Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings

[LifeisaConstantStruggle]

Subject Code/Name: ETC4400/5440 – Statistical Theory and Practice

Workload:  2x 1.5-hour weekly lectures
Assessment:
3x Assignments (40% in total) – pretty usual theory/maths based assignments. Assessor can be very harsh and holds the bar for students at a very high standard.
1x Exam (60%) – As above.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes, 1

Textbook Recommendation: Martin et. al., Econometric Modelling with Time Series: Specification, Estimation and Testing. This unit’s lecture slides largely follow the textbook, with the textbook going through some of the content in more detail, and more relevant example. I don’t think it is a must to have the textbook, but it is nice to read through.

Lecturer(s): Gael Martin. One of the best lecturers in the econometrics department. Extremely enthusiastic and holds econometrics at a very high standard. Totally worth doing her unit.

Year & Semester of completion: S2 2021

Rating: 5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 84

Comments:
This unit mainly concerns with providing advanced foundations (between undergrad and postgrad) on frequentist econometric theory, as opposed to the Bayesian unit ETC4541. We focus on the estimation aspect of econometric/statistical theory (point estimation and finding confidence bands), and assess the finite and asymptotic properties of different types of estimators (some of which include the usual OLS, or instrumental variables estimator one would have learnt in ETC2410/ETC3410 to some degree).
Every estimator introduced is expanded upon with discussion regarding why their used, their consistency, limiting normality, and efficiency properties relative to one another, alongside estimator-specific discussion regarding their properties. We start off with the most optimal (provided that the underlying DGP) MLE, then relax our assumptions to allow for some misspecification (QMLE), not specifying a distribution (GMM), parameters (non-parametric), or even an analytical solution (simulation-based estimation), and we assess what we lose, and gain in the estimation process.
We go through the following estimators, with discussion as alluded to above:
1.   Maximum Likelihood Estimation
2.   Quasi-maximum Likelihood Estimation
3.   Generalised Method of Moments Estimation
4.   Non-parametric Estimation (kernel density and kernel regression estimators)
5.   Simulation-based Estimation (mainly bootstrap)
I guess this is one of the units where, regardless of your background, you should take as part of your honours specialisation in the Econometrics and Business Statistics (EBS) department. Though I don’t think everyone should commit to research on frequentist statistical theory of this sort, this unit provides a very good, structured background on many of the techniques applied in different areas of statistics, and is general enough to give a good grounding for going through academic literature. To add on to that Gael is a VERY good lecturer/academic, which makes the unit even more worth it to do.
This unit is also definitely more on the difficult end, and the marking is not too lax as well. That’s not a bad thing considering everyone gets the marks they deserve, and I’m happy about it. Not a WAM-boosting unit I’d say, but that aside this is a 5/5 unit for sure.

[LifeisaConstantStruggle]

Subject Code/Name: MTH5520 – Interest Rate Modelling

Workload:  2x 1.5-hour weekly lecture, 1x 1-hour applied class
Assessment:
10x (10% in total) flux-quizzes, not too hard, mainly MCQs on the lecture notes
11x (20% in total – best 10) weekly assignment questions, directly from the Filipovic textbook, some weeks have very hard questions, and some weeks’ questions are quite easy.
1x 10% max - forum participation marks, the more you participate, the more marks you get.
1x 60% exam – not as difficult as MTH5210 – stochastic calculus from my experience, but quite challenging and it didn’t scale too.
Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes, 1

Textbook Recommendation: Damir Filipovic, Term Structure Models: A Graduate Course. I use this textbook a lot, and assignment questions are directly obtained from here, so definitely worth having a look. If stochastic calculus is not your strong suit (esp. if you’ve only done MTH3251 Financial Mathematics, this is a HUGE step-up), I’d suggest reading Klebaner’s Introduction to Stochastic Calculus with Applications to get yourself up to speed with things. 

Lecturer(s): Kihun Nam. He is good. Takes time with his explanations and is quite clear. It’s hard to control the quality of students coming into the unit, and I understand that it can be hard to explain concepts from the Filipovic textbook to someone without actual stochastic calculus grounding.

Year & Semester of completion: S2 2021

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 87

Comments:
This unit expands upon MTH5210 – Stochastic Calculus and Mathematical Finance as another stochastic calculus unit in the graduate financial mathematics ensemble. It is mainly theoretical, and focuses on modelling interest rates, and interest rate products (bonds, forwards, futures, options). It’s a nice continuation of MTH5210 in that we use theory from that unit to assess more detailed finance applications. Briefly, we go through the following topics:
1.   Arbitrage theory (i.e. MTH5210 refresher on stochastic calculus and mathematical finance applied to tradeable assets like stocks + some measure  theory taught in MTH3260 – Statistics for Stochastic Processes)
2.   Short rate models (we learn about diffusion/Ito processes, and model the simplest interest rate – the short rate as Ito processes)
3.   Forward rate models using the Heath-Jarrow-Merton framework (where the forward rate is instead modelled as an Ito process)
4.   Forward measures, modelling forwards and futures using short and forward rate models (this is an application to 1., 2., 3.)
5.   Multi-factor models and consistent term-structure parameterisation (where we use multiple rates to model one forward rate. This is a pretty hard topic, and it’s where I think it really gets interesting)
This is a very challenging unit. One of the hardest in the financial maths masters course I think. There are some negative reviews on how hard the unit can be, but they are mostly from students who haven’t done sufficient pre-requisite units (which I think are most important, but not explicit as a requirement) to succeed here. These units are MTH3260 (measure theory component), MTH5210, and some linear algebra would be helpful. MTH3251 is not sufficient for this course. Once that’s down I think Dr. Nam is very good, very enthusiastic about this stuff, and can explain things very well.
Personally I felt that knowledge in this unit helps with two major aspects; getting up to speed with stochastic calculus concepts, and going through interest rate parts of the financial maths literature and working papers from central banks. Surprisingly this goes well with ETC4410 – Macroeconometrics, and has been quite helpful to me when it comes to reading about monetary policy and business cycle theory. Obviously there’s much more to learn about interest rate modelling, but I think it gives you an overview of what you should read up in your graduate course.

[Calebark]

Subject Code/Name: PHY2032, Endocrine Control Systems

Workload: 
• 3 labs
• Workshop every week other than weeks where there is a lab
• 4-10 mini-lectures per week, depending on the modules for the week. They probably average about 8 minutes each, can be more or less, and are very dense so there's little superfluous information. They're very easy to follow along

Assessment: 
• 10 quizzes during workshops, completed in your assigned group for the semester, accounting for 1% each quiz. All the answers are in the lecture modules to be completed before the workshops, so there are no curveballs, total of 10%
• 2 x Lab Assessments (one was simply writing an abstract and interpreting data, one was a traditional report), total of 20%
• Group infographic on a topic given in Week 1, accounting for 10%
• SAQ test. You're given a choice of two topics, each of which has several SAQ questions from previous exams. Worth 5%.
• Multimedia presentation. You're given a hormone, which may not be covered in a lecture at all, and have to complete some research and create a video presentation as if you are a scientist presenting a hormone they have discovered or a teacher delivering it a classroom. This is the assessment where the textbook was helpful. Worth 15%.
• Exam. 2h10m (including reading time). 30 MCQ questions and 10 possible SAQ questions, of which you get to choose 6 to do. Worth 40%.

