Login

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

March 29, 2024, 02:34:16 am

Author Topic: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings  (Read 828925 times)  Share 

0 Members and 9 Guests are viewing this topic.

spaciiey

  • Victorian
  • Trendsetter
  • **
  • Posts: 197
  • Respect: +21
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #90 on: June 24, 2013, 11:06:15 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name: ATS2674/3674 - Semantics and Pragmatics 

Workload:  a 2hr seminar per week.

Assessment: 
3x 20% assignments
10% midsem
30% exam
Recorded Lectures:  Yep

Past exams available:  None, but there are revision questions and the mid-sem gives you a good idea of what it will be like.

Textbook Recommendation:  Semantics by John Saeed. It's a good one to have, but you don't need to buy it. You will be doing a lot of reading from it but there's the library for that.

Lecturer(s): Alice Gaby

Year & Semester of completion: 2013 sem 1

Rating:  4/5

Your Mark/Grade: D

Comments: A good fun unit. But I like linguistics, so I am quite biased. Alice is a good lecturer and is very receptive to feedback from students, making it a point to ask us several times throughout the semester what we thought of the unit, if we wanted anything to be changed, etc. She was quite thorough. Some of the stuff on logic and truth introduced a whole heap of symbols and stuff that you would be familiar with if you were a maths/computer science student, but if not you would probably be a bit clueless. Some of the content was more technical than I'd expected but it is still relatively easy to understand. Alice ran several optional tutorials throughout semester to go over some of the more difficult concepts and was very helpful.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:11:27 am by alondouek »
VCE 2010 | BA/BSc, MTeach (both Monash)

Current teacher of VCE maths

ShortBlackChick

  • Victorian
  • Part of the furniture
  • *****
  • Posts: 1103
  • Respect: +212
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #91 on: June 24, 2013, 04:16:18 pm »
+5
(Dammit Spaciiey, you beat me to it, but you just made my part easier now I can just casually quote you :P )
Subject Code/Name: ATS2547 - Cities and Sustainability 

Workload:  2X 1 hr lectures per week, plus 1 weekly hour long tutorial

Assessment: 
participation -- 5
field trip -- 15
tute presentation -- 20
major essay -- 30
exam -- 30

Recorded Lectures:  yep, with screen capture. Stephen Legg likes to ramble though, so expect to miss the last few minutes of each lecture if you listen to them exclusively online.

Past exams available:  In the exams database. You need to look for 'Cities and Sustainability', not the unit code.

Textbook Recommendation:  None. Some readings, which I didn't do.

Lecturer(s): Stephen Legg

Year & Semester of completion: 2013 sem 1

Rating: 2.5/5

Comments: The content seemed a bit too dry for me, could barely sit through the lectures because they went so slowly. I dont think it was as much of a fast-paced, shitload of content kinda unit which kills me a bit. A lot of it, I felt, was based on common sense, rather than actual content, just talking about society's and governments' responses to various sustainability issues. On the topic of Planning Cities, which seemed to be a theme, there was a bit of theory involved. I felt that the lectures didnt necessarily have any relevance to the tutorial presentation/questions, but rather served as a background for them, and similarly I didnt feel as if any of the so-called 'content' that was tested in the exam was directly covered in the lectures. Its one of those units that you will need to Bullshit your way through. Just make up shit, and as long as it answers the question and is relevant to the themes at play you should be fine.

Didnt go on the fieldtrip, did the 'virtual fieldtrip' which means you look at a whole bunch of maps and analyse the data presented in them pertaining to the demographics of certain municipalities, their position within Metropolitan Melbourne and problems that have arisen/could arise from such facts in terms of sustainability. Cant say I did too well in that though, seeing as I forgot a bibliography ahahaha. Didnt do too well in the Major Essay too, wrote about 900 out of 1500 words, but still got a Credit, I guess thats not too bad for a half-attempt, cant imagine it would be too hard to do well if you put in effort though.

Tutorial Presentation was fun though, I did the one on transport which meant we had to create a survey and ask Monash Students about their habits on transportation to uni and then come up with improvements to our (as in Monash as a whole) sustainability. Got a D for that though.

Definitely agree with Spaciiey though, a very cruisey unit
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:12:08 am by alondouek »
2010: History Revolutions 35
2011: English 3/4, Accounting 3/4, Economics 3/4, Mathematical Methods 3/4, International Studies 3/4.

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

michak

  • Victorian
  • Forum Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 667
  • Respect: +21
  • School: Westbourne Grammar School
  • School Grad Year: 2012
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #92 on: June 25, 2013, 08:38:14 pm »
+5
Subject code/name: ATS1281 - Understanding Crime

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

Assessment:
•   Tutorial attendance 10% (pretty much just need to rock up and sign your name)
•   Essay 40%, given the option of 4 different essay topics that mainly deal with the content from week 1 to 6. They were fairly easy topics that almost tell you exactly what to write in each paragraph.
•   Exam 40%, this year was the first year of the new exam format. This consisted of 25 multiple choice questions worth 2 marks each and 5 short answer questions worth 10 marks each. The exam isn’t a hurdle requirement.

