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Author Topic: UNSW Course Reviews  (Read 288493 times)  Share 

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Opengangs

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #60 on: July 02, 2018, 03:08:44 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: MATH1131 - Mathematics 1A

Contact Hours:
Lectures: Two 2 hour lectures per week; each lecture is split an hour each between Linear Algebra and Calculus.
Tutorials: One 1 hour tutorial per week, starting from the second week of semester.

Assumed Knowledge: A combined mark of 100 across both, Mathematics and Mathematics (Extension 1)

Assessment:
Class tests: Done twice in the semester; each class test is 45 minutes long on the timetabled class "Tut 1/2". They consist of both, Linear Algebra (25 minutes) and Calculus (20 minutes).
Maple lab test: Done once in the semester; you will just need your ID card.
Weekly online tutorials: Done each week through Maple TA. There is the theory component and then the Maple component at the end of each tutorial.

Lecture Recordings?  Yes.

Notes/Materials Available: The course packs are available in the book shop; I believe they're $40, which consists of the Linear Algebra and Calculus notes, as well as a past paper booklet. Alternatively, they can also be found digitally on Moodle for download.

Textbook: N/A

Lecturer(s):
Calculus: Dr. Christopher Angstmann
Linear Algebra: Dr. Daniel Mansfield.

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 2018, semester 1

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 76 (DN)

Comments:
Overall, most of the content can be done with 3U knowledge. MATH1131 started off quite nicely, introducing concepts that has been taught at high school level. However, it becomes apparent that new content can be quite difficult to grasp for many students (ie. formal definition of a limit, fundamental theorem of Calculus), and so extra support may be needed (which is provided through tutorials and the drop in centre).

Content-wise, nothing was too hard to understand conceptually, but applying these ideas to the questions can be quite difficult. And this was evident in the finals, which was seemingly more difficult than the previous years (at least for me). Definitely was a step up from high school, but if you have a good grasp and foundation at high school level, you should be okay with this course.

This is also a prerequisite for most engineering courses, and is a prerequisite for MATH1231.

RuiAce

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #61 on: July 09, 2018, 09:57:38 pm »
+10
Subject Code/Name: COMP2521 - Data Structures and Algorithms

Contact Hours: 3 hours of lecture, 1 hour tutorial followed by 2 hours laboratory

Assumed Knowledge: COMP1511 is the sole prerequisite and is sufficient for this course.

Assessment: A bit complicated. Involves labs, assignments, prac exams and final exam.
Calculation
labs = mark for lab exercises (out of 5)
pracLabs = mark totalled over both lab exams (out of 12)
ass1 = mark for first assignment (out of 9)
ass2 = mark for second assignment (out of 14)

Finals:
finalPracExam = mark for practical component of finals (out of 36)
finalTheoExam = mark for theory component of finals (out of 24)

To pass the course, either one of the following two must be satisfied (similar to a double-pass criteria):
- finalPracExam >= 26
- finalPracExam >= 18 AND pracLabs >= 6

Calculation of mark:
assMarks = ass1 + ass2

// Convert marks into percentages:
assPerc = assMarks as a percentage
pracPerc = practical component of exam as a percentage

// Adjusts assMarks only if necessary:
if (assPerc > pracPerc) {
     adjusted_assPerc = (2 * assPerc * pracPerc)  / (assPerc + pracPerc)
    assignmentMarks  = 23 * (adjusted_assPerc / 100)
}

Then, the final mark is the sum:
marks + assignmentMarks + pracLabs + finalPracExam + finalTheoExam
The idea is that if you lose too many marks in the practical component of your final exams, your assignment marks get dragged down. The factor is in accordance to the harmonic mean (with appropriate weightings)

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture notes, lab exercises, tutorial exercises all uploaded to webcms3.

Textbook:
- Algorithms in C, Parts 1-4: Fundamentals, Data Structures, Sorting, Searching (3rd Edition)  by Robert Sedgewick, Addison-Wesley
- Algorithms in C, Part 5: Graph Algorithms (3rd Edition)  by Robert Sedgewick, Addison Wesley
Both are VERY good, but not needed for this course.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Ashesh Mahidadia

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 18 s1

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 85 HD

Comments:
This course is one of the immediate continuations of COMP1511. It replaced COMP1927. UNSW CSE recommends taking it in second year, however there really is no problem taking it in the second semester of first year. It is a prerequisite to almost all future computer science courses.

The disappointing amount of marks I threw away in the final exam killed a bit for me. It's really my own fault and the course ain't to blame for it, but it does skew my rating quite far away from what it should've been.

Algorithms are perhaps the most fundamental tool computer science students use. The study of algorithms involves trying to solve problems as efficiently as possible and also create the program to do so. On one hand, you need to understand how the algorithm works, but then on the other hand you need to know (or figure out) how to implement it. They're quite fun to explore when you sit down and attempt to understand it.