Recorded Lectures: 
• Prerecorded lectures released at the start of every week

Past exams available: 
• No. However you are given SAQ worksheets and a few hundred MCQ questions, all of which are in the exam style.

Textbook Recommendation: 
• The provided resources are very good, and you will have no need for the textbook to understand the content. However the recommended textbook, Vander's Human Physiology 15E is helpful for the presentation assignment and further reading.

Lecturer(s:
• A/Prof Craig Harrison (covers most of the content)
• A/Prof Julia Choate (covering gut physiology)
• Dr Belinda Henry (covering energy balance, food intake, body weight)

Year & Semester of completion:
• 2021, Semester 2

Rating: 
• 5/5

Your Mark/Grade:
•  HD

Comments:
• This was by far the best unit I've completed so far. While some of the content itself wasn't my favourite thing in the world, the style of lecture presentation and the workshops were always engaging. Despite the lockdown causing the lessons to change from IRL to online at such short notice, the engagement continued on Zoom, where workshops had an emphasis on interactive activities to ensure nobody drifted to sleep — there was a lot of humour involved which was a fun addition too. Some of the feedback took a while to get back to us for assessments but it was always detailed and fair. All lecturers and TAs were wonderful and happy to help, even for the most basic of questions.

The content is roughly divided into sections on Endocrinology, Reproduction, Digestion, and Metabolism.

In Week 1, you are assigned into a group of about six people in your workshop. You'll work together every week to complete the quizzes and workshop activities, in addition to the infographic assessment.

Some of the workshop activities include: completing a choose-your-own-adventure-story about thyroid hormones, solving a murder mystery involving new weight loss technologies, and completing a time-trialed puzzle adventure against other groups where the answers are hidden in activities of the female reproductive system.

[Calebark]

Subject Code/Name: PHY2042, Body Systems Physiology

Workload: 
• 31 hours of lectures
• 4 labs
• 2 workshops

Assessment: 
• 5 MCQ quizzes of lecture content, 2% each, for 10% total
• Preprac MCQ quizzes, 5 of them, 2% each, 10% total
• Practical assessments (3 lab worksheets where you have a week to complete a bunch of written questions and hand it in, 1 quiz), for 40% total
• Final exam, worth 40%. 2h10m, including reading time. There are 20 MCQs and 6 SAQ essay questions, 2 each for cardiovascular physiology, respiratory physiology, and renal physiology. Before SWOTVAC you are given a list of 36 SAQ questions to revise for (12 per topic), as it is guaranteed that 2 from each topic will appear on the exam, so it is very easy to revise for

Recorded Lectures: 
• Yes, prerecorded. Most of them don't show the lecturer or their digital pens, so when they are pointing or circling a diagram, you don't actually know what it is unless you listen carefully.

Past exams available: 
• No, but practise MCQs and revision SAQ worksheet.

Textbook Recommendation: 
• I used Vander's 5E to clarify on topics that were not explained well in lectures. However this is found in the library, and is definitely option and not required for passing.

Lecturer(s):
• Dr Lucinda Krause for cardiovascular physiology
• Dr Farshad Mansouri for respiratory physiology
• Prof Kate Denton for renal physillogy

Year & Semester of completion:
• 2021, Sem 2

Rating: 
• 2.5/5.0

Your Mark/Grade:
• HD

Comments:
• The content itself is very exciting. I particularly enjoyed the heart. Concepts learned in this class crossover greatly with PHY2032 and PHA2022.

However the lectures were overall unengaging and tedious, with about 3 hours of lectures per week. It was difficult to follow along with diagrams due to the lack of on-screen writing. The labs were more interesting, however hampered by the fact they were all on Zoom. It was made up by the fact they were more engaging, with lots of questions and back-and-forth discussions between TAs and students. The lecture notes (bar a few of the early ones) did not have too much detail, so you had to watch all the lectures to get proper understanding.

Lectures were quick catch-ups on homeostasis and ANS (basically PHY2011 revision + control of bladder and sexual response) then detailed topics on cardiovascular physiology (structure of heart and blood vessels, excitation, control of cardiac output, arterial pressure, exercise, haemorrhage, cardiovascular disease, body composition), renal physiology (structure, autoregulation, body fluid balance, regulation of excretion, kidney disease, acid base balance, reabsorption, etc etc etc), and respiratory physiology (structure of respiratory system, basic function, respiratory disorders, lung function tests, gas exchange and pulmonary circulation, distribution, transport of gases control of respiration, effects of altitude changes on respiration).. They

The MCQ quizzes were very fair and not difficult. I found the lab reports had fair marking, although there were a lot of errors in the questions (like a question asking you to refer to Figure 1 where in reality it meant Figure 2), and the majority of the feedback were copy-and-pasted references to the content.

Overall, while the content isn't super challenging, due to the lecture style and the infrequent workshops, it's easy to fall behind unless you keep on at yourself. If you had to pick between this or PHY2032, I'd pick PHY2032. I will note that this unit was taken during COVID during a lockdown, so experiences may differ.

[Calebark]

Subject Code/Name: PHA2022, Drugs and Society

Workload: 
• 3 labs, 3 hours each (I had 1 IRL lab, 2 during COVID, so we simply viewed data for those and read about it instead)
• 1 lecture each week (about 2h per lecture)
• 1 workshop every week excluding weeks with labs

Assessment: 
• Team Project, worth 20%. At the start of the semester, you are allocated a group totaling 6 people, and are provided a list of pharmacology-related debate topics in media (should xyz be legalised for treatment of blahblah?). It's a very large assignment, and it takes up the whole semester. It is quite manageable given the amount of time you have, and the fact you have a peer mentor assigned to you (one of the teaching staff), which provides motivation to not slack off.
• 3x quizzes on each major topic (16% total), about half MCQ and half one extended SAQ
• MCQ Writing Task (5% total), you have to write MCQs for other students. This gives you marks. You can also answer questions from students. This also gives you marks. It would be impossible to get full marks as some of the hurdles require a large time commitment, but it is manageable over the entire semester.
• 3x Lab Worksheets (not a traditional lab report; some data analysis, some graphs, a lot of answering SAQ questions) + 3x pre-labs, totaling 16%
• Workshop quizzes and activites. Some workshops at the end of the session you do a group quiz. At other times, you are given activities which you get 24h to complete as a group.
• Exam, worth 25%, hurdle. Mix of MCQs and SAQs.

Recorded Lectures: 
• Live lectures start of every week so you can ask questions, recorded and posted within 24h

Past exams available: 
• No, however there are revision quizzes and SAQ questions

Textbook Recommendation:
• We are granted access to an eBook for 'Medical Pharmacology at a Glance'. It is enjoyable to read through, but I never felt the need to use it for revision itself, so cannot comment.

