip Staines is also a decent lecturer, although slightly dry in his delivery. His post lecture transcripts on webct are also handy to go over when doing revision.
Interest: 8/10 - I have to say that this course opens your eyes to many methods of argument, as well as sharpening your bullshit detector in reading news articles and opinions. You can detect how people make false arguments, and how to strengthen your own arguments by pointing their fallacies out.
Overall: 7/10 - The exam was kind of crap, too much reading.

This course was terrible. So dry and boring. Somewhat useful, but it really didn't stimulate thought in the same way other philosophy has done with me. Additionally, it is easy as piss. I didn't go to a lecture at all apart from the first week, I handed both of my assessments in 2 weeks late and I didn't really study for the exam. I got 58 for it. That's how fucking easy it is.

 

[iversion]

hey, is there a subject review guide thing for gened subjects? anyone know the link? cheers

 

[Uncle]

So, let's start:

MATH2019:
Ease: 10/10 - Easiest course ever so far, contains mathematics that all civilised human beings must learn eventually.
Lecturer(s): 10/10 - For both Tisdell and Pahor the best lecturers ever.
Interest: 10/10 - Explains the advanced engineering mathematics that gets sneaked into first year.
Overall: 10/10 - WIN course.

MMAN2100:
Ease: 5/10 - Not well explained, only made easier because of sample content.
Lecturer(s): 4/10 - Ramble and needs to be more clear with answers.
Interest: 2/10 - Shit gay.
Overall: 3/10 - Booo I hope I pass this course.

MMAN2400:
Ease: 6/10 - Well, I like how there are more examples.
Lecturer: 8/10 - Pretty cool guy that Prusty guy, smack more furniture.
Interest: 7/10 - Failure theories are serious business.
Overall: 7/10

ARTS1690
Ease: 6/10 - What?
Lecturer(s): 8/10 - Pretty cool guys.
Interest: 7/10 - Somehwhat interesting especially when there are scenarios of ambiguity.
Overall: 6/10 - OK

 

[wendyw217]

ACCT1501:
Ease: 8/10 lecture notes are really helpful
Lecturer(s): unfortunately we had about 4... khalifa was good, although no one else seemed to like her, had an awesome tutor though 10/10 there
Interest: lecture interest - 3/10; coursework - 7/10
Overall: 8/10

ECON1101 (Micro1):
Ease: 6/10 harder than I thought
Lecturer: 6/10 lecturer was alright, regurgitate textbook
Interest: when you do your readings - 8/10, when you don't - 4/10
Overall: 5/10 I think they could do it more effectively

ECON1202 (QMA):
Ease: 6/10 Did 2U maths, so some stuff was harder - calculus at the end
Lecturer: 9/10 Bunting was the best, apparently others fared a lot worse
Interest: 8/10 good considering I'm not a big fan of maths; financial + matrices were my favourites
Overall: 8/10

MGMT1101 (Global Business Environment)
Ease: 9/10 for comprehension; 7/10 for getting marks
Lecturer: 8/10 David, was quite good
Interest: 9/10 pretty interesting stuff, but if you're not interested, then don't do this subject (seriously, you will find it v. vague)
Overall: 7/10

 

[TehAzner]

ACCT1501:
Ease: 8/10 lecture notes are really helpful
Lecturer(s): unfortunately we had about 4... khalifa was good, although no one else seemed to like her, had an awesome tutor though 10/10 there
Interest: lecture interest - 3/10; coursework - 7/10
Overall: 8/10

ECON1101 (Micro1):
Ease: 6/10 harder than I thought
Lecturer: 6/10 lecturer was alright, regurgitate textbook
Interest: when you do your readings - 8/10, when you don't - 4/10
Overall: 5/10 I think they could do it more effectively

ECON1202 (QMA):
Ease: 6/10 Did 2U maths, so some stuff was harder - calculus at the end
Lecturer: 9/10 Bunting was the best, apparently others fared a lot worse
Interest: 8/10 good considering I'm not a big fan of maths; financial + matrices were my favourites
Overall: 8/10

MGMT1101 (Global Business Environment)
Ease: 9/10 for comprehension; 7/10 for getting marks
Lecturer: 8/10 David, was quite good
Interest: 9/10 pretty interesting stuff, but if you're not interested, then don't do this subject (seriously, you will find it v. vague)
Overall: 7/10

I had Louis Yeung for QMA this semester. The lecture was only 1/4 full near the end, yet Louis Yeung thanked everyone for their patience and understanding... lol. The numbers started dwindling from week 3 onwards, PASS was more popular XD

 

[Jago]

ECON1101 (Micro1):
Ease: 6/10 harder than I thought

ooooh you're not going to like micro 2...

