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Author Topic: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings  (Read 829363 times)  Share 

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simba

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #225 on: July 10, 2014, 02:16:01 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: ENG1060- Computing for engineers 

Workload:  2x 1 hour lectures and a 3 hour computer lab each week

Assessment: 
9 labs worth 2% each (18% total)
Library session/ test (2%)
Assignment (10%)
Exam (70%)

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes, but they only released two sets of solutions

Textbook Recommendation:  Don't even bother

Lecturer(s): Wai Ho Li and Murray Rudman

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1 2014

Rating:  1.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 88 HD

Comments: Okay, so a lot of the reviews for computing on AN are pretty positive. From what I've found, computing is generally a subject that you either love or hate. Unfortunately I strongly disliked the unit.

The first six weeks of content covers the basics on how to use MATLAB, such as writing M-files, for and while loops, loading data if statements etc. I've never had any experience with MATLAB or programming at all whatsoever, which made the labs so much more terrifying. For the most part I thought I understood the content fairly well, but the labs would take hours and hours to complete, and were extremely draining and frustrating to say the least. I would highly recommend obtaining your own copy of MATLAB as the computer labs at Monash can get quite loud which makes it pretty hard to concentrate (plus, think of the convenience!)
The last six weeks of content covers numerical methods, which is essentially writing MATLAB codes that are able to fit curves, solve ODE's (through trapezoidal and simpsons rules), perform gaussian elimination and solve simultaneous equations. Personally, I found numerical methods to be more interesting and logical than the first six weeks of content. The labs were less frustrating for me and much more manageable time wise! Although the content for this topic was still fairly dry, it was MUCH better than the previous content!!

Wai Ho Li covered the first six weeks of the course. She wasn't particularly great but wasn't absolutely horrible either. (Her voice is very high pitched if trying to watch on MULO though so beware!)
Murray Rudman took the last six weeks. I didn't actually physically attend any of his lectures, but from what I saw on MULO, he seemed to be a decent lecturer (again not amazing though)

The library session is a total waste of time and is done in place of a lab. On the bright side is super easy to score full marks and you'll be out long before the lab was meant to finish!
As for the exam, the first 40 marks cover the first six weeks of content and is fairly straightforward. No huge issues in this section.
The last 60 marks cover the last six weeks of content. This part was more challenging than the previous one, but is still manageable. The main issues I had with this section were the questions asking to write out and correct code, as it was difficult to recall how some of the codes were written (probably my fault for not studying enough though). The rest of the section shouldn't be too bad if you've practiced the questions on past exams and are good with the scientific calculator.

Overall a super unenjoyable unit. Even though it managed to be my highest average coursework mark, I still consistently felt confused and behind in terms of the workload. The labs were horrible. Worst thing in my timetable all semester. So happy I never have to look at this unit again!
« Last Edit: July 16, 2014, 09:15:37 pm by simba »

ChloeCameleon3

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #226 on: July 10, 2014, 09:09:38 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: ATS2340 - International Security Studies

Workload:  1 x 1 hour lecture weekly, 1 X 1 hour tutorial weekly

Assessment: 
1 X Short Essay (1000 words) (20%)
1 X Major Essay (2500 words) (40%)
2 Hour exam (2000 words) (30%)
Tutorial Participation (10%)

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, without screen capture

Past exams available:  None, and no sample exams either.

Textbook Recommendation:  Prescribed textbook was Contemporary Security Studies by Alan Collins. However, only the first 3 weeks' readings came from this textbook, so it was a bit of a waste of money. Also, Ben MacQueen uploads all readings onto Moodle.

Lecturer(s): Ben MacQueen

Year & Semester of completion: 2014 Semester 1

Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: N/A

Comments:
Comments: I really loved this unit. Ben's lectures are fantastic, and once you get past the first three week's lectures on international relations theory, the content becomes really interesting. The three tutors each had a lecture or two to present, and they were all on really interesting topics. We also had a guest lecturer for week 10. But really, it was the tutorials that made this unit so great. I had Dara Conduit, who was super nice and probably my favourite tutor. We began each week by discussing the latest news events, such as the Ukraine/Russia conflict, North Korea's everything, South Sudan, Venezuela etc. It was a great way to get the 10% participation marks, particularly for me as I'm always super shy and quiet. Dara always organised the tutorial really well, where every minute of the tutorial was used usefully.

Assessments:
The assessments were fairly standard for Arts units. For the minor essay, we had to pick from a list of IR theories/approaches and analyse it. The major essay involved choosing a question from a list, and writing a 2500 word research essay. Questions included: "Does International Law, with particular reference to collective security and the United Nations, effectively constrain the actions of states in relation to engaging in armed conflict with other states?" and "Critically evaluate the concepts of transitional justice and human security in relation to the processes of post‐conflict reconstruction".
I found the exam to be a bit tricky, but the questions were actually straightforward. It consisted of 6 short answer questions based on the readings. The exam was supposed to be held at Caulfield Racecourse, but somehow the scheduling stuffed up and it ended up being an online take-home exam. Biggest win of the semester.

Overview of the semester:
Weeks 1 - 4 we looked at key theories and approaches, including realism, liberalism, Critical Security Studies, the Copenhagen School (securitization), Social Constructivism and Post-Structuralism. We also looked at the United Nations' role in international affairs. I found the readings for these weeks to be pretty dry, the readings were basically just brief descriptions of the theories...
Weeks 5 - 6 we looked at Intra-State Conflict (civil wars), and Inter-State Conflict. These topics were really good. Ben used a number of case studies, all of which I found incredibly interesting, including the Korean War, Iran-Iraq War, Lebanese Civil War, Second Congo War.
Weeks 7 -8 we looked at Organised Crime, Terrorism and Insurgency. These were my favourite weeks by far!! Alex, one of the three tutors, gave the lecture for Organised Crime. She gave a really great lecture on drug cartels in Central and Southern America. We looked at the Medellin Cartel and the Cali Cartel in Colombia, and the whole Pablo Escobar ordeal. We also looked at Mexico, and the value of the drug trafficking and the key actors involved in the trafficking of drugs across borders there. I felt like I learnt a lot in the one hour lecture! Another tutor Matteo gave a lecture on Terrorism and Insurgency in week 8. He used case studies from Algeria, and it was a bit refreshing to not just focus on the frequently-used 9/11.
Weeks 9 - 11 we looked at Intervention and State Building, Post Conflict Reconstruction, International Law and Regulation of Conflict. We had Assoc. Prof Adam McBeth from the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law for week 10's lecture on International Law, which was really good. He went over the UN Charter in further detail, and highlighted Rwanda and the Balkans as key case studies.

simba

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #227 on: July 10, 2014, 10:12:36 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: CHM1051- Chemistry 1 Advanced 

Workload:  3x 1 hour lectures and a 4 hour lab each week

Assessment: 
Lab work - 30%
Pre lecture quizzes - 2.5%
Post lecture quizzes - 7.5%
Exam - 60%

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Two CHM1011 practice exams were posted on moodle with solutions (and were a pretty decent indicator of content on the exam!)

