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Author Topic: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings  (Read 1734526 times)  Share 

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Starlight

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #105 on: November 20, 2012, 07:06:57 pm »
+9
Subject Code/Name: BIOL10005: Genetics & The Evolution of Life

Workload: 3 x 1hr Lectures, 1 x 2hr Tutorial every second week, 1 x 2hr Practical every second/first week (depending on whether you are group B or A)

--> Group A's have their pracs earlier

Assessment:
-A 45 minute, multiple choice test held mid-semester (20%)

-work related to practical classes during the semester (25%)

Including  pre-and post laboratory activities

Prepracs: As the name suggests, these are short tests (10 questions) that are to be completed on the LMS. They aren't timed and most of the content refers to the practical workbook, amongst the information relating to the specific prac. They are usually 1 mark but may be worth 2 marks out of the 10 marks allocated to your prac.

Postpracs: Timed 15 minute tests opened for 24 hours after your completed prac (open usually an hour after the prac). These just relate to content covered during the prac, and can be worth anywhere from 4-7 marks out of the 10 marks allocated to your prac.

In addition:
Completion of 5 Independent Learning Tasks throughout the semester (5%)

Note: This year the staff decided 10 ILTs that made up the 5%, the main reason was to reduce the number of questions for each one (used to be about 18 now it's 10), there is one pretty much every week, so when you pass an ILT you get 0.5%

- an assignment not exceeding 1000 words (5%)
- A 2hr 30min examination on theory and practical work in the examination period (60%)  (Where 98% of what is examined refers to lecture material. )

N.B: After looking at the 2013 handbook for BIOL10005, the assessment that I have mentioned above has changed. See: https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/view/2013/BIOL10005

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Like Semester 1, one sample exam is given. This Semester the content was much more similar to the actual exam than last sem.

Textbook Recommendation: Subject handbook recommends R B Knox, P Y Ladiges, B K Evans and R Saint, Biology, An Australian Focus 4th Ed, McGraw-Hill, 2010

(No you don't really need it: It's for further reading, clarification etc.)

Lecturer(s):

In order of presentation

Dawn Gleeson: Genetics and population genetics (Lectures 1-16 , lectures 33-36)

Rick Wetherbee: Botany (lectures 17-24)

Theresa Jones: Zoology (lectures 25-32)

Genetics
Definitely the most enjoyable for me. Basically it's VCE genetics but a little more in-depth.

For example,

Linkage
* Learn how to calculate the map distance between two genes on a chromosome, alleles in cis/ trans arrangement etc.

Polygenes
* How is it that blue eyed parents can have a brown-eyed baby? Well it's possible!
* Learn about genes that contribute 2 or more alleles.

Recessive/ Dominant Epistasis
How one allele at one locus can mask the affect of an allele at another locus, hence affecting genotypic ratios

The VCE stuff: Includes similar genetic problems such as complete dominance (monohybrid, dihybrid crosses), incomplete dominance, co-dominance, lethality (recessive and dominant), pedigrees, DNA replication, PCR, DNA manipulation and techniques, transcription/ translation

Then there's population genetics
Learn about allele frequencies/ genotypic frequencies etc. assuming and without the Hardy- Weinberg Principle

Botany
* There was some things that were repeated from last semester e.g. seed plants, flowering plants, primary and secondary endosymbiosis.
* The lecture material that was presented was clear.

Zoology
The least enjoyable part of second semester bio IMO.

We literally were under the impression we had to learn about the characteristics of five major phyla including number of germ layers, fate of the blastopore etc. It was a whole lot of ROTE- learning that did not have to be done since it was barely covered on the exam. There was also a whole bunch of other classes and phyla that were presented and we didn't have to know.

However, vertebrate evolution and the hominid stuff relating to VCE was the most enjoyable. The Prac complimented the Zoology component of the subject.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012 Semester 2

Rating: 4 of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1

Comments:

Just a few comments on what was assessed:

Mid Sem Test
25 multi-choice questions, about 7 were worth 2-3 marks and required mostly understanding genetic problems. The questions that weren't marked as high were ROTE learning.  They give you a sample MST and although the questions aren't the same, I thought the content that was on that was pretty similar to what was on the actual test.

Assignment
Doesn't appear to be on the 2013 study design so I won't discuss this.

Exam
Definitely harder than semester 1 but similar format (Section A multi choice, Sections B and C fill in the blanks, section D 3 essay type short answer questions)

Overall: I became much more interested in the genetics component than VCE and the lecturers were mostly clear in how they presented their material. The Prac classes were pretty interesting and the mid sem test was fair.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2013, 08:53:29 am by El2012 »
2012-2014. BSc: Neuroscience. University of Melbourne.
2015-2018. Doctor of Optometry. University of Melbourne.

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Starlight

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #106 on: November 22, 2012, 08:39:32 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: CHEM10004: Chemistry 2

Workload:   3 x one hour lectures per week, 1 x 3 hr practical per week (started from mid semester this year), 1 x 1hr tutorial per week

Assessment:
- A 30-minute on-line mid-semester test (5%) (covered organic chemistry, i.e. Weeks 1-4)
- ongoing assessment of practical work (20%)
- a 3-hour written examination in the examination period (75%)

Note: - Satisfactory completion of practical work is necessary to pass the subject
                   -Independent learning tasks need to be completed in order to pass the subject.

Lectopia Enabled: Only the kinetics (6 lectures) were recorded. Why they didn't record the other lectures baffles me.

Past exams available: Yes, years prior to 2004 are not representative of the current study design.

Lecturer(s):

In order of presentation

Professor Richard O'Hair (Weeks 1 & 2)

Professor Carl Schiesser (Weeks 3 & 4)

Associate Professor Trevor Smith (Weeks 5 & 6)

Associate Professor Michelle Gee (Weeks 7-8)

Dr. Paul Donnelly (Weeks 9 - 12)

VivaTequila covered a lot about the lecturers but i'll expand on some stuff I found quite difficult.

Weeks 1 & 2 Organic Chemistry
In general, the lecturer seemed genuinely interested in what he was teaching which always makes it easier for students.
Most of what was taught eased us into the major components of organic chem that was covered in weeks 3 & 4, Richard covered the following topics:

- Factors affecting acidity/ basicity in organic compounds, such as electronegativity, sp_ hybridisation etc. and how it relates to the stability of these compounds and how they perform as a nucleophile/ electrophile

- Introduction to organic mechanisms and curly headed arrow notation (movement of electrons)

- Role of the nucleophile (electron rich species) and electrophile (electron deficient species) in organic reactions

The main issue I had was how the lecturer decided to encompass some aspects of Chemistry 1 organic chemistry (this was evident in past exams from about 2008-2012). These included Newman Projections, Chair conformations and showing mechanisms of reactions with certain reaction types. I had completed Fundamentals of Chemistry in Semester 1 so naturally I found this difficult to teach myself from scratch and I think a lot of other students were a little surprised with how they were expected to still know this stuff.

- Reaction types: SN1, SN2, E1 and E2.

Weeks 3 & 4 Organic Chem
Lecturer was great except it was a little hard grasping his short hand curly- headed arrow notation for reaction mechanisms.

What was covered:

Major reaction types: Nucleophilic Addition, Nucleophilic Addition + Elimination, Grignard Reactions, Oxidation, Reduction

There was a bulk of memorisation for organic chemistry, we were expected to know the mechanisms/ results of what felt like an endless amount of reaction types (they decided to spare us with Oxidation reactions though).

Weeks 5 & 6- Quantum Mechanics
Without a doubt the most difficult topic of Chem 2 and I think most students would agree. Lecture Material was insufficient and he essentially just told us to read the textbook. The Exam essentially related to the quantum mechanics section of the textbook.

Weeks 7 & 8- Kinetics
Without a doubt the BEST topic in chem 2. I found it really interesting and dare I say it fun. The lecturer was great and would always ask the students if we understood something or whether she wanted us to go through a specific problem.

Weeks 9-12- Inorganic Chemistry
The first 4 lectures were essentially a recap of VCE oxidation/ reduction reactions and electrolytic/ galvanic cells. We learned about concentration cells, Kas, Ksps etc. with the nernst equation. I thought the stuff on Ksp wasn't adequately covered in the lecture notes though. Then you go on to learn about batteries, transition metals, metallic complexes...

The lecturer was pretty good for this component too :) 

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2

Rating:  3.5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1 

Comments: The major issue I had with this subject was some of the material (quantum mechanics) was poorly introduced to students and also the organic lecturer deciding to add in some chemistry 1 content to the exam. I think most students (including me) expected to never have to learn newman projections/ chair conformations again and it would have been beneficial to revise these concepts in Chemistry 2.

