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Author Topic: UNSW Course Reviews  (Read 288492 times)  Share 

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owidjaja

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #135 on: September 07, 2019, 02:44:09 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: PHYS1121 - Physics 1A

Contact Hours: 8

Assumed Knowledge: HSC Physics and Mathematics Extension 1. MATH1131 is also a co-requisite.

Assessment: 
Labs (including prelab quizzes) - 20%
Online quizzes - 10%
Invigilated quizzes - 10% x 2
Final exam - 50%

Lecture Recordings? 
Yes but they only record when the lecturers use the document camera (some lecturers do working out on the blackboard, which isn't recorded)

Notes/Materials Available
They have webstream lectures on Moodle in case if you miss a lecture (or if you skip a lecture lol).

Textbook:
Halliday, D., Resnick, R., & Walker, J. (2014). Fundamentals of Physics, John Wiley & Sons
Not compulsory to purchase it but you can always access it by going to Room 201A. They have a few copies there.

Lecturer(s):
T1: Prof Joe Wolfe/Prof Chris Tinney
T2: Prof Rajib Rahman/Prof Sue Coppersmith

Year & Trimester of completion: 2019 T1 & T2 (failed in T1)

Difficulty: 4.5/5

Overall Rating: 2/5

Comments:
I found this course really hard and as a result it drained my interest in physics. The weekly/invigilated quizzes were really annoying as well because it's ridiculously easy to lose marks. The labs are kinda dull but it's easy marks, and you can get a lab exemption if your lab mark is over 75% if repeat the course. The resources they provided are really good and I spent majority of the time watching them rather than going to lectures because they're not rushing or skipping the working out. I guess what I learnt from doing the course twice is that you should aim to get as many pre-exam marks as possible because the exams are rough.
2018 HSC: English Advanced | Mathematics | Physics | Modern History | History Extension | Society and Culture | Studies of Religion I

ATAR: 93.60

2019: Aerospace Engineering (Hons)  @ UNSW

owidjaja

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #136 on: September 07, 2019, 03:33:13 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: MATH1231 - Mathematics 1B

Contact Hours: 6

Assumed Knowledge: MATH1131

Assessment: 
Weekly quizzes - 10%
Lab tests - 15% x 2
Assignment - 10%
Exam - 50%

Lecture Recordings? 
Yes but only the document recorder.

Notes/Materials Available
Yes, there are course notes available on Moodle.

Textbook:
S.L. Salas, E. Hille and G.J. Etgen, Calculus – One and Several Variables, any recent edition, Wiley
but not compulsory to purchase. Honestly, I only used the course notes.

Lecturer(s):
Milan Pahor/Jeya Jeyakumar

Year & Trimester of completion: 2019 T2

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating:  3/5

Comments:
I found the course alright, but maybe it's because I had a great algebra lecturer (my calculus lecturer wasn't that good lol), or maybe it's because I had a better math tutor. The exam was pretty rough, especially since they changed the exam structure so they could increase the difficulty of the exam. The weekly tests, lab tests and assignment wasn't too bad, but at the same time, I don't do well in exams so make sure you can get as many pre-exam marks as possible.
2018 HSC: English Advanced | Mathematics | Physics | Modern History | History Extension | Society and Culture | Studies of Religion I

ATAR: 93.60

2019: Aerospace Engineering (Hons)  @ UNSW

HelpICantThinkOfAName

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #137 on: September 13, 2019, 07:07:48 pm »
+7
MATH 2901: Higher Theory of Statistics

Contact Hours:  5 hours of lectures, 1 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: Credit in MATH1231, Or pass in MATH1241/51.

Assessment:  1 repeatable online test, 10%. 1 Group Assignment, 10%. 1 in tutorial exam, 20%. 60% final exam 

Lecture Recordings? Yes. Document camera used for just about everything.

Notes/Materials Available:  Full set of notes provided, covered more than what was given in lectures.