Textbook Recommendation:  Chemistry 2nd ed by Blackman et al. it can be helpful but definitely isn't necessary. Lecture notes are quite comprehensive imo

Lecturer(s): Chris Thompson, Alison Funston and Mike Grace

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014

Rating: 4.75 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 91 HD

Comments: This was probably my favourite unit this semester. The first 4 weeks of the course are taken by Chris who is a fantastic lecturer! He covers the atomic structure and bonding. I know what you're thinking. 'Come on, I learnt all this in like year 10, do we really need to spend FOUR WEEKS learning about electrons?!'
In short, yes. Chris will disprove all the simple models of how electrons orbit around the nucleus, the way electrons act and everything else VCE had to keep oversimplified. Although Chris often got quite carried away in discussion and ended up covering the second half of the lecture slides in the last 10 minutes of class, he really is great at describing the concepts and was my favourite lecturer for chemistry. The content itself isn't too difficult for atomic structure and bonding, it just requires you to keep up to date (with the online quizzes being helpful with that!)

The next four weeks are taken by Alison, who covers thermodynamics, ideal gas laws and molecular orbital theory. Alison was a pretty good lecturer and explained the coursework very well. A fair amount of this content builds on VCE chemistry and shouldn't be too foreign (apart from MO theory, but once you understand how it works, it's quite simple to work out and easy marks on the exam!!)

The last four weeks are taken by Mike, who is also a decent lecturer (just prepare yourself for some pretty lame dad jokes!). Mike mainly covered Kinetics, Equlibria and Acids and Bases. Again, most of the content merely built further upon what was learnt in VCE chem which makes the coursework less daunting! The main advice I have for this section is beware of the tricky acid base questions! I didn't review this section closely enough and the exam continued two pretty difficult acid base questions which I couldn't work out properly!

Considering how much I normally hate labs, these were actually fairly interesting! One of the benefits of CHM1051 is having 4 hour labs in comparison to only 3 hours for the CHM1011 kids. Each lab was relevant to the course content (yay) and were pretty manageable in terms of time. The only labs that we were pressed for time was in the IDEA pracs (there are about 4 or 5 of these. They essentially require you to create your own experiment to work out whatever the design brief requires. It could be finding the metals present in contaminated water (and how much of them are present), or determining the rate order of alterations to a reaction. Your demonstrator will make sure you're on the right track though so don't worry about totally going in the wrong direction!)

The online quizzes were fairly easy and a great way to reinforce the course content!

The exam wasn't too bad (apart from those few acid base questions). Most of the questions are at a reasonable level and if you've revised sufficiently then the exam really shouldn't be too much of an issue. Biggest piece of advice I could give is to work fast. I think the exam was about 27 pages and a fair few people I talked to said they struggled to finish on time/ didn't finish/ had no time to review questions.

Overall a great unit. Highly recommended! :D
« Last Edit: July 16, 2014, 09:15:08 pm by simba »

ShortBlackChick

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #228 on: July 12, 2014, 03:52:44 pm »
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Subject Code/Name: ATS2548 - Environmental policy and management 

Workload:  1x1 hour weekly lecture, 1x 1-2hr weekly Tutorial; Weeks 1-5 led by Tutor, Weeks 6-12 led by Students

Assessment: 
Essay: 40%
Tutorials presentation: 25%
Tutorial paper: 25%
Participation in tutorials: 10%
Total assessment: = 100%

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  There is no exam, the 40% Mini State of the Environment Report serves as the final assessment due at the end of SWOTVAC

Textbook Recommendation:  Harding, R., Hendriks, C.M., and Faruqi, M., 2009. Environmental Decision-Making: Exploring
Complexity and Context. The Federation Press, Sydney. The full text is available online through the library

Lecturer(s): Bruce Missingham

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014

Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: Should be a D

Comments: Love this unit, given how easy it was, based on my prediction for what my mark will be. I averaged a raw HD in all my assessments but as always had marks taken off for lateness. Bruce is easy to engage with and is ever so helpful with anything and always interacts with the class well. The topics were interesting and it was great to see the different ideas students came up with to have the practical and interactive element in class. Groups get chosen in week 3 or so for the Student led tutorials from week 6-12, my tutorial was in week 7 and was so fun to do. The tutorial paper of 600-800 words was a breeze, you just had to summarise the articles from any given week and critically analyse them, which wasnt hard to do- you could just read some reviews of the articles and reference them. The Mini State of the Environment Report was also fun and easy, where you had to pick an environmental issue and answer the questions given in the unit guide and you just needed to reference the topics and articles studying in the unit as the basis for your findings, as well as do other research. Lucy, the other tutor was fun as well, loved both Lucy and Bruce, they made the unit so interesting and engaging. I guess I would have expected/liked the unit to be more harder/challenging, given that I put the bare minimum into the unit. But that said I find that most units from the School of Geography are quite easy.

UNIT OVERVIEW:
1 Introduction & Overview of Unit
2 Background: Contexts for environmental policy; State of the Environment in Australia; causes of environmental problems and policy needs
3 Sustainable Development in Principle & Policy
4 Actors & Institutions in policy processes
5 Public Participation - As element of sustainable development, aspect of governance, & policy instrument
6 Tools for Environmental Decision-Making: Environmental Assessment, Environmental Monitoring and Reporting
7 Policy Approaches/Instruments: Market based approaches
8 Policy Approaches/Instruments: Corporate sustainability; Environmental management systems
9 Policy Approaches/Instruments: Environmental Communication and Media for Public Education
10 Environmental policy in practice: Environmental & Sustainability Policy at Monash - Guest speaker: Paul Barton, Director of Monashs Office of Environmental Sustainability
11 Environmental policy in practice: Local Government Sustainability Policy
12 Environmental policy in practice: Climate Change & Carbon Emissions Policy
2010: History Revolutions 35
2011: English 3/4, Accounting 3/4, Economics 3/4, Mathematical Methods 3/4, International Studies 3/4.

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This C**t, under the name of anonymous, started giving me shit and I called him a C**t and now look. I'm f****n banned.