My advice to do well:
- Visit the learning centre regularly (chemistry building)
- Complete all allocated questions from the textbooks (Mcmurry Organic chemistry, Zumdahl)
- Use Chemcal, there's a whole bunch of feedback tests, online tutorials etc.)
- Try to complete the tutorial questions before the tutorial
- Try to keep calm and don't stress. This was somewhat of a difficult subject.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2013, 08:54:06 am by El2012 »
2012-2014. BSc: Neuroscience. University of Melbourne.
2015-2018. Doctor of Optometry. University of Melbourne.

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Plan-B

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #107 on: November 25, 2012, 12:56:42 pm »
+5
Foundations of computing COMP10001 

Workload:  Three 1hr lectures and one 2 hr workshop per week.

Assessment:
- Three projects 30%
- Mid semester test 10%
- Workshop (IVLE) assignment 10%
- 2 hr exam 50%

Lectopia Enabled:  I cannot remember.

Past exams available:  Yes. O mid semester test and one end of year with solutions provided. Many more on e-library.

Textbook Recommendation:  Do not buy. Waste of money unless you are hardcore about this subject.

Lecturer(s): Tim Baldwin. He was a very enthusiastic lecturer for what could have been a very very dry subject. He loved anime and sounded like Mr Bean. Haha. He knew his content well and did his best to engage the audience through guest lecturers, his humor, in lecture prizes (bags, toys, books and candy!) and well written assignments. However, I am unsure if he is lecturing in 2013.

There were many guest lecturers from top companies such as Google, Twitter and the Australian Government (security department or something) who came to gave insight into possible careers for others. Whilst I skipped many of them to sleep in, they would have been great for others keen in pursuing such a career. They do not aid your assignments one bit, but do come up in the exams as theory questions.

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1

Rating:  Out of 5
Objectively: 4/5
Subjectively: 2/5

Your Mark/Grade: H1

Comments: This subject is an introduction to I.T. You will learn basic programming in Python (for decision making) and HTML (for presentation), and use this to apply many data extrapolations, presentations and statistical/probability simulations. Objectively, this subject was very well coordinated. Assignments were superbly written with the last assignment actually being quite interesting. We had to create a program that could play a card game that would then be played against every other student, tutors and lecturers. Top scoring students would receive the higher marks. This may seem daunting, but the way in which your skills in this subject slowly developed ensured you had the tools and capabilities to do well.

The tutorial worksheets was essentially a free 10%. We basically created output the worksheet asked us to do. They were not difficult, but rather a source for exposing thought processes and basic python and html syntax.

The exam and midsem in itself were not super difficult too, but did require some form of preparation to pass and score. There is in paper coding coupled by a lot of theory questions that came from guest and theory lectures. You are expected to be able to deduce, interpret and apply basic Python and HTML syntax for the exam. The theory questions were what caught most students (including myself) off. But looking back, appropriate review of lecture slides and tactful BSing would be sufficient.

Subjectively, this was the very subject that made me switch from Science to Commerce. You have to be interested in programming to push through  and to be willing to learn beyond the lectures to be able to complete the assignments. Depending on your problem solving skills and intuition with programming, assignments can take excessive amounts of time to complete.

Furthermore, the online IVLE system in which programming code and weekly workshop sheets (worth 10%) are submitted is infuriating. I, amongst a handful of other students had a buggy account that prevented us from typing code past 200 lines of code. Whilst this forced us to be more efficient, it was in a sense, an unfair disadvantage. One would expect that an I.T subject would provide adequate I.T standards for all students. -_- That being said, we were in a very small minority, and the lecturer and tutors did try to help (to no avail).
A further note, perhaps specific to this lecturer is that they do not accept late submissions. I happened to be one day late on an assignment and lost 10% immediately. This did further sour my mood of the subject despite my own error. Luckily, it was not a hurdle.

This however is supplemented by a more comprehensive online tutor/forum where questions, ideas and fun topics posted by students can be answered and responded by tutors, lecturers and other students. This was a good environment and the right step for promoting learning within a subject. This should be a learning tool considered by other subjects in science and commerce departments.

In summary, do this subject if:
- You enjoy patterns, problem solving and devising solutions
- Enjoy I.T (more or less a necessity imho)
- Pursuing a computing major
- you have the patience to troubleshoot your assignments and code
- you have the  ability to self learn beyond course material
- you want an eye opener to the sheer power and vast possiblities that have been created by information technology.

Do not do this subject if you:
- are going to choose this subject because you can't think of one
- are lazy and may be late on assignments
« Last Edit: July 07, 2015, 08:44:26 pm by Plan-B »

Elnino_Gerrard

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #108 on: November 30, 2012, 11:34:21 am »
+7
Subject Code/Name:ELEN20005 Foundations of Electrical Networks

Workload:  Weekly: 3 x 1 hour lectures, 1 x 2 hour workshop

Assessment:  5 problem solving assignments totalling 10%. 5 workshop quizzes based on past 2 weeks workshops worth 10 percent. Being able to finish the  workshop tasks was worth some marks as well totalling another 10 percent.
The assesments were every alternate week. i.e. If an assignment was due one week,the quiz was the next. So basically we had something every week.
Ofcourse exam worth 60 percent.

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture. 
Past exams available:  Yes. No solutions though. However solution to the past sample midtest was given.

Textbook Recommendation:  The course manual must be purchased from the uni bookshop.  It contains the course lecture notes which are extremely thorough and brilliant.Voids the need to buy the textbook.

Lecturer:  Dr. Brian Krongold.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2

Rating:  5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 86% H1

Comments: By far,the best subject I have done at university. Not only due to the interesting content,but also due to to the fantastic lecturer and the workshops where we wired up circuits on a breadboard.
The lecturer explains concepts like none I have come across before (He's American,Ive noticed all American lecturers Ive had are brilliant). He also works really really hard and it only encourages u to work hard.
For example,every week he'd email us not only the important announcements but also a detailed summary of what was covered in the workshops/Lectures this week,along with a preview of the next workshop. The lecture notes,mind you are smashing and dont need you to buy the textbook at all. I dint even look at the textbook once.They were my *only* source of reference. 
Also the lecturer made a visit to almost all of my workshops,either helping out people/ resolving any doubts..which I thought was a great touch. You can see he puts his teaching ahead of his other work.

Now to the workshops : Incredibly enjoyable. The first session involved wiring up circuits that we sussed out on the prelab  on an software called orcad. Subsequent sessions,involved actually physically building the circuits analysed by on the prelab on breadboards. Got really exciting during the digital session,specially with the daancing lights etc. Getting to see the various logic gates in action was pretty cool too.

The workload : Lets be honest,even though not the most difficult subject theres a fair bit to do. Pre labs every week. Assingent/quiz every week. But looking at the effort the lecturer puts in,I dint mind it.

Definitely recommend this subject. Smashingly coordinated,amazingly taught,I had fun too.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2012, 11:44:32 am by Elnino_Gerrard »
2010 VCE ATAR : 98.35

bridger

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #109 on: December 08, 2012, 05:54:17 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: ANAT30008 Viscera and Visceral Systems 

Workload:  3 lectures per week and 1 three hour practical

Assessment:  1. 2 MCQ tests of 30 questions (10% each) 2. Written Examination 50% 3. "Practical" MCQ Examination 30%


Lectopia Enabled:  Yes

Past exams available:  No, only practise questions provided

Textbook Recommendation:  An anatomy atlas (I used Netter's), anatomy textbook (Gray's Anatomy, Clinically Oriented Anatomy by Moore)

Lecturer(s): Jason Ivanusic, Jenny Hayes, Chris Briggs, Erica Fletcher and various guest lecturers

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2

Rating:  4.5 of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 78 H2A

Comments: Overall I enjoyed this subject. Found it to be more interesting and better organised than Locomotor Systems. We studied anatomy of the thorax, abdomen, pelvis and perineum, head and neck. The actual anatomy wasn't too hard to grasp and the assessment was fairly straightforward. Class averages for the two MCQ were around the low H1/high H2A range. As in first semester there were two exams, one with six written questions aswell as multi-choice on anatomy covered through the course and the other a MCQ exam consisting of questions relating to pictures of dissections and also questions based on the "practical" classes (questions such as "if you were to make an incision at the point what structure would be lying directly underneath). The course was well organised and the lecturers this semester were fairly engaging. Practicals were structured the same as first semester (however you were able to organise your own practical groups in Viscera), with groups being guided by an instructor through dissections of the thorax, abdomen and pelvis/perineum. All in all a good subject to do if you want to continue with some third year anatomy
« Last Edit: December 08, 2012, 09:12:04 pm by bridger »
VCE 2009
2010-2012 Bachelor of Science - UoM
2013-2016 Doctor of Medicine - UoM

Slumdawg

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #110 on: December 31, 2012, 12:13:21 am »
+6
Subject Code/Name: PSYC20007 Cognitive Psychology 

Workload:  1 X 2 hour Lecture per week, 1 X 2 hour Tutorial per fortnight.