Recorded lectures: Yes

Past exams available: No as this was the first year of new format. However in week 12 we were given a sheet of a practice questions with answers.

Textbook recommendation: Isn’t entirely necessary as the exam was purely based off the lecture slides. It is useful for the essay but there are about 5 copies in the library that you can borrow.

Lecture(s):
Dr Claire Spivakovsky (main) and Rachel Hale (guest)

Year and semester of completion: Semester 1 2013

Rating: 3/5

Your mark/grade: TBA

Comments:
•   To be honest going into this subject I was quite excited, the material looked very interesting and criminology was an area I have always enjoyed. However I was disappointed quite a bit.
•   In terms of content each week we would look at a different theory or two and look how it explained certain crimes. For example we did strain theory, social disorganisation, rational choice theory etc. The theories itself were interesting and quite informative but the subject itself became very rote-learning based in that we spent learning two hours on the facts of a theory and that was it. Most of the time this just got quite boring.
•   The tutorials themselves were ok and sometimes didn’t even relate to the actual lecture content. The thing that I didn’t like about the tutorials is that the theories themselves were never debated whilst looking at its advantages and disadvantages. It was kind of like we were accepting all these theories and just debating about which crimes they can explain; I for one was expecting more discussions about the theory itself.
•   The main lecturer Claire was brilliant and could tell that she not only knew what she was talking about but loved teaching us the information. Most of the time her lecture slides were quite bare so you actually had to listen to what she said which I think is much better than a lecturer just reading of their slides. She also regularly broke the lecturer up by playing us youtube clips and showing as articles that related to the information. Rachel Hale did the lecture on women and crime which is her area of expertise and she is also the head tutor for this subject. Also like Claire she was very well spoken and quite knowledgeable.
•   In all wasn’t my favourite subject this semester but it wasn’t all bad. 
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:12:48 am by alondouek »
2011: Bio [36]
2012: Legal [42] PE [43] Chem [33] English [40] Methods [25] 
ATAR: 93.30
2013: B. Arts at Monash University
2014: Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Arts at Monash

b^3

  • Honorary Moderator
  • ATAR Notes Legend
  • *******
  • Posts: 3529
  • Overloading, just don't do it.
  • Respect: +631
  • School: Western Suburbs Area
  • School Grad Year: 2011
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #93 on: June 25, 2013, 09:12:03 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: MTH2010 - Multivariable Calculus

Workload: 3x1 hr lectures a week, 2 hr tute

Assessment:  4x20 min tests worth 5% each, 4 assignments worth 5% each, 60% exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, audio only though, although lecture transparencies are scanned and put onto moodle.
 
Past exams available:  Yes, 1 exam with solutions (although you can probably dig around for others)

Textbook Recommendation:  Stewart's is a pretty good resource for this unit, although not absolutely necessary. Others I know relied on it heavily, I didn't really use it much though (tute questions were scanned onto moodle). If you want to (and have the time to... this was my problem this semester) to do a little bit extra then it's probably worth it.

Lecturer(s): Dr Simon Clarke

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1 2013

Rating: 5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 95 - HD

Comments: I really enjoyed this unit, but wished I had more time to enjoy the back end of the material properly. I didn't have much time at this stage, although that's probably more to do with me overloading than the unit itself. What you learn in MTH2010 seems to actually be useful, and in itself is interesting enough to entice you to do more tute questions (and put off other units/assignments to do them). In some of the early stages you may think that you're just learning random tools, but towards the end of semester it all ties in together really nicely, and I would say this is in my top 2 favourite units so far (I can't split this with ENG1091). Although in the odd case any of you transfer from eng to the double degree, the first couple of weeks will be a re-run of ENG1091.

One of the downsides to how the unit was run this semester was the 20 minute tests worth 5%. You normally get 3 or 4 questions, the first two tests this was doable without pushing two hard, but for the third and fourth test you really only got one shot at each question, no time to stop and think, you just had to power through it to try and get them done on time. As a result you make a lot more simple mistakes, or if you didn't see the way to do the question right away, you probably wouldn't have had time to get back to it.

Lectures are worth going to, as are tutes (although with a test one week and an assignment that has to be handed in in the tute the next you can't really skip too many, well skip showing up for at least 5 minutes anyways :P). Seriously though, it's just practice, make sure you do the tute questions each week, and make sure you go over past exams from previous years during swotvac. You'll see past questions coming up again, and the others are to be approached in similar ways to other questions, (and you'll see a tute question from the semester appear in the exam every now and then).