ChloeCameleon3

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #229 on: July 12, 2014, 07:53:31 pm »
+9
Subject Code/Name: PSY2031 - Developmental and Biological Psychology

Workload:  1 X 2 hour lecture weekly, 2 hour labs fortnightly

Assessment:
Examination (2 hours, multiple-choice): 45%
Biological lab report (1500 words): 20%
8 x Multiple Choice Quizzes throughout the semester (takes your 5 highest grades): 15%
Developmental Report for Virtual Child: 10%
Oral presentation (Group, 12mins): 10%

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Nope, but plenty of practice questions are available online

Textbook Recommendation:  Prescribed textbooks are Biopsychology by John Pinel, and Development Across the Lifespan by Robert Feldman. The weekly readings come from these textbooks, so it is best to acquire them.

Lecturer(s): Prof. Julie Stout, Prof. Shantha Rajaratnam, Prof. Dan Lubman, Prof. Nellie Georgiou-Karistianis, Ms. Claudine Kraan, Assoc. Prof. Jeroen van Boxtel

Year & Semester of completion: 2014, Semester 1

Rating: 3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: N/A, probably a distinction

Comments:
Overall: I gave this unit 3/5 purely because I enjoyed the content for the first 4 weeks, and I thought a few of the lecturers were really good. However, overall this unit is disorganised (like most Monash psych units unfortunately), with vague assessment instructions and absent coordinators. I think I only sighted one of the coordinators once for the entire semester. The other I didn't even see once...

Overview: The unit is split into 2 topics: Biological psych for weeks 1-6, and developmental psych for weeks 7-12. I thoroughly enjoyed the biological psych component, especially the first month on systems neuroscience, sleep and psychiatric disorders. I thought Prof. Julie Stout's (who is Ellen DeGeneres' doppelganger) lectures were great; she covered a huge amount of content, and tended to deviate from the readings, but I did not find this to be a bad thing! Prof. Shantha Rajaratnam has an incredibly soothing voice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5n--d1KNg, #notcreepin'), which made me quite sleepy sometimes haha (more my fault and the fact that we had morning lectures for this unit). And when he lectured on sleep, it was a bit of a double whammy of yawn-inducing triggers :P

I found the developmental psych component to be pretty standard, just looking at different theories and their applications during different stages of development, from infancy to late adulthood. I didn't find the lecturers for these weeks to be as good as the biopsych lecturers, but that could be because of my bias towards the biopsych topics!

The fortnightly labs were pretty useless, we never actually covered the content or learnt anything, it was pretty much just a way to get the oral presentation groups sorted out, and the virtual child report completed.

Assessments
The quizzes were pretty frequent, but were an easy way to get 15% (or close to it). They were all multiple choice, and taken directly from the prescribed readings. However, occasionally you'd get a question that was well outside of the reading's scope, which was a bit irritating.

The exam was 2 hours long, and all multiple choice. We weren't given much guidance in terms of what to focus on for studying, which many others found frustrating because some of the weekly readings were 90+ pages long in total, so there was obviously a LOT of content covered. I actually zoomed through the exam paper surprisingly quickly (cheers, adrenaline) and didn't think the questions were unfair or overly difficult at all.

The lab report was a very frustrating assignment. We were given only a tiny little bit of guidance from the lab tutor, but were basically left to our won devices to figure out how to complete the assignment. For the small word count, it was extremely difficult to include all the information in good enough to get high marks. I guess it was good practice at being concise???????

The oral presentation was fairly standard. We were organised into groups of 3, and were allowed some flexibility in which topic to present on. The topics were all developmental disorders, such as Down Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, and Cerebral Palsy. This assessment was pretty disorganised, due to a lot of people not turning up etc., which is probably a normal issue for group assignments.

The virtual child report was a short assessment where we had to assess a child's developmental progress from a child psychologist's perspective. We had to 'raise' our child online (which was just answering mind-numbing multiple choice questions). An easy 10% really.

tl;dr Badly organised, poor communication from staff, a few really good lecturers, and one very, very frustrating assignment = PSY2031

mrb3n

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #230 on: July 14, 2014, 01:26:27 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: ENE1621 – Environmental Engineering 

Workload:  1 x 2hr tute and 3 x 1hr lectures/week

Assessment: 

Midsem test – 5% - Fairly straightforward test in the form of short answer questions. Almost all material from lectures and textbook.

Scrapbook – 5% - Quite a strange assessment. Have to collect news articles and critique them. The time spent doing this is not really justified in the percentage of overall unit mark.

Group Project – 30% - Need to put quite a lot of effort into this one. You’ll work in groups have to balance this project with other assignments. Make sure you keep on track and don’t slack off, cos the due date will creep up on you. I recommend doing lots of research and planning before you start writing the final report.

Assignment 1(Gavin) – 5% - Involved analysing household bills and energy/water use. This assignment was particularly tedious. The instructions were vague and I often felt very frustrated trying to figure out the best way to approach this one.

Assignment 2(Cordelia) – 5% - Straightforward assessment in the form of essay style questions. Requires a bit of reading, research and planning. I did this one hungover in a few hours, after going on a pub crawl, and still got a very good mark. Moral of story: university marking is subjective and sometimes unpredictable.

Exam – 50% - Similar format to midsem test, but this time there are long answer questions. Be prepared to write a lot during this exam. It is three hours long, and you need to pump out a lot during that time, so know the course content well, and have a practice at formulating answers.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:  Yes, four, but no sample answers. Sample answers are not really necessary for the practice exam, so don’t fret.

Textbook Recommendation:  “Living in the environment”. Text book is not essential, but there are some really handy passages, and it is good for practice questions. Lecturers will often refer to parts of the textbook, and reading this bits gives a clearer understanding of course content.

Lecturer(s): Gavin Mudd and Cordelia Selomulya. Both lecturers are clear and concise, but I had a few communication problems throughout the semester. No serious quabbles here.

Year & Semester of completion: 2014 S1

Rating:  3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: HD

Comments: This unit definitely gave me a good idea of how to approach environmental engineering as a discipline. Some of the content is truly fascinating, and some of it is dead boring. The exam will cover almost everything from the entire semester. I recommend therefore, that you take the unit seriously. I had no serious issues with the lecturers, but there are flaws in the assessment. The group project requires a huge amount of effort, and you will often have to complete other assignments while still working on the group project. This makes for a very stressful time. Furthmore, the weighting of the smaller assignments is never really justified in the overall unit mark. I had to expend a lot of effort in finishing these fiddly little assignments and scrapbook, when I would have rather worked on the group project. All in all, not a bad unit, but I think a rethink of the assessment is needed.
2013: VCE
2014: BEng/BA - Monash

EspoirTron

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #231 on: July 16, 2014, 03:21:57 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: BMS1011 -Biomedical Chemistry 

Workload: 3 x 1hr lectures and 1 x 3hr tutorials per week

Assessment:
  • Self directed learning quizzes, small group exercises and on-line quizzes: 25%
  • Mid-semester test: 15%
  • Examination: 60% (the exam is a hurdle and must be passed to be pass the unit)

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: No past exams, but a few practise questions were made available on Moodle.

