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March 29, 2024, 05:59:12 am

Author Topic: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings  (Read 829130 times)  Share 

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LifeisaConstantStruggle

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #480 on: December 08, 2019, 03:19:20 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: ETC3520 – Foundations of Quantitative Finance

Workload:  1x 2 hour lecture, 1x 1.5 hour tutorial

Assessment: 
2 class tests worth 20% each. The class tests were pretty straightforward if you know the content relatively well, and a lot of the questions kind of mirror the tutorial questions. There will be some unexpected questions in there but if you prepare for the class tests well they will be fairly easy to tackle, the median grade for the class tests were HDs.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No sample and past exams available, but that might change as this is the first time the unit is run.

Textbook Recommendation:  Would definitely recommend the CT8/CM2 study guide from iFoA as they run through the content in compliance with the study guides, even though the notation used in the lecture slides differ from CT8/CM2 (and the tutorials what even). The mistake I made was not looking at the questions provided in these study guides so it is imperative that you look through them in your own time.

Lecturer(s): Athanasios Pantelous. Not a very clear lecturer on what he expects from you in terms of applicability or mathematical ability but I’d say expect to study on your own (with other sources than his lecture slides) a lot more.

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 S2

Rating: 2.6 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: HD

Comments:
This unit covers to some detail the basic concepts that underlie financial engineering and finance in a more theoretical and mathematical sense. You skim through the surface on a wide variety of topics. The unit starts off with utility theory, the axioms for the expected utility theory to work and its violations, which brings you to the more realistic prospect theory. You are then given an introduction to measures of investment risk (think variance, tail value-at-risk, that sort of stuff).
The unit then gets more technical to have a run through of how we model stochastic processes, introductions to Brownian motion, martingales, stochastic calculus and Ito processes are taught before the 1st class test. This is where it gets quite complicated and some self-study is required to understand the underlying mathematics of these concepts, because Thanasi won’t teach you that.
The second half of this unit mainly concerns introducing derivatives and a brief introduction to term structures, what they are and how one would price it (in a discrete/continuous case) under given assumptions. Some would be familiar with the Black-Scholes Option Pricing technique and the Greeks from BFC2751 or other units, but in this unit it’s treated in a theoretical fashion.
I would say this unit is interesting in a lot of aspects, but only do it if you need your actuarial exemptions since it is kinda badly taught and you do most of your own learning anyways. If you’re interested in applicability of the knowledge you’ve learnt I would suggest doing BFC2751/3340 and if you want to learn the maths do ETC3510/MTH3251.
The exam was pretty hard and there were a lot of curveballs so be sure to be prepared for that, but I would say the concepts themselves, at least taught in this context is not too complicated.   

2018-2020: Bachelor of Actuarial Science (+ Econometrics), Monash
2021: Bachelor of Commerce (Honours), Econometrics & Financial Mathematics, Monash
2022-2023: Work and some soul-searching

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #481 on: December 09, 2019, 08:15:51 am »
+6
Subject Code/Name: BFC2140 - Corporate Finance 1 

Workload:
1x 2 hr lecture
1x 1 hr tutorial

Assessment:
5% tut participation - my tutor didnt care about your real participation in class, just as long as you came, that was enough for her. although i did hear some other tutors in other classes who marked quite harshly depending on your engagement within the class (which is stupid because 20 of you cant engage equally)
20% online post lecture exercises - ok ill be honest, im writing this two semesters after and i really dont remember this LMAO
25% mid sem test - was quite hard. harder than the final exam in my opinion
50% exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes

Textbook Recommendation:  big no

Lecturer(s): emma zhang

Year & Semester of completion: Sem 1 2019

Rating:  5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: HD

Comments:
Overall a nice foundation finance unit that teaches finance broadly. the math isnt complex where you want to die and is quite understandable (coming from someone who did poorly in methods <30 ss). there really is no hard part about this unit from what i remember. this is a nice easy unit to do as a wam booster for those outside the finance department. i have no gripe with this unit

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #482 on: December 09, 2019, 08:26:29 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name: ECC2000 - Intermediate microeconomics 

Workload:
1x 2 hr lecture
1x 1 hr tute

Assessment: 
10% assignments - these assignments are like the tutorial questions but they give the answers away after release. only like 2-3 of them are marked in the end but all of them need to be submitted (or not, at  your own risk of it not being graded). for us, it was only the later weeks that were graded. they are the same level difficulty as the tutorial questions in my opinion.
5% tut participation - rock up and get that 5% easy
25% mid sem test - mc choice quiz that is 95% theory. dont be fooled by the amount of math they do in the lectures because if you dont understand the economic concepts that come with the math, then youre screwed in this quiz (i.e. the mistake i made). heavy heavy heavy emphasis on theory.
60% final exam - again, with the amount of math in the tutorial questions and assignments and in lectures, you'd assume there was a lot of math in the exam, nope. 70% exam was theory.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes

Past exams available:  Yes no worked solutions, just sketch answers. the practice exam was so difficult compared the real exam mostly because the math was so intense that people were just askign about the math in consultations and not about the actual economic concepts which is a big problem in itself.