If anyone wants to start this unit early, here are the topics covered (roughly by week)
 - Vectors+Geometry of Space, Lines, Planes, Functions of Several Variables
 - Limits and Continuity, Partial Derivatives
 - Tangent Plane, Linear and Quadratic Approximations, Chain Rule for multivariable functions, directional derivative and the Gradient Vector
 - Double Integrals, Iterated Integrals
 - Double Integrals over a general Region, double ints over polar coordinates, applications of double integrals
 - Triple Integrals, Triple Integrals in Cylindrical Coordinates
 - Triple ints in Cylindrical + Change of variables in multiple integrals
 - Vector Fields, Line Integrals, Fundamental Theorem of Line Integrals
 - Green's Theorem, Curl and Divergence
 - Parametric Surfaces, surface area, surface integrals
 - Stoke's Theorem, The Divergence Theorem

But yeah, you'll be dealing with things like this (it's cool! :D)
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:21:24 pm by b^3 »
2012-2016: Aerospace Engineering/Science (Double Major in Applied Mathematics - Monash Uni)
TI-NSPIRE GUIDES: METH, SPESH

Co-Authored AtarNotes' Maths Study Guides


I'm starting to get too old for this... May be on here or irc from time to time.

b^3

  • Honorary Moderator
  • ATAR Notes Legend
  • *******
  • Posts: 3529
  • Overloading, just don't do it.
  • Respect: +631
  • School: Western Suburbs Area
  • School Grad Year: 2011
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #94 on: June 25, 2013, 10:00:29 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: MEC2401 - Dynamics I

Workload: 2x1 hr lectures, 2 hr tutes, 3 labs (which are done in the tutes)

Assessment: Tutes + 2 Assignments - 15%, Labs and Reports - 15%, Mid Semester Test - 10%, Exam - 60%

Recorded Lectures:  Nope, no recordings...

Past exams available:  Yes, 2 with sols, a few more in the textbook if you buy it

Textbook Recommendation: Custom made 'textbook' that basically has the lecture slides explanations and a bit more, the tute questions and a few more, and the past exams in the back. Worth buying, is useful to learn/revise from, and some of the tute questions are worked through in the book too.

Lecturer(s): A/Prof. Raafat Ibrahim

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1 2013

Rating:  3.8 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 76 - D

Comments: Even if you're told that the exam is not going to be that hard, make sure you prepare for whats coming. The content itself is interesting , but some questions can be quite tedious by hand. Actually that's an understatement, I should say most of the questions from the latter half of the course can be very tedious by hand. You may make a small mistake and spend the next 30-45 minutes trying to find it, or just put the wrong number into the scientific calc and be running in circles for the next hour. The concepts themselves isn't that hard, it's more just executing questions that is the hard part.

At the end of each tute you hand in the questions for the week to be marked, which contribute to the final overall grade. You will have 3 labs, all to do with balancing masses. The first is just observing whether a disk is balanced on a spinning machine. The second required you to do calculations to balance masses in a single plane, while the third requires you to actually balance masses in multiple planes on a rotor test rig, which leads into what you'd have to do to balance masses on pistons and crankshafts in an internal combustion engine (not exactly like that, but the ideas are similar, you deal with a rotating mass, the engine deals with rotating and reciprocating masses, although you do a complete balance rather than a partial balancing of the system). It's cool though, when you see the vibration minimise after your hard work and calculations. Something that I did learn from this semester though is that a V6 cylinder engine has a greater potential to reduce vibrations than a 4 cylinder engine as the V6 can be completely balanced, while the 4 cylinder can only be partially balanced when optimized, (I thought it was partly counter intuitive at first). After the labs you need to do a proper write of the three labs, which is marked. Just don't do what I did and be finishing it at 6am the day it was due, you want to do well on this, and do it properly.

You also deal with balancing train locomotives and such later on, which there always seems to be a question on this relating to balancing in multiple planes, so make sure you learn how to do it. The last point to note is, even if you cover vibrations in one lecture in the final week, expect it to come up on the exam, mostly it's just Lagrange's Formula, but know how to derive the equations from it.

As with the previous review, the topics covered are:
 - Revision on Kinematics, Rectilinear Motion, Displacement, Velocity, Acceleration
 - Dependent motion of particles and pulleys
 - Relative Motion, General Plane Motion, Absolute Motion
 - Velocity of a point on a Link
 - Acceleration of a point on a Link and Vector Analysis
 - Forces in Mechanisms using dismemberment and inertial forces
 - Balancing of Rotating Masses, Balancing of single and several rotating masses
 - Balancing of masses rotating in the same and different planes
 - Balancing of reciprocating masses
 - Forced Vibration, Lagrange Formula
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:21:15 pm by b^3 »
2012-2016: Aerospace Engineering/Science (Double Major in Applied Mathematics - Monash Uni)
TI-NSPIRE GUIDES: METH, SPESH

Co-Authored AtarNotes' Maths Study Guides


I'm starting to get too old for this... May be on here or irc from time to time.

b^3

  • Honorary Moderator
  • ATAR Notes Legend
  • *******
  • Posts: 3529
  • Overloading, just don't do it.
  • Respect: +631
  • School: Western Suburbs Area
  • School Grad Year: 2011
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #95 on: June 25, 2013, 10:37:42 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: MAT1830 - Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science

Workload: 3x1 hr lectures, 1 hr tute

Assessment: 10 Weekly Assignments - 3% each, 70% Exam

Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: Yes, 2 Past Exams, 1 with solutions.