This course serves as the introduction to algorithms, with two areas of focus: sorting and graphs. Sorting is quite self explanatory, but I think this video helps introduce the fun behind it all. The graph structure forms the basis for shit tons of stuff we do (it becomes clear that even Facebook is essentially just a huge graph). It leaves you with pretty much all the basic needs for you to get a job as a computer scientist, and you really should never forget what you learn in this course. It's just that important.

At times, I found some of the lab exercises and assignments quite draining. The only thing that bugged me was that occasionally, our tasks weren't clear enough with what we had to do.

I feel like the rumours that maths helps computer science starts here. My mathematical background certainly simplified a lot of bizarre algorithms for me a lot. But I don't think they're necessary though. At the end of the day, the algorithms are backed by logic, and that's a skill any computer scientist must have.

blasonduo

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #62 on: July 10, 2018, 06:17:09 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: PHYS1121 - Physics 1A

Contact Hours: 3x 1-hour lecture, a 2-hour laboratory and a 1-hour problem-solving workshop each week.

Assumed Knowledge:  HSC Physics and Mathematics Extension 1 or equivalent. (however, in my opinion, math 2u is just fine)

Assessment:
10x weekly laboratory excersises (15%, 1.5% each)
10x weekly pre-laboratory online quizzes (5%, 0.5% each)
6x fortnightly online quizzes (10%, 1.67% each)
2x invigilated quizzes based on the fortnightly questions (20%, 10% each)
Final exam (50%)

Lecture Recordings?  Yes (but the blackboards weren't so it made it difficult to rewatch)

Notes/Materials Available: A really well made online set of videos based on the content, weekly homework question booklet.

Textbook: Halliday, D., Resnick, R., & Walker, J. (2014). Fundamentals of Physics, John Wiley & Sons. A really good textbook, but with the content this course provides, it isn't needed.

Lecturer(s): Lecturers: Dr Dimi Culcer (first half), Dr Elizabeth Angstmann (second half)

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 Semester 1

Difficulty: 3.3/5

Overall Rating:  4.7/5

Your Mark/Grade: 78 DN

Comments:

This is a really great course.

First off, this course mainly consists of mathematical questions, a vast contrast to HSC physics. This course has online videos which go over all the content in the course; they are short, succinct and very informative. They are also integrated into non-assessable quizzes which allows you to recognise if you have understood the concept. These videos are very entertaining and engaging, and a really great idea that I think should be used more often in other courses.

Out of the 687 different questions asked on the forums, 680 were answered by staff (most within 12 hours), which is absolutely amazing, the staff have really been on their toes. The forums also included weekly updates on the content that will be taught, and what we are expected to do in this week, which was really nice.

For the content itself, it really isn't that complicated, both the thermal and wave/oscillations topics are both pretty standard, the questions are all very similar, and the content itself isn't that difficult to understand. However, the difficulty does come with the mechanics side of the course. It at times is conceptually difficult to grasp, and the questions that come out of it can be almost anything, and at times, very difficult to understand. The mechanics questions are the ones that normally trip most people up in the final exam.

The lectures were great, it had a good balance between the concepts and questions, and it included regular practicals/demonstrations that were actually really cool, and probably the highlight for me. It was these demonstrations that will allowed me to think back and analyse my answers in exams to see if I got the expected result.

As for the lecturers, Dr Culcer was really great at showing applications to the concepts and completed questions at the end in a clear manner which was great. However, when explaining concepts, he does "blabber" on and it can get very easy to lose track on what he was saying which made it quite difficult to catch up in the lecture.
Dr Angstmann really had a lively environment and brought energy into the lectures, her explanations for the concepts were extremely clear, and had other resources to help. She was really engaging and really explored how fun physics is. However, the only complaint I had was the fact that we couldn't review what she was writing on the board, so it was difficult to revise. (luckily she had prerecorded ones anyway, but it would have been nice)

The workshops were quite nice and really empty, but I do emphasise the importance to at least look at the worksheets given out and to know how to answer them and to get the answers, these questions are like the final exam questions so if you don't understand a certain concept which they are covering in the workshop, go. These are in place to really help, and they do :)

When it comes to the assessments, it is really easy to get high marks and should be easy to receive a 40+/50 in the finals marks.

The labs, in my opinion, are really really really fun, they are just so fascinating, but are mostly simple. However, they are all assessable and are given about 2.5 hours of work to do in 1.8 hours, so if you don't know what you are doing walking in, you will not finish and lose marks. You are required to do this with a lab partner, so my recommendation is to find a good partner which you work well with and these marks are quite easy.

The fortnightly questions can be redone, and the highest mark counts, so this is really easy to get 100% (10% overall) I really liked these, it really allowed you to know what sections you were struggling with, this was the first year with these quizzes, so it did have many errors in it, but should fine fine in future years. Although the questions are more on the difficult side, you need to understand each question. Otherwise, you will struggle in the invigilated quizzes, and these are worth 20%. The invigilated quizzes are probably the only thing that I didn't enjoy in this course. They do consist of 4 question from the online quizzes, but the range of difficulty was large, some questions were incredibly difficult, while some were deadset easy. It felt a bit like chance where you were hoping you got the easy questions, because if you got a question which you found significantly difficult, you could say goodbye to 2.5% of your overall mark.

