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March 28, 2024, 07:06:05 pm

Author Topic: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings  (Read 828471 times)  Share 

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clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #420 on: July 09, 2018, 12:20:47 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: ECF1100 - Microeconomics 

Workload: 
2 hr lecture - really long and drags on often. lecturer takes a while to explain concepts.
1 hr tutorial (compulsory) - my tute, we didn't really do anything except talk in groups about tutorial questions which tbh was a waste of time but i was there because each tutorial equals 1 per cent of each grade. but some of my friends in other tutes said you had to present a tutorial question each to the rest of the class so it really depends on your tute.

Assessment: 

weekly tutorial participation - 10%
so i went to all 10 tutorials but they only gave me 9/10. so apparently you have to talk a considerable amount within your group (which i thought i did lol but i guess not). in other tutorials this may be how you present your answer to the class.

preclass quiz through aplia - 10%
this quiz you have to do before the lecture. its basically a quiz on the lecture material that the lecturer will present to you on the week. i think its so stupid because it means you have to self learn and forces you to do the readings before the lecture which means you know all the content because its self taught and there's really no point in attending the lectures. i found myself the lectures to be quite useless as i basically self taught myself the content through aplia. it is important you do the quizzes 3 times if you got the first time wrong so your aplia grade will go up - this can add up to a considerable amount of time (2-3 hrs per aplia quiz per week).

mid sem - 20%
this mid sem was very easy.  i think average was a D. it only covers weeks 1-6 which you'll well in if you nail and understand the aplia quizzes.

assignment 1 - 5%
relates to the early weeks which was easy. i used paint to make demand and supply curves and still got full marks for it. just make sure you explain everything you put down because people had marks taken off for supplying a graph but with no explanation as to why their graph was the way it was.

assignment 2 - 5%
a lot harder than assignment 1. my friend found the answers to this assignment on google, in which some of it was wrong lmao. i know different groups of people who followed the answers that was found on google and got the same mark so make sure you know what your writing down before you mindlessly copy from google

exam - 50%
only testing weeks 7-12 which is arguably harder than testing weeks 1-12 because 7-12 is muchhhhhhhhh harder than weeks 1-6. if you did vce economics, weeks 1-6 you will breeze through but 7-12 you will start to struggle if you do not focus. it is important you really understand what is happening because weeks 7 content builds off the rest of the semesters.
during the exam, it was quite easy but the way they worded things was a bit difficult and unnecessary.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes with screen capture

Past exams available:  1 sample exam with answers (much easier than what was on the exam lol)

Textbook Recommendation:  principles of micro economics 7th edition by joshua gans. this is a very important book because its what you use for the aplia quiz since you dont know any content and are already tested on it. it is also important for tutorial questions because previous editions will have different questions than this specific edition. i know in clayton they cater to both 7th edition and 6th, but in caulfield they do not.

Lecturer(s): he ling shi

Year & Semester of completion: sem 1 2018

Rating: 2 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 83

Comments:
ok so i really hate how this unit was structured because im not sure why they would test you before the lecture. i know its to promote the fact that u have to do your readings but whats the point of the lecture further in the week when  you already know the content through the aplia quizzes you have to do before hand? i think thats the most stupid thing ever.

i found myself not going to the lectures because of the lecturer's thick accent as well as the fact that i already knew the content. i guess if you wanted to consolidate your learning you would go but i felt that i did not need to and i did fine without it. 2 hours for a lecture is also very draining and if i were you, i would just watch parts at home on stuff you dont really understand.

content is ok i guess but gets difficult towards the end as mentioned before. you can do well in this unit if you dedicate time. if you don't then i dont think this unit is for you as you cannot bludge the later weeks.

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #421 on: July 09, 2018, 12:47:59 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: MGF1010 - Introduction to Management 

Workload: 
2 hr compulsory tutorial
i absolutely DREAD this tutorial because they make you present tutorial questions that you answer during the tutorial like its an oral presentation where you aren't allowed to just read off what you've written. im not sure why they make you do this because it really does not make you better at presenting as you just wrote your script literally like 5 minutes before it so you gotta improvise on the spot. my group was scolded for just reading off the script as well and the internationals had a hard time during this part of the tutorial especially as they are not as fluent with english.
basically, this tutorial is useless but made fun if you have good friends to just complain about how useless this tutorial is lmao.
you also do mindmaps which if the tutor sees you write a lot of all the time, they will give you full marks for tutorial attendance.

1 hr worth of online lectures
the lecturer presenting these lectures is so boring that its more worthwhile reading off the lecture slides, making notes yourself and then if the slides are ambiguous (25% they are and make no sense), just watch that part of the lecture. the lecturer also tends to dragggggggggggggg on topics which is very annoying especially when he's already said the important parts.

Assessment: 
weekly multiple choice quiz 15% (1.25% per quiz)
ez, just have your notes open while you do it and the readings as well as they test you on those

individual essay part 1 (10%)
10% of your grade for just a plan that you're gonna develop into an essay a month later? yes please. idk why they gave such a high percentage in just writing a plan but please do make sure you follow they layout on how they want you to do it. you must only write on 1 page (typed) and must adhere to their font size and spacing options so make sure what you write is clear and concise. they also want you to reference your plan lmao but the reference list is not included in the 1 page limit. they are very strict with apa referencing so make sure you get that down pat (i just use microsoft words referencing and it automatically does that for you).
as for the topic in this essay, it was quite broad and open but they love it when you write a rebuttal paragraph so make sure you do that.

individual essay part 2 (20%)
this is the full essay that u've already developed a month before hand and so is not that hard to write on so its pretty easy to do well in if u did well in ur first part.

reflections (15%, 5% each)
this is so stupid lmao. its basically writing how the content you've learnt so far relates to your future career. in order to do well u must make that link of whether or not it can relate to ur future career. if ur not sure what ur future career is, fake it till you make it because this is make or break in ur reflection. imo, my friend wrote a really concise piece but made no reference to their future career and only got a credit :(
if u did well if ur first one,  u can just copy that layout and u'll be fine.

completion of workshop activities (10%)
this is tutorial participation. u cant just be there and expect to get 1% for the week, u actually have to do something, whether that is participate in debtates, present questions, write questions or write mindmaps.

exam (30%)
i found this exam to be extremely hard. 2 essays in 2 hrs, sounds like vce english to me. questions are very ambiguous and u have to link 4 weeks worth of topics per question which can be quite difficult

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  yeah 1 with no answers :(

Textbook Recommendation:  they link u pdfs of books they want u 2 read. u can i guess but i only started reading it near the end cause they want u to provide examples for your exams and this is how u get them other than google

Lecturer(s): lakmal abeysekera

Year & Semester of completion: sem 1 2018

Rating:  1 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 83

Comments:
the topics taught in this unit are hella boooooooooring. theres 1 whole week where u learn about emotional intelligence and what it means which is kinda like common sense anyways and also another week to tell you about that people actually change careers :O! crazy stuff.
the only thing that i took out of this unit was that i do not want to do anything to do with management because it made me realise my fears of oral presentation so i guess there's that

sweetiepi

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #422 on: July 09, 2018, 01:35:20 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: PSC2011: Biochemical Pharmacology

Workload:
2 x 1 hour lectures weekly + additional pre-recordings/readings/YouTube videos to go through (Weeks 1-10, plus an intro to unit lecture in week 1, and a single lecture in week 12)
3 x 3 hour unassessed computer labs
3 x 3 hour inquiry prac ‘wet’ labs
2 x 1 hour introductory tutorials (one for inquiry prac, one for abstract writing)
2 x 3 hour abstract writing sessions

Assessment:
Inquiry prac: 15% (the only assessed prac in this unit)
Quizzes: 10% (5 quizzes in total, each worth 2%. Quizzes 1 and 2 focused on topics 1- 3, whereas quizzes 3-5 covered signal transduction)
Mid-Semester test: 10% covered topics 1-3, average score was 19.5/30 from memory.
Clicker participation marks: 5%
Abstract writing tasks: 10% (2x 5% tasks. Not at all fun.)
Exam: 50%

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture- although some had missing visuals/audio.