Textbook Recommendation: I think there was a textbook for the unit, but it's not needed at all, don't bother buying it.

Lecturer(s): Dr Daniel Horsley, Dr Heiko Dietrich

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1 2013

Rating:  4.2 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 81 - HD

Comments: Although this unit wasn't exactly my thing, I did enjoy some aspects of it (I was only in the unit to fill an elective slot). There are a few interesting concepts, and a few dry and dull ones to go with them. The content itself isn't too hard, although you have weekly assignments, so you can't really afford to get too behind, or you start dropping 3%'s, which add up. (I completely missed one assignment due to nearly burning out in the middle of semester, again more to do with me overloading than the unit itself). The lecturers are actually fairly nice compared to the standard uni lecturer, and are willing to help out and have a chat with you. As far as tutes go, I used them more as a social thing, rather than to learn the material.... (this was just me... make sure you learn the material). I was one of the louder ones in the tute, I think overall I.T. seems to be quieter than other faculties (not trying to stereotype, just an observation).

Really, as with most of my reviews so far, if you can do tute questions you can set yourself up well for the exam. As far as lectures go, I think they're worth it, but not entirely essential if you make it up in your own time. A side note, the lecturers like putting little comics/xkcd in the slides relevant to what you're learning :)

Topics for those who are interested:
 - Arithmetic
 - Logic
 - Logic + Induction
 - Sets
 - Functions
 - Relations
 - Recursion
 - Recurrence Relations
 - Graphs
 - Trees, Colourings
 - Congruences
 - Cryptosystems (Not assessed)
 
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:21:06 pm by b^3 »
2012-2016: Aerospace Engineering/Science (Double Major in Applied Mathematics - Monash Uni)
TI-NSPIRE GUIDES: METH, SPESH

Co-Authored AtarNotes' Maths Study Guides


I'm starting to get too old for this... May be on here or irc from time to time.

alondouek

  • Subject Review God
  • Honorary Moderator
  • ATAR Notes Superstar
  • *******
  • Posts: 2903
  • Oh to be a Gooner!
  • Respect: +316
  • School: Leibler Yavneh College
  • School Grad Year: 2012
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #96 on: June 26, 2013, 12:26:43 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name: STA1010 - Statistical Methods for Science

Workload:
  • 3 x 1hr lectures
  • 1 x 2hr support class (essentially a tute)

Assessment:
  • 60% exam
  • 40% labs/assignments (x2)/group inference project/weekly Moodle quizzes

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:  Yes. This semester we were only given the 2004 and 2012 exams (with solutions).

Textbook Recommendation:
  • Custom STA1010 bound book (~$18 from Monash bookstore); useful resource as it contains all the lectures in greater detail than the lecture slides, all relevant formulae, Excel guides and various worked examples and questions.
  • Stats: Data and Models - DeVeaux, Velleman and Bock; no idea how useful it is as I nor anyone else (that I'm aware of) bought or even borrowed a copy. You don't need it unless you really need extra practice/explanations.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Jonathan Keith

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2013

Rating:  2.75-3/5

Your Mark/Grade: HD

Comments: Not a fan of this unit, really. I found it to be extremely dry, and very broad in terms of difficulty (i.e. some areas were quite challenging, whilst others were ridiculously easy). This unit gives some very useful knowledge and techniques relating to scientific statistical practices and inference techniques, but it is very non-mathematical (if you can't do it on a basic scientific calculator, it's not in the course; e.g. no PDFs/CDFs/Calculus).

Jon is a good lecturer, and he delivers the necessary explanations well. However, he is quite softly-spoken so the attention tends to wander during the lectures; I found it worthwhile to relisten to critical lectures online. In all honesty, I stopped going to lectures after the sixth one (out of 31 or so), but I made sure to rewatch any lecture on things I wasn't sure about during SWOTVAC.

Labs were pretty much useless, in that the tutor simply walks you through the problems in that week's entry of the lab manual. In a way, it does reinforce the practices presented in the lecture, but more through repetition than anything else. You do get marked for attendance and participation (10% of the overall mark, if I understand correctly). The lab manual questions can provide a source of practice exam questions if needs be, I guess.

In-semester assessment consists of:
  • Weekly Moodle quizzes - I found these to be quite tricky, but that's often because I was behind on theory. In hindsight, very doable if you understand the material (even cursorily - it's very much a 'plug-and-play' unit in some ways)
  • Statistical inference group project - you work in groups of 3-5 people to design a statistical inference project based on a data source of your choice. You'll perform the experiment, collect the data and perform statistical inference tests. This project is broken up into 3 sections over the course of the unit: A - Preliminary report (aim, hypotheses, method, apparati etc), B - Testing and data collection and C - inference. This project is quite easy to do well in, even with little effort.
  • 2x assignments - these can also be quite tough if you're not clear on theory, but also very doable if you are.