Assessment:  50% Lab Report, 50% Exam

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:  No, about 30 practice True/False questions were provided.

Textbook Recommendation:  Do NOT buy the textbook unless you're really desperate during semester, I never used it.

Lecturer(s): Meredith McKague (Nature of Cognition, Psycholinguistics), Daniel Little (Memory, Stats, Learning, Knowledge, Categorisation), Phillip Smith (Attention - Object & Spaced based models, etc). We had each lecturer for 4 weeks.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2.

Rating:  5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1 (88)

Comments: This has to be my favourite subject at uni to date! It was bloody brilliant, easily the best Psychology subject you could ever do. It's hard, it requires real understanding of the theories and experiments because the final exam questions really did test your understanding rather than rote recall. I found all of the lecturers to be brilliant, some of the best the Psychology department has to offer! I found Dr. McKague's lectures the most difficult to grasp, not because she was a bad lecturer (she was in fact really great!), but because the concepts she discussed were really advanced and required some careful consideration before you can fully understand them. For the entire first 4 weeks I was really concerned because I found the content really quite difficult, but after reviewing it at the end of the year all together it really did come together so well and I felt I really understood her material from there on. It makes you really appreciate her lecturing and content, because if you spend time on it you'll realise you've learnt some pretty powerful stuff in just a few short weeks.

Daniel Little the coordinator is awesome, one of the best coordinators ever! He's always on the discussion board answering questions, you can tell he's 110% committed to making sure the subject runs really well. He's a really good lecturer as well. He starts off each lecture with an interesting story and eventually links the content of that particular lecture back to the story he began with. You can tell he put a lot of thought into his lectures! He does have a lot of content though. This is where Meredith and Dan differ, learning their stuff is difficult but the difference is that Meredith usually only has about 30-40 slides in a 2-hour lecture whereas Dan usually has double or triple that amount. Meredith's material was more challenging conceptually, but Dan's was more challenging because there was a lot of it.

Phillip Smith covers attention for 4 weeks, that may seem a bit over the top, but he covers so many interesting theories. I thought they might be a tad dry to begin with, but I eventually came to really love this section of the course. Attention is such a critical part of our lives so it was interesting to see how many theories have attempted to accurately describe it and yet there are still limitations. I felt like each lecture was really well constructed by Phillip and I could clearly see why he decided to include certain experiments. This all leads to his final lecture with some neuropsychology on spatial neglect which I found extremely fascinating since it really furthered my knowledge of the very interesting neurological condition.

The lab report is probably the only thing I don't like about this subject. Not because lab report's are ridiculously hard or anything, but you can easily get a mean/harsh tutor marking your paper and automatically you can get a grade lower than you deserve. This is particularly annoying when the lab report is worth half your entire grade and can practically snatch away any chance of a H1 in the blink of an eye. Our lab report was on eyewitness accounts with police lineups, it was a really great topic but also quite challenging. Each year the lecturers (usually the coordinator) set a new lab report topic so if you do the subject next year you'll get a different topic.

The exam is all multiple choice (96 Questions in 2 hours), but don't let that fool you. This subject is difficult and thus the questions are also quite difficult. I have to say though, unlike every other Psychology exam I've ever sat (from VCE to the other Uni Psych subjects I've done), this is the ONLY exam to not feature a single dodgy/ambiguous/unfair question. The only reason why the exam was written so well is because the lecturers were so great and clearly cared a lot about the subject so they made sure the exam questions were well thought out. I think most people found Meredith's section the hardest, simply because she had a lot of questions that had option D as "Both B and C", where option B and C were two very close answers where one could easily be wrong but both seem semi-plausible. So those questions really tested whether you truly knew your stuff, those who didn't wouldn't have done well at all with those questions. I personally found Daniel's questions the hardest though because they really required you to have quite detailed knowledge of the experiments and theories he mentioned, but if you studied well you'd be fine.

For those people thinking of trying this as a breadth subject with no prior psychology experience, you may feel like you've dug yourself a great big hole during the semester because it will be very difficult initially. But be consistent and work hard and you'll probably do well. I wouldn't say you're severely disadvantaged, but having a psychology background is definitely most important for a tough subject like Cog Psych. Maybe try an easier psych subject beforehand, but if you're committed to working hard on it then go ahead!
2010 ATAR: 98.35 - Psychology [50] Media Studies [47
2011-'13: Bachelor of Biomedicine [Neuroscience Major] at Melbourne Uni 
2014-'17: Doctor of Medicine (MD) at Melbourne Uni 


Slumdawg

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #111 on: December 31, 2012, 12:51:25 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name: Personality and Social Psychology 

Workload:  1 X 2 Hour Lecture per week, 1 X 2 Hour Tutorial per fortnight.

Assessment:  Lab Report 40%, Exam 60%.

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: No, but 3-4 sample questions were provided for each lecture.

Textbook Recommendation: No textbook and you wouldn't need one anyway.

Lecturer(s):
o Simon Lahem (Social Psych - Morality, Social Influence, Intergroup Conflict, Evolutionary Psychology) - 4 weeks
o Garry Robins (Stats - Correlation & Regression) - 2 weeks
o Luke Smilie (Personality - Intro & Explanations of Personality) - 2 weeks
o Jenny Boldero (Social Psych - Attitudes, the Self, Self-Regulation, Relationships) - 4 weeks

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2.

Rating: 4 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1 (85)

Comments: This subject is pretty good, some topics were definitely boring and others were definitely extremely interesting, I enjoyed it overall but the subject definitely had its limitations. I really liked all of Jenny's lectures and Simon's - basically all of the social psychology stuff. But I really didn't like the stats and personality psych components. The tricky thing about Simon's lectures is that he mentions about 30 different experiments in each of his lectures, and you need to memorise all of them! When you combine that with the experiments other lecturers mention you're memorising close to 150 experiments all up, that's a heck of a lot if you're trying to cram during SWOTVAC!

The lab report was okay, the topic was moral judgments but the hypothesis and method we used were really quite confusing and you really had to understand the terminology of moral psychology. Just like any other lab report it required a lot of research and reading on the discussion board. Make sure you put in a lot of effort to ace the lab report because it can save you for the exam!

The final exam has only 90 MCQs, to be completed in 2 hrs (nearly everyone finishes in 1 hour). There are 30 questions each from Simon and Jenny and 15 each from Luke and Garry. The exam was NOT well written at all and that's why some of these university psychology subjects are really rather disappointing. The only sections that were well-written were those by Luke and Jenny (although 1 or 2 of Jenny's questions I thought were a tad dodge). Garry and Simon's questions featured multiple really dodgy questions with a few things we were never taught in lectures, so that was very annoying.

Overall I did enjoy this subject, despite the dodgy exam. You'll learn some really cool stuff, such as you're more likely to be distant to your paternal grandfather than your other grandparents due to paternity uncertainty, imitating others subtly makes them like you more, 50% of your personality is inherited from your parents, and opposites generally don't attract (contrary to popular belief) except in circumstances where there is a dominant/submissive relationship. I found all of these insights quite interesting, and you'll be taught many more cool things like that along with the experiments that support them in this subject :)
2010 ATAR: 98.35 - Psychology [50] Media Studies [47
2011-'13: Bachelor of Biomedicine [Neuroscience Major] at Melbourne Uni 
2014-'17: Doctor of Medicine (MD) at Melbourne Uni 


stonecold

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #112 on: January 22, 2013, 03:07:05 am »
+10
Subject Code/Name: MIIM20002: Microbes, Infections and Responses 

NOTE: As of 2013, this subject is available to BOTH Science and Biomedicine students and has replaced the Experimental Microbiology stream previously in place for Science students.  This subject is a prerequisite for all students looking to major in Microbiology, Immunology or Defense and Disease.