Textbook Recommendation:  nah

Lecturer(s): nicholas feltovich - idk i would avoid this lecturer if i were you. brushed through difficult math concepts because it was AsSuMeD knowledge. this is the only lecturer thats ever done this in my 3 years of uni.

Year & Semester of completion: sem 1 2019

Rating:  1 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: C

Comments: I hated this unit so much because of the lecturer and I would do your best to avoid encountering him. he just made me hate it so much because of how bad he is at teaching. he is a academic first before he is a teacher. he can't teach and goes quickly through economic concepts sooo quickly. this fools been doing this for 30 years and we've been doing it for 1 or 2 years so of course we cant keep up. in order to do well in this unit, please focus on the theory even if the math is quite daunting because thats where they will test you the most.

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #483 on: December 09, 2019, 08:39:27 am »
+6
Subject Code/Name: ECC2800 - Prosperity, poverty and sustainability in a globalised world 

Workload: 
1x 2 hr lectorial - its a workshop and a lecture combined. you can go if you want, or not but the activities they do in the workshop i dont think are as quite as compulsory to participate in to achieve a high mark

Assessment: 
15% online discussion log - a forum where youre put into a group with other people and you just summarise an article each and give questions to your group members for them to answer each week. overall, if your group sucks, just carry yourself and do the article summaries yourself. basically, just talk to yourself most of the time and they'll see it. easy 15% if you can put the effort in
10% argument task - basically a skeleton essay of your essay
25% essay task - you get to pick between 3 different essay topics on a fcfs basis so make sure you get in quick because the easiest ones will get picked first and you'll screw yourself talking about complex malthus problems otherwise. this is also peer reviewed which might be bad or good depending on your peers. 
50% exam - mcq

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  no

Textbook Recommendation:  no

Lecturer(s): simon angus - very passionate lecturer, enjoyed him and babied my learning which is always nice

Year & Semester of completion: sem 1 2019

Rating:  4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: D only because i bombed the exam lmao (i.e. didnt study one topic because thought it was minor but there was like 10 questions on it, big L to me)

Comments: Overall, this is a fun engaging unit. i made good friends in the workshops so it was worth for me to come. make sure you study everything in the lectures no matter how tiny or how quick he goes through it because it'll come bite you if you don't. i think what i didnt study was about taxing pollutants and the tariffs that came with it or something, not sure. but we only spent like 30 minutes of 1 lecture on it and i dindt understand and it wasnt on the practice quizzes so i assumed it wasnt going to be on the exam, but it was, oops! simon basically lit my passion for developmental economics and id like to be doing something around that area in the near future. this is a good unit to do before ecc2010 or maybe even during because the concepts are somewhat similar

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #484 on: December 09, 2019, 09:59:40 am »
+6
Subject Code/Name: ETC2410- INTRODUCTORY ECONOMETRICS  

Workload: 
1x 1 hr 30 tutorial - most of the time doesnt even reach the 1hr 30 mark.
1x 2 hr lecture

Assessment:
10% mid sem test - mcq on laptops in a cramped room so quite easy to cheat. questions were fairish in difficulty. no cheat sheet
10% group assignment 1 - hard
10% group assignment 2 - hard
10% tut participation - 5% for submitting tutorial questions which are marked so you as long as you put or look like you put some effort in, you can get the 5%. and the other 5% is for coming in.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes 2 previous exams with answers

Textbook Recommendation:  no

Lecturer(s): farshid vahid-araghi. quite difficult to follow but not enough to warrant avoiding the unit because hes teaching. i heard someone called jun is one of the best lecturers for this unit so maybe worth waiting for him?