Lecturer(s): Libo Li. 5/5 What a guy. He gave us a revision sheet which appeared in its entirety in the final exam. If that doesn’t tell you enough about him I don’t know what will

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 2019/T2

Difficulty: 4.5/5. I’d say that part of the difficulty came from not having done any stats since 1231 finished 6 months before the start of the course (thanks trimesters). I was often struggling with the course and always felt that I was a week or two behind where I should be.

Overall Rating:  5/5 This was the most fun that I’ve ever had in a math course so far. Each of the topics had examples of real-world applications, and problems were legitimately satisfying and fun to solve. If you think that you might have the mathematical skills to take this course over 2801, absolutely take it.

Also if you think that you’ve done enough study for the in tutorial test, you haven’t done enough study for it. The average was 11.3/20, and I suspect that some scaling was given for that test. The online test and assignment had averages in the 90s, so it is unlikely that any other scaling was given in this course.
Studying Economics/Mathematics @ UNSW

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #138 on: September 15, 2019, 09:35:56 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: MGMT1101 - Global Business Environment

Contact Hours: 3.5 - 2 hour lecture, 1.5 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None

Assessment: 
- Memos (35%): the first was 8%, second was 12%, third was 15%
- Group presentation (15%)
- Group facilitation (10%)
- Class participation (10%)
- Final exam (30%): all multiple choice

Lecture Recordings? No

Notes/Materials Available: Not really but if you went to the lectures there were a few useful links related to each week's topic.

Textbook: Global Business Today, 4th ed by Hill et al.

Lecturer(s): Lecturer: Steven Lui, Tutor: Minh Vu

Year & Trimester of completion: T2 2019

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating:  3.5/5

Comments:
This is a really good starter for the international business major/minor! The course content is quite interesting and the course gives a good overview of international business. Although lectures aren't recorded, you're not really missing out on anything as the lectures mostly regurgitate textbook readings each week. However, the lecturer I had tended to give out questions to the final exams in lectures and didn't put them in the lecture slides on Moodle.

If there's one thing I didn't like about the course, it's that assessments weren't explained very well and there was no consistency across tutors whether it be about marking or even what to include in the memos/presentations/facilitations. In my tutorial class, no one got higher than a 75 for all the memos while in other classes people were doing better in others. Make sure to ask your tutor all the questions about assignments, not the lecturer as there was always a bit of confusion in regard to expectations.

Another thing to keep in mind is that tutorials are pretty much just presentations and facilitations. I recommend getting to know others in your class because the more you interact with others, the better your participation mark will be. Although it's only 10%, doing well in that section does make a difference in your final grade!
« Last Edit: September 15, 2019, 09:46:01 pm by fantasticbeasts3 »
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #139 on: September 15, 2019, 09:45:31 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MGMT2102 - Managing Across Cultures

Contact Hours: 3.5 - 2 hour lecture, 1.5 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None

Assessment: 
- Multiple choice quiz (10%)
- Journal article review (10%)
- Group presentation (20%) - group mark is worth 15% and individual is 5%
- Class participation (10%)
- Comparative report (30%)
- Capstone (20%)

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Extra readings on Moodle

Textbook: Management Across Cultures, Steers et al.

Lecturer(s): Lecturer: Phillip Warburton, Tutor: Charlotta Oberg

Year & Trimester of completion: T2 2019

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Comments:
MGMT2102 is definitely one of my favourite courses since starting uni. While the content can be a bit dry sometimes, learning about how different cultures communicate and operate in the workforce is so fascinating and tutorials complement the content-heavy lectures really well. The content isn't hard to understand and provided you at least listen to the lectures you should be fine.

If there's one downside to this course, it would be the comparative report. There wasn't much (if any) explanation on what to do for that task and most students had no idea what they were doing, even though it was the assignment that impacted our final grade the most.
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

blasonduo

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #140 on: September 16, 2019, 04:11:03 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: BIOS2061-Vertebrate Zoology

Contact Hours: 3x 1-hour lecture and 2x 2-hour laboratory each week.

Assumed Knowledge: None.

Assessment:
3x laboratory dissection drawings 15% (5% each)
3x lab reports 10% (3.33% each)
Bird Survey of Centennial Park 5%
Mid term lab quiz 10%
Practical exam 20%
Final exam 40%

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Lab manual and one past paper.