Past exams available:  Yes, past exams from 2011-2016 were provided, no answers. Some of the exams came from the equivalent pharmacy unit (which was recently phased out due to the new pharmacy degree), and some from the older version of the unit.

Textbook Recommendation:
Molecular Cell Biology – Lodish et al 7Ed
Rang and Dale’s Pharmacology -  Rang 7Ed
I never looked at any of these, but I probably could have done better if I actually consulted the first one, I guess. I’ve heard that the latter is used in second semester- PSC2012: Molecular Pharmacology.

Lecturer(s):
Roland Chung- Topic 1: Proteins and Enzymes
Daniel Malone- Topic 2: Lipids and Membranes
Sab Ventura- Topic 3: Ion channels, Receptors and Transporters
Lubna Freihat- Topic 4, lectures 1-5: Signal Transduction
Megan Waldhuber- Topic 4, lectures 6-10: Signal Transduction
Betty Exintaris: Chief examiner and Unit Coordinator

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2018

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 71D

Comments:
I felt like this core unit was a shambles, as the previous unit coordinator for this unit left Monash at the end of last year, so the UC inherited a mess and obviously didn’t have time to fix it up. A lot of the assessment information on Moodle was incorrect, and the UC wasn’t very responsive to emails when things went wrong with this unit. However, Megan Waldhuber was pretty great, and went out of the way to help us out. Some of Lubna’s content confused the heck out of me for a long time, but other than that, this was an okay unit.
This is the last time this unit will run as PSC2011: Biochemical Pharmacology. As of next year, a similar unit, BPS2011: Pharmacology I: Biochemical signalling will run, as a core unit under the new pharmsci degree. Hopefully they will have fixed this unit up for the new degree!
2017-2019: Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science (Formulation Science)
2020: Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science (Honours) Read my uni journey here!

sweetiepi

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #423 on: July 09, 2018, 01:53:06 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: PSC2021: Structural Organic Chemistry

Workload:
2 x 1 hour lectures, weeks 1-12
5 x 4 hour pracs
1 x 4 hour prac exam
6 x 1 hour tutorials

Assessment:
20% Mid-Semester test (I felt this was harsh, weighting-wise, but oh well)
20% Pracs (each worth 4%)
5% Prac exam
5% Assessable tutorial questions
50% Exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  None given, however “90% of tute questions are from past exams”. However, I was able to obtain some off a third year. ;D

Textbook Recommendation: 
Organic Chemistry- Bruice 7/8Ed
I bought it, however it was seldom useful in my opinion, as most of the content in the lecture slides came straight from the book anyways.

Lecturer(s):
Peter Scammells

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2018

Rating:  1.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 57P (THANK GOD I PASSED- I DON’T HAVE TO SEE THIS HEINOUS SUBJECT EVER AGAIN <3 )

Comments:
Notoriously the hardest unit in second year pharmsci (or so I've heard), and has made me cry several times during the semester. The assessments were extremely challenging, and I heard that the midsem test had a higher than usual fail rate. (The midsem was held on a really challenging week for me,  I had to have a nice greasy souvlaki after this particular test due to it being that traumatising.) Checking results for the semester was extremely hard as well, as I honestly thought that I would have failed the exam, considering this was how I felt the whole semester (and sums my feelings up about this unit in general):


As this is the final year of running PSC units, the equivalent from 2019 on is BPS2021: Synthetic Chemistry I.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2018, 05:16:11 pm by insanipi »
2017-2019: Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science (Formulation Science)
2020: Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science (Honours) Read my uni journey here!

sweetiepi

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #424 on: July 09, 2018, 02:10:47 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: PSC2031: Analytical Methods

Workload: 
2 x 1 hour lectures, weeks 1-12
6 x 4 hour wet lab pracs
2 x 3 hour HPLC pracs
1 x 4 hour prac exam
7 x 1 hour tutorials (5 chemical equilibria, 2 spectroscopy)

Assessment:
5% quizzes (4 x 1.25%, 2 on topic 1, 1 each on topics 2 and 3)
10% prac exam
20% pracs
60% exam

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  2 given, one with complete answers, other with multi-choice. 10/10 would recommend doing the tute questions over these tbh.

Textbook Recommendation: 
Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry – Douglas and Skoog 8Ed (Not 9th, as Ben is a bit of a cheapskate and didn’t want to buy the new edition lol). Very handy for helping you to decipher Ben’s lecture notes.

Lecturer(s):
Ben Capuano- Topic 1: Chemical Equilibria and Classical Methods of Analysis
Roland Chung- Topic 2: Spectrochemical Methods of Analysis
Darren Creek- Topic 3 (HPLC): Chromatography
Paul Wynne- Topic 4 (GC, LCMS and MS): Chromatography

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2018

Rating:  3.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 70D

Comments:
I honestly should have done better, however I’m not surprised in the least, considering the effort that I didn’t put into spectroscopy or chromatography. Ben’s lecture slides were hard to understand as it was just information crammed onto slides every which way possible. The only reason this unit doesn’t get a 4/5 is that Ben didn’t crack any of his marriage jokes, like he did last semester. :(

Next year, this unit will likely be equivalent to BPS2031: Analytical Methods I: Principles and Applications
« Last Edit: July 09, 2018, 02:13:12 pm by insanipi »
2017-2019: Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science (Formulation Science)
2020: Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science (Honours) Read my uni journey here!

VanillaRice

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #425 on: July 09, 2018, 03:08:01 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: BMS1031 - Medical biophysics 

Workload: 
Per week: 2 x 1-hour lectorial, 1 x 2-hour practical

The lectures were listed as 'lectorials' in the timetable, but were really just standard lecture-format classes. There were 3 different streams, which I felt somewhat compromised the information given in each stream (for example, different lecturers may have taken different streams for the same topic).

The practical classes were held in the PACE studios, where you would be allocated to table groups of ~10 students. The practical activity varied by week, and I have described these in the assessment section.

PASS was also available for this unit (1 x 1-hour class per week), although I did not register for these.

Assessment: 
Note: Some of the assessment information below may not match the information given in the 2018 unit guide, as there were some last minute changes made.

4 x Moodle quizzes (2% each; 8% total)
The quizzes involved 8 multiple-choice and short answer questions in 55 minutes (with immediate feedback). You don't really need the 55 minutes, but they can be useful to recheck your answers or look through your notes to help you find the answer. Each quiz allowed 2 attempts, with your best score taken as your mark for that quiz. The quizzes were based on the topics of: fluids & energy (2); electrcity/bioelectricity; waves & optics). Non-assessed practise quizzes (which were similar in format to the actual quizzes) were also available for revision.