The areas of study covered (generally) are:
  • Creating different types of experiments and procedures thereof (SRS, blocking, stratified random sampling)
  • Modes of data collection and analysis
  • Population parameters (mean, SD and median)
  • Linear regression
  • Power, exponential and linear relationships in data plots and residual plots
  • Differences between population parameters and sample statistics
  • Probability - basic Bayesian probability, manipulation of conditional probability, etc
  • Binomial, Normal and Poisson distributions
  • Standardisation
  • Confidence intervals - various types
  • Hypothesis testing - various types
  • ANOVA and Chi-squared testing
  • Approximations to normality
amongst other areas of study.

Be very prepared to be using a lot of statistical tables...

It's not really my thing, but some of the content (specifically hypothesis testing, ANOVA and confidence intervals) were very interesting and seem to be useful in many (if not most) areas of science.

The exam is very simple - the only real revision I did was the 2012 paper, which was extremely similar to the 2013 one. Success! The questions are very straightforward, and the exam is very easy to prepare for.

Also, from what I hear, this unit is compulsory (unless another Maths credit is done) for those undertaking the B.Sc. It must be completed at some point in the degree.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2014, 04:17:34 am by alondouek »
2013-2016
Majoring in Genetics and Developmental Biology

2012 ATAR: 96.55
English [48] Biology [40]

Need a driving instructor? Mobility Driving School

ShortBlackChick

  • Victorian
  • Part of the furniture
  • *****
  • Posts: 1103
  • Respect: +212
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #97 on: June 26, 2013, 02:14:34 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name: ATS2909/3909 - Villains and Rogues: A History of Ideas About Gangsters 

Workload: 1x 1.5 hour lecture and 1x1 hour tutorial

Assessment: 
  • Primary source analysis(1000 words): 15%
  • Essay(2000 words): 40%
  • Take home exam (1,500 words): 35%
  • Tutorial participation: 10%

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screencapture

Past exams available:  No, it was not required as the unit had a take-home exam.

Textbook Recommendation:  The unit reader which cost about $25 from memory.

Lecturer(s): Annabelle Baldwin and Ernest Koh

Year & Semester of completion: 2013, Semester 1

Rating:  3 of 5

Comments: Yes, there's a unit about gangsters. It sounds very awesome and like its just a interesting unit, but in reality, its not.  The lectures act as a background to the weekly readings, providing historical context to the readings and random information relating back to the topic. Each week focused on a specific mafia or gang, besides the first 3 weeks which talked about Gangs and Mafias in general. The readings were the core of the unit, as in they were what was discussed in the tutorials- the ideas presented in the readings about the topic was focused on heavily in the tutorials and were expected to be discussed in the assessments. But they werent covered in the lectures, which made the lectures almost irrelevant. But I found them to be the most interesting. The readings unfortunately, were a drag, and many people struggled to get through them, as did I. I dont think the unit focused on the romanticisation and portrayal of gangsters by society as much as I expected, besides there being a whole reading on it in one of the first 3 weeks. I also struggled to comprehend the distinction between a Villain and a Rogue and a Mafia and a Gangster and as such I found myself just alternating between the 4 titles accordingly in the assessments as they werent clearly defined I felt. I didnt even attend the lectures half the time, but I think doing the readings and attending the tutorials is probably the most important and essential thing to doing well in this unit. I did feel a lack of direction half the time while doing the major assessments and struggled as a result. I just had no idea what to say. I felt like the unit was hyped up a lot, just by the name and what it seems to imply its about and the fact that Ernest Koh is a lecturer. He's no doubt an awesome lecturer, he's just funny and makes the lectures more enjoyable, but it didnt change the content I guess. You may remember him from Contemporary Worlds 1 and 2 (First Year History/Politics/International Studies Core Units) where he left quite the impression on students from his humor. I think he only took 2 lectures for this unit, those were enjoyable. Annabelle made the lectures interesting too, but they werent a highlight by any means.

I dont think I'm going to do as well as I hoped for this unit. It was quite complicated and not as interesting as I expected. Its more of a History Unit, but it wasnt as engaging as I hoped for.

I had other stuff to say but its 2AM and I cant remember what they were.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:14:56 am by alondouek »
2010: History Revolutions 35
2011: English 3/4, Accounting 3/4, Economics 3/4, Mathematical Methods 3/4, International Studies 3/4.