Textbook Recommendation:  Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry is necessary and definitely worth the buy. You may not use it a lot in this unit but it is essential for later units I hear, and besides, if you want more depth this textbook is designed for that. If you can't though, you will be fine. Introduction to Organic Chemistry by Brown and Poon is also recommended but it is really unnecessary and not worth spending your money on.

Lecturer(s):
  • Patrick Perlmutter
  • Robert Pike
  • Janet Macaulay

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014

Rating:  4.5 out of 5

 
Comments: This unit was an absolutely splendid introduction to Biomedicine. It was well coordinated, without hiccups and the lecturers made the transition from VCE into Biomedicine smooth and enjoyable. I'll break the unit down into what each lecturer covered first and then I'll move onto the assessments.

Section A of the course is the Structure of Biological Macromolecules. This is covered neatly in 12 lectures and basically is a run through all of the organic chemistry you will have to be aware of within the unit. The first 6 lectures cover VCE content and hence why the transition into the unit is smooth since you're doing revision for a while. You'll go into to bit more depth about Equilibrium with a focus on the Biological aspects and implications. It is in the 7th lecture where you will cover Isomerism, which is a new, challenging topic. Really pay attention here because it forms an important part of the whole course and make sure you understand it well. Since you won't go into a lot of depth it may seem overwhelming, but to Patrick's credit he gives you everything you need to really master what you need to know. The suggested textbook doesn't have a lot of problems relating to Isomerism, so if you want practise I have an alternate suggestion. I used 'Organic Chemistry' by McMurry and this had many problems to work through that were completely relevant to the course. This was my little secret and I would really recommend seeing if you can borrow this textbook from a library. I owned a copy but it isn't worth buying for a semester. It helped me with the whole course and gave really good summaries about everything.  Lectures 8-11 are VCE content but in more depth so you will cover things like Lipids, Carbohydrates and Proteins. You'll finally finish off with a revision lecture prior to the Mid-semester which is really worth going to. Patrick was a fantastic lecturer, he definitely knew his content and how to teach. On top of this he was really approachable and hilarious! He made going to lectures totally worth it and if you listen to his advice you should be prepared for the Mid-Semester adequately. Word of warning: Keep you phone on silent and whisper when talking in his lectures!

Section B of the course is Enzymes: Structure and Mechanism of Action. This again, was really enjoyable, but here is where things become new and relatively unfamiliar from VCE. Having only done VCE Chemistry I had only a brief understanding of biological enzymes (BIO1011 helps here since you cover enzymes earlier than you do in BMS1011 but in less depth), but it is a new area and it is absolutely pertinent that you understand everything. In this part of the course you'll cover protein structure and function, quaternary structure and enzyme kinetics and mechanics. You'll learn why the activation energy is lowered and how this is favourable. In addition, you will be introduced to Mathematical models that describe enzyme kinectis and how inhibitors work. Overall it gives a great depth to enzymes and their intricacies. Rob is again a great lecturer, he makes things fun with his analogies and he goes into great depth and detail to ensure that you, the students, understand everything.

Section C and D of the course are so closely connected so I'll speak about them as one. Section C covers the Metabolic release of energy and Section D covers the Synthesis of Biological Macromolecules. In Section C you'll become familiar with how carbohydrates and fats are broken down and how the body uses them for energy and how excess energy is stored. You will go into a lot of depth when it comes to covering the Glycolytic pathway, Citric Acid cycle, the Electron transport chain and Oxidative Phosphorylation. Here is where knowing about Isomerism will really help you out. Be warned, this part of the course, Sections C and D is where you are going to have to rote-learn like crazy, and this is one of the reasons as to  why the unit isn't 5/5. The rote-learning can become tedious but this is the first time ever I can say that it had elements of enjoyment. You will also cover things like how fatty acids are stored and mobilised and why fats are important, how glucose is used and the regulatory hormones that dictate its release into the bloodstream and its absorption by the body.
Section D will cover pretty much the reverse of everything you have learned in Section C, you will learn how everything you broke down is synthesised in 'times of plenty'. Here gluconeogenesis, beta oxidation, pentose sugar pathway and ketone bodies are covered. In addition the role of inhibitors will be introduced and how the impinge certain pathways. Janet will cover Sections C and D, and like the other lecturers she goes into great depth and length to ensure that you understand it all. Overall she made this part of the unit enjoyable and very interesting to learn.

Now to the assessments. SDLs are online quizzes that will replace a one hour lecture some weeks and they're usually about 6-7 questions that quiz you on content covered in lectures and things you have to go read up on yourself. Don't worry, most of the content can be found on Google but this is where having Principles of Biochemistry really helps since it has a lot of the content you need to know to access high marks on the quiz.

Small group exercises refer to in-tute assessments, and they include things like worksheets, group exercises and quizzes. The faculty got it right here since these assessments encourage you to build teamwork and how to use your knowledge and apply it to case studies. You will work on patient files in the last few weeks of tutorials and you have to apply everything you have learned in lectures and at home to diagnose a patient. Overall, this and the SDLs are really straight forward marks, and if you are serious about doing well this is your chance to get some booster marks. The tutorials in themselves are fun, but they do get boring at times because you're basically covering the weeks lectures and doing quesitons. I blocked mine on a Friday afternoon, don't do this! Since the tutorials did feel a bit dry it deterred from the overall enjoyability, but if you put up with them they will ascertain your knowledge and give you so much more depth that you definitely need for the exam.

The Mid-Semester test will cover everything in Section A and it goes for half an hour, if my memory does not mistake me. Patrick put up some practise questions on Moodle a week or two from the Mid-Semester that gave a really good indication of what to expect and if you do these, revise the lectures and do your own practise problems then you should be set to do really well in the test.

Lastly is the exam. This covers everything in Sections B, C and D. Again, if you have been consistently following lectures and have been doing the provided problems in tutorials than this exam should be relatively straight forward for you. It's 75 multiple choice questions and you get 3 hours to complete it, i.e. plenty of time. Most people walked out early and the exam is only challenging if you have done no work. If you've studied hard this is where it will all comes together and finally pay off.