Practical work (25%)
There were various practical activities throughout semester. Physics lab work was worth 19% of the overall unit grade, while the physiology component was worth 6%.

There were two types of physics activities: experiments (13%), which involved experimental work, collecting data, and analysing the data; and tutorials (6%), which involved the completion of pre-lab exam style questions, which were then discussed and peer corrected in the first 10 minutes of class. Experimental work was assessed through the completion of a logbook, which contained all experimental data and analysis, which was handed in a week or so after the lab. Tutorials were assessed based on effort put into the questions and correction based on peer discussion. During the actual tutorials themselves, we were given the opportunity to complete a Moodle quiz of bonus questions, which were MCQs were either exam-level difficulty or above. Correct answering of these bonus questions contributed overall to a bonus 2% added to your overall grade.

There were three practical classes for physiology (1 cardiovascular, and 2 MEMPOT). The classes themselves generally involved working through a simulation of some sort and answering questions based on that. Assessment for these labs were in quiz format (either MCQ or short answer).

Question set (5%)
This was a take home problem set of about 4 questions on the fluids & energy topic. The questions were of exam difficulty, and gave a taste of the type of questions to be expected in the exam.

Fact sheet (10%)
This was a one-sided A4, scientific-style fact sheet on a topic related to one of the unit topics, where we were required to describe the physics and/or physiology principles related to that topic. I personally felt the rubric criteria was somewhat unforgiving, but maybe it was just me :P

BMS professional development module (2%)
This was a last minute addition to the assessment for BMS1031 . This is the first module (of five) in the BMS PDP program, and was moved from BMS1011 (for which I assume to simplify the sequence of modules for both double and single degree students). The assessment essentially involves the selection and description of two career-related experiences which you can complete by semester 2.

End of semester exam (50%)
The end of semester exam was 3 hours long, and examined all lecture material. The exam contained mostly short answer questions (minimal MCQs- 1 or 2), and was weighted approximately ~80% physics and ~20% physiology, which was consistent with the number of lectures given for each topic. A formula sheet containing several formulas from the physics topics was provided. Approved scientific calculators were permitted. Hurdle requirement of 50% (on the exam) to pass the unit.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:
For the physics component, past exams from 2006 - 2016 (with answers) were made available. I highly recommend attempting as many of these as possible, as you will notice that past questions are often reused.

As per BMS policy, no practise exams for the physiology component were provided, although some practise questions for each physiology topic (without answers) were made available via Moodle. In my opinion, these practise questions were not that similar to the actual exam questions, but still provided an opportunity to practise your application skills, which are important in physiology.

Textbook Recommendation: 
Relevant chapters and review questions for both textbooks were provided for each physics lecture.
  • - Recommended: Physics for Biosciences (1e) by Lazendic-Galloway for Monash University. This is a custom textbook designed for this unit. The topics follow the lecture content closely, but often goes into extra detail which was not required. This textbook is essentially a compilation of the relevant chapters from various texts (including Giancoli below).
  • - Physics, principles with applications (6e) by Giancoli. This is the 'alternate' text for the physics section.

Lecturer(s):
There were 3 streams for each lecture. The topic lecturer for each stream was either the same or varied.
- Prof. Kristian Helmerson [unit co-ordinator - physics] - Fluids & Energy
- Michael Ferguson - Fluids & Energy; Waves & Optics
- A/Prof. Chris Wright - Cardiovascular Physics
- Prof. German Valencia - Electricity
- Dr Agnieszka Gorecka - Electricity; Radiation
- Prof. Helena Parkington [unit co-ordinator - physiology] - Bioelectricity; Bioimaging

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2018.
This unit is only available in Semester 1.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5. This unit was structured quite well, with the practical classes aligning closely with lecture content, and assessments relatively well-paced throughout semester. However, I felt that there could have been more feedback for some assessments.

Your Mark/Grade: HD

Comments:
This unit contains two parts: physics and physiology. The physics portion covers 1st year level physics, while the physiology portion essentially provides a grounding for later BMS units. I didn't do year 12 physics, but I heard that the physics content in this unit definitely goes above and beyond that of VCE physics. Given that, I think this unit provides a good introduction to physics, even for those who have had minimal previous physics exposure. The lectures were split into well-defined topics, with an effort made to apply biomedical principles to each topic:

  • - Fluids & Energy. This was the largest topic, and covered key foundations in physics, including: motion, energy, and gases. This lecture series also contained two lectures on cardiovascular physics.
  • - Electricity. 4 lectures on various topics on the foundations of electricity. There were also 3 lectures on bioelectricity (which was probably my favourite topic), covering how cells (especially neurons) communicate using electricity (setting membrane potential, action potentials, etc.). In my opinion, this part was probably the most difficult of the unit, so be sure to pay attention and seek clarification.
  • - Waves & Optics. 3 lectures covering the basics of waves, sound, light rays, refraction/reflection, lenses, and human vision. This lecture series also included a lecture on bioimaging, which covered the different imaging methods used in biomedical science.
  • - Radiation. A 3-lecture introduction to the different types of ionising radiation (X-rays, alpha, beta, gamma), how they are created and interact with matter, how their harmful effects can be minimised (dosimetry and protection), and how they are applied in medicine for treatments and imaging.
This unit provided a relatively detailed introduction to university physics. Probably one of the harder first year first semester BMS units, although personally I still found most of the lecture content to be somewhat interesting.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2018, 03:11:06 pm by VanillaRice »
VCE 2015-16
2017-20: BSc (Stats)/BBiomedSc [Monash]

clockerrs11

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #426 on: July 09, 2018, 03:51:47 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: MKF1120 - Marketing theory and practice

Workload: 
1hr30 workshop (compulsory)
1hr worth of online lectures

Assessment: 
"one" assignment (5%)
ez but pointless assignment that basically guarantees you an hd if u do it as quickly as possible with a group who is willing to do the work. do not leave this late because it is due pretty quickly in the semester which i was not expecting tbh. your written piece during this assignment is the bulk of your mark. they say not to do generic videos as that won't get you a hd but we did and our written piece carried us to a hd anyways.

online quizzes (10%)
this is pretty easy again,  nothing much to say. 15mins per quiz, open book so whatever

immediate feedback activities (15%)
group test with your assigned marketing group in your workshops, every workshop session. iirc, they take 8 out of the best 10. if you're late to your workshop by like 3 minutes, they won't let you do the test with your group and you won't get marks for it because this is done at the start of your workshop so dont be late.

essay (20%)
vague af essay topic but kinda esay to get an hd with? i think 30% of cohort got a hd so its not that bad i guess.

examination (50%)
split into two sections, long answer and short answer. long answers are worth 20 marks each and short are worth 10 marks each.
there is one question per topic but u can avoid question because they allow you to pick like 2 from 3 available so if you aren't comfortable with a topic, just don't study it and study the others very hard.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes no answers. people asked in forums for guidance in the questions presented but they were very hesitant to answer them and would never give the real answer, instead to look at lecture slides.