The final exam does not have any multiple choice but consists of questions such that it asks you to find certain properties (e.g. find the total work done) The exams normally don't have a consistent difficulty, and tends to spike occasionally, some of the questions are really enjoyable and really makes you think. The thing most people struggle with here is time, and most people struggle to even finish 80% of the exam and is the reason why I didn't achieve as high as I could've. You are also unable to double check your answers due to this time restraint.

I worry that this course may struggle in trimesters as the course worked out really well with the 14-ish weeks, it allowed for a consistent timetable that made it easier to know what was due, and also made it flow from one concept to another really easily.

Overall, this course was bloody good, it has been nurtured and the staff really really care about this course, it is clear that so much time and effort has been placed in this course to make it as prestigious as it is.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2018, 08:06:06 pm by blasonduo »
2018: UNSW B science (physics)/B education

Kicking myself into gear

HSC Physics Topics 1 & 2 Exam!

HelpICantThinkOfAName

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #63 on: July 14, 2018, 09:32:04 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: BABS1201 - Molecules, Cells and Genes

Contact Hours:  2 x 1 hour lecture. 3 hour lab every other week

Assumed Knowledge: HSC Biology OR HSC Chemistry OR HSC Physics OR HSC Earth & Environmental Science

Assessment: 
2 x Mid Semester Exams (Completed Online) - 10% Each
Science Communication Project (Group Project) - 35%
5 x Mastering Biology Online Quizzes - 1% Each
Final Exam - 50%

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available:  Lecture slides are available on Moodle. No past papers available, but questions are taken directly from Mastering Biology (An online version of the textbook). Course Manual is required for labs. It can be bought from the bookshop or printed from moodle.

Textbook: Urry et al. 2014. Campbell Biology. Mastering Biology has all the relevant information and is available for free in moodle. Don't bother buying the textbook.

Lecturer(s):
Rebecca LeBard, Anne Galea, John Wilson

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 2018 Semester 1

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating:  4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 76 DN

Comments:
This course is fairly straightforward and enjoyable. The first few weeks are the only real difficult part of the course, where you are introduced to dozens of new terms to describe cells and cell function that you need to memorise. If you are able to overcome this then the rest of the course falls into place and it becomes easy to get a respectable mark.

Mastering Biology is the online component of the textbook. It has a dedicated study area where you can test yourself using multiple choice questions and flashcards. Lots of questions for the mid semester exams and the final exams are taken directly from the study area.

The group project serves as an interesting introduction to university presentations. You are assigned a group in your first lab and choose a topic from a list given in the course manual. You first write an individual essay analysing sources relating to your topic, a primary research article and a secondary review article and relate them to the course content. You then are tasked with making an educational presentation to your lab, due in the final lab. At first the group project seems like a waste of time, but it helps legitimise the content you have learnt in your lectures by linking the content to real world research.

The labs are the opposite of physics labs. Instead of having too much work to do, it often feels like they are taking a 1.5 hour lab and stretching it out to a 3 hour long lab. By the end of the lab you are exhausted and want to lie down. The labs are not marked, but content from the labs does appear on the final exam, and the group project primarily takes place in the lab.
Studying Economics/Mathematics @ UNSW

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #64 on: July 21, 2018, 04:08:21 pm »
+3
ECON1101 (Microeconomics
Ease: 8.5/10 - This is supposed to be the easiest core commerce subject. 20% of the marks come from simply completing the Playconomics game (however, the game was really riddled with bugs and server crashes, and I found the game didn't really relate to the content we learnt and was not useful). The two tutorial tests can be quite difficult due to the strict marking criteria. The finals is multiple choice but can have some difficult questions.
Lecturer: 8/10 - Alberto was an engaging lecturer and explained most concepts well.
Interest: 8/10 - Interesting to learn about introduction to basic economics.

ECON1203 (Business and Economics Statistics)
Ease: 5/10 - This is considered by many to be the most difficult core commerce subject. There is an overwhelming amount of new content every lecture and many new formulas to learn (only a fraction of these formulas are provided in exam). Lots of effort, with fortnightly quizzes, a project, a week 11 exam and finals. Make sure to go to the PASS classes - they are really helpful for revising content.
Lecturer: 6/10 - Lecturers weren't the best at explaining difficult concepts.
Interest: 6/10 - Kind of interesting learning how businesses use stats, but mostly not that great.

ACCT1501 (Accounting & Financial Management 1A
Ease: 8/10 - Not too bad, but there is quite a bit of new content to learn if you've never done accounting before.
Lecturer: 7/10 - A mixed bag, with some good some mediocre lecturers due to rotation system.
Interest: 7/10 - Many find accounting boring, but it is kinda interesting learning how a business records all its transactions. Good intro to accounting.