I can't speak highly enough of this unit. It was an absolute blast and an amazing introduction to Biomedicine. It is a core unit so if you are enrolled in Biomedicine you are going to have to take it. One thing, this unit surprisingly will make you realise a lot of things about food. My sceptisim for tv adds claiming 'Cholesterol is bad, don't have it' and 'Fats are going to kill you' has gone though the roof. This unit will wake you up and probably make you read the back label of the food you buy. It will actually alert you to the fact that most things that these ads claim is 'healthy' is the complete opposite.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2015, 12:50:15 pm by EspoirTron »
2012-2013: VCE
2014-2016: Bachelor of Biomedicine at Monash University

eeps

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #232 on: July 16, 2014, 08:36:09 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: BFF3351 - Investment banking

Workload: One two-hour lecture and one one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment: Joint mergers and acquisitions case study (20%), In-semester test (10%), Exam - 3 hours (70%).

Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: Yes, exams from the past four semesters are available.

Textbook Recommendation: No prescribed textbook. Online readings are sufficient.

Lecturer(s): Mr Roger Love and Professor Christine Brown.

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Your Mark/Grade: Distinction.

Comments: This unit is really fascinating and it really goes into specific theories and concepts about investment banking. Topics covered include mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, share buybacks, project and structured finance. BFF3351 gives you an insight into what it is like to work in investment banking and is like the UBS Investment Banking Challenge in many regards. The most difficult part of the unit, in my view, is the mergers and acquisitions case study. The assignment takes a lot of time, as you have to develop figures and calculations based on the case study to determine whether the M&A should go ahead or not. When I did the unit, the M&A proposal was between David Jones and Myer - a real-life example today. The mergers and acquisitions case study is 2,500 words and should be in a business report format. The exam and mid-semester test are fairly straight-forward, as they are based entirely off tutorial questions. The lecturers and tutors are quite good and they do go into a lot of depth to explain the concepts. Overall, a good unit to undertake, especially if you are considering working in finance or the investment banking sector.
« Last Edit: July 16, 2014, 10:44:27 pm by eeps »

eeps

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #233 on: July 16, 2014, 10:44:10 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: BTF2220 - Corporations Law

Workload: One two-hour lecture and one one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment: Assignment (30%), Exam - 3 hours (70%).

Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: Yes, two or three exams from previous years are uploaded to Moodle.

Textbook Recommendation: Lipton P, Herzberg A & Welsh M, Understanding Company Law, 17th edition, Thomson Reuters 2014. Would recommend purchasing.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Phillip Lipton.

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Your Mark/Grade: High distinction.

Comments: Not a bad unit, can be dry though. Assignment is based on an area of law of your own choice and you are required to answer questions in regards to it; has to be in a report format. Not too difficult if you start early - 1,800 words including footnotes. The exam itself is all based off tutorial questions and past exam papers, if you do both, you should be easily able to achieve a high mark in this unit. Having a good set of notes is also beneficial because the exam is open book, you can easily refer to legislation or cases quickly. To do well in corporations law, do all the tutorial questions and have a set of notes to bring into the exam. Definitely one of the easier units I've done.

eeps

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #234 on: July 16, 2014, 11:10:45 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MGX3100 - Management ethics and corporate governance

Workload: One 1.5 hour lecture and one 1.5 hour tutorial per week.

Assessment: Presentation (10%), Essay (30%), Exam - 3 hours (60%).

Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:  Yes, four or five exams are available to do.

Textbook Recommendation: Arnold D.G, Beauchamp T.L. and Bowie N.E. (2014) Ethical Theory and Business (9th edition) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Don’t recommend buying, didn’t use it the whole semester.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Elizabeth Prior Jonson and Dr. Michelle Greenwood.

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Your Mark/Grade: High distinction.

Comments: Not the best unit I have ever done. MGX3100 is considered as a finance and management unit (overlaps with both), however it seems more like an Arts unit if anything else. Can be incredibly boring. Personally didn’t find it that engaging at times, however the theories and concepts covered are applicable to real life. The essay is really the challenging aspect of the unit, it is 3,000 words for an individual essay and it takes a considerable amount of research and planning in order to do well. The class presentation is done in class and in groups. The exam is a choice of five essay-style questions and you are required to do three questions, they don’t vary too much from semester to semester. Going through the past exam papers provided is more than sufficient to do well.
« Last Edit: July 16, 2014, 11:58:08 pm by eeps »

achre

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #235 on: July 18, 2014, 10:36:42 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: ATS1305 – Introduction to Film Studies

Workload: 1x2hr Screening, 1x1hr Lecture, 1x1hr Tutorial

Assessment: Minor Assignment (20%): You pick one of the films you watch in the first four weeks, choose a segment of up to 10 minutes in length, and identify and explain how it uses elements of film form and narrative. ~800 words.

Major Assignment (45%): Four questions get posted up on Moodle that are fairly broad in scope, and you just explore one of them in relation to one or more of the films studied in the course. The research is somewhat involved, they expect (or at least my tutor did) a minimum of 8 different sources. 2000 words.

Visual Test (25%): This is done in the cinema, which is kind of inconvenient because the “desks” are tiny. They show you three segments of ~3-4 minutes in length, and you’re given a question for each. I believe you had 20 minutes to respond to the question in relation to the segment. Students tend to do very badly in this, my tutor told us it typically bumps half of the cohort down from a high distinction to a credit. (Can’t comment on validity of this – I mean it’s only weighted 25%?) I personally got very panicky with the last question and didn’t manage to finish, so it’s definitely tricky ;__;.

Attendance & Participation (10%): I have no idea what this is but apparently it has a wordcount of 400 and I got 80% for it, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:  Yes, sample questions from previous visual tests are available, but they’re useless. The topics & films change each year. I think Digital Cinema was a topic just introduced this year, last year there was a week done on multiculturalism in film, apparently.

Textbook Recommendation:  You don’t need anything. There’s like 10 “recommended” texts, but the readings are all online.

Lecturer(s): Assoc. Prof. Deane Williams, Assoc. Prof. Constantine Verevis, Dr. Julia Vassilieva

Year & Semester of completion: Sem. 1 2014

Rating:  2.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 82

Comments: Okay, this subject is called “Intro to Film Studies” and I obviously got a HD for it, so there’s probably a slight inclination for you right now to think of this as an absolute bludge of a subject that you might do should you ever need an easy elective. Let me be clear from the word go: NO.