Textbook Recommendation:  nah, they gave u readings and pdfs for it but like lectures will carry u through i reckon

Lecturer(s): angela cruz, peter wags, tiffany winchester

Year & Semester of completion: sem 1 2018

Rating:  3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 87

Comments:
overall, a solid unit. all assessments are due early on the semester and you don't have anything due after mid sem break which is a relief because all other units have tons of assignments due after the break.

tbh im not sure if its just marketing in general or this unit but some of the concepts are just pointless and annoying to try to remember because of how unnecessarily complex they are
but study well and you'll get a nice score

Springyboy

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #427 on: July 09, 2018, 05:45:51 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: ETC2410 - Introductory Econometrics

Workload: 

1x 2hr lecture - this is where the majority of the course content is covered. Natalia delivers all of the lectures except for the first half of the first lecture which Farshid conducted. Originally I found it a bit difficult to understand her and what was going on, but eventually this made more sense as everything was able to clarified with extra revision.

1x 1.5hr computer lab - These are basically the tutorials where you go over the tutorial exercises provided on Moodle each week. Part A of the tute exercises has to be done at home and is not covered in the tutes as it counts towards your participation marks for each week. Part B is explained in the tutes, and normally delves into deeper concepts that are either mathematical proofs or explanations carried out in EViews which is the statistical software used in this unit only. Therefore, the tutes are a must to attend unlike the lectures where listening to the recordings as sufficient, as to obtain your participation marks you must attend the computer lab each week.

Assessment: 

10% tutorial participation - as long as you complete Part A of the tutorial exercises uploaded onto Moodle each week, then you'll receive 1% of your grade each week. These marks run from weeks 2 to 12, meaning that you can miss 1 tute and still receive full marks

10% mid-semester test - This consisted of 20 MCQ's to be done in 1hr on a Thursday night. For me, despite feeling that I'd done well on this, I got caught out by a lot of careless errors leading to a much lower mark than expected. Therefore, the key here is to read every question carefully and ensure that you revise as much as possible for this.

2x 10% group assignments - Groups were randomly allocated based on the computer lab that you were enrolled into. For each assignment you had to write up a report incorporating statistical information such as graphs, hypothesis testing and other factors taught throughout the course. Assignment 1 had a far more formal structure compared to assignment 2, where you were given free reign to write whatever you wanted and no word limit as long as you kept everything statistically relevant to the goal of the assignments. Assignment 1 was more content related, whilst assignment 2 was application based in the finance world by looking at asset pricing techniques and seasonality in relation to stocks. Both assignments were marked leniently, as most groups that I know did well on both assignments.

60% exam - This consisted of some MCQs and short answer questions. The short answer questions included some derivations, which were explained in-depth in the lectures themselves. Some of the phrasing in the exam itself was a bit difficult to comprehend, however I found that with careful reading and proper revision before the exam date, as well as attempting past exams that I was able to do quite well in it, contributing to my good result at the end.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  The past 4 exams from 2016 & 2017 were provided, which helped to understand the content, but not the structure of the final exam due to the course changing quite significantly this year

Textbook Recommendation: 
Introductory Econometrics: A modern approach (5th edition) - there is also the 6th edition, but due to a typesetting error it's not recommended to purchase. Therefore, this is the only prescribed textbook for the unit, but I didn't find it necessary as I only used it a couple of times. Also, the pdf to the textbook is freely available here, so even if you feel like you need the textbook the PDF is always around.

Lecturer(s):
Professor Farshid Vahid - also the Chief Examiner of the unit. Really nice and approachable guy, who clarified content whenever necessary and helped out as much as he could
Dr Natalia Bailey - only lecturer for the unit in terms of content. Knew her stuff well but explanations weren't always succinct, so it helped to listen to the lecture recordings to clarify as much information as possible.

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2018

Rating: 4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 80 HD

Comments: .

This was quite a step-up from ETC1000, so for anyone doing this subject, in particular as it is compulsory for any commerce specialist degree, finance major or econometrics major, then a good background in statistics will help you to do well in this unit. For me, I had 2 things that kept me going throughout the unit outside of lecture notes to do the best in the unit that I could.

1. Setup a group study chat on FB messenger. Originally someone posted on Moodle asking for people's facebook names, and the group was only at 4 people. However, that eventually reached 100 people, which was great as you had a network of people willing to answer questions for everything econometrics related, whether it was tedious or not. This is something that I will be using in all of my econometrics related units in the future hopefully.

2. Ben Lambert's youtube videos saved me quite often in the course. Whenever I zoned out due to my lecture slot being a Wednesday 8am, I referred to the videos here to ensure that I thoroughly knew what the course was speaking about. Also, each of his videos are short and succinct which is great as they summarise parts of the course away from a 2hr lecture. Be mindful though that not all the proofs are given in these videos, so be sure to watch the lecture recordings to memorise those proofs and write them on your cheat sheet to bring into the exam.

Also, a double-sided A4 handwritten cheat sheet was allowed into the exam. This saved me quite a bit, as I was able to write-out all the necessary derivations (except for one, which I missed  :'() that were covered on the exam. The cheat-sheet also means that less memorisation is required, as you can refer to the cheat-sheet to help you as you go in the exam.

Overall, despite struggling with some of the explanations at the start of this unit, I loved the unit even though it took away a lot of my time to study for other subjects. It introduced the OLS framework and is a great background unit to do before continuing with further econometrics units in the future, if that is your preferred pathway.

« Last Edit: July 09, 2018, 07:06:50 pm by Springyboy »

neemo

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #428 on: July 10, 2018, 09:07:56 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: ECC2010

Workload:
x1 2 Hour Lecture
x1 1 Hour Tutorial

Assessment:
10% Weekly MyEconLab Questions
30% Mid-Sem Test
60% Exam

Recorded Lectures:
Yes, with screen capture (Lecturer didn’t want to record but had to because unit was over-enrolled :P)

Past exams available:
No. Instead he pointed to specific questions from the textbook and gave us the answers to them.

Textbook Recommendation:
“Macroeconomics” by Abel, Bernanke, Croushore 8th or 9th Edition
Personally, I’d recommend it. The textbook gives the details that the lecture and lecture slides don’t give. MyEconLab is also directly tied to the textbook content (Note: you don’t need to buy access, it’s given to you).

Lecturer(s):
Qingyuan Du

Year & Semester of completion:
Sem 1, 2018

Rating: 2 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 92 HD

Comments:
LECTURE:
The lecturer is quite slow. Nearly every week we didn’t cover all the content. It got to the point where he had to take a topic out of the mid-sem because we didn’t manage to cover it at all. It was honestly quite difficult to sit through the entire lecture. A huge issue I have with the lecture was that there was pretty much 0 explanation for how to complete calculation questions. A lot of how I learnt to answer them was from getting questions wrong on MyEconLab which then provides an explanation.

TUTORIAL:
Tutorial is 1 hour. In normal cases, I value tutorials a lot. I find them great to strengthen my understanding of the content. However, this was the first tutorial that I felt I got nothing out of, so it’s the 1st I’ve ever felt better off skipping. I attended maybe 3-4 tutorials (I wanted to give it another chance). All you discuss in the tutorial are the weekly assignment questions from MyEconLab and sometimes a few additional questions. I personally found 0 value in it but if you’re struggling, I can see it helping as the answers are discussed to help you understand it. At the very least, I recommend attending a few of the tutorials to see if it helps you or not.