Textbook: None required

Lecturer(s): Mike Archer, Sue Hand, Peter Yates, Ian Suthers, Jodi Rowley, Richard Kingsford.
Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Term 2

Difficulty: 2.0/5

Overall Rating:  4.2/5

Your Mark/Grade: 80 DN

Comments:

I picked this course as an elective, and boy is this course run extremely well. The lectures are run by a lot of lecturers, which does mean that each lecture style changes every 2 weeks for so, however, this wasn't a problem because every single lecturer was so passionate with their topics. They were all engaging, and energetic.

The course covers the classification of all vertebrates and the key features of their anatomy, including teeth, bones and their evolutionary traits. There was also a closer investigation into Australian vertebrates. A lot of the content is pretty straight forward and intuitive for the most part, but the main difficulty came from the new terminology. Sharks aren't sharks, they're Elasmobranchii with subgroups of squalomorphs and galeomorphs. Once you get over this initial hump and learn what the terminology mean makes the rest of the course pretty easy.

The laboratories started out fantastically, starting with a dissection of a dogfish shark and microscopes of some animal tissue or small animal. It, however, did become pretty mundane as the weeks went on because it then only consisted of bones/specimen jars, which isn't bad in itself, but 4 hours a week of it made it stale, because there wasn't too much information that co-existed with the exhibits.

The assessments of the course are really quite easy and stress-free. 30% of the final mark was essentially impossible to get less than 90% of it. The "lab reports" were just answering questions in the lab manual and handing them in at the end of the lab. The real kicker is that we were given the answers to every question before submitting. The dissections, were also marked extremely leniently (I can't draw for the life of me, but I still got 100%). The bird survey was also a nice excursion that made the assessment enjoyable. The only difficult assessment I found was the midterm, although multiple choice, some questions required you to know some specific things, and made it pretty difficult. This made me think that the final prac exam would be of similar difficulty, but I was really wrong, most of the questions were really simple, and if they weren't, the (again multiple choice) answers were pretty easy to guess. Finally, the final exam was in the same sense of the practice exam, and it wasn't multiple choice. ~80% of the final exam had the exact same questions in the practise exam, so studying made it really easy.

Overall, I really liked the laid back aspect of the course that more focussed on interest and motivation rather than assessments, and I think that was the reason why I enjoyed it so much. In hindsight, my mark should've been higher for what I did get, nothing was difficult, but my mark is still good. Expect high marks if completing this course :) This course has been designed it a fantastic way.
2018: UNSW B science (physics)/B education

Kicking myself into gear

HSC Physics Topics 1 & 2 Exam!

kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #141 on: September 16, 2019, 10:38:28 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MATH2111 - Higher Several Variable Calculus

Contact Hours: 4x 1hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
  • MATH1231, MATH1241, or MATH1251 all with a mark of 70 or greater

Assessment:
  • 51% Class Tests - Three class tests, weighted equally; generally a few difficult questions, but overall quite straightforward; tested recent content, so need to be up-to-date to do well; past class tests made available
  • 49% Final Exam - Two hour exam split into two main "sections" (albeit not explicitly); first section tested most of the several variable calculus, second section tested vector calculus, in line with the course content split; some very challenging questions, and many theoretical questions which could throw you off even having done the past exams

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded, plus document camera when used.

Notes/Materials Available: All lecture slides posted online, and past final exams available. Past class tests and tutorial problems with (usually) brief solutions supplied.