LAWS1052 (Introducing Law and Justice)
Ease: 6/10 - Most law students found the course overwhelming due to how much you are expected to learn and do for a first law course. The court report and case note were tough to score highly in. If you are well prepared for the final exam, with good notes and learned the relevant skills, you should be alright.
Lecturer: 10/10 - Jennifer Moore was a really engaging and funny lecturer. She is always so infectious in her enthusiasm for the subject.
Interest: 7/10 - Detailed intro to law but a bit too much history for me.

katie,rinos

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #65 on: November 01, 2018, 11:11:08 am »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MUSC1604-Western Music: A Panorama

Contact Hours: 2 hr lecture & 1hr tute per week

Assumed Knowledge: Nil

Assessment:  Listening tests (10% wk 4, 25% wk 12), Lecture material tests (10% wk 4, 25% wk 12), Tutorial presentation (5% presentation, 10% executive summary), Tutorial participation (10%)

Lecture Recordings?Yes (however 80% attendance is required).

Notes/Materials Available: No, apart from the online listening list

Textbook: A history of Western Music by Burkholder, Grout and Palisca. This was really helpful for the presentation/executive summary but I’d definitely suggest to borrow it from the library.
The Oxford History of Western Music-Taruskin (available as ebook/online from the library)

Lecturer(s): Emery Schubert

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 2018, 2

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating:  4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 68CR

Comments:
I found the lectures rally interesting and a great overview of Western music. In the lectures we looked at the Renaissance, Baroque, 18th C, Bethoven, Romanticism, Wagner/Verdi and the 20th Century.

Both the listening and lecture tests were completed through moodle and were either multiple choice or drop drop options.
   Listening tests: The 1st listening test in week 4 had 9 pieces and went for 10 minutes while the 2nd in week 12 had around 40 pieces and went for 20 minutes. For the listening tests, you can’t leave studying to the last minute because it’s something that needs a lot of time to go well. To study, I would make a Spotify playlist of all the pieces and then listen to it so I would be able to recognise them. I also had a table that included details such as the piece’s title, composer, era/date, genre, instrumentation and stylistic features.
   Lecture tests: The 1st test in wk 4 went for 30 minutes, while the one in wk 12 went for 40min. For the lecture tests it is expected that you are reading external resources such as the textbooks to get a higher mark. There were questions in these tests that weren’t covered in the lectures but were in these textbooks.

For our tutorial presentations, we were each given a piece to research (composer/historical background, technical aspects of piece) and make a 500-word executive summary about it. We needed to do a 5-minute presentation in class on the piece and had to be prepared to answer any questions our class may have about it. Each week, we had about 3 people do their presentations. There was a large focus on the use of scholarly sources and correct referencing throughout the tutes.

Tutorial participation marks were worth 10% and based on both talking in class and in the online moodle forum. We were meant to ask questions/clarify definitions after people’s presentations in class, or add extra information through moodle. I think I did 3-4, 200 word moodle posts and I got 90% so it wasn’t too bad. I also found that the communication on moodle was very good and all questions were answered quickly.
Class of 2017 (Year 12): Advanced English, General Maths, Legal Studies, Music 1, Ancient History, History Extension, Hospitality
2018-2022: B Music/B Education (Secondary) [UNSW]

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #66 on: November 04, 2018, 05:47:38 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: MDIA1003 - PR & Advertising Foundations

Contact Hours: 3 - 1.5 hour lecture, 1.5 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None, but to do the course you have to enrolled in a Media degree

Assessment: Campaign Analysis (20%), 1000 word essay (35%), Client Pitch [45% - Part A (10%), which was a group pitch and Part B (35%), your individual pitch which is ~2500 words]

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: All on Moodle

Textbook: None

Lecturer(s): Lecturer - Dr Michael Richardson, Tutor: Dr Jonathan Foye

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: Semester 2, 2018

Difficulty: 2.5/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Comments:
I really enjoyed this course. It went into a lot more depth and was infinitely more interesting than MDIA1002 and a great overview for PR/Advertising. The lectures were quite interactive but you don't miss out on much if you don't go, but if you do, you don't have to do the readings because they're summarised in the lectures.

However, if there's one thing that's not fair about this course is marking which I don't think had specific guidelines to ensure equality across tutors. Some tutors marked a lot more leniently than others. To put things into perspective, my friend had a more lenient tutor and got 80+ in all her assessments, and another friend had a different tutor and was lucky to get a 70; and they both put in a similar amount of effort for their assessments. This was very common across the cohort.