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

DisaFear

  • Victorian
  • Part of the furniture
  • *****
  • Posts: 1442
  • Bravery is not a function of firepower
  • Respect: +154
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #98 on: June 26, 2013, 08:40:28 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: CHM2951 - Environmental Chemistry: Water

Workload:
  • 3x 1 hour lectures
  • 1x 4 hour lab

Assessment:
  • Lab work - 25% (hurdle - must be passed)
  • Field trip reports - 15%
  • Online tests - 10%
  • End of Semester - 50%

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  3-4 exams available, no solutions available. However, there are revision lectures during SWOTVAC where they pretty much give you every answer to one of the past exams

Textbook Recommendation:
  • Environmental Chemistry by vanLoon et al - not needed, lecture notes are sufficient, and maybe only 2-3 chapters of the textbook are relevant to the course

Lecturer(s):
  • Assoc. Professor Mike Grace
  • Dr. Perran Cook


Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2013

Rating:  3.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 89 HD

Comments:
  • Interesting unit opening up the dynamics of chemistry in the environment, especially the water system (lakes, estuaries, etc)
  • This unit has field trips! Two of them! One was a cruise down the Yarra River by boat, with measurements and samples being taken at specific sites. The other was a trip to the Dandenong Ranges, again investigating the water quality
  • The field trips actually felt legit, not just some random excursion - it felt like 'real fieldwork'
  • Lab component was great too, it helped a lot in the learning process
  • Lectures are quite boring, maybe because there's not so much 'pure' chemistry in this unit, but how it relates to biological/geological stuff
  • Topics covered by Mike Grace: Estuaries, Streams, Light, Thermal Stratification, Gases, Major Ions, Aquatic Thermodynamics, Redox, Kinetics and Aquatic Particles
  • Topics covered by Perran Cook: Carbonate system, Organic Geochemistry, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Eutrophication, Gippsland Case Study, Toxic Organics and Metals
  • You will have to write full lab reports each week though (~1000 words if you want a good mark) and the field trips have reports (~2000-2500 words) - it sounds like a lot, but it really isn't, it will just flow out of you XD
  • If you are interested in chemistry alone, this isn't the best unit for you. However, if you want to see the applications of chemistry in the natural world, and want a moderately easy unit, this is for you!
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:15:34 am by alondouek »



(AN chocolate) <tisaraiscool> Does it taste like b^3's brain?
BSc (Hons) @ Monash (Double major in Chemistry)

xZero

  • Victorian
  • Forum Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 898
  • Respect: +68
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #99 on: June 26, 2013, 10:52:40 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: MTH2121 - Algebra and Number Theory

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

Assessment:
-Examination (3 hours): 70%
-Assignments and tests: 30%

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, only voice recorded

Past exams available:  2 past exams, one came with solution

Textbook Recommendation: 
-Recommended: A Book of Abstract Algebra by Charles C. Pinter

Lecturer(s):Dr Tom Hall (Number Theory) and Dr Norm Do (Algebra)

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2013

Rating:  4 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 77 D

Comments:
Awesome unit, I find it quite manageable so if anyone is consider doing a higher maths level unit, may I suggest this. The lecturer (Norm) was excellent at explaining all the group theory etc. and for once the written notes were useful compared to other units. The tutorial was engaging enough that I never skipped out on a single one until the new guy for number theory came in. I reckon this unit is good for people who wants a taste of pure maths, its not overly complicated but it had some proofs which was fun to learn.

However I must emphasis on the fact that I enjoyed this unit purely because Norm was an excellent lecturer/tutor so if Daniel Delbourgo or Daniel Horsley ever teaches this unit, I recommend to just buy the book and read it at home.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:15:56 am by alondouek »
2009: Chinese SLA
2010: English, Maths method[45,A+ A+ A+], Specialist maths[44,A+,A,A+], Physics[40,A,A+,A+], Psychology Atar:94.75
2011-2015: Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering/Science @ Monash

Methods/Spesh/Physics tuition

xZero

  • Victorian
  • Forum Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 898
  • Respect: +68
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #100 on: June 27, 2013, 12:01:13 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name: MTH2140/MTH3140 - Real Analysis 

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

Assessment: 
-Examination (3 hours): 70%
-Assignments and participation in support classes: 30%

Recorded Lectures:  No recorded lectures, however there are hand written lectures notes

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

Textbook Recommendation:
-Must buy: Understanding Analysis by Stephen Abbott, you can bring a clean copy of this book into the exam

Lecturer(s): Dr Jerome Droniou, Dr Gilbert Weinstein

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2013

Rating: 2 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 73 D

Comments:
This unit was fun to learn, if you're good at self learning. I didn't attend the lectures but from what I've heard, it is garbage. The written notes were barely readable so I suggest learning off the text book rather than spending hours deciphering what the heck was that word in the hand written notes. I thought the unit was a bit too difficult and there's hardly any relevant examples in the tutorial that can help you in the assignments, which is generally how I learn to approach a question. Furthermore, there aren't much pure maths units before this (I guess only MTH1112 and MTH1000, which is not exactly pure maths) and for an introductory unit to pure, they assumed that we had a very good knowledge to the relevant topics, which makes this unit more frustrating since they don't explain some of the topics such as probability generating function in detail. Also I'm not sure if it was just my tutor but she is terrible at marking, how can a marker skip an entire page of working, which was worth 6 marks out of 30, and when I ask her to read over my working, she gave me the full marks.