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness.
  • [Prescribed] Vector Calculus (Sixth Edition, 2012) by Marsden and Tromba

Lecturer(s): Dr. Denis Potapov and Dr. Jan Zika

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 S1

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 95 HD

Comments: A generally quite interesting course. Some parts (like the topology introduction at the start) shined, but others (like the more applied bits of vector calculus) were somewhat dull. The second half with Dr. Zika was much more applied mathematics than I liked, but the theory behind it was quite interesting. Concepts from this course are expended upon in further courses, so it is a very good foundational course. A good course for those interested in applied mathematics, with the vector calculus part of the course, but a decently good grasp of the theoretical aspects of calculus is required (though you're meant to develop that throughout the course).

kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #142 on: September 16, 2019, 10:39:54 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: MATH2601 - Higher Linear Algebra

Contact Hours: 2x 2hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
  • MATH1231, MATH1241, or MATH1251 all with a mark of 70 or greater

Assessment:
  • 30% Class Tests - Two class tests, weighted equally; quite straightforward questions, but the logic of your solution was marked harshly; completed during a lecture, and quite time pressured for the amount of rigour required
  • 10% Assignment - A written assignment on (for us) group theory; marks for both logic, and formatting; designed to be pretty easy to solve, with most of the challenge being in presenting it in a concise and coherent manner; don't forget to use grammar, even in equations
  • 60% Final Exam - Two hour exam which was somewhat poorly scaled back from the old 3 hour exam format; only a few difficult questions, but a lot of writing overall, creating a very time pressured final exam; most of the calculation questions were straightforward, but the conceptual questions were difficult to prepare for, even with past exams

Lecture Recordings? Kind of - "Recordings" only include voice because blackboard was used exclusively

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture notes posted online, and past final exams available. Past class tests and problem sets with (some) solutions. Tutorial problems (not problem sets) with no solutions supplied online.

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness. None prescribed, but useful references:
  • [Recommended] Linear algebra done right by S. Axler (P512.5/235)
  • [Recommended] Elementary linear algebra by H. Anton (P512.897/153J)
  • [Recommended] Finite–dimensional vector spaces by P.R. Halmos (P512.86/27)
  • [Recommended] Linear algebra by J.B Fraleigh and R.A. Beauregard (P512.897/184)
  • [Recommended] Linear algebra by M. O’Nan and H. Enderton (P512.5/239)

Lecturer(s): Dr. David Angell

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 S1

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 96 HD

Comments: A very proof-based course, which was a nice change of pace, though there were a few computation-heavy parts (Jordan forms and SVD namely). Dr. Angell was a great lecturer, and really got you engaged in the content. The tutorials were flipped-classroom style, and provided valuable feedback on proof style and coherency. Even with the computationally-heavy parts of the course, it was very interesting, and some parts were a nice challenge. Although not a prerequisite, a fair portion of MATH1081 proofs topic is used. Would recommend this course to anyone who enjoyed the conceptual proofs in MATH1241, or someone looking to develop their mathematical problem solving skills.

kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #143 on: September 16, 2019, 10:40:51 pm »
+7

Subject Code/Name: MATH2901 - Higher Theory of Statistics

Contact Hours: 2x 2hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
Assessment:
  • 20% Assignments - Two assignments, weighted equally; typed and submitted both online and in-person; small groups of 2-4 people; pretty easy content if you're up-to-date, nothing very difficult; harsh marking for small errors to compensate; general questions as you'd expect in the final or midterm (albeit usually longer), with some R-based questions and plots
  • 20% Midterm - Midterm taken during the lecture; testing mostly harder questions in the first half of the course; a range of very easy and difficult questions, but 100% is doable; a lot of questions on variable transforms
  • 60% Final Exam - Two hour exam with a hefty amount of content from the second half of the course; some of the difficult questions were from the theoretical parts of the course (towards the end of the first half); a lot of long questions, and harsh marking for some of the standard computational questions (hypotheses testing); past exams were severely limited (intentionally, I believe), so hard to prepare for, but the problems in the notes are useful

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded, plus document camera when used.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture notes and course notes (pretty similar) posted online, and some (read: few) past final exams available. A few past midterms supplied, and solutions to the problems in the course notes.