In saying that, half the assessments are group work. You don't get to pick for the Campaign Analysis, but for the Group Client Pitch you do. Make sure you're prepared at least two days before the assessment dates so you're not pulling everything together at the last minute. The final assessment (Individual client pitch) isn't explained very well so ask lots of questions!!
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #67 on: November 04, 2018, 05:59:09 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: ARTS1511 - Introductory German B

Contact Hours: 5 - 2 hour lecture, 1 hour tutorial, 2 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: A1 level of German at the European Framework for Languages or equivalent

Assessment: 3x Portfolios (45%), 3x tests (55%, writing and speaking)

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Extra resources on Moodle

Textbook: Kontakte 8th Edition, Tschirner

Lecturer(s): Lecturer/Tutor - Silke Schoppe

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: Semester 2, 2018

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Comments:
Compared to Intro A, Intro B wasn't as good. I came out of Intro A having done really enjoyed the course and doing well, and Intro B flipped everything.
 
While I still find studying German very interesting, the concepts were harder this semester and I found it more difficult to go out of my way and actually practice. Frau Schoppe is new to UNSW and it took a while for her to get into the swing of things, but as the semester progressed, I did find German getting better. Poor timetabling is part of what made me not so happy about the course because on a Monday morning I had the 2 hour lecture and then the 1 hour tutorial straight after.

However, I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment after completing this course because the concepts taught tie up a lot of loose ends from Intro A. I feel like I can actually write a decent sentence without consulting Google Translate after this semester :-)
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #68 on: November 04, 2018, 06:17:35 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: ARTS1091 - Media, Society, Politics

Contact Hours: 3 - 1.5 hour lecture, 1.5 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None

Assessment: 1000 word essay (20%), Discussion Paper (30%), Research Portfolio (50%)

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: All on Moodle

Textbook: None

Lecturer(s): Lecturer - Dr Collin Chua, Tutor - Dr James Dutton

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: Semester 2, 2018

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Comments:
This course wasn't as bad as ARTS1090, but it wasn't amazing either. It seemed very promising at first, but gradually it gets so tedious -- especially the assessments.

I'll start wth the content: I will give points to the lectures and content in general for trying to be relevant with the 21st century, but that's about it. The discussion in tutorials could be quite interesting and it provoked deeper thought on current issues in relation to media consumption and activity based around it. On the other hand, the assessments were awful. There's nothing else to say about them but tedious and boring and I hated every second of the assessments. The good thing is instructions are clear but the actual act of writing them wasn't enjoyable whatsoever.
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #69 on: November 04, 2018, 06:36:10 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: INST1006 - The World in Transition

Contact Hours: 3 - 2 hour lecture, 1 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None, but you do need to be enrolled in B International Studies

Assessment: 2x essays (60%), mid-term (30%), group presentation (10%)

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: All on Moodle

Textbook: None

Lecturer(s): Lecturer - Dr Emma Christopher, Tutor - Dr James Dhizaala

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: Semester 2, 2018

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating: 2.5/5

Comments:
This course was so promising. The content is really interesting but the execution was terrible. As a history lover, looking at historical events and seeng how they shaped the world today was very fascinating and the course provided me with a better understanding of different perspectives regarding the world today and how history (and more specifically, colonialism) impacts current events. The course is structured like this: colonial theories are taught in the first few weeks and then there are case studies based on the continents of the world for the rest. Sometimes there were guest lecturers who were experts on certain topics and they were amazing.

What I didn't like, rather, despised were the tutorials and assessments.

I'll start with the tutorials. The tutorials required students, who in groups of 2 were to create a presentation on the lecture and readings from the week prior. What was so annoying about this was these presentations weren't assessed and it took so much time to make them. For some people, they didn't do readings in certain weeks because they didn't want to focus on that specific region of the world for their essays which makes sense, because some of them were ridiculously long (one week had over 150 pages). The tutor just sat at his desk and didn't really foster discussion later and didn't clarify questions on the readings because most of the time students tried to understand the readings but didn't really get them.

The assessments are another story. The mid-term was fine because it was straightforward, but the hand-in tasks... my goodness. Both essays had such vague instructions to "encourage discussion", "room to move", and "creative arguments" to the point where no one knew what they were doing. The essays were framed as totally different tasks, but upon reflection they were so similar I felt like I spent 4500 words repeating myself. The marking is another story in itself, which was very inconsistent (we didn't have marking criteria) and were told what was right or wrong after we had submitted the essays -- and apparently the vague instructions were supposed to allow us to form unique arguments and discuss different things? The group presentation was fine, however, the feedback across different groups contradicted each other.

I'll give points to the content, which speaks for itself because it's super interesting and I liked the guest lecturer thing, but the assessments and marking were awful.
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

katie,rinos

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #70 on: November 08, 2018, 10:12:22 am »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MUSC1704-Performance Lab 2

Contact Hours:
2 hr lecture/masterclass:wks 1,4,7,10,13
2 hr studio:wks 2,5,8,11
2 hr ensemble weekly

Assumed Knowledge: You must be enrolled in a music degree (Arts students can choose MUSC1706). I think you need to have done Performance Lab 1 as well.

Assessment:  Workshop demonstration (20%), Ensemble contribution/part checking (20%), Performance critiques (choose 2 of 5-5% each), Performance Exam (50%).

Lecture Recordings?  No

Notes/Materials Available:  Nil, however some small readings/Powerpoints for critiques.