Year & Semester of completion:
•2021, Semester 2

Rating: 
•4/5

Your Mark/Grade:
• HD

Comments:
• Despite being a pharmacology unit, don't fear, this is not very chemistry intensive at all. The unit is divided into four themes, being Introduction to Drug Action (IDA), Drugs in Society (DS), Drugs of Abuse (DAB), and Drug Development (DD).

IDA is the most simple of all themes and focuses on how drugs act and learning a bit of the language. What is pharmacodynamics? Pharmacokinetics? Explain potency, affinity, efficacy, types of antagonism, specific vs non-specific drug action, routes of administration, factors affecting drug action, chemical mediators, etc.

DS is not a very science-heavy section at the start. This is more of a lengthy discussion of drug regulation in Australia, different reasons as to why drugs are used as therapeutics, factors that influence scheduling, and drug marketing. After that we'd get to the most commonly used drugs, such as ones to treat hypersensitivity reactions or heart conditions or contraceptions and how they work. A lot of this ties into the immune system, but they briefly touch on that, although it is mostly expected prior knowledge. This is where it starts to feel like you're really learning how some drugs work.

DAB is the section that I found the most well-taught, and is about various recreationally used drugs, concepts of tolerance and dependence, approaches to harm minimization, and a whole lot on their various mechanisms of actions.

DD is the least science-y feeling unit, but feels important nonetheless, and describes the drug development pipeline from start to finish, and touches on pharmacoeconomics.

Overall, the actual workload was not large, and was the smallest of all my units this semester. However the depth of which they expected detail for SAQ questions meant you required a solid understanding, so it would require more workshop interaction than most subjects to gain the same level of knowledge. Fortunately, all staff were approachable and easy to talk to.

The labs for this unit were very boring, but like I said, this was during COVID so it may not be representative of the actual unit. The assessment tasks had a heavy focus on application rather than memory, so you can't just get out your notes and hope to yolo towards a pass. However the teaching staff are very welcoming, and tend to stay back after workshops or (virtual) labs to answer questions. The content seems to be very applicable to anyone wishing to pursue health sciences, and it's a subject that very much can easily be tied to the real world — so while the lectures could drag on rare occasion, I found the IRL application easy to drag me back in. I'd recommend it.

[LifeisaConstantStruggle]

Major: BCom (Hons) – Econometrics Specialisation 

First Year Subjects:
One 12-credit point research unit:

ETC4860 – Honours Research Project

The core coursework units are included as follows:

ETC4420 – Microeconometrics
ETC4541 – Bayesian Inference and Data Analysis
ETC4400 – Statistical Theory and Practice
ETC4410 – Macroeconometrics
ETC4460 – Financial Econometrics 2

Other elective coursework units are included as follows:

ETC4110 – Actuarial Practice 1
ETC4120 – Actuarial Practice 2
ETC5250 – Introduction to Machine Learning
ETC5512 – Wild-caught Data
ETC5521 – Exploratory Data Analysis
ETC5580 – Advanced Statistical Modelling
ETF5500 – High Dimensional Data Analysis

It is usually required for single specialisation students (in econometrics) to complete at least 4 coursework units from the Business School, with other electives approved by both the honours coordinator and the chief examiner of specific units. Joint specialisation (e.g. with economics or actuarial) students get to do 3 units each from of their specific specialisation.


Year of completion: 2021

Rating: 5 out of 5

Comments:
Background of the Major:
The econometrics honours year expands upon what you would’ve done in undergrad (see my review here), and adds a whole lot of detail to the material taught in undergrad to a point where you are equipped with advanced econometrics/quantitative skills to strive in the workplace, the ability to read and find gaps in the academic literature, and where econometrics stands in research within the social sciences.
At its current standing I think (just my 2c) econometrics can be divided into a few distinct specialisations of academic research. A lot of them are interwoven, and definitely has a lot of overlap with adjacent fields, such as economics, statistics, machine learning, etc.:
1.   Micro/applied-type econometrics: Encompasses many of the applied problems you would’ve seen in ETC2410/3410/3550, where data points come from individual people, businesses, etc. Main research output has been focused on dealing with imperfect data, research/experimental design within an economics setting, and identification issues as a result of microeconomic phenomena (keywords include set identification, discontinuity design, etc.). Research here is applied to quite a few consulting/competition roles, and public policy related to specific communities.
2.   Macro/time-series econometrics: Encompasses problems you see in ETC3450, or to a lesser extent ETC3550. Data points obtained here are usually indexed by time, and/or aggregated to some extent (e.g. GDP of a country, monthly unemployment, and more). Main research output include VAR and DSGE models, forecasting and assessing causal relationships between aggregate variables effectively, finding out effects of broad policies by central banking agencies, and more. I would say this is more theoretical and hard to grasp compared to 1..
3.   Financial econometrics: Encompasses problems you see in ETC3460, or the financial maths major in the maths/stats department. Main concerns are tradeable/non-tradeable assets, interest rates, and more. Main research output include stochastic calculus in mathematical finance, derivative pricing, assessing market indices, and ties well with macroeconometrics.
4.   Bayesian econometrics: This is basically 1., 2., and 3. with a separate theoretical paradigm. It is an emerging field of research, where its main research output includes applications and computational matters related to the econometric models we see in 1., 2., and 3.. Quite cool and interesting, and has been quite effective in improving econometric methods from what I can see.
5.   Econometric theory: Mainly assesses theoretical properties of estimators, not too well-versed in this area but items to look at include statistical theory, unbiasedness, efficiency, etc..

Personal Experiences:

This is a very good specialisation I feel, and I’ve benefitted more from this year than my entire undergraduate degree. I chose this specialisation instead of doing a joint with actuarial because I wanted to learn things I couldn’t get from the workplace (especially very academic-centric topics in econometrics and financial mathematics), and I felt that the econometrics and maths units I’ve undertaken, alongside the research topic I’ve done really allowed me to absorb way more than what I’ve learnt in undergrad.
To do this as a pure specialisation is a bit stale to me, I think. If you want to maximise your experiences I would suggest doing electives from other departments (e.g. some students I know study engineering units, I’ve done maths, and these are challenging stuff that I think would be beneficial), just to have a good understanding of what the outside world feels like. Or you can take it up a notch to do a research project unrelated to econometrics, like something in actuarial or machine learning, which are also offered under the ETC4860 umbrella.

Where I hope this would take me/where it has taken me:

The job prospects for honours graduates are quite good in Australia specifically, it’s kinda like a signal for advanced knowledge and research expertise for many industry jobs. A masters degree would be more useful for work abroad, e.g. in the Asia Pacific from what I’ve seen. Most of the students I know in EBS have offers within the first semester, which is pretty nice, and I definitely felt that this extra year has made me more confident in applying for jobs and stuff, so that’s a plus.
I guess econometrics is applicable to quantitative roles anywhere, and students generally go separate ways in government and consulting mainly (+ to a lesser extent specific business like insurance/financial services). Getting first-class is very much a pass to most PhD scholarships locally, and offers an opportunity to fast track and complete a PhD, which is quite sweet, but obviously is not sufficient for universities abroad (afaik European unis want masters degrees, and US degrees are way harder to enter, with more prestige of course). 