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness. None prescribed, but useful references:
  • [Recommended] Robert V. Hogg, Joseph W. McKean and Allen T. Craig (2005) "Introduction to mathematical statistics", sixth edition. Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River NJ.
  • [Recommended] John A. Rice (2007) "Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis", third edition. Duxbury, Belmont CA.
  • [Recommended] Dirk P. Kroese and Joshua C. C. Chan (2014) "Statistical Modeling and Computation: An Inclusive Approach to Statistics", Springer.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Libo Li

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 S1

Difficulty: 2.5/5

Overall Rating: 2.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 92 HD

Comments: I personally don't like statistics, so I'm quite biased, but the second half of the course (applied statistics) was quite boring and dry. There were some parts that interested me, but they weren't examinable (more exotic forms of convergence), and we didn't go into much detail. Some of the marking schemes used for the final and midterm were sort of unfair, and the marking for the assignments was really harsh to make up for the simple questions asked. I wouldn't recommend the course unless you have a natural interest in statistics, but MATH2901 is certainly more interesting than MATH2801 if you like pure mathematics. The course is pretty integration-heavy for the first half, and a lot of the second half is calculus and computation-heavy. Not a course I'd do a second time personally, but a useful course nonetheless.


kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #144 on: September 16, 2019, 10:41:20 pm »
+7

Subject Code/Name: MATH2221 - Higher Theory and Applications of Differential Equations

Contact Hours: 3x 1hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
  • MATH1231, MATH1241, or MATH1251 all with a mark of 70 or greater

Assessment:
  • 20% Assignment - An assignment typed and submitted online; your mark was based off peer-marking, but th lecturer reviewed those marks and adjusted if needed; your peer-marking was also marked by the lecturer, contributing to the total mark for the assignment as well; assigned one of two groups randomly, each with different questions to answer, and peer-marking assignments from the other group; some of the questions were quite long, and required software assistance, but otherwise quite straightforward; there were actually two assignments, but the first one (very similar) was optional, so you can get an idea of how marking would work for the main assignment
  • 20% Midterm - Midterm taken during the lecture; testing most of the content taught until that point; a pretty simple test, but a few more theoretical questions to catch you off guard; not very time-pressured; most questions similar to the tutorial problems
  • 60% Final Exam - Two hour exam without many hard questions; quite computationally-heavy, but many of the computations were things done many times in the tutorial problems, and overall pretty basic; the final question related to the assignment, which had a few parts that could trip you up, even if you did the assignment completely, but we were warned before the exam; format very similar to previous years final exams, which were available online, with a few of them having full solutions

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded, plus document camera when used.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture slides all posted online, and past final exams available with solutions. Tutorial problems with brief solutions for most questions.

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness. None prescribed, but useful references:
  • [Recommended] Zill, Dennis G. Differential equations with boundary-value problems. Nelson Education, 2016.
  • [Recommended] W.E. Boyce and R.C. DiPrima, Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems, Wiley, P515.35/18.
  • [Recommended] E. Kreyszig, Advanced Engineering Mathematics, Wiley, P510.2462/5.
  • [Recommended] Steven H. Strogatz, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, Addison-Wesley, P531.11/94.
  • [Recommended] R.K. Nagle and E.B. Saff, Fundamentals of Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems - 4th Edition, Addison-Wesley, P517.382/197.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Jan Zika

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 S2

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Your Mark/Grade: 97 HD

Comments: For a course I thought I'd hate, it was actually quite interesting. The course was quite computational, but Dr. Zika went into quite a bit of depth behind all the concept we learnt, and was very helpful during tutorials. The more conceptual questions were very nice (just like the theoretical vector calculus questions he wrote in the MATH2111 final), and a lot of "advanced" questions in the tutorial problems showed the applications of what we learnt, while also posing more challenging problems. As a lecturer, I found Dr. Zika to be good, especially if you like explanations through examples. Some of the conditions required in the statements of theorems were annoying to remember, but otherwise it was a pretty easy course, and a lot more fun than I had thought it would be.


kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #145 on: September 16, 2019, 10:41:59 pm »
+7

Subject Code/Name: MATH2621 - Higher Complex Analysis

Contact Hours: 1x 2hr, 1x 1hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
  • MATH1231, MATH1241, or MATH1251 all with a mark of 70 or greater

Assessment:
  • 40% Class Tests - Two class tests, both requiring a solid understanding of the content to perform well in; taken during tutorials, and somewhat time-pressured; very easy to lose simple marks forgetting conditions on theorems, and some challenging questions; past class tests supplied; best to ensure you know the specifics of the differentiation topic
  • 60% Final Exam - Two hour exam with a format very similar to previous years, except the end; a few curve-balls that really tested your understanding of some specific topics; a lot of the questions were similar to past years' questions, so doing the past papers was indispensable; pretty well balanced exam, with most topics tested, and a good spread of easy and difficult questions; not many computational questions

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded, however the blackboard was used often.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture slides and notes all posted online, and past final exams available. Tutorial problems with very very few answers (no working either).