ASSESSMENTS:
Weekly MyEconLab ‘Assignment’ (10%):
This was… interesting. Basically a free 10%. Every week we were given an ‘assignment’ which was just a set of questions based on that week’s content. The questions are done on MyEconLab and you have unlimited attempts. It’ll also give feedback or point to where you went wrong which I found very helpful. The ‘interesting’ part is that he mentioned something on the lines of you only needing to do 4 of the assignments? He wasn’t entirely clear on it so I’m not too sure but regardless, I’d advise to do them all anyway.

Mid-sem Test (30%):
Initially it was meant to be, I think, 2 hours long with 4(?) questions but it was then cut to 1 hour and 3 questions due to seating issues or fitting everyone in the lecture hall. Structure involved the first question being true or false questions and the other 2 being predominantly calculation questions (with possibility of theory questions). For the true or false questions, you have to explain why it’s true or false to get credit. Merely stating ‘true’ or ‘false’ gets 0 credit. For the calculation questions, this is where the textbook and MyEconLab comes in. I don’t think the lecture explains at all how to answer the calculation questions. MyEconLab has a bunch of questions outside of the assignment that you can do to practice. I found this incredibly helpful as you can see guides of how to answer the questions. The questions from MyEconLab are taken from the textbook, sometimes with changes in numbers, but MyEconLab has answers.
The lecturer specifically stated that some questions will be questions you’ve ‘never seen before’, and he mentioned that sometimes he takes questions from postgraduate textbooks and dumbs it down to our level. This was true. My initial reaction to some of the questions was ‘wtf is this’, but if you know the content you’ll become aware of what he’s trying to ask and it’ll become like a normal question. For example, he gave us this random growth model that we’ve never seen before but after substituting the variables given, it’s clear he’s talking about the endogenous growth theory which we learnt.
Average and median score for the mid-sem was around 19.5/30. My advice is to read the textbook and do MyEconLab questions until you understand the models/theories and why x might affect y, and are able to do the calculation questions well because as mentioned, lectures don't explain how to do them!
Also, a sample test was given which I'd say replicated the actual one decently.

EXAM (60%)
2 hours long with 5 questions. Structure is the same as the mid-sem so again, the first question is true or false and the rest are calculation questions with some theory questions. At least in this semester’s exam, there were more ‘policy’ questions than I anticipated, that is, here’s some info, how would you advice the policy maker in implementing monetary policy? The last question was bizarre though. I’m not sure if I was missing something but it didn’t seem to test any of the content we learnt. He gave us these random new Keynesian Philips curve equations (we didn’t even cover the regular Philips curve!) and asked us to analyse these equations in certain situations. The last question infuriated me, since it basically asked us to recommend policy action based on this never before seen model. We didn’t really learn how to recommend policy action. Ignoring this question though, the calculation questions aren’t particularly hard. If you do some practice, it basically becomes routine since you’ll generally just have to do the same thing but with different numbers. The calculation questions are also mostly what you find in MyEconLab or the textbook.
VCE 2015: Business Management [43]
VCE 2016: English [41] Methods [48] Spesh [46] Accounting [48] Economics [46]
ATAR: 99.65
Uni 2017-2020: Bachelor of Commerce & Commerce Specialist @ Monash Uni

VanillaRice

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #429 on: July 19, 2018, 05:54:02 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: DEV2011 - Early human development from cells to tissues 

Workload: 
Per week: 2 x 1-hour face-to-face lectures, 1 x online lecture, 1 x 2-hour practical

The lectures were standard lecture-type classes. Each week, there was also an online lecture, with embedded MCQs to test our knowledge.

The practical classes each week were split into two parts: a tutorial, and practical. We were divided into smaller groups and assigned a demonstrator and cell type (for the cell profile report - more info later). The tutorials were essentially a weekly lecture content review using a set of short answer questions uploaded onto Moodle about the previous week's lecture content. We were expected to complete the questions before class, and then discuss the answers as a group. These questions tested the basic theory, and I think that it's important that you at least understand these concepts before doing any of the assessed tests/exams. The other half of the practical classes involved either an imaging session (for the cell profile report - more info below), or an assessed practical (around every second week).

Assessment: 
2 x Moodle quizzes (5% each; 10% total)
There were two timed Moodle MCQ quizzes in week 3 and 10 which were available for around 4 days. These consisted of 20 questions in 30 minutes on all lecture and practical content up until the week of the test. The questions for these tests were not released back to students (only a numerical grade). These quizzes were quite straightforward, provided you were somewhat up to date with lecture content.

Practical reports (8%)
There were four assessed practicals during semester. There was only one wet-lab, which was a buccal smear of our own cheek cells. The other labs involved our demonstrators giving poster presentations, and/or showing us anatomical specimens (the final assess prac on developmental disorders is definitely the most interesting of them all!). The assessment for the practicals consisted of 4 reports each worth 2% (8% total). These reports were made up of a few short answer questions relating to the previous week's practical activity, and were completed via a Moodle quiz. The questions themselves generally did not involve reciting of facts, but rather they required application of knowledge.

Cell profile report (2% draft + 20% final report)
This was the big project for this unit. The cell profile report was essentially a ~10 page report on a cell type assigned to your practical group, and involved three sections: an introduction to the cell type, a results section, and a discussion section. There were about 10 possible cell types (including neurons, myocytes, erythrocytes, etc.) The introduction section of the report was essentially a brief description of the function of the cell type and its development. The results section was probably the most enjoyable part for me - each student was assigned a histology slide containing a histological sample of a foetal mouse. Throughout semester, we were given time (imaging sessions) to take magnified images of these specimens, which would then go into our report. The task was then to describe what can be seen in the image, how the different components function, and how our given cell type ties in with this. The final section was the discussion - we were allowed to pick any topic to discuss, provided it was somehow linked to our cell type (which would have been much more enjoyable for me to research, had I left myself more time to do the report :P).

The instructions for the report were released early in semester, and the final report was due in week 12. Definitely try to start this one early (I, along with many other students, regretted not doing this) - there is a lot of work to do, and the report is worth a large part of your grade. In week 8, we were also required to submit a draft of our final report (worth 2%), which was essentially a short dot-point plan of what we were going to discuss in the report. Our demonstrators then provided feedback based on the draft.

Mid-semester exam (10%)
This was a paper MCQ exam held in week 6 during the normal practical timeslot. It consisted of 30 questions in 60 minutes on all lecture and practical content up until the week of the exam. The questions for this exam were also not released back to students.

End of semester exam (50%)
The end of semester exam was 2 hours long, and consisted of 80 MCQs on all lecture and practical content. The questions were fair, although some questions tested some quite specific detail, while others tested application of concepts, rather than memorisation. Hurdle requirement of 45% (on the exam) to pass the unit.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: None. The only MCQ revision was two revision lectures at the end of semester.

Textbook Recommendation: 
  • - Recommended: Human Embryology and Developmental Biology (5e) by Carlson. Much of the lecture content was sourced directly from this text, so it is a good place to go for extra reading.
  • - Functional Histology (2e) by Kerr. This text was very useful for the results section of the cell profile report. The Hargrave-Andrews library had a number of copies, although they were all loaned out in the lead-up to the due date of the report :P. There were also a number of other good histology texts in HAL.
  • - Molecular Biology of the Cell (5e) by Alberts et al. This is an extensive cell biology text (used quite often in biomed units), but since this unit did not cover cell biology in great detail, this text was not that relevant in my opinion (unless you needed to brush up on basic cell biology).
  • - Developmental Biology (9e) by Gilbert. Never looked at this, so can't comment, but it was another recommended reading.