Textbook: None

Lecturer(s): Laura Chislett

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 2018,2

Difficulty: 3.5

Overall Rating:  3.5

Your Mark/Grade: 69CR

Comments:
This course is changing next year for trimesters: each performance lab unit will be 12 uoc, and 1yr/3terms long from 2019. There may also be changes to the course structure/assessments.

This course was incredibly similar to performance lab 1 in terms of structure and assessments (however, we were expected to be at a slightly higher level than last semester). Therefore, I already knew the general structure, and expectation of our assessments and the marking.

However, I found the communication worst then last semester. There were heaps of times where I would email or ask the lecturer a question and she would either take ages to reply or would tell me to go and talk to the SAM office which was really frustrating.

The lectures were normally pretty interesting and it was a mix between masterclasses (Singing, performance anxiety, viola de gamba) and class performances (jazz & class concert). The critiques were 500 words each and we had a week to do each one (the questions were released either during/after the lectures). We had to do 2 questions out of the 5 lectures and each was worth 5%. The first two studio classes were intro performances, and the last two were the assessed performance workshops. The performance workshop was a 3-5 minute presentation where you had to play a piece and then talk about it (technical/interpretative issue).

Ensemble/Assessment: As part of the course, you must be a part of an ensemble and attend at least 80% of all weekly rehearsals, and the concert. There is a list of ensembles here. I was in wind symphony this year and it’s been really fun! The part checking assessment is in small groups 4-5 people, and you play through parts of the pieces from the concert.

Performance Exam: The performance exam is 20 minutes long and includes a study, pieces and sight reading. The course includes a subsidy for private lessons (10 lessons- $600). If you want to practise at uni make sure you book a room in advance because they can fill up very quickly.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2018, 04:45:06 pm by katie,rinos »
Class of 2017 (Year 12): Advanced English, General Maths, Legal Studies, Music 1, Ancient History, History Extension, Hospitality
2018-2022: B Music/B Education (Secondary) [UNSW]

RuiAce

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #71 on: November 22, 2018, 11:01:05 pm »
+9
Subject Code/Name: MATH3701 - Higher Topology and Differential Geometry
Equivalent postgraduate variant: MATH5700 - Modern Differential Geometry and Topology

Contact Hours: 3 x 1 hours of lecture, 1 hour of tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: 12 UoC of Level 2 mathematics courses is required, but within that 12 UoC it is expected that 6 UoC comes from one of the following: MATH2111 or MATH2601 or MATH2011 CR or MATH2501 CR. However, I would recommend bare minimum DN in both MATH2111 and MATH2601, because whilst comparatively little linear algebra and calculus are used explicitly, a lot seems to get mentioned in passing.

MATH3611 or MATH3711 completed beforehand is highly recommended to understand the more abstract concepts, but not necessary.

Assessment: 30% Midsem Exam, 40% Assignment, 30% Finals Exam

Lecture Recordings? No

Notes/Materials Available: Handwritten notes. Have cons but the handwriting is very legible. A reasonably abundant supply of past papers is provided.

Textbook:
 - Topology (2nd Edition) by James Munkres - This one can be hard to read, but I've been reported that it's really useful.
 - Elementary Differential Geometry by Andrew Pressley - This one is awesome

Lecturer(s): Dr. Mircea Voineagu

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 18 s2

Difficulty: 4/5

Overall Rating: 2.5/5 

Your Mark/Grade: 89 HD Potentially subject to change, but if this comment is not edited out then assume no change was necessary

Comments:
Please be advised that this review is subject to becoming outdated immediately. The course structure in 19 t3 is expected to be different under the new lecturer.

This course is one of the core courses for a major in Pure Mathematics.

Topology is sort of a bridge between analysis and algebra - it uses concepts in both. Whilst its roots seem to stem from elementary set theory, it adds in various algebraic and analytic structures. It is of course, the field of maths that talks about the coffee cup and the donut. Whereas differential geometry is, as I like to summarise it simply, putting some kind of calculus (differential structure) on curves and surfaces that we already know of. (Although it does touch on manifolds, which generalises upon surfaces.)

I had a lot of trouble with this course throughout the semester. I found it difficult dealing with the fact that I had to forfeit any sense of mathematical rigour to understand the concepts, because many rigourously defined things were just too bizarre (although fortunately not examinable either). Eventually I relied heavily on two things - intuition and rote learning. Intuition can be helpful especially when dealing with topology because trying to formalise something built on algebraic topology can be hard, but being able to picture a loop or some shit in your head turns out to be sufficient most of the time. Same goes for certain aspects of differential geometry, most notably the basic definitions. On the other hand the rote learning was disappointing - I still don't fully understand Van Kampen's theorem or geodesics (or other unlisted stuff) yet. I've mostly been taking for granted how to use it.

I definitely do advise "intuition" as something to develop and utilise in this course. It pushed me through a fair lot of the course despite constantly being in agony over it.

