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March 19, 2024, 10:46:10 pm

Author Topic: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings  (Read 1729569 times)  Share 

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hums_student

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #765 on: November 21, 2019, 05:15:14 pm »
+2
Subject Code/Name: ECON10003 Introductory Macroeconomics

Workload: 
   - 2 x 1 hour lectures per week
   - 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week

Assessment:
   - 2 x multiple choice tests [5% each]
   - 2 x group assignments [10% each]
   - Final Exam [60%]
   - Tutorial Participation [10%]

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: There's about 20 past exams on the library website. Only the 2016, 2017, and 2018 exams are relevant to the current course (as of 2019 semester 2) and they are the only ones which also have answers.

Textbook Recommendation: Principles of Macroeconomics by Ben Bernanke, Nilss Olekalns and Robert Frank.
Both 4th and 5th edition are fine for this unit.

Lecturer(s): Lawrence Uren, Nahid Khan

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 2 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: Pass (53)

Comments:

Introductory Macroeconomics is compulsory for all Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Arts (Economics) students, so if you are reading this, chances are you don’t have much of a choice with picking this subject. If you are looking for a breadth subject, please note that Intro Macro has ECON10004 Introductory Microeconomics as a prerequisite.

Lectures

There are two 1hr lectures a week, and covers four main topics:
   • Keynesian Model
   • AD-AS Model
   • Economic Growth & the Solow-Swan Model
   • International Economics

I was in Lawrence's stream, he's a pretty great lecturer with a good sense of humour. I've never been to Nahid's lectures, but from going through both of their annotated slides, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference apart from the fact that Lawrence writes more legibly.

Tutorials

Tutes go for one hour each week and cover contents from the previous week. In each tute, there will be a worksheet which you will be given time to attempt yourself before the tutor goes through the solutions.

Each week there is also pre-tutorial work uploaded on the LMS which must be completed before the tute. Most tutors are quite relaxed with checking to see if you have done it, but it does account for 10% of your overall grade.

Assessments

Multiple Choice Tests: There are two online MC quizzes throughout the semester, the first one was in week 4 and the other in week 11. Both are worth 5% each and have 15 questions with 30 minutes to complete them.

Group Assignments: There are two group assignments, the first was due around week 6 and the other in week 10. They were worth 10% each and you could work in groups of up to 3 students from your tutorial. The assignments were incredibly short, but requires quite a lot of detailed explanations. The word limit for both were 1,000 words.

Exam: The exam is worth 60%, it has 60 marks and goes for 2 hours with 15 minutes reading time. There's 15 multiple choice questions (1 mark each), and 3 larger questions worth 45 marks in total.

Final thoughts

I found Intro macro to be quite a challenging subject even though the common consensus is that it is better than intro micro. To compare the two, macro has a much heavier emphasis on theory while micro has a bit more maths. I wouldn’t recommend taking macro if you are looking for a good breadth option. For a commerce subject, it's really not that applicable unless you plan to become a policymaker in the future.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2019, 03:39:55 pm by hums_student »
2019-21: Bachelor of Arts (Politics & Int'l Relations / Economics)

M909

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #766 on: November 28, 2019, 07:36:06 am »
+2
Subject Code/Name: ECON30011 Environmental Economics

Workload: 2 × 1 hour lectures, 1 × 1 hour tutorial (Generally per week, however 3 tutorials were replaced with presentation sessions in week 8, 9 and 10)

Assessment:
Presentation (8 minute limit), 15%
Assignment, 25%
2 Hour Multiple Choice Exam, 60% (Hurdle Requirement)

Lecture Capture Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture, but sometimes difficult to hear, especially audience discussions

Past exams available:  One mock exam, covering the first half of the semester to give you an idea of what to expect.

Textbook Recommendation:  Environmental and Natural Resource (11th ed) by Tietenberg and Lewis. I bought it because I was very interested in the content and would ideally like to apply it in a future career, but definitely not necessary to have.

Lecturer: Veronika Nemes

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2, 2019

Rating: 4.5 Out of 5 (now I know I've passed :P), but feel this could vary greatly depending on what you're hoping to get out of it.