Lecturer(s):
Julia, Sonja (neuro-development) and Helen (research in developmental biology) took most of the lectures, and there were also multiple guest lecturers.
- Dr Julia Young [unit co-ordinator]
- A/Prof. Craig Smith
- Dr Ellen Menkhorst
- Danielle Rhodes
- A/Prof. Edwina McGlinn
- A/Prof. Helen Abud
- Dr Sonja McKeown [deputy unit co-ordinator]
- Dr Megan Wallace
- Prof. John Bertram
- Dr Justin Adams
- Krishan Singh

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2018.
This unit is only available in Semester 1.

Rating: 4 out of 5. A well-organised, interesting unit, with close links between the lecture and practical content. One of the downsides was the lack of adequate feedback for the online and mid semester exams (apparently it's faculty policy that the questions from tests couldn't be released back to students, but anyway).

Your Mark/Grade: HD

Comments:
This unit essentially discusses human developmental biology - starting from fertilisation, how cells in our body arise, and how these cells come together to form tissues.

Contrary to the rumours, I wouldn't say that this unit is an "easy" WAM boost - I personally found the unit content to be intellectually challenging (there is definitely a large amount of content), and the assessment to be fair (but definitely not a bludge :P). This was also quite a popular biomed unit, and ties in quite well with some parts of BMS2011 and the developmental biology component of BMS2021.


VCE 2015-16
2017-20: BSc (Stats)/BBiomedSc [Monash]

sweetiepi

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #430 on: October 29, 2018, 01:41:09 pm »
+11
I usually don’t do these so early, but this is one review that I needed to do asap. :D
Subject Code/Name: PSC2232- Colloid Chemistry

Workload:
* 3 x 2 hour (tbh less than 2 hour) Practicals. (One of which didn’t count for us lmao)
* 6 x 1 hour presentation blocks (we only had 4 of these due to time constraints)
* 3 x 1 hour quiz blocks
* 1 x 3 hour presentation block
An odd smattering of “workshops”

Assessment:
* 3 x 30 min individual quizzes (2.5% each)
* 3 x 30 min group quizzes (2.5% each)
(Note that we weren’t given content, so it really beats me why we had these quizzes lmao)
* 4 x 10% group reports – counted as 40% towards the “final exam grade”
* 1 x 20% individual newspaper report – counted as 20% towards the “final exam grade”
* 3 x practicals (20%) (More like 2 x 10% practicals because we all failed the first one. See below.)
* 1 x 5% group oral presentation

Recorded Lectures:  Lmao not even a single lecture in this unit, so nope nothing recorded. (A lecture or 5 would’ve been nice!)

Past exams available: None. Last exam held for this subject would have been in like 2010, going by the ONLY set of slides we were given at the first workshop.

Textbook Recommendation:
Anything that is to do with Colloids. Other than that, you’re on your own.

Lecturer(s):
Dr. Ian Larson. Director of Learning and Teaching. Hmm.
 
Year & Semester of completion:
2018/Sem 2

Rating: 
0 out of 5
Nearly considered a move to the medicinal chemistry major because of this unit.

Your Mark/Grade: 78D. Better than I thought I'd get :D

Comments:
What I felt going into this semester:


What I actually felt:



This class was quite frankly put: shit. Ian was uncontactable for several weeks during the semester, and when he replied to our emails, he’d just parrot back the questions we were asking. He also gave us misleading information about practicals (causing a massive furore and quite a few angry emails when 90% of the cohort failed the lab report) and what he wanted from the report assessments. Ian also put out an announcement mere hours before the final group report was due basically changing the requirements of that report, which he had 2 WEEKS. TWO WHOLE WEEKS. to tell us. He was always putting the emphasis on clarity and precision, however to be clear: he wasn’t clear, nor precise. I’m just glad I’m done with this unit. Due to the new course structure, this unit (luckily) won’t run ever again.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2018, 11:57:09 pm by insanipi »
2017-2019: Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science (Formulation Science)
2020: Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science (Honours) Read my uni journey here!

LifeisaConstantStruggle

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #431 on: November 10, 2018, 12:36:58 am »
+10
Subject Code/Name: ETC2520 – Probability and Statistical Inference for Economics and Business 

Workload:  2x 1 hour lectures, 1x 1.5 hour tutorials
Assessment:  5x 4% fortnightly online quizzes, 1x 20% online mid-semester test, 1x 60% final exam.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  1 sample exams with no solutions

Textbook Recommendation:  Wackerly, Mendenhall, Scheaffer, Mathematical Statistics with Applications (7ed).
Hogg, Tanis, Zimmerman, Probability and Statistical Inference (9ed).
Both textbooks are not required but are highly recommended if you wish to do well in this unit as their examples and explanation of the theory is much clearer than the lecture content, albeit having less information.

Lecturer(s): Professor Don Poskitt

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 Semester 2

Rating: 2 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 85 HD

Comments: I have so many things to say about this unit that I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll talk about the good things first before moving on to the bad. If you are a commerce student and really like mathematics, this unit is quite bearable and interesting to study on your own, as it is a fairly thorough run-through of probability and statistical theory from its basics to the more rigorous mathematical content. You start from basic probability and set theory, defining what probability, sample spaces and random variables mean with some examples from card taking and dice throwing. You are then introduced to some common discrete and continuous probability distributions (not an exhaustive list) such as the Poisson distribution, normal distribution, the Gamma function and distribution, Chi-squared etc etc. This unit is fairly simple and intuitive up to here, as many would have learned some of the content from high school. You then go through moment-generating functions and their applications, relationships between different distributions, and joint (bivariate) probability, and this is where the unit kind of gets its infamous impression of being difficult, as the lecturer runs through the content fairly quickly from here. The unit ends with rigorous statistical techniques such as method of moments/maximum likelihood estimation, confidence intervals, unbiasedness and efficiency, and some hypothesis testing, which is mathematically the most demanding, and builds on prior content taught in the unit itself.

Now for the negative aspects of this unit, I know that there’s another review posted here ages ago, but there are quite some changes after they changed the CE for this unit. For starters, there ARE assumed knowledge in this unit which might be completely foreign to some students (like first-years). This includes taking expectations/variances, solving integrals by substitution or by parts and some other techniques (some of it is taught in VCE spesh but not everyone took spesh), basic knowledge of infinite series and approximations(such as the Taylor’s series approx) and the supremum. It is highly recommended that you take a mathematics unit (ETC2440 or MTH1030 are both good) before this to reinforce your knowledge so you don’t get as lost as how I was as a first-year student in this unit. The lectures are extremely poorly delivered with basically incoherent lecture slides for less technical students in BComm, but if you can pick out the content and understand it through online videos you should be fine. Tutorials are in particular VERY important to attend as most applications of the theory taught in the lectures are shown in detail here (no detailed solutions are provided btw). The in-semester assessments are fairly easy, so try to maximise your marks before entering the exam as it has become almost impossible to complete/comprehend since 2016 (when they changed the CE).