Year & Semester of completion: sem 1 2019

Rating: 3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: D

Comments: to be honest, im not deserving of my mark because i still have no idea to this day what i've learned. all the assignments were super hard, the content in this unit was super hard and is a huge step up from bus stats. the math is quite complex and i really dont understand anything in this unit. the theory is abstract (to me anyways) and to finance students, good luck lmao! i had Le as my tutor and he was amazing. if you can, try to get him. he is very good at explaining concepts (dare i say better than farshid) and is very responsive to emails (will reply at 1am). his notes are also very good.

if you have a weak background in math you will struggle in this unit but if you have a strong background, this should be a walk in the park for you. dont do this unit unless you have to

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #485 on: December 09, 2019, 10:17:17 am »
+6
Subject Code/Name: BFC2751 - Derivatives 1 

Workload:
1x 2hr lecture
1x tutorial

Assessment:
30% mst - fair test
12% assignment - every question was googable. they sent an email out giving people zeros for those who copied word for word smh. if they wanted to avoid this, dont reuse questions
8% class participation - so i wasnt aware that participation actually meant participation smh.  my tutor actually recorded everyones particpation but never asked any questions to specific people and only kept asking questions to her favourites so wtf was up with that? i wasnt aware participation actually meant participation. anyways 5% was given to those who participated heavily and another 3% was available for posting a practice exam question on the forums
50% final exam - fair exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes, 1

Textbook Recommendation:  no

Lecturer(s): ali sheikhbahaei and li ge

Year & Semester of completion: sem 2 2019

Rating:  4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: hd

Comments: i struggled with this unit at the start as i do admit it was quite difficult to grasp my head around some of the concepts but as soon as you do get the things they teach you, everything else comes naturally. for example, option strategies was such a difficult and exhausting part of the unit but come to think of it, it was quite easy once you remember the basics. it might be overwhelming but if you break it down, you can do well. this basically applies to all other parts of the unit.
this is one of the well taught finance units. what left a bitter taste in my mouth was the participation marks but thats another story.
ali was a worse lecturer than li but maybe thats because he had harder content to teach? arbitrage opportunities is quite daunting at first but it does get better. he made me want to drop the unit but i couldnt anyways lmao so i was just being dramatic.
advice for those wanting to do well: make sure you do all your tutorial questions before hand (google solutions if you must) so that you can ask questions during the tutorial as they only have 1 hr to fit in all the questions so they do rush. make sure you stay on top of the unit and just ask ask ask questions! btw stay away from alison the tutor smh

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #486 on: December 09, 2019, 10:30:42 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name: BFC3241 - Equities and investment analysis 

Workload: 
1x 1hr tutorial
1x 2hr lecture

Assessment: 
10% mst - some questions googable. lots of topics werent even covered in the lectures so i have no idea what the fk he was doing with these questions. it pissed a lot of people off.
25% group assignment - very exhausting very long group assignment. its just a lot to do. first 5/6 lectures is basically for the group assignment.
60% exam - fairish? a bit daunting though

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes with sketch answers and some topics in it that werent relevant to this present unit now (sometimes he wouldnt tell us)

Textbook Recommendation:  no

Lecturer(s): jean-paul rabanal

Year & Semester of completion: sem 2 2019

Rating: 2 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: d

Comments: ill be honest, for the first half of the unit, i questioned what i actually have learned despite being somewhat engaged in the unit. i felt lacking in knowledge seeing as most of the earlier lecturers were basically how to do your assignment.
in sem 1 2019, the exam was apparently hell and there was a petition with like 200 signatures about the exam. look in stalkerspace for proof. he put in topics that werent covered in the lectures but were on the practice exam. so glad i dodged that bullet as i think he was a bit more lenient this time. there was a question on the practice exam this time round that was exactly the same as the one on the final exam which was perfect because it was math heavy and you could rote learn how to do it. we were also barely exposed to that topic so that saved my ass as it was worth a lot of marks.
this unit is poorly run imo and i wonder when jean paul is going to get switched after his poor performance last semester and the stress he put on students. he has seem to have redeemed himself this time round with 43.3% of students getting distinction and higher.

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #487 on: December 09, 2019, 10:43:15 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name: BTC3150 - Taxation law 

Workload:
1x 1 hr 30 lecture
1x 1 hr 30 tutorial

Assessment: 
10% mcq test - 10 mc questions for 15 minutes. can bring double sided cheat sheet. very easy i think.
30% assignment - a few short answer questions that are similar to exam style question. was very doable
60% exam - fair

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  no practice exam but a lot of practice exam questions. no answers (to get answers, you must email shafi your attempt and he will correct it).

Textbook Recommendation:  nah

Lecturer(s): shafi khan

Year & Semester of completion: sem 2 2019

Rating: 5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: hd

Comments: this was an elective of mine because i am interested in law units centering around commerce. this was very much a bludge (i put minimum effort in this unit and it was my highest mark) but a lot of accounting students struggled in this unit from what i gathered. here is the final grade distrubution:

MARKS   GRADE   % OF STUDENTS
Below 50   N   6%
50-59   P   17%
60-69   C   29%
70-79   D   23%
80-100   HD   20%
Def   DEF   5%
TOTAL      100%

there are much easier law units to do in commerce so i would avoid this one as it is a bit complex and gets into the really nitty gritty of tax law and trying to work around its intricacies is quite difficult.
i loved shafis engaging personality as well as melchor's teaching style. they helped me get thorugh this unit even though i was falling half asleep in the tutes that werent even compulsory. i only went to tutes because they refused to give out answers to tutorial questions which you pretty much needed for the final exam as they were similar to exam questions.