Workload:  3 x 1 hr lectures per week, 6 x 3 hr practicals throughout semester

Assessment:  5 x pre-prac online quizes (1% each), 4 x prac reports (5% each, only the best 3 are used), MCQ mid-semester test (20%) and MCQ/written end of semester examination (60%)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.  It is a very good subject to lectopia.  My attendance rate in this subject was woeful.

Past exams available:  No.  There are review lectures during the semester where practice questions are given out and addressed by the lecturers.  The teaching staff also gave us some written questions at the end of the semester to practice on.

Textbook Recommendation:  Don't buy them.  They are not required.  The slides and lecture material are all that is needed in this subject.  The teaching staff themselves said they are only examining what is covered in the lectures.

Lecturer(s): Sandra Uren (Co-coordinator), Helen Cain (Co-coordinator), Lorena Brown (Co-coordinator).
Damien Purcell, Roy Robbins Browne and Tim Stinear also gave a lecture each.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2

Rating:  5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 95 H1

Comments: I will begin by saying that this is the best subject that I have taken at university to date.  The coordinators are all fantastic and ensure everything is very well organised to guarantee that this subject is an enjoyable experience.  They were always friendly, enthusiastic and had the best interests of students at heart.

Going into this subject, I wasn't sure whether I would like it.  I have never been fond of practical work and was mainly taking the subject to keep my options for Micro/Immuno and Genetics majors open (as many biomeds do). I found the practical work to be thoroughly enjoyable.  The demonstrators were all very helpful and it never felt rushed or poorly explained.  The pracs tied in directly with the lecture material and helped to reinforce the lecture content.  I personally enjoyed the way the each of the pracs were set up as case studies and involved finding the cause of an infection given a patient's symptoms and samples.  Practical assessment was also pretty good.  The pre prac quizzes are free marks.  The prac reports on the other hand are not and take some work.  Still, you are given a proforma for how you should structure your report and also given information on the material which you should be discussing in your report.  If you follow this closely, averaging H1 on the reports shouldn't be a problem.  Getting above 9/10 on a report is very difficult because it is just about impossible to address everything in the 700 word limit and I guess demonstrators are just picky about small things and unless your report is close to perfect in their eyes, you will lose marks.  Nonetheless, we did get our reports back with feedback written on them to help us improve on our future reports.

Moving onto the lecture material, I would say this subject is somewhat similar to MCB, for those who have done it.   There is lots and lots of content to get through and a lot of stuff to remember.  For a 12.5 credit point subject, I would say it is one of the tougher ones.
Like all subjects, it starts off easy.  The first 2 weeks are spent revising and extending on basic microbiology and immunology learnt in first semester, covering topics such as bacterial structure, virulence determinants, manipulating the immune response and vaccination.

The middle block of this subject is where the content becomes very intensive.  This block lasts about 8 weeks during which you cover three different types of infections and their common causes, mainly the bacterial and viral ones, but you also might look at a few parasites as well.  Firstly you cover gastrointestinal tract infections.  Here you learn everything from the organism, symptoms, molecular basis for pathogenesis/replication, immune response, treatment and lab testing/diagnosis.  As you can imagine, there is a hell of a lot to remember and lots of names are similar (e.g. you have bacteria known as EPEC, EHEC, ETEC).  My suggestion is to make tables because it helps to cut out unnecessary content and makes things a lot easier to memorise.  The other types of infections covered are respiratory tract infections and sexually transmitted infections.  The layout of these lectures is similar to the GIT lectures, although there was less of an emphasis on knowing the specific molecules involved here which made it a bit easier.

In this block there is a lot of integration.  You have a lecture or two on basic lab techniques for identifying bacteria and also a lecture on culture media.  These are helpful for prac class.    There are some lectures on the role of the mucosal immune system and natural flora.  These were very interesting but also difficult and important.  They also throw in some lectures on epidemiology, disease spread and management of the various types of infections.  These more 'random' lectures are usually only addressed with MCQs.  Nonetheless, learn them properly because the MCQs always try to confuse you and they may still ask for some of it in the written component of the exam.  I suggest you do learn the epidemiology lectures properly because although they seem unimportant and like they are common sense, knowing the examples discussed will make your life much easier in an exam rather that having to make stuff up.

A lecture on antibiotics was given which was basically about the mechanism of action of various antibiotics and their names.  There was also a lecture about vaccine development and non-protein antigens.  These seemed really important and are worth paying close attention to.

The final part of the course addresses health care associated infections (HCAIs).  It covers content such as hospital outbreaks and management, causes, antibiotics resistance, spread and transmission, sterilisation/disinfection, phylogentic analysis, more epidemiology, opportunistic pathogens and immunocompromised hosts.  It was one of my favourite parts of the course because it was very clinical and all based around a health care setting.  Again, a lot of this stuff was common sense but it is important that you actually learn it the way it is presented in the lectures because that is how they expect it written in an exam.  Be sure to learn the chain of infection and the various ways in which interventions can be made at each link, because this was heavily emphasised and came up on the exam.

In terms of assessment, the MST was 40 MCQs and covered roughly the first half of the course.
The exam had 50 MCQs (60 marks) and 5 short answer questions (5 x 12 marks = 60 marks). 
Each SAQ was broken down into smaller subparts (e.g. a) 6 marks, b) 4 marks, c) 2 marks) and overall each SAQ covered one of the 5 topics:
-Immune system
-GIT infections
-Respiratory tract infections
-STIs
-HCAIs

This exam structure forces you to learn just about everything which is presented to you.  You have to answer all questions and parts.  The exam is very fair.  It is clearly written based on the lecture material and if you have done your work it is very straight forward and there will be no nasty surprises.  I will reiterate that this subject is like MCB.  There is a lot of work to get through, but if you do it, it is not bad at all.  If you don't work regularly and slack off, then you are going to struggle.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2013, 02:17:28 am by stonecold »
2011-13: BBiomed (Microbiology & Immunology Major) @ UniMelb


VCE 2009'10: English 46 | English Language 49 | Chemistry 50 | Biology 50 | Further Mathematics 48 | Mathematical Methods CAS 39
ATAR: 99.85

"Failure is not when one falls down but rather when one fails to get up" - unknown

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #113 on: January 30, 2013, 01:08:48 am »
+7
Subject Code/Name: BIOM20002: Human Structure and Function

Workload:  6 x 1 hr lectures per week, 4 x 2 hr anatomy practicals throughout semester, 1 x 3 hr physiology practical throughout semester

Assessment:  2 x intra-semester tests (10% each), Physiology Practical Report (10%), Anatomy end of semester exam (35%), Physiology/Pharmacology end of semester exam (35%)

Unlike for Science students, there is no percentage or formal assessment attached to the PRS clicker questions used in physiology lectures.  Lecture attendance is not recorded and attending lectures is optional.  I therefore suggest you save yourself the $10 or $20 clicker rental charge at the beginning of the semester.  They will try to scare you into renting one in the first lecture but I honestly suggest you don't get it.  They are nothing more than a stupid novelty and if you lose or don't return it, you pay for a new one otherwise your results are withheld.  I can guarantee that your learning experience will not be hampered by not getting one.

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes, all papers since 2009 when the subject began are available from the library website and LMS.  The anatomy past papers were all very useful and similar to the actual exam.  Seeing as a new coordinator has taken over in 2012, the physiology component of the assessment has completely changed and the past physiology papers are basically all useless because the new physiology coordinator does not use essay style questions whereas the previous one did.  The past pharmacology questions however are recommended as they too were repeated on the actual exam.

I strongly recommend you look at past Human Physiology (PHYS20008) papers for physiology practice, as this is more along the lines of questions which you will be asked.  There are probably over 50 of them available on the library website, although they may be under the name 'Principles of Physiology'.  If you would like more anatomy practice, then you would probably have to contact students in science studying Principles of Human Structure (ANAT20006) for extra work.  Likewise, contact Pharmacology: How Drugs Work (PHRM20001) students for additional pharmacology resources.

Textbook Recommendation:
  • Eizenberg, N., C. Briggs, C. Adams & G. Ahern. General Anatomy: Principles and Applications. Sydney: McGraw-Hill, 2007.
  • Silverthorn, D.U. Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach. San Francisco: Pearson, 2007
  • Anatomedia USB Stick

Unfortunately, there is no getting away with it.  You must have access to the two books in my opinion.
General Anatomy: Principles and Applications is co-authored by anatomy lecturer Chris Briggs and covers the general anatomical principles only.  It is therefore useful for only about a week but the lectures given have all the content/images taken from this book, so you pretty much need it.  Try not to buy it though.  It is overpriced and only necessary for about 7 lectures.  Either borrow it from the library or perhaps a science student who no longer requires it.