What was certainly a bit of a shock was that this course had some very nasty computations. I wasn't expecting that for a level 3 pure mathematics course and it can get quite annoying, so that's something to keep in mind about. But other than that, the proofs in this course didn't require full detail (or so I felt). So long as you displayed some understanding of the concepts, something wishy-washy wasn't necessarily so bad it seems.

The teaching quality was something I was really uncomfortable about with this course. Occasionally concepts made sense, but at other times they were just skimmed with insufficient intuition. On the other hand things I found the consultations were a lot more life-saving (the 1-on-1 help helps a lot) and I am very thankful for both the 40% assignment and the generous marking across all tasks. I believe that the lecturer's personality should be praised.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2020, 11:22:49 am by RuiAce »

katie,rinos

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #72 on: November 23, 2018, 02:40:42 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: MUSC1603-Materials and Structures of Music 2

Contact Hours: 1hr lecture, 1hr aural tute, 1hr rhythm studio per week

Assumed Knowledge: MUSC1602-M&S1

Assessment: 
Harmony lectures: 2 in-class tests (wks 4 & 8, worth 20% each), Composition (20%). You must receive 50% or higher in this part to pass the course.
Auralia: Progress (checked twice during the sem, 5%), Test (wk 11, 10%)
Aural tute: Transcription (10%), Sight singing (5%)
Rhythm workshop: 2 in class tests and a Rhythm etude/exercise (10%)

Lecture Recordings?  No

Notes/Materials Available:  Some notes and practise exercises were available on moodle for the harmony lectures and the rhythm studio.

Textbook: The musician’s guide to theory and analysis. It’s the same textbook as last semesters course, and can be used for M&S 3&4 (next year’s courses). The textbook does explain some concepts well but I didn’t use it too much.

Lecturer(s): Lecturer: Harrison Collins, Aural tutor: David Taylor, Rhythm Tutor: Steven Machamer

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 2018, 2

Difficulty: 4/5

Overall Rating:  2.5/5

Comments:
Some of this course and assessments are very similar to M&S1, however it is a step up and I did find it a bit difficult. All of the content from last semesters course is quickly revisited at the start of the course, but is all assumed knowledge and the foundations for later content. Although, I did find it a difficult class it was one that I learnt a lot of new information and concepts.

I found that the harmony lectures were pretty interesting most of the time and that Harrison tried to go over new concepts in a way that was easy to understand. He went over concepts both with simple definitions and examples (that he made up, and from piano music). We started the semester with revision (cadences, minor/major scales, secondary dominants) and then moved to secondary leading tone chords, pivot chord modulations, non-harmonic tones, periodicity/phrases & structure. I found the 2 in class tests really difficult, especially in 50 minutes, however the composition wasn’t too bad (as you could check off everything that was needed). Harrison was approachable if you had any questions and he put up extra practise exercises on moodle when anyone emailed him. He also set up an extra harmony tute, the week before a test, going over some of the concepts which helped improve my marks.

The aural studio mainly just included us listening to music, and answering question (normally in a small group). We also needed to use an online program called auralia (which we brought last sem), consistently work through it for our progress mark and had a test on it at the end of the sem. Some people didn’t put too much effort into this and got a really low mark, however it is easy to get 90’s for progress if you do a few exercises a week.

The rhythm studio was incredibly boring and started off very easy. The lecturer wasn’t very interesting and some of the later concepts, I didn’t fully understand when I’d left the class. The course was only worth 10% but we had three assessments: two tests (one on signs of duration/binary time, the other on polyrthyhms), and also had to perform an etude (by doing conducting patterns, and speaking the rhythms using comparative counting (1e&a, 1234, Ta ka di mi).
« Last Edit: November 23, 2018, 02:44:39 pm by katie,rinos »
Class of 2017 (Year 12): Advanced English, General Maths, Legal Studies, Music 1, Ancient History, History Extension, Hospitality
2018-2022: B Music/B Education (Secondary) [UNSW]

RuiAce

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #73 on: November 27, 2018, 03:02:46 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: MATH3411 - Information, Codes and Ciphers

Contact Hours: 3 hours of lecture (chopped up into 1+2 this year), 1 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: The listed prerequisite is MATH1081 or MATH2099 or CR in: {MATH1231 or MATH1241 or MATH1251}. I do highly agree with the MATH1081 prerequisite, but the only 1231 stuff you really need is just vector spaces and an understanding of eigenvalues.

Assessment:
- 1 x 10% in-lecture test
- 2 x 15% in-lecture tests
- 60% final exam

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Course pack, Thomas's notes, Thomas's slides, past papers for tests back to 2011. (Also Facebook group and Piazza forum.) That equates to tons in my opinion.

Textbook: See page 6 of the course outline, but honestly none of them are necessary given the resources already available.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Thomas Britz

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 2018 s2

Difficulty: 0.5/5 for me. A first year student taking this course would probably give it a 3.5/5 though.