This unit is fairly dense and thorough, which might appeal to you as it has appealed to me, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you are not too interested in mathematics. If you are enrolled in BSc then you may consider MTH2222 and MTH2232 (ETC2520 is a condensed version of both), which are taught at a slower pace with greater detail. Nevertheless, not a bad unit if you want to learn, but expect great headaches trying to learn it yourself. 
« Last Edit: December 03, 2018, 09:07:32 pm by LifeisaConstantStruggle »
2018-2020: Bachelor of Actuarial Science (+ Econometrics), Monash
2021: Bachelor of Commerce (Honours), Econometrics & Financial Mathematics, Monash
2022-2023: Work and some soul-searching

LifeisaConstantStruggle

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #432 on: November 10, 2018, 12:40:15 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: ETC2410 = Introductory Econometrics 

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

Assessment:  1x 10% mid-semester test, 2x 10% group assignments, 1x 10% tutorial participation, 1x 60% final exam.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  5 past exams with solutions, though the nature of the unit has changed a bit the exams are still quite relevant.

Textbook Recommendation: Jeffrey Wooldridge, Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach (5ed or 6ed are used, but 5ed is recommended by the lecturer as 6ed has some errors within it). Great textbook, also relevant for ETC3410: Applied econometrics, but the lecture slides and study material are sufficient for this unit. 

Lecturer(s): Professor Farshid Vahid-Araghi, nice guy and very approachable, was quite thorough with the content from week 1-7, but can be quite hard to follow sometimes.

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 Semester 2

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 97 HD

Comments: Really satisfactory unit. I haven’t been to or seen most of his lectures so I couldn’t comment on the lecturer’s teaching quality, but some say that he can be very hard to follow especially during the last few weeks of content. Most finance/economics/econometrics/actuarial majors would start this unit straight after ETC1000 or their first semester, and it has quite a steep learning curve compared to the first-year equivalent of this unit.

You basically look at linear regression once more (the same kind you do in ETC1000), but you look at more on the mathematics behind it. Farshid starts off with describing the different types of data and why econometrics is needed in the social sciences and business/finance, and then runs through a “rehash” on basic concepts of statistics and matrix algebra, so you know what knowledge you should expect before jumping into the unit itself. Personally, I thought watching YouTube videos and reading the appendix of the textbook gave me quite an edge so I’d recommend doing it as well. The rest of the content focuses on regression, in particular the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimator. You’d learn about their assumptions to achieve the estimator’s unbiasedness, efficiency and ability to do inferencing (Gauss Markov/Classical linear model is introduced here). There is quite a bit of proofs that you ought to follow so it can be confusing. You’ll then run through coefficients and their interpretation (like ETC1000), goodness-to-fit, models involving log and quadratic terms, and model selection criteria (choosing a model with the least BS), which gets very interesting once you get the hang of it. After this comes the harder parts of the unit. Farshid starts talking about violations of the OLS assumptions that make the OLS less “adequate” in inferencing from data, including heteroskedasticity and serial correlation, their diagnosis and amendments to make a model reliable for inference. This is where he starts talking about time-series data as well, and unfortunately, the lecture slides can be quite confusing here (since he doesn’t dwell into time series data and its differences with cross-sectional data, which is what we’ve seen earlier). He then goes through some dynamic modelling (using past data to predict future data), some problems that may arise from this and finally the asymptotic properties of having large sample sizes (CLT, and weak law of large numbers are introduced here). 

This unit can be quite mathematically demanding for the common student, though it is quite simple relative to other ETC units that you might come across, so it’s essential for you to brush-up on your mathematics (basic summation and matrix algebra should be sufficient, you can learn this in two weeks). You need to hand-in your tutorial questions uploaded during the week to get your participation marks, but these won’t be marked. The mid-semester test is 20 MCQs which can be quite tricky, so study up before this! There are also 2 10% group assignments that take up quite some time, but the assignment marks are fairly easy to obtain if you get the right tutor, and the final exam (which was done yesterday) is tending to be less mathematical and more about inference and testing, which is fairly straightforward compared to past exams.

The tutorials are scored so it’s definitely worth it to attend, and you do quite a bit of work on EViews, a data analysis tool that you have to use in your assignments, and you are allowed to bring a cheat sheet (2-sided A4 with hand-written notes) into the exam so you're not required to memorise the wide variety of formulas used in this unit. I really liked this unit overall. 
« Last Edit: December 03, 2018, 09:08:32 pm by LifeisaConstantStruggle »
2018-2020: Bachelor of Actuarial Science (+ Econometrics), Monash
2021: Bachelor of Commerce (Honours), Econometrics & Financial Mathematics, Monash
2022-2023: Work and some soul-searching

epicviolinsolo

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #433 on: November 15, 2018, 03:49:24 pm »
+4
Subject Code/Name: BIO1042 – Environmental Biology, called "Life in the environment" in the 2019 handbook

Workload:  2x1hr lectures, 1x3hr lab class (8/12 weeks)
Looks like this is changing in 2019!

Assessment:
10% MasteringBio assignments
These “assignments” were 40 minute quizzes that assessed your knowledge of the weekly readings, which usually involved pages from the textbook and occasionally some other links or other textbooks. Because these questions are mostly based on the Campbell Biology textbook, a lot of them can be searched up and found in Quizlet sets that other people have made 😉 (except for week 7, where the questions are based on Biology of Australia and New Zealand by Augee et al, which is linked to on Moodle).

12% ClimateWatch project (practical 1)
This is a semester-long group project based on the ClimateWatch app, which encourages citizen scientists to record sightings of flora and fauna. In your group, you’re given a plant or animal to monitor over the semester. The aim of the project is to determine whether you believe their behaviour/phenology is being altered by climate change, eg. warmer temperatures meaning plants are flowering earlier. The biggest challenge for many groups, including mine, was actually making sightings of the bird we had been given. Others with bird species also had lots of trouble finding nests. Three times over the semester, you write up a 300 word reflection piece about your species-identifying skills, teamwork and data analysis. In week 12, you have 10 minutes to present your methods, findings, limitations and if you believe the species’ behaviour has changed. This project was frustrating for many groups, mainly regarding spending time looking for the species you had been given.

10% Wetland project (practical 2)
This project was also semester-long, but work was only done at the start and towards the end of semester. In the same group as your ClimateWatch project, you submerge some leaves of different species in the lake in Jock Marshall Reserve, retrieve them 9 weeks later and work out how much of their mass has decomposed in that time. The aim of it is to determine whether the leaves decompose at different rates, and whether this changes in open water or shoreline environments. You individually write up a 900 word report on the results, which is due in week 11. I felt this was a relatively simple assignment, as a lot of help is given during prac classes and the marking rubric was very detailed.

15% Laboratory practicals 3, 4 and 5
These three pracs were each run during one 3 hour lab session. Each prac had a reading associated with it, including some textbook questions and the lab manual, which was tested with a pre-practical quiz (worth 1%). The prac write-up was done in the lab manual and ripped out and handed in at the end of the session (worth 4%). Prac 3 looked at aquatic food webs, prac 4 looked at biogeochemical cycling and prac 5 was about plant adaptations. These were pretty fun, and the TAs were all very nice and helpful. Also, the actual questions that are marked in these pracs are available in the unit guide before the pracs occur, if you have time to have a look beforehand.