This is a challenging subject not because it concerns itself with particularly difficult topics, but because it’s structured in such a way that you fly past very dense material at a pace that doesn’t really facilitate complete engagement with the topic at hand – and yet the assessment appears to be set with the expectation that you’re very aware of all the nuances in content. There’s a week on genre, a week on representation in film, a week on the ontology of digital cinema, a week on auteurism and the idea of film authorship, a week on ideology in cinema... and so on and so on. No effort is made to really “connect the dots”, they’re treated as discrete topics with little or no overlap, and on completing one week, you move on and never touch the topic again, except for a "review" week, which honestly, was a complete joke. I got lucky in two ways – firstly, I like talking about film and I was already familiar with some of the topics (like the technical and philosophical differences between traditional and digital cinema, or the use of auteurism as a mode of reading film), and secondly, I was able to do the major research essay on one of my favourite films, Breathless, and I already had some fairly respectable sources on-hand that I could cite. (Interviews from the original Cahiers du Cinema releases, obscure videographic essays that I could *cough cough* "borrow" some ideas/phrasing from...)

Some readings for the subject total close to 100 pages, so it didn’t really surprise my tutor when week after week, nobody had done the readings and we basically launched off from the lectures as a starting point for discussion. (Myself included - I didn't do a single reading for this unit) I’d like to excuse the poorly structured nature of this unit as a product of its being new, but it’s been around for quite a few years now, so I don’t expect it’s going to radically change anytime soon. I frankly can’t recommend this, which is a shame, because some of its content could have been really interesting. It’s not easy, it’s not fun, and the only reason to do it is to pursue a major/minor in Screen studies. Which I’m not. So goodbye Intro to Television Studies.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2014, 03:53:55 pm by achre »

G-lain

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #236 on: July 19, 2014, 07:14:09 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: IMM2011 - Basic immunology: The body's defence system

Workload:  3 weekly 1 hour lectures, one 3 hour lab every second week, one 2 hour tutorial every other week.

Assessment:: Mid-semester MCQ exam worth 10%, final exam is worth 60%, tutorials/labs/lab reports make up 30%. The mid Semester was relatively difficult, there’s only 1 lab report for the unit which is worth roughly 3-4% of total mark. Participation makes up roughly 10% of total mark.  There’s also an oral presentation, which makes up roughly 4-5% of your total mark iirc.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes.

Past exams available:  Yes, several available. As well as general glossary mc. The exam was harder than all practice material provided.

Textbook Recommendation:  Basic Immunology: Function and Disorders of the Immune system, 4th edition by Abbas. The textbook is extremely useful, but not necessary at all. Most lecturers will tell you that they’re only going to examine/only care about what is in their slides. That said, I’d recommend picking up a copy, it’s a short and concise (approx. 300pgs.) book that really does help to make sense of the immune system. That said, if you don’t have a background in biology the textbook may as well have been written in Chinese, since there is no introduction given to biological concepts, terminology, etc.

Lecturer(s): Several, I’d say Dr Kim Murphy, and A/P Frank Alderuccio are the key lecturers.

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014

Rating: 4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: HD

Comments: Put bluntly, many people struggle with this unit, for example, the average mid-sem MCQ  result was 65%. There’s an awful lot of content to get through, and the complexity and interconnected nature of the immune system is thrown at you in a way that is seemingly disconnected and it's up to you to make those connections.

That said, this is an extremely interesting unit. The immune system is vast and complex, and can be quite difficult to grasp in its entirety. Topics covered include the innate immune system, immune signalling, the adaptive immune response, the connection between innate and adaptive immunity, immunological techniques, mucosal immunity, and so on.

The entire purpose of this unit is to allow you to appreciate the immune system, and beyond several key cytokines, cells, molecules, and structures, doesn’t really dig deeper into the complexities of it. Nor does it give a context for the role of immunology, and the immune system in health and disease. 

The lectures themselves are hit and miss, because of either the lecturer, the topic, or both. The important part is that you have to
adjust your study routine based on which lecturer is lecturing, specifically for two lecturers.

The first is A/P Frank Alderuccio, Frank is an excellent presenter, he isn’t afraid to walk around the room, ask questions, or reward students for correct answers. However, Frank will tell you that you don’t need to know much detail, and his slides will reflect this, ignore him. If you want to do well, make sure that any time he says “you might want to know one or two of these”, you know all of them. Especially when it comes to the complement system, and key cytokines. But also for Pattern Recognition Receptors, mainly TLRs but I’d also recommend learning about NLRs and key DAMPs for NLRs.  If you don’t know those words, don’t worry, you’ll be taught them. The key thing to take away for Frank is that you need to go beyond him and his slides. Frank also gives the two final revision lecturers, these are mostly pointless and most people don’t go to the second one.

The second is A/P Robyn Slattery, Robyn is both a wonderful lecturer, and a wonderful person. You will enjoy her lectures and really should go to all of them. The key thing to know about Robyn is that you need to know every single detail that is on her slides. She’ll make this pretty clear, but you really do need to know her slides inside out. 

In terms of the other lecturers, A/P Mark Wright was probably my favourite, he’s funny, relatable, and makes complicated topics quite accessible. He gives a lecture on signal transduction that you really should go to if you don’t do any biochem. Make sure you know the pathways he goes over, you’ll see variations of them appear in B-cells later on, and the concept of transduction is applicable to basically everything in this unit/most of biology.

The worst lecturer was probably Dr Rose Ffrench, who lectures on humeral immunity. She is clearly very knowledgeable, but her presentation style is unbearable for two reasons. The first is that she has a monotone voice, the second is that she struggles to breathe and this will put you on edge. She was the only lecturer whose lectures I purposefully avoided, because they were simply unbearable.

The labs and tutorials rotate every week, so one week you will do a lab, and the second a tutorial. This is a problematic set up, as it creates a divide between the tutorial, and whatever it is you learned that week in the lectures.

The tutorials were generally quite enjoyable, however I assume that depends on the tutor. Each tutorial has an assessment essay at the end of session, and each is worth about 1 or 2 percent of your total mark. They’re open book so you shouldn’t struggle too much with the content.

The labs were so and so. I personally found labs involving microscopy to be the most fun, this involved histology of generative and peripheral lymphoid organs, and examining the cells of the immune system. The assessment task for these are normally done as homework, and can be quite challenging. Some maths is occasionally involved in this, but if you watch the lab calculations videos on moodle you’ll be fine. The labs tend to be relevant to an extent, e.g. the MHC restriction prac, and the blood typing prac, but overall they’re more relevant to immunological techniques, e.g. ELISAs.