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #488 on: December 09, 2019, 10:53:15 am »
+6
Subject Code/Name: ECC2010 - intermediate macreconomics 

Workload:
1x 1 hr tut
1x 2hr lecture

Assessment: 
27% mst - 27 mcq. focus on theory.
8% online assignments - easy 8%. lecturer just needs to see that you've tried and you get the 8%
5% tut attendance - abebe makes it clear when you need to participate and when you dont which is great!
60% exam - hard af. very different from practice exams

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes, 2 w/ answers

Textbook Recommendation:  no

Lecturer(s): siew ling yew

Year & Semester of completion: sem 2 2019

Rating:  3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: p

Comments: good unit, well run. my mark doesnt reflect how much i thought this unit was well run. i prioritised other things during crunch time for this unit and this is the result. make sure you understand each topic as they intertwine with each other in the end. siew does a good job explaining macroeconomic topics. the is/lm model may seem very abstract but it gets easier the more you dig into it. this unit is very much all application on the exam so make sure you know your theory down pat or else the exam is going to get you. math is less important here than ecc2000. its mostly conceptual based.

luneax

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #489 on: December 13, 2019, 11:08:02 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name: ATS2057 - Genocide

Workload:
1x 1 hr tute
1x 2hr lecture

Assessment: 
10% unit participation: this is the hardest participation i've ever had to work for. Attending tutes means nothing if you don't contribute, and even if you contribute to every class there's no guarantee of getting full marks. There's a very detailed rubric that accompanies it.
10% in class quiz: they pick your top 7 quizzes out of ten. Five quiz questions that are usually a mix of true or false and multiple choice. Based off the readings (which are very long)
20% Short writing assignment (750 words): Based off readings, no external references needed
30% Long writing assignment (1750 words): Based off one of the Genocides covered in the unit and linking to key theory covered.
30% Take-Home Test (1500 words): Based off readings and lecture, no external references required

Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: No (the take home test is an essay)

Textbook Recommendation: No, all readings provided via PDF

Lecturer(s): Noah Shenker

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2, 2019

Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 84 HD

Comments: I really enjoyed this unit, each genocide is covered in a two week lecture plan (first lecture is historical background and then the second is political implications). We spent the first two weeks covering the definition of genocide and briefly introducing us to the unit and then we covered the Holocaust, Armenia, Australia, Cambodia and Rwanda. Noah is very knowledgeable and stimulates really interesting and thought provoking discussion throughout the unit. As with most history units, you need to do the readings or you won't be able to discuss things in the tute. Noah is pretty strict on passive voice so be really careful of it when writing.

luneax

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #490 on: December 13, 2019, 11:34:53 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name: BTF1010 - Business Law

Workload:
1x 1.5 hr workshop
1x 2hr lecture

Assessment: 
20% quiz: in week 4 covering weeks 1-3, 10 marks MCQ and 10 marks short answer. OPEN BOOK
20% quiz: in week 7 covering weeks 4-6, 10 marks MCQ and 10 marks short answer. OPEN BOOK.
60% exam: 2hrs, e-exam, covering weeks 7-12. 60 marks, no multiple choice. Ours was a stacked exam, there were about 7 questions and some had multiple parts. OPEN BOOK.

They do not reassess any of the content in the unit so once you've done your quiz, you don't need to remember that content for the next test/exam.

Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Yes, several tests with sample answers for each task. 

Textbook Recommendation: Yes. Concise Australian Commercial Law 5th ed. You need the text book if you want to do well, particularly given that the exam is open book. Highly recommend you do the readings each week (your open book is no good to you in an exam if you don't know what is in there).

Lecturer(s): Andrew Moshirnia

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2, 2019

Rating:  5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 98 HD

Comments: I honestly loved this unit. Easiest HD I've ever received in my life. Cases were interesting. Each workshop we worked through the questions outlined in the unit guide, and the tutors talk you through the important points. I noticed many students in my workshops did not really engage, which was frustrating. Our tutor worked through step by step guides to answering the questions for the quizzes with points to discuss. I would recommend doing both the readings and the practice cases that you are given each week, as most likely you will be referring to them for your test. It also makes it easier to wrap your head around the concepts if you read first and then can apply the readings in class. The exam is on a tight timeline (with the coordinator commenting that many people did not finish the exam) so it's helpful if you complete the practice e-exam before you do your actual exam to get an idea of how quickly you will need to work. I also found it helpful to flip through the questions really quickly and leave the questions you know you can answer easily until the end. Having solid notes and summaries will also help you know exactly how to answer your questions for the exam and will save you wasting time flipping throguh your textbook.I had tabs for my textbook for quick reference also. This unit is very much based on learning how to apply the knowledge so if your tutor is good and you practice answering quetions, you'll be fine!