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness.
  • [Prescribed] J.W. Brown and R.V. Churchill, Complex Variables and Applications; McGraw Hill, 2008.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Alessandro Ottazzi and Prof. Michael Cowling

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 S2

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 91 HD

Comments: Overall a pretty interesting course, but a lot of theorems to remember with very specific conditions. This course mostly involved conceptual questions, but not too much difficult proof writing. Remembering the specifics in complex analysis was the most difficult part of this course, and they tested that you knew them well. Both lecturers explained things well, but I found Prof. Cowling more engaging in some respects. The course was a lot more theory-focused, so I wouldn't recommend taking this course unless you enjoy going through and understanding why theorems work and how they can be used to simplify problems. Some of the integration techniques taught are really cool, but difficult to see without being prompted, and require a lot of working to show (one specific question in the final on a single integral took up a couple of pages, though it was broken into parts). A lot of the stuff taught in the course can be linked to the several variable calculus taught in MATH2111, which made understanding the content a lot easier.

kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #146 on: September 16, 2019, 10:42:42 pm »
+6

Subject Code/Name: MATH2701 - Abstract Algebra and Fundamental Analysis

Contact Hours: 1x 2hr, 1x 1hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
  • MATH1231, MATH1241, or MATH1251 all with at least a CR
  • Enrolment in an advanced mathematics or advanced science program

Assessment:
  • 15% Minor Assignments - Three small written assignments, equally weighted; mostly involve writing out proofs coherently; some difficult questions, but mostly straightforward proofs; two analysis and one algebra assignment; analysis assignments were typed and handed in on paper, algebra one was just answered on a sheet of paper supplied with the questions
  • 5% Class Test - A small timed algebra class test; only a couple of very small (a few lines) proofs, and pretty basic stuff; easy marks
  • 15% Take Home Exam - The major assessment for the analysis half of the course; some difficult proofs, and very long ones; although it's an "exam", it was basically just another assignment; marked as harshly as the minor assignments, but tested on some of the content we didn't touch as much (p-adic valuations specifically); typed and handed in on paper
  • 15% Major Assignment - The major assessment for the algebra half of the course; not very conceptually challenging questions, but a lot of basic algebra, and very messy unless special care was taken when typing it up; typed and handed in on paper
  • 50% Final Exam - Two hour exam involving about 50% analysis and 50% algebra; almost entirely proof questions, varying from simple to difficult; even with the past exams, very hard to prepare for, and caught a lot of people unprepared; only one person got more than 90%; doing every single tutorial problem is almost essential to go well in this exam, as a lot of the questions are modified tutorial problems, or use similar ides in their solutions

Lecture Recordings? No.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture notes available, but the algebra notes were written by a past student and aren't properly edited. Past final exams and tutorial problems supplied.

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness. None prescribed, but useful references:
  • [Recommended] Martin, ‘Transformation Geometry: An introduction to symmetry’, UTM, Springer.
  • [Recommended] Duzhin and Chebotarevsky, ‘Transformation Groups in Algebra, Geometry and Calculus’, (relatively advanced level).
  • [Recommended] Hardy, Littlewood and Polya, ‘Inequalities’, Cambridge University Press.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Lee Zhao and Dr. Jie Du