As for a textbook which covers regional anatomy, none is recommended.  The lectures are usually sufficient and cover the content which you need to be aware of.  This is probably a good thing because as someone else has mentioned in an anatomy subject review, reading and trying to learn anatomy from a textbook is both overwhelming and excessive.  Nonetheless, occasionally you may need to look something up.  Gray's Anatomy for Students is the most popular anatomy book.  Clinically Oriented Anatomy is also decent.  In terms of diagrams of muscles, bones, organs, joints etc., I found Netter's Interactive Atlas of Anatomy (CD-ROM) to be very good.  All of these resources are available online.  The good thing about anatomy is that Google is your friend and you can often look up diagrams and basic info without even really needing a book.

The Anatomedia USB Stick is a little hit and miss.  The layout/design/user interface is terrible.  However for ~$18 from the uni bookshop, I guess it is still worth it.  It has some decent diagrams of dissected cadavers and has a lot of the answers to many questions posed in past exams and ADSL (Anatomy Directed Self Learning) tasks.  Again, it is more of a 'look up' resource for when you need to find small bits of info or get a diagram clarified.  Certainly do not waste your time reading through the entire program, as it will take you an eternity and is both overwhelming and pointless.

Human Physiology: An integrated approach by Silverthorn is 110% required as the prescribed pre-reading for all physiology lectures comes from this book and the pre-reading is indeed examinable.  Thankfully, the 5th edition is available online if you look around.  You don't need the 6th edition.  Everyone I know used the 5th edition and was fine.  This book is not that great in my opinion.  The explanations are often indirect and tend to use silly analogies.  The diagrams are good though and they often come up on exams with spaces missing.
 
I also used another book for physiology called Human Physiology: From Cells to Systems, 7e by Sherwood.  Most of the time I found I preferred the diagrams and explanations in this book.  They seemed much more direct and to the point.  This book is also available for download online. Between these two physiology texts, I think you have all the physiology content covered.

In terms of Pharmacology, the department recommends Rang and Dale's Pharmacology.  I found an e-text and had a quick read through it.  I personally found it woeful and confusing.  The pharmacology lectures and slides should suffice.  If not, then as mentioned above, get additional resources from students studying second year pharmacology.

Lecturer(s):

Physiology
  • David Williams [Subject Coordinator] (Neurophysiology, Cardiovascular Physiology, Respiratory Physiology)
  • Stephen Harrap (Renal Physiology)
  • Joel Bornstein (Digestive Physiology)
  • Mary Wlodek (Reproductive Physiology)

Anatomy
  • Chris Briggs [Anatomy Coordinator] (Anatomical Principles, Upper Limb, Lower Limb, Back)
  • Colin Anderson (Embryology)
  • Peter Kitchener (Neuroanatomy)
  • Jenny Hayes (Cardiovascular System, Kidneys + Renal System, Lower Respiratory Tract, Digestive System + Thoracic/Abdominal Viscera)
  • Jason Ivanusic (Upper Respiratory Tract, Reproductive System and Pelvic Viscera)

Pharmacology
  • Alastair Stewert [Pharmacology Coordinator] (Pharmacodynamics, Drug Design)
  • Michael Lew (Pharmacokinetics)
  • Graham Mackay (Drugs affecting the nervous system, Autonomic Nervous System)

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2

Rating:   2.4/5 (Overall)
  • Anatomy 1.6/2.0
  • Pharmacology 0.6/1.0
  • Physiology 0.2/2.0

I have split it up by department and topic to be a bit more objective.  For mine, the overall coordination and physiology lectures/practical made this subject a complete pain...one which I never want to re-live again.

Your Mark/Grade: H1 93

Comments:

I will make some general comments before commenting on each topic area.

HSF has been the least impressive subject which I have taken in this degree and in my opinion undermines the whole point of having a biomedicine degree.  It is a subject which combines anatomy, physiology and pharmacology.  In theory it sounds great but in practice it does not really work.  Firstly, there is no integration whatsover between the topics.  One department comes in and lectures their part (e.g. anatomy of the kidney) and then another department comes in after and lectures their part (e.g. physiology of the kidney).  So far this sounds great.  The first part of the problem is that the lectures are not tailored for the biomed course.  They are the EXACT SAME as the lectures in science which really makes you question the point of the whole exercise.  On top of this, about a dozen anatomy/physiology lectures get ripped out of the course to make way for the pharmacology component.  You miss out especially on important physiology lectures to make way for some ordinarily taught pharmacology, which creates even more confusion.  The most pointless part of the whole subject is after making a half assed effort to try and "integrate" the topics in the lectures, the anatomy and physiology exams are separate anyway.

...the point is that this subject is little more than what you get in science, except taught, coordinated and examined very poorly for the most part. /end rant

Anatomy
I found the anatomy component by far the most enjoyable and best taught part of this subject.
Chris Briggs is a legend and Jenny Hayes is basically the Anatomy version of Sandra Uren from Microbiology.
Jason Ivanusic is okay, although he absolutely hates answering questions by email.
I think the key to anatomy is to get over the initial phase, especially the 'Principles' lectures. 
These are boring and somewhat confusing.  Luckily, all of the content from these lectures is taken from the textbook so it is worth having access to a copy.  Once you begin learning about actual bones, muscles and specific organ systems, it becomes a lot more interesting.  A key theme with the anatomy content seems to be relating things back to diseases, so it is worth basing some of your learning around this.

Physiology
I will try to be objective here, but I absolutely hated physiology.  This was all mainly due to the lack of any kind of quality teaching.
The main lecturer would never finish his lectures and would waste copious amounts of time reiterating the same point and rubbishing on with PRS.  The best part is that he expects you to know all of the content in the prescribed readings, so you will need some form of the textbook and on top of this you are going to actually have to read it.  Stephen Harrap and Mary Wlodek were fairly decent, but as they are minor lecturers, they have basically no say with what ends up in the exam.  Joel Bornstein... words cannot describe how bad he is so I will not even bother to try.

Seeing as the lectures in HSF and Human Physiology are usually the exact same (as are the exam questions, but I will get to this later), my best advice is to get a hold of some of the Human Physiology lecture recordings given by Charles Sevigny.  This guy is an absolute legend and teaches everything clearly, quickly and best of all he is very entertaining.  He is the only reason I got through this subject.

Pharmocology
There is not a lot to really talk about here other than to say that if you are concurrently taking the second year pharmacology subject, then you have a bludgy 10 lectures whilst if you aren't, you will have your work cut out.
Graham Mackay is a really nice lecturer and explains things very well and concisely.  His content is also good in that you can shrink it down into a couple of tables which you can then just memorise.  No one seems to like Alastair Stewert very much.  Granted, he is somewhat boring, but he is actually good at explaining things.  Michael Lew on the other hand seemed very disinterested and almost like he didn't want to be there.  He was more interested in going off on tangents and telling pointless stories than he was in lecturing.
Best of all, he explained a concept completely wrong so watch out in case he makes another confusing blunder.  Overall, I liked pharm but found that it was taught poorly and this will always leave a sour taste in your mouth.  The department recommends 'Rang and Dale's Pharmacology' however I found that this did not help at all.  It is probably best to focus on the lecture content and try to ask questions if there are things which are unclear.

Pracs
The anatomy pracs are optional and there were four of them.  They are more of a learning aid than anything else.
They are cool though so it is definitely worth trying to make the effort to go.  Some of the demonstrators are good and others are not so good so try and find one who wants to teach rather than just leaving you there to work stuff out for yourself.  The anatomy pracs are not assessed in any way.

The physiology prac is a nightmare.  Our prac was on the cardiovascular and respiratory response to exercise, something which was never addressed in the lectures.  Once you have done the prac and gotten your data (which is train wreck and makes no sense), you then have to write up a discussion and explain the results.  The fact that the content is never taught and the data is inconsistent makes this a major drag.  We were left trawling through textbooks, journals etc. trying to make sense of everything. 
It is best to work with friends on this because it is the only way you will come up with a semi-decent discussion and get some of the right answers.  I also believe that the prac content changes each year so this may be good news if you are taking this subject in the future, because you may get something that was actually taught.

Anatomy Exam
Thankfully, this exam is rather straight forward.  It has MCQs, fill in blanks and essay questions.  Our year however did not have any choice with respect to essay topics and we had to do them all.  The good thing with this exam is that it only addressed the lecture content and better still, many of the MCQs and some of the essay topics were the exact same as from past exam papers.
The prac content and ADSL worksheets were not assessed, but these would make for good revision if you had the time.