Billuminati

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #491 on: December 15, 2019, 02:12:26 am »
+7
Subject Code/Name: BMS1011 – BIOMEDICAL CHEMISTRY

Workload:
2 x 1 hour lectures
1 x 3 hour Small Group Session

Assessment:
15% small group sessions (7.5% from participation and 7.5% from SAQ)
10% Great Metabolic Race essay
15% mid-sem
60% end of semester exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No, loose exam style questions documents provided for each series of lectures

Textbook Recommendation:  Many, didn’t really need to use anything

Lecturer(s):
Tanja Junkers
Jacqueline Wilce
Nirma Samarawickrema

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Sem 1

Rating:  4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 87 HD

Comments:
Overall impression and lecture content: The unit was really well run divided into 4 subtopics; organic chem, enzyme function, catabolism and anabolism. The organic section was basically VCE chem with some CHM1011 content thrown in, I found the overlap a nice surprise. Still surprised that BMS1011 doesn’t prohibit the level-1 chem units. The enzyme function lectures were short and pretty mundane, but Jackie was a quality lecturer. Catabolism and anabolism was by far my favourite block, Nirma knew her stuff inside out and was really approachable to the students. Unlike most lecturers, she bothered to tell you if a concept was examinable or not, even putting prominent yellow “Do not memorise” labels in her slides. Her teaching style was rather slow paced, preferring to check if everyone understands a concept before moving on. Her emphasis on understanding is what really made this unit stand out from the mostly memorisation-based biomed core subjects. It’s where we can truly develop transferable skills (logic reasoning) in a course whose employment opportunities are slim if one fail to get into med.

Small group sessions:  They were all pretty chill, so expect full marks for participation (TA even gave out free lollies in the Friday morning session). However, your SAQ mark depends entirely on the TA you have. I had a really harsh marker as my TA (averaged 7.5-8/10), but I’m really grateful for him because this strictness helped me do well in the exam where all the choices were very similar and they were looking for a specific answer. He was really nice to talk to as a person and always gave out constructive criticism so that I’m averaging 9/10 for those SAQs by the end of semester. However, the subjectivity of this biochem course has turned me off doing 2nd and 3rd year units with the biochem department, because catering to the examiner’s specific wording requirements isn’t my thing (attested by my mediocre VCE bio score).

Essay:  At the start of the year, the essay was supposed to be 1000 words ± 10%. It was later reduced to 600 words ± 10% for some reason. The whole cohort had trouble with fitting all the information from the catabolism lectures into the essay, where you’re required to identify and describe the metabolic pathways dominant at each stage of intensive exercise. I was able to do so by selectively including information and used the graphics we’re supposed to include to cram as much info in as possible. Be careful, the assessors are really strict on your spelling and punctuation. The only marks I lost were from failing to capitalise “NADH”, random typos here and there as well as too many subheadings. Many people did really well in this essay, despite the initial difficulties. If you have a question, you can ask on the Moodle forums and Nirma is happy to help to a certain degree, without giving away the answer. There’s a dedicated small group session where you can ask for help from your TA, even get them to look over it to check for accuracy (but they’re not allowed to give you any indicative marks). Due to my training from hell with the harshly-marked SAQs, my TA thought I wrote really well and he couldn’t find theoretical errors anywhere no matter how hard he tried.

Mid-sem: The mid-sem was exclusively on organic, nothing special about it except that it has 2 epic typos (eg carbon has 8 e-s when there’s no other correct option). These were removed in the final marking. Dumb mistakes really killed me on the mid-sem, since it’s only out of 23 after the typos were removed.