[ThunderDragon]

Subject Code/Name: EAE1022- Earth, Atmosphere and Environment 2 

Workload:  3x1 Hr Lectures per week and a 2 Hr Practical Session

Assessment: 

• 10% Weekly Topic Quizzes (Earth Week worth 1%)
• 40% Weekly Pracical Quizzes (Each Week worth 4%)
• 20% Reflective Journals (Each Fortnightly reflective journal worth 2% + Final Reflective Journal worth 10%)
• 5% Poster in Week 1 - 6
• 10% Infographic Poster Week 7 - 12
• 15% Field Trip Report

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, uploaded onto Moodle

Past exams available:  No as there is no final exam

Textbook Recommendation:  No textbook required

Lecturer(s): Marion Anderson and too many others to name from the School of EAE

Year & Semester of completion: 2021, Semester 2

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 87 HD

Comments: I found this unit to be quite enjoyable and well organized. If you have done EAE1011, this unit is very chill as it is essentially a repeat of EAE1011 with a bit of new content added. This did mean at times it felt a little bit repetitive and boring. I found the Geology and Soil Science content to be the most interesting and Atmospheric and Dendrocrinology to be the least exciting although that may just be my personal experience. I found Marion and all the assessments to be organized very well and everything was very clear and laid out in the rubric and what she wants.

In regards to the 5% poster, this was the one assignment where I did pretty awful due to cramming it on the day it was due so please make sure to spend at least a good few days working on it. The weekly quizzes and practical quizzes are fairly easy as long as you watch the lectures, take some notes down, and also attend the weekly practical classes. Marion runs help sessions each day so if you have any lingering questions from the prac worksheet for example, then highly recommend dropping to one of these help sessions. The infographic assignment was good as you can choose to work in groups or individually. I personally worked in a group with my friends and found that was quite a bit easier. The field trip report was altered due to COVID lockdown however if you spend a decent amount of time and follow the rubric, there's no reason why you can't score near the perfect score or get a perfect score. Overall, I did find this unit to be rather chill and I would recommend it as a good WAM booster.      [/list]

[ThunderDragon]

Subject Code/Name: HSC1300 - Human Health and Disease 

Workload:  1x1 Hr Lectures per week and a weekly 2 Hr Tutorial Session

Assessment: 

• 20% 5 Development Activities worth 4% each
• 10% Group Oral Presentation
• 25% Group Research Essay
• 45% Exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, uploaded onto Moodle

Past exams available:  No, but there is 1 practice exam uploaded

Textbook Recommendation:  No textbook required

Lecturer(s): Dr Nazmul Karim and my TA - Susan Brewster

Year & Semester of completion: 2021, Semester 2

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 87 HD

Comments: This unit was a really good introduction to the different body systems such as the Cardiovascular system, Endocrine System, Nervous System, etc. We delved into the different disorders of each body system and how to treat them such as different medications, surgeries, therapy, etc. While we only had a surface introduction of each body system, it was still a good introduction and I found the content very interesting. The one thing I wish this unit had was practical exposure but given COVID and only being a 1st-year unit, it's understandable.

The unit was organized fairly well and the lecture slides and tutorial slides had all the information required for the exam. I stopped watching the lectures because the slides had most of the information required anyway. The development tasks are very easy and essentially just a couple of questions in response to a video. The group oral was fairly easy to tho that would depend on the group you were working with. The Group research essay was a little bit more difficult given we had to include referencing and also make sure you double-check and proofread each other's parts. The exam was open book and the difficulty was quite comparable to the mock exam. There were quite a few scenarios in the exam which I enjoyed as we had to use the evidence provided to come up with an answer which in this case was a disorder. I found the Nervous System and Mental Health weeks to be the most exciting but that is most likely due to personal preference. Overall, a great unit if you are remotely interested in health or medicine and I would say with a bit of work, this could be a WAM booster. [/list]

[ThunderDragon]

Subject Code/Name: SCI1020 - Introduction to Statistical Reasoning 

Workload:  3x1 Hr Lectures per week and a weekly 2 Hr applied session

Assessment: 

• 10% Weekly Quizzes (Earth Week worth 1%)
• 10% Weekly Worksheets (Each Week worth 1%)
• 20% Assignments (Assignment 1 worth 10% is roughly on Weeks 2 - 5 content and Assignment 2 also worth 10% is roughly on Weeks 6 - 10 content
• 60% Exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, uploaded onto Moodle

Past exams available:  Yes, 2 practice papers available

Textbook Recommendation:  The Basic Practices of Statistics

Lecturer(s): Soojin Roh and my TA - Tam

Year & Semester of completion: 2021, Semester 2

Rating: 3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 84 HD

Comments: I didn't exactly enjoy the content of this unit as I found it rather dry and it was quite boring to get through however for someone who got below a 25 study score in Methods, I still found this unit to be rather easy so this is a good unit to do for those who aren't too great at maths. The lecturers provide all the necessary information and as long as you attend the applied classes, you should be able to get close to or full marks on the Quizzes and worksheets as your TA usually goes through a decent chunk of the worksheet in class.

I found that the textbook was kinda useful but they provided PDF files of each week's questions that are relevant so it isn't awfully necessary to purchase the textbook. The exam itself was a little bit difficult however it is similar in difficulty to the mock exams so if you do them a couple of times, you should be fine to do well. [/list]

[Billuminati]

Subject Code/Name: CHM2922 - Spectroscopy and Analytical Chemistry

Workload: 
2 x 1 hr recorded lectures
1 x 3 hr lab in 8 weeks
1 x 1 hr workshop

Assessment:
30% total from all labs
20% midsem
3 x 3.33% topic quizzes
40% final exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No. Practice questions presumably from past final exams provided in workshops which were significantly harder than the actual exam. One mock exam each for Jie's and Toby's sections (the only 2 examinable on the final exam) were provided and these were also considerably harder than the real one.

Textbook Recommendation:
Principles of Instrumental Analysis 7th edition (I used a 2nd hand copy of 5th edition and it was more than enough. Not absolutely necessary, only got it cuz I got a steal on it)

Lecturer(s):
Mike Grace
Jie Zhang (unit coordinator)
Toby Bell

Year & Semester of completion: 2021 Sem 2

Rating: 2 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 95 HD

Comments:
Overall impression and lecture content: The lectures in the unit are very disorganised except Toby's section. You start off with 4 weeks with Mike, who lectures UV-Vis, analytical chem terminology, AAS/AES, separation techniques ie chromatography and stats in analytical chem. Mike's lectures consistently go overtime, we're supposed to have 2 hours of lectures a week but we get 2 x 1.5 hour lectures. This isn't helped by the fact that he recorded an extra hour's worth of miscellaneous "online videos" that are also examinable, giving us ~3-4 hours of lectures to watch each week. He's quite good at explaining things though, however it's often not immediately clear what's actually assessed from his lectures. He sometimes indicates verbally in the lectures that something isn't assessed, but some other complex equations are on the slides as well that turn out to be only there for context. Mike's more than happy to clarify what's assessed and what's not on the discussion forums though.