Overall, this unit provided a pretty decent introduction to the immune system, while still being fairly accessible to most student.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2014, 04:23:19 pm by G-lain »

Joseph41

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #237 on: July 23, 2014, 10:21:32 am »
+8
Subject Code/Name: ATS2667 - Language Across Time

Workload:  1x two hour seminar per week

Assessment:  Assignment 1: 15%; Assignment 2: 15%; Assignment 3: 30%; Exam: 40%
Assignment 1 and 2 entailed of numerous short-answer-cum-problem-solving questions, quite similar to those presented in some of first year Linguistics. In Assignment 3, you had a choice of either a reconstruction exercise or a major essay. I am horrible at reconstruction (i.e. looking at old languages and working out which of those languages are related to others, and why), so I chose the major essay. In hindsight, doing the reconstruction exercise would have been much more beneficial in preparation for the exam.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture (I was thankful for this, as the seminars were 3pm - 5pm, and I otherwise didn't have classes on that day)

Past exams available:  No idea, but Olav presented a sample exam (with subsequent suggested solutions) in the weeks leading up to the actual exam

Textbook Recommendation:  Trask's Historical Linguistics, 2nd edition. Revised by Robert McColl Millar. Hodder Education, 2007
I'm not sure that you need it, as such, but I certainly found it useful (mainly for the major essay, which I wrote on euphemism).

Lecturer(s): Olav Kuhn

Year & Semester of completion: 2014, Semester 1

Rating:  3.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 86

Comments:
Two primary things stand out for me about this unit:

1. Olav is a legend. One of my favourite lecturers. There were times during the week where I would honestly look forward to listening to his seminars, as he made me laugh and was just a generally excellent fellow. He does go on tangents, sometimes. He certainly knows what he's talking about, though - that much is very clear. I had him in first year Linguistics, so I knew that I liked him and his lecturing style.

2. If I were to name this unit, it would be 'Historical Linguistics' rather than 'Language Across Time.' I was expecting slightly more emphasis on the nature of change and why it occurs. There was, of course, a lot of this in the unit, but I found the last few weeks of content a little dry and uninteresting. That's probably just me, and more a reflection of the time of semester. It should be noted, too, that I was extremely inattentive during all of Olav's numerous practical examples, which may be a contributing factor as to why I didn't like the last few weeks (which focused on what we had learned (or, more accurately, what we were supposed to have learned) during those examples). Specifically, this was in regard to the comparative method - a tool used by linguists to reconstruct old proto-languages.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the unit. Olav provides good and fair feedback on the assignments, and is always more than happy to have a chat about any concerns. He is rather flexible, too, and understands that his students have more to their lives than just his one particular unit.

The exam is reasonable, testing a wide range of skills acquired during the semester. For us, it started with some short answer questions, then a few using a case study, moved on to the comparative method (these questions were, unfortunately, worth the greatest proportion of marks), and then some longer response questions (almost like a very, very small essay).

Looking back on it, the unit is almost sub-divided into a few different parts, including the types of linguistic change, the reasons for linguistic change, and then the comparative method. So, on the assumption that you are interested in the first two, and actually pay attention for the third, I would highly recommend this unit.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2016, 03:57:08 pm by Joseph41 »

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Rohmer

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #238 on: July 23, 2014, 11:01:08 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: LAW3201 - Constitutional Law

Workload: 3hrs of lectures per week, plus 6 weeks of a 1hr tutorial (i.e. standard core law unit)

Assessment: Either 90% Exam & 10% Tute Participation OR 60% Exam & 30% Research Assignment & 10% Tute Participation.

Recorded Lectures:  Two streams out of three were recorded last semester.

Past exams available:  Yes, several.

Textbook Recommendation:  The prescribed text is/was Federal Constitutional Law: A Contemporary View 3ed. (2010) by Joseph & Castan. It's not a bad book as far as law textbooks go. It's fairly succinct and doesn't overcomplicate things, while at the same time usually covering the relevant passages of judgments from HC cases. This makes it worth reading, as the cases in this subject are usually quite long and often arduous (as mentioned below). Other textbooks are recommended; I didn't read any, although they may be good for supplementing understanding of cases.

Lecturer(s): First semester it was Jeff Goldsworthy (chief examiner), Melissa Castan & Ronli Sifris, though there'll likely be some change to that line-up for S2 2014 since it's a different chief examiner.

Year & Semester of completion: S1 2014

Rating: 3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: D

Comments: This is a core unit for all law students, so arguably there's not that much point in reviewing it since it's unavoidable either way, but I thought I'd try and summarise it in case anyone wants some sense of what consti is like.

With that in mind...the unit was okay, but not a favourite of mine. The assessment is pretty standard for core law units (optional essay & exam) except there is a tute participation mark of 10%. My first reaction to the tute mark was 'what is this, a first year subject? I have to actually show-up to tutes now?' but then I realised that I usually show up for tutes anyway, and that this is a plus since tute marks are pretty easy to get. You get 5 marks out of 10 for showing up to five tutes, and the other five marks are graded on the quality/quantity of your participation. Basic strategy here - jump in on the easy questions and answer a couple of them per class, and you should end up with a good mark out of 10. Did not do the optional assignment, so can't comment on that.

Lectures: Had Goldsworthy for the lectures. He knows his stuff very well and is happy to answer questions, although he does speak in something of a monotone voice which can make it hard to concentrate for long periods of time (he said that consti was sometimes seen as 'boring' by students, though if studied it could be interesting/exciting, although I never got the impression he found it exciting, not that I'd blame him or anyone else for not finding it so). Occasionally he'll crack a one-liner, although his sense of humour is dry. Really dry. Like, wheat-in-the-Sahara dry. I didn't listen to/attend any of the other streams so I can't really comment there, though I didn't hear anything bad about the other lecturers.

Content: This subject is all about the Constitution (the Federal one, no need to worry much about State ones) and the interpretation of it. So you basically study a number of Cth powers (e.g. External Affairs, Corporations power) and then limits on powers (Intergovernmental immunities, s92, Separation of Powers) - these two things being established through what's written/'implied' in the Constitution - and their subsequent interpretation. The interpretations/doctrines are basically all HC judgments (except for a Privy Council mention or two) which means a lot of long cases if you actually read them. There's usually only a case or two that you're supposed/required to read for each topic, so it's doable, but I personally don't think I actually read any cases in their entirety. Time-wise reading all the cases would not be very efficient - reading the key ones is useful though, especially for the policy aspect of the exam as it's hard to discuss a couple of specific decisions in answering a policy question without knowing a fair bit of detail about the cases. In terms of exam hypotheticals it's arguably less important that you've read the cases, as you can generally apply a good set of exam notes to a factual scenario without a strong in-depth knowledge of the lines of argument made individual cases. In terms of difficulty I'd place Consti around the mark of Property A. It's harder than torts/crim, but easier than Property B.