Exam: 3 hours for 75 multis. The exam was a curveball, I really like the application-based aspect of it as opposed to recall questions and it made the small group sessions relevant to the lecture content. Many questions were based on a case study of a metabolic disorder, while the organic and enzyme function questions were pretty stock standard. The provided data book of metabolic pathways was so useful for picking up easy marks, make sure you know how to use it effectively. There are also recall questions testing understanding on the specifics of several metabolic pathways, but nothing came from  the slides marked “do not memorise”.  I also witnessed some biomed toxicity when 5 minutes before we walked into the exam room, some kid was telling us that Nirma emailed him to tell him that the small group sessions weren’t examinable. I took it with a grain of salt. Since Nirma said earlier that everything is by default examinable unless otherwise stated, I studied the small group sessions and wasn’t affect by this, but some others walked out of the exam disappointed and mad at that guy.
VCE 2016-2018

2017: Biology [38], Further Maths [44]

2018: Methods [37], French [38], Chem [40], English [44]

UMAT: 56/43/80, 57th percentile (LLLLOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLL)

ATAR: 98.1

2019-2021: Bachelor of Biomedical Science at Monash (Scholars), minoring in Chemistry

GAMSAT September 2021: 65/67/86, 76 overall (98th percentile)

2022: Chilling

2023+: Transfer to teaching degree

Billuminati

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #492 on: December 15, 2019, 02:13:25 am »
+6
Subject Code/Name: BMS1021 – CELLS, TISSUES AND ORGANISMS  

Workload:
3 x 1 hour lectures
1 x 3 hour lab (most weeks finish early)

Assessment:
15% group project video literature review
10% mid-sem
25% from all labs
50% end of semester exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No, practice quiz was made available in the last lecture

Textbook Recommendation:  Campbell Biology, didn’t use much

Lecturer(s):
Chantal Hoppe
Mark Prescott
Brenton Marshall
Craig Smith
Christopher Johnstone
Robyn Slattery
Julian Rood
Mohamed Mohideen

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Sem 1

Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 93 HD

Comments:
Overall impression and lecture content: Although BMS1021 is a general biology unit that’s more or less used to advertise 2nd and 3rd year electives in biomedical areas of study, it was structured really well. Biochem overlapped with CHM1011 and BMS1011, but wasn’t worth much on any exam. Dev bio and histology were heavily memorisation based, but Chantal was an epic lecturer who made these a breeze (protip: I wrote “I love kidneys” on exams for extra marks and DO NOT leave early during her lectures, unless you want to be publicly humiliated by her “see ya”). Julian the microbiology lecturer was epic with his “defending a castle” analogy, while Robyn was really clear on assessed and not assessed content in immunology, dropping clues as what’s going to be on the exam. Mohamed’s lectures on bacteriology were pretty dry. Chris’ physiology lectures were my least favourite. Metabolism overlaps with BMS1011 and gas exchange overlaps with BMS1031. He went over some basics of systems physiology, especially on the cardiovascular system, but his slides were pretty wordy and I felt he kind of read off them. His lectures on cell biology were decent, since those were early on in the semester, it was “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” all over again.

Lab: All the labs were awesome and well ran, the TAs were really patient with my dumb questions and were experts in their field. It’s a good idea to be up to date with lectures before labs, but if you’re not 100% confident, then by the time you walk out of your lab you will be an expert. Shout out goes to the dev bio (inspecting pig semen with a microscope), histology (making organ models with play dough) and microbio (staining bacteria) labs, they were the most fun and engaging labs for the unit.

Mid-sem: The BMS1021 mid-sem may have been the assessment task to save my degree and chances to get into med. It’s the test that taught me how biomed units can examine you on the tiniest and most obscure details and sadly, memorisation sometimes is the key to success (that’s why I marked this unit 0.5 less than a perfect 5, I prefer application to memorisation). I used to just understand the lectures and take broad notes about the concepts, but I got caught out by some really detailed tricky questions. I was unsure about so many questions, cuz the options were so similar, but somehow still pulled an 89%. Now, I assume every tiny detail will be examined and take everything down in my notes.

Group project: As a person who always hated group projects in high school (many lazy people leeched off the Asian nerd that was me), BMS1021 restored my faith in people. We were meant to write a 750 word ± 10% essay on a given topic (ours was a histology one on the effects of skin cream on delaying skin aging) and film a 3 minute ± 10 sec video on the topic. My group met quite irregularly, but we coordinated really well and ended up handing in the assignment 3 days early, everyone went above and beyond to do well. The written report was a mini literature review of 4 articles. It was marked leniently on the theory but strictly on the referencing technique, the only marks we lost were on a single typo. My group members all gave each other full marks on the peer evaluation and I did too.