Jie takes you for mass spec, Nernst equation, potentiometry and voltammetry, basically anything electrochem. His explanation style can be quite confusing and I had to resort to Chem Libretexts to supplement his lectures. The slides are also unclear and it's often difficult knowing what exactly you learned just from revising lecture notes. The mass spec, potentiometry and voltammetry lectures are very theoretically heavy, so memorisation is key. You must also know your Nernst equation and Faraday laws of electrolysis to survive.

Toby has you for the last 4 weeks of the semester, covering fluorimetry, IR, Raman and gas analysis. These lectures are very well taught and Toby was even better in the workshops. This lecture block is the most maths and physics heavy in the unit, I'd say knowing VCE maths methods is enough for this unit.

Labs: Almost all of semester 2 2021 was during Melbourne lockdown 6.0, so all labs were online (and were initially very poorly organised eg expired Zoom link and missing model results). I’m expecting this to get better when CHM2922 moves back on campus. We listened to the TA explaining how the analytical instrument we were meant to use works, including info on how to interpret their outputs. Then, we were given sample raw results via Excel spreadsheets and we were expected to process these results to answer questions on a proforma (including graphing and performing correlation etc). Some weeks were team oral presentations and the TAs went really easy on us for those. In the weeks where you have to submit a proforma, they were also marked very leniently, but they do emphasise the importance of significant figures and take marks off for improper rounding. There are also two half-weighed labs which were termed introductory exercises which are supposed to help you understand how lab works. Not every group will use every instrument, but you should use most from the following list: gas chromatography, HPLC, AAS, fluorimeter, IR, Raman, UV-vis, F- ion selective electrode, anodic stripping voltammetry. The Moot Court from previous years didn't run this year, not sure if it will be brought back next year.

Midsem: Closed book test, 50 minutes for 50 marks all on Mike's section (UV-Vis, AAS, chromatography and stats). Midsem content is not examinable on the final exam. It was not very difficult, but you need to be very careful with time management since there’s no dedicated reading time. Although as mentioned previously, the online content is examinable, I reckon 80%+ of the marks came from the main lectures. The vast majority of questions are in short answer format and a lot of the marks were from calculations, the rest are from theory. The midsem does examine some very detailed aspects of the lectures, but I think they were pretty lenient on marking theory (explanation style) questions. To study for these, I think the best way is to attend those weekly workshops where you go over an exam-style question with a prof. It really helps you with reasoning away each step of the working out and nailing the explanations for theory questions.

Moodle quizzes: These 3 quizzes are open book and open time on each of the 3 lecturer’s lecture blocks. You get 2 attempts at each of them. You also get given these quizzes in “tutorial mode”, which is a non-assessed quiz with the same question bank as your assessed quizzes. To prevent us from copying the answers from the tutorial quiz into the assessed quiz, the lecturers used random number generators. Pretty easy to full mark as long as you understand how to do questions from the tutorial mode.

Final exam: Closed book, 130 minutes for 120 marks divided evenly between the electrochem and spectroscopy lecture blocks (weeks 5-12 content). It was a mix of typed short answers, handwritten calculation questions and multis worth varying amount of marks. The exam was very fair since it was a lot easier than the mock exams we were given. In the revision lectures, Jie actually told us point blank what will be on his section of the actual exam, so make sure you attend those. While Toby didn't give away any parts of his exam questions, he did hint at what kinds of trick questions will be on the actual exam. However, I do have a complaint about Toby's section. Some multiple choice questions are probably better off as short answer questions since they're worth multiple marks and have working out associated, that way if we make a mistake we won't lose all the marks for that question. Like the midsem, I actually found the weekly workshops more helpful for exam prep than the lectures themselves, although I'd still recommend watching lectures.

[Billuminati]

Subject Code/Name: BMS2062 - Introduction to Bioinformatics

Workload: 
2 x 1 hr recorded lectures
1 x 3 hour workshop in 10 weeks of the semester

Assessment:
5 x 2% theme tests
10% MAT 1 (genetic disease patient brochure)
15% MAT 2 (genetic disease patient website)
7 x 4% workshop result sheets
2% career development program
35% final exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No. One mock exam provided.

Textbook Recommendation: Lehninger’s and Albert’s, you should have these from previous units but they weren’t as helpful in BMS2062.

Lecturer(s):
Various

Year & Semester of completion: 2021 Sem 2

Rating: 2 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 90 HD

Comments:
Overall impression and lecture content: The unit is very well organised (with some serious flaws) and despite the computer science sounding name, this is just another biochem/molecular bio unit. You’re just exposed to how to look things up in NCBI databases with BLAST, which is basically a search engine for nucleotide or peptide sequences. The lectures in this unit are divided into 5 lecture blocks: central dogma (3 lectures), gene sequencing (3 lectures), gene expression (3 lectures), protein synthesis (5 lectures) and protein structure (8 lectures). The content which can be pretty dry at times extends on BMS1062 and BMS2021.

Theme tests: Let’s get the negative out of the way first. The theme tests were supposed to be formative assessments that forced you to be up to date with the lectures, but the lecturers actually made them worth marks in order for us to take them seriously. The way theme tests worked is that there is a section of MCQs worth 1 mark each, a section with an EMQ (applications based MCQ based on a prompt) or two worth 2 marks each covering that theme’s workshop content and a section with 3-5 EMQs on lecture content. You are given an hour long window on certain Monday afternoons to do these and once you start, you get 25-30 minutes to complete them. Theme 1 test was very easy. Theme 2 test was a massive difficulty spike (I only got 42% on that one), but it didn’t contain too many unreasonable questions (one of the EMQ’s correct answers had a typo in it, so I chose another option cuz I thought it was a trick question. It later turned out that we were penalised for the typo, another kid in my workshop group remarked that it penalised the more astute students). The 3rd theme test was a disaster. We all thought we did very well and suddenly half the cohort including me realised that we failed (I legit got 47%), it turns out that in the lecture EMQs, if you misunderstood the first part of the question, you would get the rest of the EMQs wrong. The unreasonable thing about the question is that we were never taught in the lectures how to interpret the provided diagram in the amount of detailed required for the theme tests and once we get that 1st lecture EMQ wrong which was based on that diagram, we’d get 0 on the rest of the EMQs since everything builds upon that answer. When I wrote a post on Stalkerspace and the Moodle discussion forum rationally explaining why I think the test was unfair and why I’m very concerned about failing the unit since the exams are reportedly in a similar format, many people echoed my sentiments. Past students of BMS2062 indicated that the theme tests were equally bad in their days. An anonymous student gave me a lecture on the Moodle forums implying that I was being disrespectful in my posts, essentially snitching on me. One of my mates in a higher year level did tell me that it’s a better idea to email the lecturers directly in the future instead of posting on the Moodle forums and Stalkerspace (although they found nothing rude with both my posts), so in hindsight I could’ve been more professional and I will take this into consideration in the future, but it still feels like sh*t being stabbed in the back by one of your classmates. Biomed gunners which I've encountered since 1st year are the main reason why I’m considering becoming a high school teacher over a doctor now, if I get into med, I might get stuck with questionable people for the next 10+ years of medical training. I never saw this BS in my chem units, everyone in the chem group chat has each other’s backs and we all legitimately like supporting each other. Anna, one of the unit coordinators, addressed my concerns. She told me that the tests may extend the scope of the course beyond the content delivered in the lectures cuz all theme tests were open book and we had access to the internet. Theme tests 4 and 5 were very reasonable though, their extensions in scope were challenging enough to develop our application skills, but not as crazy as theme test 3.