Anyways this is turning more to a rant but if anyone out there doing pure maths major, consider choosing level 2 over level 3 and do plenty of pre-reading before the semister starts
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:16:10 am by alondouek »
2009: Chinese SLA
2010: English, Maths method[45,A+ A+ A+], Specialist maths[44,A+,A,A+], Physics[40,A,A+,A+], Psychology Atar:94.75
2011-2015: Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering/Science @ Monash

Methods/Spesh/Physics tuition

b^3

  • Honorary Moderator
  • ATAR Notes Legend
  • *******
  • Posts: 3529
  • Overloading, just don't do it.
  • Respect: +631
  • School: Western Suburbs Area
  • School Grad Year: 2011
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #101 on: June 27, 2013, 04:30:16 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: MTH2021 - Linear Algebra with Applications

Workload: 3x1 hr lectures, 2 hr tute

Assessment: 3 Assignments - 6% & 7% & 7%, Midsem test - 10%, Exam - 70%

Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Yes 2, 1 with solutions. (there are more out there though)

Textbook Recommendation: You don't really need it but - Elementary Linear Algebra - Howard Anton

Lecturer(s): Week 1-6: Dr Tim Garoni, Week 7-12: Dr Jerome Droniou

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1 2013

Rating: 2.5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 85 - HD

Comments: To be honest, I absolutely hated this unit throughout the semester, but over the day or two of cramming right before the exam, I've warmed to it a little bit more. I should note that this has nothing to do with the lecturers, who were fine, it has more to do with me not enjoying the course content, pure maths just isn't my thing. The first four weeks are not too hard, you start off with basis concepts dealing with matricies, determinates and such. After about 4 weeks you start on vector spaces, which is where everything seems to go downhill. A lot of the cohort struggled with this (me included), and once you down understand the first parts to it, you get lost and have no clue with the next couple of weeks of the course. We were told that the median mark for the semester was below 50%. After a bad midsemester result I may have started not attending lecturers as much. In short, I was still learning content the day before the exam. The main annoyance with this unit is that you have to remember a lot of material, it's not hard once you get it, it's just a lot.

Although, after I actually sat down and went through the course properly, and after it clicked, it isn't actually that hard, you've just got to remember how to do everything (a lot of things), and small, small notes here and there. There are proofs (it may be labelled an applied unit but it's basically an intro to pure maths with a few applications thrown in). About 12% of the exam was proofs with another 10% or so of 'show that' which required you to have the knowledge to do a proof of similar nature.

When I approached cramming for this (I did it in 1 day.. one long day...), I knew that I wasn't going to be able to get proofs down in time, and focused on learning how to do things from past exams, not exactly why.. (this is a very bad way of learning, if you can call it learning at all, don't do this unless you run out of time in the end). This required a fair bit of memorization, although I started to enjoy the unit a little bit, when I could actually do questions. There are some applications that can make a few things a lot easier, and so simple compared to other methods we would have used. (Think about cutting down 2 pages of working into a few lines using another method, this was actually quite cool).

For those who want to go ahead, the following are the topics covered:
 - Gaussian Elimination
 - Elementary matrices, LU decomposition
 - Determinants, Cramer's Rule, Constructing curves and surfaces
 - Euclidean Vector Spaces, Orthogonality, Real Vector Spaces and Subspaces
 - Spanning sets, linear independence, Bases and Dimension
 - Coordinates, change of basis, Fundamental matrix spaces
 - Matrix Transformations, transformations of the plane
 - Eigenvalues and eigenvectors, diagonalization
 - The power Method, differential equations
 - Inner Product Spaces, Gram-Schmidt Algorithm
 - Least Squares solution, fitting data
 - Orthogonal matrices and diagonalization
 - Quadratic Forms, Optimization
 - General Linear Transformations
 - Applications: Markov Chains, Discrete Dynamical Systems, Error Correcting Codes


EDIT: 100th review in this thread! \o/
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:20:56 pm by b^3 »
2012-2016: Aerospace Engineering/Science (Double Major in Applied Mathematics - Monash Uni)
TI-NSPIRE GUIDES: METH, SPESH

Co-Authored AtarNotes' Maths Study Guides


I'm starting to get too old for this... May be on here or irc from time to time.

b^3

  • Honorary Moderator
  • ATAR Notes Legend
  • *******
  • Posts: 3529
  • Overloading, just don't do it.
  • Respect: +631
  • School: Western Suburbs Area
  • School Grad Year: 2011
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #102 on: June 27, 2013, 05:20:29 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: STA1010 - Statistical Methods for Science

Workload: 3x1 hr lectures, 1x2 hr "Lab" (using excel/tute questions)

Assessment: 10 On-line Quizzes - 1% each, Labs, prelabs & participation - 10%, Two assignments and group inference project - 20%, Exam - 60%

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes, 2 with solutions.

Textbook Recommendation: You really don't need it.