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 S2

Difficulty: 5/5

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 89 HD

Comments: A very very fun and very difficult course. The proofs in this course range a lot, but many of those covered in lectures are very difficult to reproduce. The course really helps you think abstractly, but a lot of people found it brutal, and went poorly. The assignments require a lot of thinking, so should not be left until the last minute. Dr. Zhao was a really good lecturer, and really helped develop my abstract thinking with how he explained the process of thought in developing the solutions to questions. Unfortunately, I feel as though Dr. Du was tasked with some of the more boring parts of this course, and the notes were difficult to follow at times. I am, however, an analysist before an algebraist, so I feel that might be some of my own bias coming into play. A good geometric intuition will help a lot with the algebra component of the course. I wouldn't recommend this course unless you really liked abstract thinking and a challenge.


kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #147 on: September 16, 2019, 10:43:35 pm »
+6


Subject Code/Name: MATH3411 - Information, Codes and Ciphers

Contact Hours: 1x 2hr, 1x 1hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
Assessment:
  • 40% Class Tests - Three class tests, the first worth 10%, and the other two worth 15% each; the first was multiple choice, and pretty basic, with mostly computational questions; the second was 10 marks of multiple choice and 5 marks written, with a few more conceptual questions mixed in; the last was 5 marks multiple choice, and 10 marks written, but mostly calculations; pretty easy marks, but a few places where you can get tripped up
  • 60% Final Exam - Two hour exam with quite a bit of computation; most of the questions were pretty straightforward, but a few required some obscure things taught briefly, and a few required quite a bit of thought before you could see how to solve them; a good coverage of the course, but overall a pretty easy exam; past exams provided, with some solutions; the past exams helped a lot with preparing for the final, and their formats are generally pretty similar (there's usually a Vigenere question, with key length 2 or 3, for example).

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded, and sometimes the document camera.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture notes and slides online, and past finals and class tests with some solutions provided. Tutorial problems, with completely worked solutions for (almost) all of them provided.

Textbook: None prescribed, but a lot of references. See the course outline for a list.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Thomas Britz

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 S2

Difficulty: 2.5/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 96 HD

Comments: A very interesting course for anyone interested in information theory or computer science. The course was pretty easy, and there weren't many challenging problems, but the challenging problems that were there, were fun to do. Dr. Britz is an absolute gem, and an amazing lecturer. His teaching style is really good, and keeps you engaged to the content, even though the somewhat boring stuff. He's a very supportive lecturer, and made the course as great as it was. Even if information theory isn't your cup of tea, I'd recommend doing the course just for the lecturer.

kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #148 on: September 17, 2019, 11:35:40 am »
+8

Subject Code/Name: COMP1531 - Software Engineering Fundamentals

Contact Hours: 2x 2hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial + 2hr Lab (Combined)

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
Assessment:
  • 3% Quizzes - Three quizzes, each worth 1%; mostly just to make sure you're keeping up with the theory throughout the course; multiple choice with ten questions each; given a week to complete and submit, so very easy, especially if you look up the answers in the lecture slides or online
  • 12% Labs - A total of 7 labs weighted equally; some bonus marks in a few labs to make up for lost marks in others; mostly every week, but some weeks skipped for the project milestones; some of them were very long or required a lot of menial work, but none of them were particularly hard; submission at the end of the week they were released, and marked the same week or the following week by your tutor/lab assistant in person
  • 25% Project - A group project in groups of three (or four if your tutorial size requires it) from the same tutorial/lab; three milestones worth 10%, 30%, and 60% of the total mark of this component respectively; project changes every year, but ours was to create an online burger ordering system, similar to Macca's kiosks; first milestone was just user stories and acceptance criteria; second milestone was back end functionality of most of the features, plus documentation; third milestone was a complete backend and frontend, with documentation, and some bonus marks for extensions
  • 10% Midterm - Originally this was meant to be a 24 hour take home exam, but it became 48 hour because WebCMS went down near the submission deadline; out of 25, with 10 marks of multiple choice, and 15 marks in two diagrams made in draw.io; multiple choice was easy, but the diagrams were very hard to get looking pretty, considering how complicated they were; meant to time ourselves for 2 hours, but no one did, and the diagrams would have been very difficult to do well in 2 hours
  • 50% Final Exam - A 3 hour practical exam entirely on computer; out of 100, with 10 marks multiple choice, 30 marks short answer (some smaller programming questions as well), and 60 marks longer programming questions; first two parts were pretty easy, mostly testing how well you remembered the terminology and theory in the course, as well as writing test cases; last part had some more annoying questions involving refactoring and applying some basic OO design principles; as long as you knew the content there wasn't much challenge in the exam

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture slides online. Tutorials and labs supplied with solutions online. Sample final and midterm exam provided.