Exam: 2 hours for 107 multis. As I said about the mid-sems, BMS1021 was very memorisation based. I used the practice quiz as well as some PASS revision questions that Chantal gave to us to full advantage and of course I went through the lectures a billion times to pick up little details I missed in my notes. In the end the exam did test the nitty gritty details again, and I left about 90 minutes in. I did get stumped by 2 odd questions, but there’s nothing you can do about that other than take an educated guess and walk out. Fun anecdote: During reading time I noticed that question 69 out of all questions had a typo on it. The choices were labelled EFGH rather than ABCD. When I called over an invigilator and he asked me to clarify which question it was, I was pulling my best poker face and trying to not lose it.
VCE 2016-2018

2017: Biology [38], Further Maths [44]

2018: Methods [37], French [38], Chem [40], English [44]

UMAT: 56/43/80, 57th percentile (LLLLOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLL)

ATAR: 98.1

2019-2021: Bachelor of Biomedical Science at Monash (Scholars), minoring in Chemistry

GAMSAT September 2021: 65/67/86, 76 overall (98th percentile)

2022: Chilling

2023+: Transfer to teaching degree

Billuminati

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #493 on: December 15, 2019, 02:14:06 am »
+7
Subject Code/Name: BMS1031- MEDICAL BIOPHYSICS

Workload:
1 x 2 hour lab
1 x 2 hour workshop/lectorial (highly recommended)
1 x 1 hour lecture

Assessment:
30% from all labs
4 x 2.5% Moodle quizzes
2 x 10% mid-sems
40% end of semester exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes, 2015-2017 were provided, no past exams available for the physiology (cardiovascular + neurobio) sections

Textbook Recommendation:  College Physics by Openstax

Lecturer(s):
Kristian Helmerson
Chris Wright
German Valencia
Michael Leung
Karen Siu

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Sem 1

Rating:  1 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 91 HD

Comments:
Overall impression and lecture content: The only good thing I have to say about this unit is that it’s great for GAMSAT preparation and that the lecturers did their best to make the unit tolerable. Other than that, everything felt really disorganised and not catered to someone who didn’t do physics in high school. The cardiovascular lecturer who’s an MD doctor assumed that no one took physics and taught us really well. A PhD student had us for neurophysiology, but I had some trouble figuring out how the Nernst equation and action potentials work so I mainly relied on Khanacademy for that section. Kris was pretty helpful on the forums, but the same can’t be said of the electricity lecturer. The lectures were mostly clear, but to really apply your understanding of the concepts, do some problems from the Openstax textbook, which are harder than exam difficulty.

Labs: Hands down the worst part of the unit. They were ran in the PACE labs and we were put into permanent groups for the semester. Some TAs were scary and harsh, but luckily we got the curly hair dude aka Michael Ferguson. He saved my group’s collective a*ses countless times. Ari Pinar (who had me for BMS1052) was a god who saved us in the MEMPOT virtual lab. The post lab quizzes were quite unreasonable most of the time and after a particularly bad lab on optics, they decided to cancel it after a student complaint. There was an 8 question worksheet that we had to complete in 1 hour that was supposedly exam difficulty, but looking back now they were still twice as hard as the actual exam. Many people failed it and I barely scraped a pass, while a rather unhelpful relief TA roasted us for being sh*t. Sometimes we have to cross mark the prelab of a person in another group, possibly to save costs. I was told by the TAs that I mark too generously, while some people marked too harshly, nothing is standardised and I felt this was unfair on those who were marked harshly. Luckily the students who marked mine were easygoing too.

Quizzes: 30 minutes for 8 multis. There are 4 of these in the semester and are quite well spread out. Pretty easy to do well in.

Mid-sems: Due to my limited physical background, I found the first mid-sem on weeks 1-5 really challenging, but I scraped an 82% on it by showing my working out. The marking initially showed 69%, but I disputed it when the marking scheme came out. The 2nd mid-sem covered content from 5-9 and was all multi choice with different number of marks allocated for each question. It’s advised to put down working out for methods marks if you get it wrong. If you guessed a question correctly without showing any working out, you’ll receive full marks for that question. This test was more manageable maybe due to my increasing familiarity with physics, and was of the same difficulty as mid-sem 1. A double sided A4 cheat sheet was allowed.

Exam: The format apparently changed for 2019. It used to be 3 hours and all SAQ, but now it’s 2 hours for all multis worth varying amounts of marks, similar to mid-sem 2. Only neurophysiology was short answer. The overall difficulty was similar to that of the mid-sems. You are allowed a double sided A4 cheat sheet and I would recommend putting equations with labelled variables (so you don’t drown in the alphabet soup of the provided formula sheet). A solid understanding of cardiovascular and neurobiological physiology was also required to do well in the physiology section, which make up 19 marks out of a total of 83. The optional 2 hour workshops/lectorials were so much help since they went over higher-order/difficulty questions. They were new this year but I’m dissatisfied since they’re structured like Dora the Explorer episodes. The TA put up a question for us to have a go at and only show us how to do it step by step long after everyone’s finished or given up.
VCE 2016-2018