Lecturer(s): Dr Jonathan Keith

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1 2013

Rating: 2 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 90 - HD

Comments: I should start off by saying that Jon was a great lecturer and the rating should not reflect on him. It was more that the content he had to teach wasn't that great. If you did further and Methods during yr 12, then the first 6 weeks will be a piece of cake, you will learn next to nothing. Basically take a watered down version of the worst part of methods, probability and combine it with the driest part of of further, statistics. After that you learn a few more concepts (Central Limit Theorem, Confidence Intervals) before moving onto hypothesis testing, which is the meat of the course. In itself it's not too hard, but just like Yr 12 probability, the hardest part is picking which formula to build and apply to the situation.

Although this is an easy unit, it requires time throughout the semester, it sucked up time that I wanted to use for other units, you have all these small assessments here and there, prelabs, on-line tests, assignments. Although, as a result of being lax for this unit (only 2 hrs study during swotvac), I probably lost a few more marks than I planned to on the exam. But that was because of prioritising other units, but the message here is that yes it is easy, yes you can slack off, but don't completely slack off.

« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:20:48 pm by b^3 »
2012-2016: Aerospace Engineering/Science (Double Major in Applied Mathematics - Monash Uni)
TI-NSPIRE GUIDES: METH, SPESH

Co-Authored AtarNotes' Maths Study Guides


I'm starting to get too old for this... May be on here or irc from time to time.

eeps

  • Victorian
  • ATAR Notes Superstar
  • ******
  • Posts: 2533
  • Respect: +343
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #103 on: June 27, 2013, 07:11:40 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: AFF2401 - Commercial Banking and Finance

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

Assessment: Group assignment (20%), Class test (10%), Exam - 3 hours (70%).

Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: Yes, one sample exam with solutions.

Textbook Recommendation: Lange, H., Saunders, A., & Cornett, M. M. (2013). Financial institutions management (3rd ed.). North Ryde, NSW: McGraw-Hill. Not really necessary as it is sufficient to follow the lecture slides, however useful for practice of tutorial questions.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Kym Brown and Dr. Tram Vu.

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2013.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Your Mark/Grade: Pending.

Comments: Commercial banking and finance builds from AFF1300, and goes into greater depth and knowledge. The most difficult aspect of this unit is the group assignment (or can be done individually). This involves thorough research and detailed analysis of the Australian banking system in relation to the GFC and discussing whether the "big 4" banks have too much power or not. The report is 4,000 words long and hence, if you want to do well, you should start on it as soon as possible. The class test is held in the lecture theatre and is a mixture of short-answer and multiple-choice questions; it shouldn't be too difficult if you have studied for it. The exam itself is pretty similar to the set tutorial questions throughout the semester, so going over those questions and the sample exam is a good approach. Initially, I didn't really enjoy this unit however it gets better throughout the semester. Really interesting unit, and if you work hard, it will definitely pay off.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 12:17:54 am by alondouek »

TrueTears

  • TT
  • Honorary Moderator
  • Great Wonder of ATAR Notes
  • *******
  • Posts: 16363
  • Respect: +667
Re: Monash University - Subject reviews & ratings
« Reply #104 on: June 27, 2013, 07:30:50 pm »
+4
Subject Code/Name: AFX4060 - Issues in Corporate Finance 

Workload:  3 hours lab each week.

Assessment:  2 Paper Review each worth 10%. Participation 15%. Academic paper presentation: 15%. Exam: 50%

Recorded Lectures:  N/A

Past exams available:  N/A

Textbook Recommendation:  N/A

Lecturer(s): Prof. Madhu Veeraraghavan, Dr YangYang Chen.

Year & Semester of completion: 2013 Semester 1.

Rating:  5/5

Your Mark/Grade: Pending

Comments: Brilliant unit. Do not compare this unit to the standard undergraduate corporate finance units, this unit is on a league of its own. In AFX4060, you tackle the forefront of corporate finance research by reading up-to-date academic papers, each week readings range from 4-6 academic papers and it is a truly rewarding experience. The first half of the unit is taken by Madhu, who is extremely knowledgeable in all aspects of corporate finance, each week he would give an academic presentation seminar and it really gives you a deep insight into how academic proposals are done by a professional. The second half of the unit is taken by Yang Yang, who is literally a beast at corporate finance. His part of the course is more theoretical based and focuses on the mathematical proofs of relevant theorems etc. Essentially, we go through 5 main theoretical aspects of corporate finance: Capital structure, payout policy, management compensation, cash holdings and securities issuance. Every single theorem/corollary/lemma that we go through is backed with a mathematical proof. The exam is split into 2 parts. First part is YangYang's theoretical aspects, hence they are all proof questions. Second part will be based on Madhu's part, which is basically the academic papers that were read throughout the semester. All in all, fantastic unit and I'd highly recommend it to anyone specialising in finance.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2015, 01:10:41 am by TrueTears »
PhD @ MIT (Economics).

Interested in asset pricing, econometrics, and social choice theory.