MAT 1: You’re asked to produce an informative brochure for patients with a specific genetic disease and their families. They allocated the genetic diseases based on the last digit of your student ID, and I was lucky enough to end up with phenylketonuria (PKU), which is one of the common genetic diseases well documented in scientific literature. The word limit is 600 words (including in-text references) and this is a strict limit, so no +/- 10% leeway. For the brochure, you’re supposed to focus on how mutations on a nucleotide level contribute to the disease’s pathogenesis, this encompasses the scope of the themes 1-3 lectures. Although I tried to simplify the language as much as I could, I still got marked down half a mark for my language being too complex, this was a common occurrence within cohort. Generally, the TAs were lenient on the marking (my TA was Mariah Csolle, she’s awesome, try to be in her group if you can). You must include at least 1 relevant original figure/diagram, I find Biorender to be a great tool for this.

MAT2: The 2nd major assignment you’re given is to make a website on the same assigned disease in MAT 1 using Google sites, no coding experience required as you’re just dragging and dropping elements. The website has more of a focus on lecture themes 4 and 5, so we’re looking more at how the protein itself is dysfunctional due to amino acid changes and how that causes the genetic disease. The word count is increased to 900 including in-text references (again, strict limit) and you may only have up to 5 pages (including the home page) on your website. You must also include an “interactive visual element” to your website. This can be an animated GIF or a video of you talking and annotating a self-made diagram (I used Biorender for this as well).

Workshop result sheets: During workshops, your TA will take you through how to use various bioinformatics tools and you’re provided with proformas to fill in along the way. They are due for all workshop streams at 8PM Friday and there is a grace period of 9PM Friday (if you hand it in between 8PM and 9PM, there’s no -10% late penalty, but after 9PM the dropbox won’t accept submissions anymore and you get an automatic 0). Very easy to full mark or near full mark and you can usually complete them within the 3-hour workshops (these typically only run for 2-2.5 hours though).

Final exam: Open book, 130 minutes for 65 multiple choice questions of equal weighing. All lecture and workshop content are assessed, with 15 marks allocated to the workshops and 50 marks allocated to the lectures. The questions were similar to the application style EMQs of the theme tests (yes, those dreadfully double weighed ones), but they were nowhere as bad as those ones. For almost all multi-part questions based on the same prompt, if you misunderstand the first part, you can still get most marks on the subsequent parts unlike the theme tests. The lecturers promised that the mock exam was very similar to the actual exam and they didn’t lie. Although I felt the real exam was ever so slightly harder than the mock exam, this can be attributed to the fact that I had multiple attempts at the mock exam. I ended up finishing half an hour early, having extra time to check my work, although there are still some questions that were difficult. Overall, the exam was actually enjoyable. An issue with the unit is the lack of SWOTVAC support from the lecturers. According to someone in the BMS2062 group chat, this is because the lecturers who taught BMS2062 have moved on to other teaching commitments and can no longer answer our questions. If what I’ve heard is true, I can respect this since I’m aware many lecturers might be taking on honours or 3990 students over the summer break, but an announcement informing us to get our final questions in before the lecturers are no longer available would’ve been nice. There’s a silver lining, since we’re forced to collaborate to find the answers, I found myself explaining things to others more often than I ever had during the semester, which consolidated my own understanding. This is Feynmann’s study technique in action.

[Billuminati]

Subject Code/Name: BMS2042 - Human Genetics

Workload: 
2 x 1 hr recorded lectures
1 x 2.5 hr lab every 2nd week or so

Assessment:
6 x 1% prelabs
7 x 2% lab summary quizzes
15% lab test (midsem)
10% genetic counselling project
10% model organism group oral presentation
45% final exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No. No mock exams either but practice questions provided.

Textbook Recommendation: Don't remember which book/s were prescribed, you can easily survive the unit without it.

Lecturer(s):
Various

Year & Semester of completion: 2021 Sem 2

Rating: 4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 90 HD

Comments:
Overall impression and lecture content: If you think this unit just goes over different genetic diseases, then buckle up cuz all of VCE genetics get covered in the 1st 2 weeks. Since this unit has changed a lot since Sine reviewed it (a lot of the dev bio and biochem aspects were removed), I’ll list the lectures below. All lectures were delivered very well and were very interesting in my opinion, but I heard my peers complain about the lectures confusing them and making concepts harder to understand. If I had to choose something to change, I would probably remove some gene sequencing lectures cuz they overlap too much with BMS2062.

Week 1: Autosomal and sex-linked inheritance patterns
Week 2: Non-Mendelian inheritance patterns ie epistasis, codominance, incomplete dominance etc
Week 3: Genetic counselling and gene mapping
Week 4: Gene sequencing techniques
Week 5: Model organisms and transgenic technologies
Week 6: Bayesian analysis and complex diseases (including some population genetics)
Week 7: Continued discussion of complex diseases
Week 8: Epigenetics and personalised medicine
Week 9: Sex determination
Week 10: Chromosomal aberrations
Week 11: Chromosomal aberrations continued and population genetics
Week 12: Evolutionary genetics

Prelabs + Lab summaries: Labs were online tutorials due to being conducting during lockdown 6.0, they were the lowlights of my experience and I’d think they’re more fun on campus. As with Sine’s review, the labs get really repetitive as you’re just doing fancy Punnett squares all the time. Two lab summaries did not have an associated lab (introductory lab + Bayesian analysis), but the rest do (lab summaries are open-time Moodle quizzes due 24 hours after your lab session ends). The prelabs are to be completed by the start time of your lab session and they examine lecture content associated with the labs. They are usually Moodle quizzes with 12-15 questions and there’s an 1 hour time limit once you start it. Both are very easy to full-mark. If you're ever stuck, Rose (lab coordinator) and Fran are both very helpful on the Moodle forums.