Physiology/Pharmacology Exam
This exam contains combined Pharm (25%) and Physiology (75%).
The Pharm component is really good and relatively straight forward.  Again, there is a lot of recycling questions from past papers so if you are familiar with these and know the lecture content well, then this part will be fine.

Ever since the new coordinator has come in, the past essay style physiology questions are ABSOLUTELY USELESS.  Do not waste your time on them.  This new coordinator prefers to test 'concepts' and hates marking long essay questions so he is unlikely to put them in the exam.  He has introduced new menu style/fill in the blanks questions.

Anyway, with this exam, it did not even cover all of the content taught.  The coordinator decided that because Renal Physiology was already tested in the MST, he did not test it again in the exam.  Instead, he took a random question from the Human Physiology exam and gave it to us.  Likewise, he could not be bothered writing a new cardiovascular question so he took that from the Human Physiology Exam as well.
Better still, the digestion and reprodution questions were also taken from the Human Physiology exam.
If you are wondering which exam I am talking about, it is the exam which the Human Physiology students sit in the exact same exam period.

Therefore, the moral of the story is to make friends with Human Physiology students because firstly, they actually get taught the lecture content properly and this is what the exam is based on...so this is what I recommend you focus on.  Secondly, the HSF exam is likely to contain copious amounts of ripped off questions from the Human Physiology paper, so you can potentially know a lot of what you are going to get asked by simply finding out what was on this paper, assuming it is before the HSF paper.

Honing in on the questions which are likely to get asked on this paper, basically, David Williams is obsessed with questions where you are given a bunch of scenarios and then have to choose whether a parameter will increase/decrease/not change or whether there is not enough information.  He has done this with neurophysiology and also with respiratory physiology.  These questions are an absolute pain.  It requires you to think like him.  Sometimes you are allowed to make assumptions whereas other times you are not and the correct answer is 'not enough information'.  Good luck trying to work this out because only he knows what is going on in his mind. 
Also, it is very much worth going through past Human Physiology papers.  There are literally over 50 on the library repository.
The neurophysiology and reproductive questions on our exam were taken from these.
Again, focus on the ones which require filling in tables, one word/line answers, circling stuff etc.

Basically, in case you haven't noticed, physiology is a nightmare and you will have your work cut out in this subject trying to work out what you need to know, mainly because very little of it is taught in the lectures.  The best chance you have of succeeding in this subject is to collaborate with friends and together try and work out some of the ridiculous answers to some of the questions which will be asked on the exam.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2013, 02:52:02 pm by stonecold »
2011-13: BBiomed (Microbiology & Immunology Major) @ UniMelb


VCE 2009'10: English 46 | English Language 49 | Chemistry 50 | Biology 50 | Further Mathematics 48 | Mathematical Methods CAS 39
ATAR: 99.85

"Failure is not when one falls down but rather when one fails to get up" - unknown

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #114 on: February 07, 2013, 04:48:07 am »
+7
Subject Code/Name: ANTH10001: Anthropology: Studying Human Diversity 

Workload:  1 x 2 hour lecture and 1 x 1 hour tutorial each week)

Assessment:  An ethnographic observation exercise of 1000 words (25%) due week 5, a 2000 word essay (50%) due in week 11, and a one hour (1000 word) test (25%) due during the examination period.

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, a couple of links to external material now and then.

Past exams available:  No.

Textbook Recommendation:  None.

Lecturer(s): Andrew Dawson

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2

Rating:  3 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 77

Comments: Being a science student, I chose this as a breadth subject for reasons I have forgotten. I can't exactly say I enjoyed the subject, but it gave me time to cool my head off compared to the workload of the other Level 1 Sciences. I might have chosen another subject instead, but at least this didn't turn out bad.

For each week you have readings (a couple PDF files containing about 16-30 novel pages) that you have to read as the content will be discussed in the lectures and tutorials. The readings of each week focus on a different area of anthropology, such as kinship, cannibalism, ethics, etc.

I'll admit that I often skip the lectures and look them up later on lectopia. From the lectures I listened to and the ones I went to, the lecturer, Andrew Dawson, had his lectures rather well done with the aid of supplementary materials such as videos. Sometimes he does offer his own opinion of the topics in discussion, so don't fear if you don't agree with what he says. You may offer your own opinions in assessments and discussions, as long as they are backed with reasoning, evidence, and don't go overboard.

The tutorials were good and complemented the readings and lectures well, as well as clarifying some concepts and definitions of anthropology. My tutor, Maria Melo, was great to say the least. She was easy to approach, kind, and did not display any bias or spite to anybody.

As the assessment of the subject is wholely based on assignments and tests, I'll go over each of them briefly with short tips.

- Ethnographic Observation Exercise (25%): Basically a 1000 word essay on a certain everyday action, habit, or custom. (e.g. Family dinner, slumber party, etc) Your goal is to explain why they are doing it; the purposes of the action(s) in question, with anthropological topics such as materialism. It is important that you pay attention to details (observation exercise) of the event and explain them. Just keep the flow smooth and don't go over 1000 words + 10% words

- Test (25%): I question myself again on why they call this a test, because it's not really a test in the sense we are familiar with at all. All you have to do is take 10 of the readings, summarize them, and write a cumulative 1000 word (recommending 100 words each) summary on the readings. With preparation you can pretty much ace this. Just pick 10 readings you interpret the best, summarize them (I find writing/typing them down in bullet points greatly helpful), and type out summary paragraphs of each and make sure they don't go over 1000 by much. Now you have an idea of what to write, your job on the test date is just to write this down on paper! Easy stuff, this preparation also saves you time in the real test.

- Research Essay (50%): So you have a list of questions on different anthropology topics, and you're supposed to write a 2000 word paper on them. Sounds easier said than done, especially with the test date not being far from the essay due date, which during the exam period. Just your standard Uni essay procedure. Check out books, cover lots of material, use examples, you know the drill.

For the essays, try to use a lot of citations as that's also part of the rubric. Additionally, making drafts and having your tutor look over them always helps.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2013, 04:05:02 pm by Sinner »

nubs

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #115 on: February 21, 2013, 07:31:55 pm »
+4
Subject Code/Name: ENGL10002: Literature and Performance

Workload: Two 1-hour lectures and a 1-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment: A text-based exercise of 800 words worth 20% (due early in semester), an essay of 1200 words worth 30% (due mid-semester) and an essay of 2000 words worth 50% (due in the examination period).

Lectopia Enabled:  No

Past exams available:  There are not any exams for this subject.

Textbook Recommendation: 
W Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Oxford Worlds Classics
W Shakespeare, Othello, Oxford Worlds Classics
D Lynch and J Stillinger, eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume D: The Romantic Period, Norton
J Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Oxford Worlds Classics
C Dickens, Great Expectations, Oxford Worlds Classics
C Bronte, Jane Eyre, Oxford Worlds Classics
H Ibsen, A Doll's House (Four Major Plays), Oxford Worlds Classics
A Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard (Five Plays), Oxford Worlds Classics
And a subject reader

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2012

Rating: 3 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 74 (H2B)

Comments:
What they don’t tell you is that VCE Literature is assumed knowledge, which made it much more difficult for me.

Every student in the subject I had encountered had done Literature in VCE, which made the first essay very easy for them, and the poetry part of the course much more manageable, as it was no different to what they had encountered in VCE Literature.
I was very lazy. I don’t believe I read a single novel or play that semester, and for the last essay (a research essay on your choice of two novels) I only used summaries from the internet and some expert essays, so this subject is quite manageable, especially if you are willing to put in the work and have done VCE literature.

I found the lectures quite interesting and they went into far more detail than you ever would have experienced in VCE, so if you enjoy language analysis this subject is probably going to interest you a lot. That being said, more often than not the content in the lectures did not relate to what we did in the tutorials and what the essay prompts were asking for.

If you haven’t done VCE Literature but were quite good with the Language Analysis section of VCE English, then you won’t have much to worry about. Most people I knew had gotten similar or lower scores in this subject than I did anyway, so if it interests you and you are willing to do a lot of reading (which I wasn’t) then you will definitely do well.
ATAR: 99.15

BSc @ UoM
2012-2014

ex oh ex oh

nubs

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #116 on: February 21, 2013, 09:41:37 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: PHIL10003 Philosophy: The Great Thinkers

Workload:  3 (2x 1 hour lectures each week and 1x 1 hour tutorial for 11 weeks)

Assessment:  Three short papers: 2x500 words (12.5% each), and 1x1000 words (25%) due during the semester, and a 2-hour, closed book, written exam during the end of semester examination period (50%).