The topics: The first real (i.e. examinable) topic is Manner & Form, which actually concerns State Parliaments. It's not usually one of the bigger exam areas, although it can be a little confusing, although the nub of it is simply that State Parliaments can insert 'manner and form' provisions in Acts, providing for a certain stricter-than-usual manner of amendment of certain provisions of Acts (i.e. binding later Parliaments to higher thresholds when they try to make certain amendments). It may seem kinda complicated, but in the end it can be boiled down to a 4 or 5 step test that you just have to apply to your facts and conclude on, like pretty much all the topics in this unit. After MaF there's External Affairs (the first big topic, really) which relates to Cth powers. In summary, the Cth has very wide powers over EA, and can gain a lot of power through the ratification of international treaties (the limits on this ability are somewhat vague per the case law, and you'll likely spend some of your exam arguing it back and forth). The next head of Cth power, the Corporations Power, is similarly wide and similarly likely to appear on the exam in the form of questions about whether the Cth can regulate certain corporate entities and their employees - key cases to know here are ones like WorkChoices and Dingjan. Financial Powers is/was the last Head of Power topic, although it's somewhat smaller than EA/Corps powers and isn't really covered that well (no tute on it). The HC interpretations of all these heads of power will be discussed in detail, and there's usually some change between doctrines over the years - there'll be a majority in the HC for taking a particular side/position on the interpretation some issue, but then over time this will slowly change, before perhaps eventually even changing back the other way. There are usually a lot of grey areas and a lot of persuasive arguments on both sides in most topics, and it can be interesting arguing a position on these doctrines. It is sometimes interesting seeing how the position of the court gradually changes over time, and also how certain members of the court continually find novel arguments and end up disagreeing with one another (Kirby dissents at a record rate). A lot of the time I wasn't really that into it though, as I didn't have strong view either way.

Limitations on power are Intergovernmental Immunities, Separation of Judicial Power, Freedom of Interstate Trade and Commerce and the Implied Freedom of Political Communication. Much of the above applies for these topics. Again you get some degree of indecisiveness from the HC, albeit the span of decades. The IFPC is one of the most interesting topics, as the cases have interesting facts, and the sudden recognition of this entire doctrine has been quite controversial, although the case law for it is now fairly well settled. Lastly in the course, Section 109 holds that in the event of a conflict between the Cth and the States, the Cth prevails to the extent of the inconsistency. This semester one or more streams fell a bit behind, so this wasn't actually examinable/covered in detail, although it appears to be one of the smaller and simpler topics.

The Exam: Is another speed-writing contest. Typically three sections, two parts being hypotheticals with usually about 3 issues mixed into each of them (e.g. a couple of heads of power and limitations, or vice versa) though there have been as many as 4. The first key thing is to recognise all the issues, as otherwise a HD is basically out of the question, though you can still go ok if you miss one. As usual, apply all your relevant tests with case law and sections succinctly and argue it both ways on the facts before concluding. Try to apply it as much as possible and avoid copying out your notes - if you are too busy transcribing your notes then you just won't have enough time to apply, hence it's important to actually understand your notes so you can get down the relevant law as quickly as possible. Exam Policy, for those who didn't do the assignment (most) was two short-answer questions (30 mins each) out of four possible choices. As previously mentioned, policy may actually require an in-depth knowledge of lines of reasoning in specific cases, and how doctrines/interpretations by the HC have evolved over time, so it's probably worth reading some of the key cases (asterisks on the RG) for this. Mainly, avoid writing out your notes or some pre-prepared answer that doesn't quite fit the question, as examiners tend to hate this and usually note it as a negative in the Examiner's comments. Just try and form a thesis statement and argue it using your knowledge of the relevant cases and you should be ok for policy.




« Last Edit: July 24, 2014, 02:02:20 am by Rohmer »

spaciiey

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #239 on: July 26, 2014, 01:16:14 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: MTH2140/MTH3140 - Real Analysis 

Workload:
-Three 1-hour lectures
-One 2-hour support class per week

Assessment: 
- Examination (3 hours): 70%
- 3x assignments: 3 x 8% = 24%
- Participation: 6%

Recorded Lectures:  No recorded lectures, however towards the end Jerome would take pictures of the stuff he wrote on the blackboards.

Past exams available: Multiple past exams on the monash library section, only one exam with solution

Textbook Recommendation:
Understanding Analysis by Stephen Abbott
DO NOT BUY THE BOOK unless you want a hard copy: you can get it online with answers, for free (thanks, Google!)
Also, you can no longer bring the book into the exam!

Lecturer(s): Dr Jerome Droniou

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014

Rating: 1.5 Out of 5

Comments:
First off, word has been going around that you can take the textbook in the exam, THIS IS NO LONGER TRUE!

I had heard nothing but bad things about this unit. Unfortunately I also have the same opinion, it's my least favourite maths unit I have taken by far. The lecture notes have been revamped from last time the unit ran, which is good, but the lectures are still crap. Jerome did make an effort to improve them towards the end of semester, though.

Jerome as a tutor is kind of intimidating. He makes an effort to be approachable and to respond to feedback but doesn't quite succeed. The participation marks are easy enough to get though -- just show up to most of the tutes and have something to say every time (present an answer  to a question on the board every few weeks, too -- probably the most intimidating thing about the tutes), and you will get full participation marks. Also, marks are given for presentation/clarity, so when you do your assignments (and the exam!) write neatly, and use full English sentences. Keep the maths-speak to a minimum, or you are throwing away free marks.

I felt the exam was more an exercise of how well you can memorise stuff and THEN use it to apply to proofs/theorems, so I kind of got screwed over a bit because I couldn't memorise the specifics of theorems which were needed to start a lot of the proofs off. Not having the textbook I felt was a detriment to me, because I can't always remember specifics and you kind of need that for this subject.

Maths doesn't come that easily to me (and yet it's one of my majors... fail logic is fail). But general consensus is that this is a hard unit and I agree. Think carefully before you choose it. There is no real difference between second and third year level by the way, only in the assignments you will have one extra question. If you need this unit for a pure maths major and you struggle with exams like I do, I recommend trying to get as many of the coursework and participation marks as possible and just trying your best in the exam. If you are really good at self learning, or are a gun at maths, you will be fine.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2014, 01:18:04 pm by spaciiey »
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