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness. None prescribed, but useful references:
  • [Recommended] Software Engineerings , by Ivan Marsic, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
  • [Recommended] Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns and Practice , by Robert C Martin, Pearson

Lecturer(s): Aarthi Natarajan

Year & Term of completion: 2019 T1

Difficulty: 1/5

Overall Rating: 2/5

Your Mark/Grade: 94 HD

Comments: A dry course I didn't find much fun in, but with some useful techniques. The marking was very subjective, but a lot of the tutors were relaxed in marking because of it, which made it alright. The main language for this course was Python, but you were expected to mostly self-teach it, and there were some other languages that were required in the web dev part of the course (HTML, Flask, Jinja, CSS + JS if you wanted). The project I found particularly boring, and without good group members, would have been unbearable; The course staff were good, but the content they had to teach was way too boring for them to be able to make it an interesting course regardless. A lot of the content was rote learnt, which I really didn't like, and made summaries somewhat of a necessity for the revision; a lot of the content was simple, but there was so much of it that you needed to spend more time than I initially planned studying for it. No web dev was tested in the final, as it was a major part of the project, and was difficult to test in an exam environment. I wouldn't recommend this course to anyone unless you need to do it for your degree, or it's required for a course you really want to do. If you do do it though, be prepared for rote.

kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #149 on: September 17, 2019, 11:36:49 am »
+8
Subject Code/Name: COMP3411 - Artificial Intelligence
Postgraduate Equivalent: COMP9414 - Artificial Intelligence

Contact Hours: 1x 3hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
Assessment:
  • 40% Assignments - Three assignments, worth 12%, 12%, and 16% respectively; first assignment was a programming assignment in Prolog, which was easy if you understand functional or similar programming; second assignment was theory, running some search algorithms and comparing complexities, explaining why certain results occurred, etc.; third assignment was programming in whatever you wanted (main options provided were Java, C, and Prolog), making an AI to play ultimate tic-tac-toe; the supplied binary to test your AI against was really hard to beat, and in the end everyone's automarking marks had to be scaled up
  • 60% Final Exam - Two hour multiple choice exam, split into two parts; first part was only basic questions worth one mark, testing theory of the course; second part involved questions requiring calculations, and tested most of the computation taught in the course, and your understanding of those algorithms; because of the lack of past exams, it was difficult to prepare for the final exam, and a few of the more obscure topics were tested more than I'd hoped

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded.

Notes/Materials Available: Notes on OpenLearning broken up into modules covering all the content. Lecture slides uploaded. Tutorial problems and solutions online. Sample final exam provided, but not in multiple choice format (from a previous session).

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness. None prescribed, but useful references:
  • [Recommended] Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 3rd Ed., Prentice Hall, 2010.
  • [Recommended] Ivan Bratko, Programming in Prolog for Artificial Intelligence, 4th Edition, Pearson, 2013.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Alan Blair

Year & Term of completion: 2019 T1

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Your Mark/Grade: 93 HD

Comments: This course was a pretty interesting course overall, but didn't go into enough depth. Instead, we covered a lot of topics very briefly, which ended up leaving me somewhat starved for depth. A good introduction to different parts of the broad topic that is AI, but not very interesting if you're looking to go into certain topics a lot, and requiring a fair bit of calculation. The multiple choice format for the final was for quicker marking (now that trimesters force it), and was pretty well executed, but the previous written exams seemed to suit the course a lot more, and allowed them to test your understanding of the content better, beyond just being able to calculate the required quantities. Dr. Blair was a somewhat dry lecturer, which made the lecture slides easier to go through, but the content on OpenLearning was sufficient anyway.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2021, 10:35:19 am by kierisuizahn »