 

[tallkid34]

ECON2206 (Introductory Econometrics)
Ease: 7/10 Ironically, I'm finding it easier than I did with QMB. It's all mostly focused on regression and accompanying hypothesis tests
Lecturer(s): Garry was alright although some hated him. Seems like a fair lecturer in terms of final examinations so that's +1
Interest: 5/10 It's all still pretty boring at the end of the day
Overall: 6/10

ECON2209 (Business Forecasting)
Ease: 4/10 Not an easy course. Mostly explained in mathematical notation, hard to absorb and quite vaguely explained.
Lecturer: 5/10 Lecturer was incredibly boring and evening lecture times aren't very encouraging to go to
Interest: 0/10 This course is completely redundant. That's what you'd think if your tutor was constantly responding to questions with "I don't know??" and "Not sure, you really don't need to use this stuff". In addition, last section of course is not even examinable.
Overall: 2/10 An utter waste of time

ECON3104(International Macroeconomics)
Ease: 6/10: As difficult as Macro 2 with the same rough amount of content
Lecturer: 9/10 Glenn Otto is a great lecturer who is thorough and interesting to listen to
Interest: 8/10 Basically, an extension of macro 2 with a greater emphasis on money market.(Exchange rates/inflation rates/interest rate/fiscal/monetary, etc).
Overall: 7/10

MGMT1101 (Global Business Environment)
Ease: 9/10: Content is very straightforward yet getting high marks requires more analysis and comprehension
Lecturer: NA - I've never been to a management lecture in my life
Interest: 9/10 Better than management fundamentals with a nice, interesting perspective of foreign business environments
Overall: 8/10

 

[Justina]

I had Louis Yeung for QMA this semester. The lecture was only 1/4 full near the end, yet Louis Yeung thanked everyone for their patience and understanding... lol. The numbers started dwindling from week 3 onwards, PASS was more popular XD

Hey, i'm in his class too!
Wanted to wait till the end today (i usually do) but i was going to be late for my tute in the Law building so i left 5 minutes early.
Your right about attendence of his lectures, barely anyone went towards the end!

 

[Justina]

*Double Post*

 

[Justina]

Acct1501 (Accounting 1A)
Ease: 6/10 Struggled a little in the beginning, I'm not used to all the business terminology, etc. And it's not good enough to just understand the concepts, you need to practice applying them in exercises.
Lecturer(s): 6/10 Had a few lecturers, Amna (who gave most of the lectures) made me want to kill myself, lol, so boring.
Interest: 5/10 Kinda dry
Overall: 6/10

ECON1101 (Micro1):
Ease: 7/10 It's not too hard if you really follow along in the textbook which explains the concepts pretty well
Lecturer: 8/10 Started out the semester with Diane, then switched to Thomas, loved both lecturers
Interest: 7/10
Overall: 7/10 Didn't think I'd like it as much as i did.

ECON1202 (QMA):
Ease: 6/10 Hated the financial math. bits.
Lecturer: 6.5/10 I generally can't grasp mathematical concepts very well in lectures...PASS classes were a life saver.
Interest: 6/10 .....it's maths, you gotta be a maths person to like it i guess.
Overall: 6/10

PSYC1001 (Psychology 1A):
Ease: 9/10 So simple/straight forward
Lecturers: 8/10 We had a couple, loved Tom and Ben.
Interest: 8/10 pretty interesting stuff
Overall: 8.5/10

 

[nunasdream]

GENL2031

Ease: 8/10 (only 2 assignments, an easy case note and a 2500 word essay with all information provided anyway)
Lecturer(s): 5/10 David (Ok, but goes off on a tangent way too often but knows what he's talking about)
Interest: 4/10 - Pretty boring tbh but it's an easy 3 credits.
Overall: 6/10

 

[kevinx2]

URMUM101

Ease: 10/10
Interest: 2/10
Overall: 6/10

 

[Omie Jay]

URMUM101

Ease: 10/10
Interest: 2/10
Overall: 6/10

i hear u can do that course just overnight