Collin decided for 2012 that he would let people do a regular essay instead of sitting the exam if they had a satisfactory reason. It could just be that you perform terribly in exams. All you had to do is tell him that and he would let you do a take home essay instead, giving you approximately two weeks to write it. Unsure on whether or not he is going to give this option again.

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No, but a huge list of potential questions were given. I was told every question on the exam had come from the long, long list.

Textbook Recommendation: 
Subject Reader

Lecturer(s): Dr Collin Marshall

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2, 2012

Rating: 3.5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 87

Comments:
You may enjoy ‘recreational’ philosophy or you may have an interest in history. That does not mean you will enjoy studying it at university.

To succeed in this subject you need to be able to present arguments fluently and back them up with solid logic, as well as making compromises for viewpoints you simply don’t want to acknowledge.

I was not a huge fan of this subject, Descartes especially was incredibly painful to study. Hume and Kant on the other hand were somewhat interesting, as was Plato. Contrary to what the handbook says, we do not study Marx and Machiavelli.
Plato tackles the issues of piety and the subjectivity of knowledge, while Hume and Kant focus on morality and reason.

So far Collin has been one of my favourite lecturers, second to only Professor Lamb (Chemistry). The tutorials were also very refreshing and a great way to break up the predictable and repetitious science tutorials. We’d just sit in a circle, be asked a question by the tutor and discuss it at length. They were definitely the highlight of the course.

Coming from a Maths background supposedly made the concepts much easier to grasp while a number of the Arts students were failing to comprehend the trail of logic and ‘rational’ thought that was applied by these philosophers in explaining their theories.

That being said, the essay tasks we were given were dreadful when they were on theories you disagreed with completely. For my essay on Descartes, Hume and Kant, I was asked to explain one of their theories, present an objection to them, and then give a counter objection on the philosopher’s behalf. Arguing for a theory you disagree with wholeheartedly was not an easy thing for me. The hardest part would be to find a counter objection. You try to use logic to contest a viewpoint, and then you need to find a way to contest that objection which should have been perfectly logical in the first place.
More often than not I would find gaping holes in the counter objections I gave which just infuriated me more. Yeah I’m pretty OCD like that.

I enjoyed the first two lectures on Descartes, then it all went downhill very, very quickly.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed Kant and Hume, I disagreed with them on a number of points, which, I reluctantly had to argue for.
« Last Edit: July 03, 2013, 02:04:12 pm by nubs »
ATAR: 99.15

BSc @ UoM
2012-2014

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #117 on: February 22, 2013, 01:13:41 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: ENGR10003 - Engineering Systems Design 2

Workload:  3 x 1 hour lectures per week, 1 x 3 hour workshop per week

Assessment:
5% attendance for workshops (0.5% per workshop provided you completed pre-workshop on LMS),
30% compromising of 20% homework tasks, 6% from 4 tests, and 4% from in-class assessment (the 30% is split equally between Mechanics, Programming and Digital Circuits sections),
5% Online Student Questions forum (answer 30 questions and contribute 3 questions)
60% End of Semester Exam

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture (I think, honestly never watched a lecture online if I missed one)

Past exams available:  Yes, ~3 from the library and 1 (I got the 2011) provided at the end of the semester.

Textbook Recommendation:  Dr. Buskes has complied a book from from different authors which is surprisingly good. You definitely do not have to buy it, but it will come in handy for ENGR20004 - Engineering Mechanics and FoEN - Foundations of Electrical Networks (not that you'll need it for FoEN with Brian's notes). The golden rule is that you should not buy university books in first year. The notes provided are, in my opinion, sufficient to score well in any subject.

Lecturer(s): Gavin Buskes (Electrical Engineering), Rao Kotagiri (Programming), Andrew Ooi (Mechanics - Civil and Mechanical Engineering)

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2, 2012

Rating:  4.5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1 (93)

Comments:
With ESD2, you begin your technical electives at the University of Melbourne. This subject covers the principle of digital circuits (electrical engineering), programming and an introduction to statics (through structures) and dynamics (through modelling aerodynamic affects on projectile motion, torque around a point among other things). Succeeding from a very boring subject about ethics and Chem Eng in ESD1, ESD2 really did ramp up the difficulty a bit and was much, much more interesting that it's predecessor.

Digital Circuits: Electrical Engineering

We'll start with digital circuits. In this topic, you learn about the abstraction of analog circuits to create digital ones, and how these logic circuits behave. You start off with number system and bases, with particular reference to base 2 (binary), base 8 (octal) and base 16 (hex). The Hamming Code and other error correction techniques and their implementation is taught in detail, and is covered as well in workshops where you program a PLD to implement it. You'll be learning how to represent digits and letters in ASCII code and how to transmit them efficiently. I found this part of the course pretty easy, but make sure you master the basics (especially in Hamming Code) otherwise you'll get lost.

Logic gates (AND, OR, NAND, NOR, XOR, NOT, XNOR etc), their truth tables, Karnaugh maps and Boolean Algebra is covered and taught how to create larger combinatorial circuits with those. I found that this section of the course started of incredibly easy, but then ramped up towards the end when they started creating larger circuits such as 4 bit comparators starting from first principles. Boolean Algebra was a little weird to start off with, but now, after doing it in ESD2 and FoEN, it's become almost second nature after you've mastered truth tables and memorized Boolean laws. The rest of the course, for EE, is used on design principles and how to tackle problems in order to find the "best" solution.

I found that the assignment questions for EE, especially towards the end of Assignment 2 and Assignment 3, quite difficult and requires you to be proficient at the lecture topics. They are true design problems, such as creating a large (I mean, large) combinatorial logic circuit in order to meet the specs. Make sure you pay attention in workshops because these questions usually end up on the exam.

Matlab Coding: Software Engineering/ Computer Science

This is by far the worst portion of this course. Learning how to code using lectures just failed in my opinion. The best way that I learned how to code was by getting MATLAB myself and practising. This portion of the course runs through operators, function, input-outputs, branching, loops, iterations, "games", cryptography and algorithms. The MATLAB assignments, like the EE assignments, we're pretty difficult if you did not have MATLAB yourself. YOU NEED TO PRACTISE CODING. GOING TO LECTURES WILL NOT BE ENOUGH! The programming question on the exam is quite easy, and just relies on you being able to use imbedded functions and how to write functions. No need to stress if you are finding the long-winded assignment questions hard.

Structural Analysis and Aerodynamics: Mechanical/Civil Engineering

Probably my favourite part of the course. We started off by doing a recap on springs, both linear and non-linear and parallel/series equivalents. Non-linear analysis was run through, but not in depth. Resultant forces in vector notation is run through quickly, including a recap on addition of vectors and via cosine and sine rules. Rigid bodies come in now, where the application point of the force must be taken into consideration. The principle of transmissibility (PAY ATTENTION IN THIS LECTURE) is taught and how to use it is vital. Moments, torques and couples are covered, and various methods of finding moments about a point is discussed. Resultant forces are brought back and covered in more depth, specifically to the x and y- intercepts of the resultant force via moment calculations. This is something I always took for granted. Even if you sum up the force vectors, where does that vector R start and finishing in order to get the same torque on the body.

Structural analysis begins after all of this, and we start by looking at different reaction forces due to different types of contact. The method of joint and sections for structural analysis is run through in depth and buckling forces and ultimate stress failure is covered. The assignment about struss analysis with wind forces applied at an angle of -90 < x < 90 was by far the coolest MATLAB analysis I've done at university.

The Mechanical section covered Euler's method of solving differential equations via MATLAB which is very useful for later assignments and subjects (or so said my tutor). You basically create a replica function for the ode45 (D.E. solving in MATLAB) and discuss how to apply it to projectile motion with air resistance and pendulum problems with the string length changing (think Spiderman swinging and pulling in his web as he does). These type of D.E.s are quite difficult to solve because they are coupled differential equations, so I found this section and method very interesting and applicable to engineering problems. Dynamics is recovered quickly and advanced. I found that the lecturer tried a little too hard to be funny and didn't teach enough, and I wasn't the only one with that opinion. Regardless, when he did teach, he did it well.