3% Prac 6 (online)
This practical was run online, so you could do it in your own time. You use an online software through Internet Explorer to “sample” an area of a beach with a drain outlet on it and determine whether the concentration of worms changes depending on where the stormwater flows. It is assessed through a 15 minute quiz, with questions mainly relating to the statistics involved in this type of sampling. If you have done any statistics unit before, this should be pretty straightforward.

50% Exam
2hr 10min closed book e-exam. Yes, on a laptop! The exam consisted of 120 multiple choice questions (= 5 questions per lecture). Doing this exam on a laptop was pretty straightforward, because all you had to do was click the answer, as opposed to filling in the bubbles on paper. It was all very well organised, and the exam staff were quick to help with issues. I felt that the exam itself was quite fair and most people finished and left early.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture & livestreaming available as well

Past exams available:  No past exams. However, a revision quiz was available on Moodle, with a huge bank of questions.

Textbook Recommendation:  Campbell Biology 11ed – Aus/NZ edition. Definitely recommended, as the majority of questions in the weekly MasteringBio assignments were based on readings from this textbook. I was able to buy an eBook version and saved lots of money that way.

Lecturer(s): Dr Rowan Brookes, A/Prof Alistair Evans, Dr Akane Uesugi, A/Prof Damian Dowling, Dr Rohan Clarke, Dr Joslin Moore, Prof Dustin Marshall

Year & Semester of completion:  2018, Semester 2

Rating:  4 out of 5

Comments: Disclaimer – this review is coming from someone who had not done any VCE biology or university biology units prior to completing this unit.

I really enjoyed this unit. I felt that the assignments were all fair and weighted well, and the content was quite broad and really interesting. Weekly topics included: the tree of life, biophysical constraints on life, food webs and trophic cascades, biogeochemical cycling, evolutionary genetics, plant adaptations, biogeography of Australian flora, animal adaptations, biogeography of Australian fauna, pollution and climate change, human impacts on ecosystems, the biosphere. Because the topics were far less technical/specific than other biology subjects, I didn’t find that I was behind much by not having done much biology before. It also links quite well to a number of EAE subjects!

For me, the majority of time I spent on this unit was doing the weekly readings and completing the MasteringBio quizzes. I also did spend quite a bit of time trying to find my ClimateWatch species and make at least one sighting a week, but I did less and less of that as time went on after I realised it was probably going to be impossible for me to find a welcome swallow nest. The practicals were all quite chill and not too stressful, and because you handed them in as you left, there was no extra work to do after class.

Overall, a fun unit, even if you haven’t done any other biology!
« Last Edit: November 15, 2018, 03:51:12 pm by epicviolinsolo »

epicviolinsolo

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Re: Monash University - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #434 on: November 15, 2018, 03:56:37 pm »
+4
Subject Code/Name: SCI2010 - Scientific Practice and Communication

Workload:  2x1hr lectures, 1x2hr workshop

Assessment:
Hurdle requirement – you need 30% of total marks on all in-semester assignments to pass the unit.

10% Participation
This includes attendance at workshops, participation in specific activities at some workshops (you’ll be told which workshops and which activities), completing 9 weekly quizzes, and completing online activities in weeks 4 and 8, in which there are no lectures or workshops. Pretty easy marks – just attend workshops, say something in the activities that are assessed, do the quizzes (which are only 5 questions each, and you’ll get full marks for attempting them, even if you don’t answer every question correctly) and do the online stuff during the online weeks.

5% Popular media article (due week 3)
This is the first part of a semester-long project. You’ll be presented with 12 broad topics to choose from. You pick one and with each assessment you do based on the topic, you’ll narrow down your topic until it is specific enough to write a literature review on. The first part of the project is writing a popular media article, by finding one journal article on your topic and “translating” it so that a non-science person would understand (like the articles in ABC Science and similar websites). This part doesn’t take too much time and is relatively simple, hence why it is only worth 5%. Most people tended to do well, because the marking criteria was pretty straightforward.

10% Annotated bibliography (due week 7)
This is the next part of the project. In this part, you read five journal articles and write a short summary and rating of them, based on how well they suit your research/writing needs for your more specific topic. In this part, I mainly struggled with actually finding articles, as I hadn’t really narrowed my topic down much and wasn’t really sure what I wanted to write about, so I was just scrolling through journal databases hoping for something related to my topic. However, overall it was an ok assessment. Some people seemed to struggle, based on our tutor’s comments, and forgot to do parts of the work (eg. forgetting a list of key words).

25% Literature review (due week 12)
This is the culmination of all the research that we had done over the semester – a 2000 word literature review on a specific topic, due in week 12. There is a formative (work 0% of marks) draft review due in week 10 that I would recommend trying to do a bit of, as you’re able to get comments from others in your workshop group and advice from your tutor. This is a pretty tough assignment, especially for those of us who hadn’t done a literature review before.

10% Oral presentation (week 5)
A group presentation in your workshop, where you find a popular media article, trace it back to the original journal article and discuss how well the media article accurately portrayed the science. It was sort of like the opposite of the written popular media article assignment. Expect the usual group project difficulties with this presentation – no one has a break at the same time, people haven’t done their share of the work etc... 2.5/10 marks are based only on your own communication/presentation skills, so group members can end up with different marks.

40% Exam
Hurdle requirement – you need 30% on the exam to pass the unit. 2 hour closed book exam. 40 multiple choice questions worth 60 marks in total, and 5 short/long answer questions, also worth 60 total marks. Pretty straightforward, standard exam. Some multiple choice questions came straight from the past exam, so I’d recommend completing that for revision if you can. Knowing a few of the examples (eg. one paradigm shift and one instance of a scientist being unethical) from the lectures in detail will be quite handy as well, as they often come up in the written questions.

Recorded Lectures:  Yes, with screen capture & livestreaming available as well

Past exams available:  Yes, one. No answers  :'(.

Textbook Recommendation:  There’s nothing you need to buy. There’s a mini textbook on Moodle (“Moodle Book”) that goes through the topics in a more detailed fashion.

Lecturer(s): Dr Bronwyn Isaac, Prof Roslyn Gleadow, Dr Rowan Brookes + a few others/guest lecturers

Year & Semester of completion: 2018, Semester 2

Rating:  3.5 out of 5

Comments: Just giving a little update on DisaFear’s review, because some of the assessment weightings and details have changed a little bit!

The unit is divided up into three themes:
1.   Science & science communication
2.   Scientific principles & philosophy
3.   Ethical & professional practice of science

As previously mentioned in other reviews of SCI2010 and SCI2015, some of the content is common sense knowledge or things that you might have picked up from other units. The lecture topics included scientific thinking, how to communicate science to others, the history of science, scientific revolutions/paradigm shifts, pseudoscience, the ethics of human and animal experimentation and careers. Overall, I felt it was well run, and Bronwyn was very responsive to Moodle messages and emails, especially around assignment due dates. All I can recommend is to not leave assignments to the last minute, especially as there are specific guidelines for uploading them to Moodle and you don’t want to lose marks for not uploading everything in its right place!

So in summary, most lecture content was straightforward and simple but dry at times, but the assignments were quite difficult and time-consuming.