Midsem: Closed book + invigilated lab test, 60 minutes for 50 marks on the lab content up to week 6. It was one of the harder tests we had to sit in biomed and many of us didn’t finish it. A lot of calculations are involved and you’re NOT provided with a formula sheet. Although the lectures aren’t explicitly examined, being up to date with them really helps consolidate what you learned in labs. Just make sure your probability theory knowledge is solid and avoid arithmetic errors.

Genetic counselling project: This is sort of an open book midsem that asks you to apply your knowledge of the first 3 weeks of lectures (+ the Bayesian analysis lecture). It’s divided into section A (3%), section B (4%) and section C (3%). Section A involves using bioinformatic tools to determine what mutation has occurred and what genetic disorder is present based on a nucleotide sequence, then annotating your hypothetical consultand’s family tree with genotypes based on their phenotypes. Part B is a letter to the consultand where you adopt the role of a genetic counsellor and attempt to inform them about their disease and fulfil the other genetic counsellor duties as outlined in the week 3 lectures. Part C requires you to construct a pedigree from scratch from another patient’s verbal description of how the trait runs in their family. You are then asked to fill in a Bayesian analysis table. The project as a whole is very easy to score well in, the only pitfall is not addressing the criteria sheet in part B.

Group oral: We were randomly assigned groups and a model organism as topic. Our task is to pitch our given model organism as the best one by outlining their advantages and discussing future directions in research to overcome the disadvantages. My group was given:

Spoiler

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PLKdaqwLDFzI_YOMGAwzZKi0aHRHHXd5/view?usp=sharing

If you have the choice (our cohort didn’t), choose the mouse cuz the advantages and disadvantages are painfully obvious. There was a Feedback Fruits peer review at the end, you only lose marks if your group members were VERY unhappy about your performance (giving you <75%). Most people did very well on the oral, my group pretty much finished preparing by the end of the midsem break (make sure you use it wisely). A lot of your marks came from asking good questions and answering other student’s questions. However, some audience members couldn’t get the hint that we don’t want to answer a question since it pertains to rats, not mice, and persistently asked the same question over and over again despite our explanations. Since we were parroting our responses for their particular question, we probably embarrassed ourselves. Our group repaid the favour by asking them a very difficult question that they couldn’t answer (but it’s still based on something they said in their presentation), but we asked easy questions to the other groups since they were being nice to us as well.

Final exam: Closed book, 130 minutes for 115 marks (46 MCQs and 69 marks worth of SAQs. There were supposed to be 2 MCQs and 3 marks worth of SAQs for each of the 23 lectures, for the most part this is accurate, but the exam did not adhere to it strictly at all times. Additionally, the lectures weren't examined in order. The SAQs aren’t essay style questions, they’re fill in the box questions, some with words, some with numbers (calculation questions were present in the SAQs but you’re only allowed to write down your final answer). You WILL be rushed for time, so make sure you aim for a mark a minute. The MCQ section was pretty challenging as it examined very obscure parts of the lectures. The SAQ is very reasonable, except for the fact that there were quite a few typos that rendered the questions unsolvable. The BMS2042 exam was weird in that when I finish it, I thought it was very easy, but when I got my final mark back, I was both disappointed and baffled at why my exam mark was so low. I’d recommend using the lab summaries to guide your exam study, since the exam was very application based and the style is quite similar to the lab test.

Initially, the lecturers told us that no practice exams will be provided since the 5 “Check your understanding” MCQs after each lecture were already adequate practice. After some students insisted on having more resources, they gave us another practice quiz composed of past exam questions (it was very indicative of actual exam difficulty). They also set up a Peerwise system for us, it was less useful than the one in BMS2052 cuz quite a lot of the student-generated questions had wrong solutions. This reminds me of being sabotaged in high school (people teaching others in study groups incorrect facts). If you see incorrect Peerwise questions, always report the question and include your reasoning for the real correct answer, that way other people won’t be mislead.

[Billuminati]

Subject Code/Name: BMS2052 - Microbes in Health and Disease

Workload: 
2 x 1 hr recorded lectures
1 x 2 hr lab

Assessment:
5 x 5% postlab quizzes
5% for 5 Peerwise questions
10% midsem
20% build a pathogen group project (15% report + 5% peer evaluation)
40% final exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No. 2 mock case study sections + 120 practice MCQs provided

Textbook Recommendation: Don't remember, didn't buy

Lecturer(s):
Various

Year & Semester of completion: 2021 Sem 2

Rating: 3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 86 HD

Comments:
Overall impression and lecture content: The unit is your typical microbio + immuno unit. The lectures were nothing special and pretty bland TBH, although the content of the week 5-6 lectures on immuno were fascinating (Mark made memorising antibody serotypes fun with analogies). Another highlight would be the rabies lectures in week 11 (might be biased cuz I'm a Walking Dead fan), the content was great but the delivery wasn't very memorable. The unit was the 2nd most memorisation intensive unit I have taken, rivalled only by BMS2011.

Labs: As with other 2021 sem 2 subjects, all labs were conducted remotely as Zoom tutorials where your TA takes you through a PowerPoint and then send you into breakout rooms for activities. Every 2 weeks or so, you have a postlab quiz due. These have a 30-min time limit and involve around 20 marks worth of assorted questions on the previous 2 weeks or so of labs/workshops. Question types include MCQs, dropdown MCQs and short answers. It's very easy to score well in these lab quizzes since the TAs mark your SAQs very leniently.

Midsem: Closed book, 50 minutes for 48 marks covering the lecture and lab content of weeks 1-6. 24 marks were straight MCQs whereas another 24 marks come from EMQs which are drop-down multipart MCQs. Each week is allocated 4 MCQs and 1 EMQ (each EMQ has 4 questions requiring a dropdown answer). The provided practice quiz was easier than the real midsem (which examined some nitty gritty details, memorisation is definitely needed), the best resource to use is the Peerwise platform. It's a website where students submit their own MCQs (more on that below) for other students to answer. Despite the announcement that labs are assessible, I don't think there was lab content.

Peerwise: You are required to write 5 exam style MCQs on 5 different weeks lecture contents, the specific weeks are assigned to you randomly at the beginning of the semester. Easy 5% of the unit grades, only people who forgot to submit a MCQ by the due date lost marks for this.

Group project: The build a pathogen report is my main issue with this unit. It has a strict 2000-word limit (including in-text references) and you work in groups of 4. The task is to design your own bacterial pathogen (with 4 virulence factors) drawing on your knowledge of bacteriology acquired through the week 2 lectures. You must also demonstrate your knowledge of each step in the process of bacterial pathogenesis. A self-designed figure was also required, again, probably a good idea to do it by Biorender. Although my team worked really well, we only got 80% for the report. When we looked through the assessors comments, it's apparent that they have very high standards (although not unreasonably high) and don't tolerate ambiguities in your explanation very well, so make sure you check everything carefully and be as specific as possible. They're also super strict on formatting the references properly. The assessors also seemed to be experts in bacteriology since they picked up on theoretical errors that escaped us when we were editing our report. A few weeks before the report was due, you got to meet one of the assessors (not necessarily the one marking your report) and have them give you feedback on a verbal outline your report (they're not allowed to see your draft). They asked you many good questions that helped us identify gaps in our understanding, but since they didn't correct the draft, we lost many marks on the little things that we can't summarise verbally.