Digital Circuits: Electrical Engineering - 9/10
Matlab Coding: Software Engineering/ Computer Science - 3/10
Structural Analysis and Aerodynamics: Mechanical/Civil Engineering - 9/10


If you're an Eng. Sys major, you have to take this class. It's pretty good, I'll admit, but some aspects did suck hardcore (programming). Hopefully you enjoy it as much as I did.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2013, 02:37:47 pm by Hancock »
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2012 - 2014: B.Sc. - Mechanical Systems - The University of Melbourne
2014 - 2014: Cross-Institutional Study - Aero/Mech Engineering - Monash University
2015 - 2016: M.Eng (Mechanical with Business) - The University of Melbourne
2015 - Sem1: Exchange Semester - ETH Zurich

Hancock

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #118 on: February 26, 2013, 01:54:18 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name: PHYC10004 - Physics 2: Physical Sciences and Technology 

Workload:  3x1 hour lectures per week, 1x3 hour practical per week (total of 10 practicals, leaving Week 1 and another free), 1 hour "Problem Solving" Class

Assessment:  25% Practical/Lab Work, 15% Homework Tasks, 60% Final Exam

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes

Past exams available:  Yes, ~4 for PHYC10004 specifically. Look up Physics B for more (dating back to 1999). They are essentially the same subject.

Textbook Recommendation:  BUY PHYSICS FOR SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS. YOU'LL THANK ME LATER.

Lecturer(s): Roger Rassoll for Quantum Physics (Part 2) and some other guys that escape me for Electromag (Part 1).

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2, 2012

Rating: 3.5-4.75 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1 (93)

Comments:

So, Physics 2. This is where you'll basically see a cohort of 70% engineering majors, 5% Mathematic majors and 20% Physics majors. Don't get me wrong, I found this class incredibly interesting and enjoyable. However, the lectures lacked information that was found (and needed) in the book, and the labs, like all first year Physics labs, weren't integrated into the lecturer curriculum well.

The course begins with basic electromagnetism, beginning with Coulomb's Law and beginning Maxwell's equations for Electromag in Lecture 2. Gauss's law is covered through the concept of an electric field from various charge distributions, including but not limited to: spheres, infinite rods, infinite planes, point charges and disks. Electrical conductors and the electric potential (better known as voltage) is discussed at length, using calculus to define both.

Electrical device's come up next, where capacitors are looked into detail along with their practical applications. Kirchoff's laws of current and voltage are run through extremely quickly, but that's ok because they are pretty easy. Magnetic fields and how they arise are next, where the Biot-Savant Law and the Lorentz force law will be taught. Pay attention to these because they are necessary. The magnetism portion of the subject completes the 4 Maxwell Equations. REMEMBER THESE EQUATIONS OFF BY HEART. The will be used to derive many expressions in exams and tutorials. They are also pretty neat.

As a general note for the Electromagnetism portion of the course. This course uses surprising large amount of calculus for modelling. I know that mathematics is the language of Physics, but a lot of students, including myself, was not expecting this. Line integrals and setting up integrals for Gauss's law and the Biot-Savant Law are extremely common. Finding the electric field due to a charge distribution is elementary compared to finding the voltage (electric potential) parallel to a rod at a distance r from each differential charge dq of the rod (this uses summation/integration).

This is the reason I advocate buying the book. The book covers the calculus behind the physics extremely well, with many examples that are too long for the lecture to include. I whole-heartedly believe that this book taught me extremely well in terms of how to tackle each problem and what the relevant physics and mathematics to use were.   

After the electromag portion of the subject, there is 1.5 weeks of Fluids and Thermodynamics. This doesn't really get covered in depth, however, it would be good if you could read the chapters in the book as the assessed material was harder than the lecture material indicated.

The quantum portion of this subject isn't taught very well. I'd like to say that it has nothing to do with the lecturer, but it does. And it's not because the lecturer was bad, it is because the material is just weird to explain for 1st year undergraduates (I believe) (IE: WTF is an infinite potential well of energy?). Many equations will be rehashed from Year 12, however, in a tad more detail. Once again, this is where the textbook shines as it explains all of the topics in much more detail and provides a much better understanding for future classes and the exam. Buy it, and study all the chapters. I still have this book and I'm proud that I could finish all of it through two Physics courses at UoM.

All in all, a very good subject that has interesting topics. However, it could be taught more throughly. This is mediated by the purchase of the prescribed text book.

With the book: 4.75/5
Without the book: 3.5/5
« Last Edit: February 26, 2013, 01:58:17 am by Hancock »
Thinking of doing Engineering? - Engineering FAQs

2012 - 2014: B.Sc. - Mechanical Systems - The University of Melbourne
2014 - 2014: Cross-Institutional Study - Aero/Mech Engineering - Monash University
2015 - 2016: M.Eng (Mechanical with Business) - The University of Melbourne
2015 - Sem1: Exchange Semester - ETH Zurich

nubs

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #119 on: February 27, 2013, 03:27:03 am »
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Subject Code/Name: PHYC10005: Physics Fundamentals

Workload: 3 x one hour lectures per week; 1 x one hour tutorial per week; 28 hours of practical work (8 x three hour laboratory sessions and up to 30 minutes of pre-laboratory activity) and 10 weekly assignments of 30 minutes each during the semester.

Assessment: Ongoing assessment of practical work during the semester (25%); ten weekly assignments (10 x 1.5% = 15%); a 3-hour written examination in the examination period (60%).

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes

Past exams available:  Yes

Lecturers : Martin Sevior and (I think) Christopher Chandler. I’m about to make some pretty negative comments on the lecturers for this course, so if Christopher Chandler wasn’t actually one of the lecturers please let me know so I can remove his name

Textbook Recommendation: 
R Knight, B Jones and S Field, College Physics: A Strategic Approach, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, 2010.

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2012

Rating: 1.5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: (H1)

Comments:
This subject is for students who did not do VCE Physics, and is intended to cover much of the content in the VCE course, as well as going into much greater depth so you are ready for the second semester subjects. As a result, this subject is much harder than VCE Physics would be, and by the end of it you should know nearly as much as the students in the regular Physics stream. The only difference between the two subjects is that the regular stream uses more calculus.

The Lecturers were not great to say the least, I don’t think there was one student in that course that would disagree with that. They made the subject incredibly boring, ripping out all the interesting parts and leaving us with an incredibly mind-numbing teaching method. Motion was my favourite part of the Specialist Mathematics course. These lecturers made me HATE motion as well as every other topic they taught. Seriously, these guys were terrible and they don’t ever deserve to teach students again. Or even talk to them. They shouldn’t look at them either.

We were basically taught, or forced, to memorise rather than understand. When either of them did try to explain something, it wasn't done very well.

All this subject really is, is a bit of theory and knowing how to apply the theory using a bunch of different formulas. Some of the kids found the subject really difficult because of a lack of experience with maths and the lecturer’s inability to explain the theory well enough so that students could effectively apply it. The tutorials on the other hand were much better and helped significantly.

That being said, the homework assignment answers can all be found using Google, and it is entirely possible to get above 100% on each of them. My average for the semester was something like 102%
The practicals were also pretty easy to get through (with my instructor anyway). They could be somewhat enjoyable if you had good partners, but not always relevant to the course. Most people got 9s and 10s for all of them, so they’re pretty easy to score well in.
So, yeah, if you do well on those two parts of the course, then you only need something like 20%  on the exam to pass the subject.

My exam also included a lot of questions from the tutorials and (from what I was told) past exam papers. A very boring subject for your average maths student, and a very easy subject to do well in if you make somewhat of an effort (i.e. typing assignment questions into Google). Only take it if you need to, I can almost guarantee that you won’t find it very interesting, and you’d be better off learning it on your own if you’re only doing it for interest’s sake, or for the sake of your GAMSAT preparation.

If you've done well in Specialist Maths but haven't done Physics in High School, you're allowed to (with permission) to do Physics 1 instead of Physics 1:Fundamentals. There really isn't much of an advantage of doing this, because like I said, there isn't a huge difference between both the courses, just that Physics 1 uses a bit more calculus, and Physics 1: Fundamentals explains the things that are sometimes assumed to be assumed knowledge for the Physics 1 stream.

That being said, you wouldn't be at significant disadvantage if you were to do Physics 1 without doing Physics. You'd have to teach yourself a lot of the content throughout the semester so you're prepared for lectures, but you virtually have to teach yourself everything anyway for the Fundamentals stream. The lecturers are that bad.
« Last Edit: July 03, 2013, 02:12:13 pm by nubs »
ATAR: 99.15

BSc @ UoM
2012-2014

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