2017: Biology [38], Further Maths [44]

2018: Methods [37], French [38], Chem [40], English [44]

UMAT: 56/43/80, 57th percentile (LLLLOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLL)

ATAR: 98.1

2019-2021: Bachelor of Biomedical Science at Monash (Scholars), minoring in Chemistry

GAMSAT September 2021: 65/67/86, 76 overall (98th percentile)

2022: Chilling

2023+: Transfer to teaching degree

Billuminati

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #494 on: December 15, 2019, 02:15:10 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name:  CHM1011 – CHEMISTRY 1

Workload: 
2 x 1 hour workshops/lectorials
1 x 3-hour lab
1 x 1 hour tutorial (optional)

Assessment: 
10 x 1% pre-workshop quizzes
2 x 2.5% reflective self evaluation quizzes
30% from all labs
55% end of semester exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No, 3 sample exams provided

Textbook Recommendation:  Blackman Chem, digital copy was given to us for free

Lecturer(s):
Toby Bell
Chris Thompson
Kellie Vanderkruk
Philip Marriott
Alan Chaffee
Bayden Wood

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Sem 1

Rating:  5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 96 HD

Comments:
Overall impression and lecture content: As a biomed student, I initially picked this physical chem unit as a form of complimentary GAMSAT tutoring and as a bludge unit (no 4-hour CHM1051 labs and super similar to year 12 lol). I must say that this unit really blew me away because it’s taught nothing like high school. Chris was literally Morpheus from The Matrix, proving almost everything we learned about atoms in high school as inaccurate generalised models. His teaching style was really innovative with a bunch of interactive analogies and thought experiments. Under him, the Chinese puzzle that was atomic physics/quantum mechanics suddenly became a breeze. It was because of his teaching that I decided to major in chem with my electives to become a high school chem teacher should I fail to get into med. I later found out that he’s heavily in education research, so I’m planning on doing CHM3990 with his research group as a part of my major. I stopped going to workshops after his section finished in week 4, because the subsequent workshops were not so interesting, however still solidly taught with relevant example problems.

Pre-workshop quizzes: Really easy to full mark, some exact solutions can be found on Google but make sure you understand the concept yourself first.

Self evaluation: I have no idea why this is an assessment. Basically it lists all the learning objectives in the course so far and asks you to honestly say how confident you are in that topic from a scale of 1-5. You won’t be penalised if you say you’re feeling unconfident in something, but they do ask “choose 2 so that we know you’re reading everything”. I ain’t complaining about free marks though, easiest 5% of a unit grade I’ll ever get.

Labs: The first few weeks were pretty mundane with a Lewis drawing dry lab and a chemical techniques circuit. It was my TA’s (Alex) first year as a demonstrator and he was pretty lenient on the lab marking. He was really supportive of the kids in my group who didn’t do chem in VCE, while also catering to my preferred pace, so I’m definitely taking cues from him for a potential MTeach. There were IDEA experiments in 2 labs where we had to design our own experiment, I usually came up with a pretty comprehensive plan before the lab. Our self designed calorimetry and iodine clock experiment both failed epically, but we didn’t get penalised in terms of marks since we did a good job explaining the unexpected results. I must also mention that some labs like the iodine clock use concepts not yet covered in lectures, but it really trained my independent learning skills and I encountered no issues in understanding the theory. The last week was a TEKE (thermodynamics, equilibrium, kinetics, electrochem) experiment where we have to observe a bunch of weird reactions and get assigned randomly to do a presentation on each one. Luckily my group worked relatively well and we pulled the highest mark in my group with 43/50, while many groups failed. Our reaction was the coloured cobalt complexes one and unfortunately for us, the relief TA who was assessing us did his honors in cobalt chemistry, so we couldn’t get away with any BS at all.

Exam: 2 hours for 120 marks SAQ. The sample exams were really indicative of the content on the actual exam. I’d even say that the real exam was easier than the practice ones because it didn’t have any of the harder questions that the lecturer had to explain in detail in the revision lectures. The lecturers also drop big hints on what’s going to be on the exam in the SWOTVAC revision lecture, so make sure you get all the intel you can.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2021, 06:50:25 am by Billuminati »
VCE 2016-2018

2017: Biology [38], Further Maths [44]

2018: Methods [37], French [38], Chem [40], English [44]

UMAT: 56/43/80, 57th percentile (LLLLOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLL)

ATAR: 98.1

2019-2021: Bachelor of Biomedical Science at Monash (Scholars), minoring in Chemistry

GAMSAT September 2021: 65/67/86, 76 overall (98th percentile)

2022: Chilling

2023+: Transfer to teaching degree