Final exam: Closed book, 130 minutes for 2 sections (mark allocation is kinda weird, will detail below). Section 1 (worth 25% of the exam ie 10% of your final mark) is identical in structure to your midsem, except it covers lecture + lab content from weeks 7-12. Different from the midsem, the questions on it were easier than the mock MCQs/EMQs provided for revision.

Section 2 is 4 SAQs (with subparts) worth 12 marks each covering lecture and lab content from weeks 1-12. Subsequent subparts are designed to be harder than the earlier ones. It is worth 75% of the exam grade ie 30% of your final mark. Each SAQ is based upon a case study and involves a stem. You must be able apply your knowledge of everything you learned in the unit fluently and in an integrated manner, since within each SAQ, concepts from several different weeks can be examined, even in the same subpart of the question. The provided case studies mock exam were significantly harder than the actual exam, when we attempted the practice questions, we all thought we were going to fail. The weird exam format made it hard to study using a consistent format. Since the course is very content heavy, many of us naturally resorted to studying using memorisation based study techniques eg Anki and Peerwise, but the huge emphasis on application on the exam caught us out in that we've been studying the wrong style of questions all along. In terms of depth of knowledge examined, both sections of the exam didn't examine as many details as the midsem.

[hairs9]

Subject Code/Name: CHM1052 - Chemistry 2 advanced 

Workload:
One 1 hour workshop per week, one 1 hour lab most weeks. It was done online so would have been about a 3.5 hour lab in person.
Plus roughly 2 hours of online lecture content to watch in your own time

Assessment: 
10 weekly quizzes worth 1% each(total of 10%)
Lab work worth 35% in total, includes 7 prelab exercises(worth about 4%) and 6 lab reports(although one is split into 2 parts)(worth the other 31%).
Final exam worth 55%

Recorded Lectures:
Yes, only way to access lectures was via recordings. Some recordings were from previous years.

Past exams available: 
Yes, 2 practice exams were available

Textbook Recommendation: 
Chemistry Atoms First, and Chemistry 4e. Both are available online, neither were particularly useful. The prereadings have textbook pages for reference but they aren't really necessary. 

Lecturer(s):
We had 8 lecturers overall.
There were 6 lecturers delivering the CHM1022 content(one per 2 weeks) and 2 lecturers giving the CHM1052 content(one per 6 weeks). The CHM1052 lecturers also attended our workshop for their area, and Sara Kyne also helped out at the workshop throughout the semester.

CHM1022 lecturers:
David Lupton-Weeks 1/2(Introduction to organic chemistry/aromaticity)
Sara Kyne-Weeks 3/4(Chemical detectives/stereochemistry)
Philip Wai Hong Chan-Weeks 5/6(ketones and aldehydes/acids, esters and amides)
Drasko Vidovic-Weeks 7/8(introduction to transition metals/compounds and complexes)
Stuart Batten-Weeks 9/10(ligands/crystal field theory)
Victoria Blair-Weeks 11/12(colour and magnetism/bioinorganic chemistry)

CHM1052 lecturers:
Joel Hooper-Weeks 1-6(organic chemistry)
David Turner-Weeks 7-12(inorganic chemistry)

Year & Semester of completion:
2021 semester 2(all online)

Rating: 4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 89 HD

Comments:
This subject was very well-run. I appreciated the clear separation between the 1022 and 1052 content, as well as how the workshops were run. I found them well-paced and generally went through most of the content that was a little more tricky. Personally I lost interest about the second week into the unit, with the organic content being a bit different from high school and I found it both difficult and a little dry. The labs were done online, and I don't think they were adapted very well. Joel took the first 6 weeks, which was organic chemistry. He was pretty good, but I preferred David Turner's style of using powerpoints with the answers to help go through everything. David is an entertaining character, and he helped make inorganic chemistry more engaging. My least favourite week was week 12 but that's probably because I read the word 'bio' and tuned out. But it seemed to have a lot more content than the other weeks.
The assessment was pretty good, definitely a step up from 1051 with having to do an actual lab report, but overall pretty fair and not too much of a workload.
My main recommendation is to try to engage, make sure to ask questions in workshops(if you're confused, I guarantee other people are too) and just to keep up with the content. Don't go in expecting things to be like high school, organic chemistry especially introduces some difficult concepts and ignores other ones that were seen as important earlier.

[hairs9]

Subject Code/Name: FIT1008 - Introduction to computer science

Workload:
Online prerecorded lectures that are roughly 2-3 hours a week
One 2 hour workshop, one 2 hour tutorial, and one 2 hour lab a week.

Assessment:
4 solo pracs and 3 collab pracs worth 2% each(so 14% overall)
2 interview pracs worth 13% each(26% overall)
Final exam worth 60%

Recorded Lectures:
Yes, lectures were only recorded and at least some were from previous years

Past exams available: 
Yes, about 4 available, some with solutions.

Textbook Recommendation: 
There were 3 textbooks "recommended" but none were really needed.

Lecturer(s):
Maria Garcia de la Banda took the first 7 weeks and Brendon Taylor took the last 5.
Pierre Le Bodic was the main subject coordinator and also took majority of the workshops. Brendon Taylor and Alexey Ignatev took some of the others, and there were other staff also hanging around.

Year & Semester of completion:
2021 semester 2(all online)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 100 HD

Comments:
I enjoyed the subject a lot. It's clear they've had to make a lot of changes to help people be able to pass and to make the subject better run and a lot of those have been helpful. The first 3 weeks are based around MIPS, which isn't the most exciting thing in the world but hey, coding is fun and it's not too difficult. It did help to give a better understanding about what Python actually does, which I think ultimately made me a better coder. The majority of the unit is around abstract data types and how to implement them. Definitely felt like overkill at times(we had to learn how to program a list) but was still interesting.
The workshop was a bit slow at times, but it was uploaded so I could go through at my own pace. It was definitely helpful for understanding how to implement things, and a lot of the times, the pracs were very similar to workshop exercises.
I found the tutorials to sometimes be useful but could be very slow paced. They did help to fix any gaps in learning from earlier subjects.
The labs were where we did our assessment for the week. I appreciated having the time in class to do it, but my class was only a day before it was due so I needed to start ahead of time, just so I wouldn't get stuck. The solo pracs were usually pretty nice. I didn't enjoy the collab pracs as much because it involved working in a group, which was often very complicated. The interview pracs were the most difficult, basically being like a coding assignment. It was often very hard to figure out the instructions and nothing was clarified except in the forums. It was very chaotic overall.
To do well in this unit, start your pracs early, ask a lot of questions, read every post in the forum, dispute marks you disagree with, and use all the resources they provide you.