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 96 HD

Comments:
This is one of the few third year mathematics elective courses that falls under Pure Mathematics. Of course, you do not need to be taking that major to be eligible to enrol in the course.

Essentially this course is an introduction to the theory of encryption. Topics included error correcting codes and compression codes etc., which essentially provide differing perspectives on how information can be transferred from one party to another. Many fundamental techniques are covered such as Huffman coding, however there's also some more advanced applications. Plus a fun chapter on cryptography at the very end.

This was the first course ever where I was able to walk into every lecture, and pretty much almost always understand everything. The only times I got lost were when I zoned out myself. All of the non-mathsy stuff made complete intuitive sense to me and the maths was just stuff I had already seen over and over again in the past. I found that this course was basically just the first time I saw some real-world based applications of stuff I already understood conceptually.

The learning spike in this course starts in topic 5 where number theory and abstract algebra is introduced. But as opposed to MATH3711 content which I didn't comprehend, this stuff barely scratches the surface of algebra and only teaches the few things you require for BCH coding (which was one of the hardest things in the course). Usually if you can get your head around topic 5, you've gotten your head around the entire thing.

Topic 7 (cryptography) should probably be treated as a standalone thing. It was examinable, but the concepts are (slightly) more independent from the rest of the course and should hopefully be more of an enjoyable topic.

I mean, all I have for this course is praise. Biggest WAM booster I've had and comparatively speaking one of the easiest courses I had ever touched. Some people do actually take this course in first year sem 2 (they take MATH1081 in sem 1 which is sufficient as a prereq), but even then whilst it'd be harder for them relatively speaking, it's still manageable. Every maths student should consider taking it for either ease or the chance to witness some cool applications of the stuff they learn, but it does also work as a gen ed for anyone who has taken MATH1081 previously.

RuiAce

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #74 on: November 27, 2018, 03:38:34 pm »
+10
Subject Code/Name: MATH3871 - Bayesian Inference and Computation
Equivalent postgraduate variant: MATH5960

Contact Hours: 2 hours of lecture, 1 hour of tutorial, 1 hour of laboratory

Assumed Knowledge: MATH2801 or MATH2901, but the latter is seriously recommended. (Apparently the lecturer was told by someone that MATH2931 was also a prerequisite when it was not, but fortunately he kept the 2931 content minimal. Although even if not mandatory, MATH2931 is still helpful.)

Assessment:
- 20% Group Assignment
- 15% Individual Assignment
- 5% Class Participation (not too hard to get)
- 60% Final Exam

Lecture Recordings? Mostly yes - at times Zdravko used the whiteboard, but not frequently.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture slides (+ notes for the MCMC section) and tutorial/lab exercises provided, but that was it. Felt insufficient, but it seemed to be fine - you just had to be able to redo the tutorial exercises.

Textbook: Statistical Modeling and Computation, D.P. Kroese and J.C.C. Chan, Springer, 2014. Was not necessary but it was still a decent textbook.
Also provided was Handbook of Monte Carlo Methods, D.P. Kroese, T. Taimre, Z. Botev - had some helpful techniques included.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Zdravko Botev

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 18 s2

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 4.5/5 

Your Mark/Grade: 92 HD

Comments:
This is one of the third year electives for a Statistics major. Completion of this course along with the three core gets accreditation with the Statistics Society of Australia.

Bayesian inference stems from a probabilistic approach of inference - it literally falls out of Bayes rule. In the classical frequentist approach, parameters to be estimated were fixed, but Bayesian approaches treat the parameter itself as a random variable, consequently invoking lots more probabilistic techniques (credible intervals, hypothesis tests, expectation of the parameter, predictive distribution etc.)

This course also introduced simulation techniques. Basic methods (inverse transform, accept/reject method) were covered but there was a lot of depth put into Markov-chain Monte Carlo.

The computations in this course are quite interesting. On one hand, some of them are fairly straightforward thanks to the shortcuts you're introduced in weeks 1 and 2. But then at other times they get completely chaotic and it feels a bit like a war trying to fight through all of it (cough Bayes factors). A part of the course was recognising distributions, because that helped you simplify down nasty integrals (including multivariate integrals).
Those tricks were so convenient though. Trivialised pretty much half of the computations you saw in this course.

The simulations were examined through making you do a few computations in advance and also writing pseudocode. For example, with the usual rejection sampling you had to understand high school optimisation to find the optimal enveloping constant. But you pretty much just had to adapt your distributions/values/etc. to the algorithm itself to write out the pseudocode, and there was no strict style guide for it either.

Much like with combinatorics last sem, I found I actually liked this course despite having various difficult concepts. It helped that the tutorials/assignments/exam were all made fairer by the new lecturer (this course used to be a 5/5 difficulty course). But it was still pretty easy to get lost in the lectures because the lecture examples were much harder to grasp (a lot of multivariate computations).

You did need to know all the definitions, techniques and tricks the course teaches you to do well in the exam. A bit of all of that was asked.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2020, 11:21:31 am by RuiAce »