Your Mark/Grade: H2B

Comments: Overall, I found the content of this subject really fascinating to learn about, and really felt I got something out of taking it. Probably wasn't perfectly organised, but understandable given a new coordinator took over this year, so should only improve from here. It had a fairly small cohort size (around 65) and discussions were highly encouraged in lectures, giving it somewhat of a more intimate feel (if you attended). Ultimately, I'd only recommend this subject if you're actually interested in environmental problems. Don't take it thinking it sounds like an easy elective/breadth because it's definitely not.

Lecture topics were:
-Economic Approach to Environmental Problems (market failures and policy instruments)
-Economics of Pollution Control
-Global Air Pollution (Ozone Layer and Climate Change)
-Electricity Generation Policies
-Energy (Natural gas, oil, nuclear)
-Recyclable Resources
-Transport
-Fisheries
-Land Use, Conservation, and Biodiversity
-Water

Lectures:
LOTS of information to absorb for each lecture. Ideally you should be keeping up and reviewing consistently (I didn't do this, it caused stress in the exam period!). That being said, Veronika obviously really knew her stuff having worked in the industry, and I always found lectures very interesting. Audience participation strongly encouraged, as mentioned above. Grey non-examinable slides were also provided for interest.

Tutorials:
Also pretty interesting. The class would go through a problem set you'd have access to beforehand (sometimes with solutions), similar to standard economic tutorial questions. Also some discussion based questions, and we'd sometimes work on the questions in groups. While actual calculation based questions are not required for the MC final exam, most tutorial questions were still relevant/needed for the exam.

Presentation:
A lot of freedom was given in choosing your topic, as long as too many people weren't doing the same thing. You're given the choice between 3 presentation "types", academic, policy or pub, and can choose any "environmental economics" problem. A clear rubric was given, so getting a good mark was very doable with sufficient practice. The key point was to "extend"/add your own contribution and linked to/use the lecture content. Apart from your own, the other presentation sessions were optional to attend.

Assignment:
Required a good amount of effort (given it is 25%), but I enjoyed it overall and it wasn't too difficult. Some questions were similar to tutorial stuff and required graphs, calculations ect. Reviewing tutorial solutions helped here. There were also more open-ended type questions, requiring your own interpretations/opinions. Surprisingly the open-ended questions weren't too hard to score well in as long as you gave it your best attempt and linked the lecture concepts.

Exam:
Despite being MC, this was NOT an easy exam. 33 questions, each with between 3 to 14 possible answers (usually around 8 or so? but I didn't really pay attention to the "average" number of possible answers in the exam). Some answers could be easily crossed off, but for others it was quite difficult to choose between the remaining few choices, and you really had to know the details of the lecture and tutorials content. Based on my score, I think some scaling occured as I was kind of worried I failed the hurdle here. But based on my experience, one should be fine if they give it their best effort to learn the content.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2019, 07:38:55 am by M909 »
VCE, 2015-2016
BCom (Econ) @ UniMelb, 2017-2019
MCEng (Elec) @ UniMelb, 2020-?

huy8668

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #767 on: December 11, 2019, 02:32:59 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: MAST30026 Metric and Hilbert Space 

Workload:  3 lectures + 1 tutorial weekly

Assessment:  3 assignments, together worth 20% of the final marks.

Lectopia Enabled:  No. The lecturer insteads pre-recorded them and uploaded them on YouTube.

Past exams available:  Yes one exam from 2018. This is a new subject.

Textbook Recommendation:  Nope

Lecturer(s): Daniel Murfet

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating:  5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: Wow bro, hold your horses man? Jk jk, marks are discussed later, please keep reading :))

Comments:
   Briefly on what the subject is about
The motivation of the subject is that we don’t really know what space is. Most of the time, we think of space as \(\mathbb{R}^3\)or maybe \(\mathbb{R}^4\) if you include time. As it turns out, this notion of space is incomplete and is wrong in certain cases. However, some concepts in \( \mathbb{R}^3\) makes sense, like how we can measure distance on it or how we can “add” points together. Such fundamental concepts can be generalised and from such, we create different types of “spaces”. Thus, this subject is really just about studying these new kinds of spaces that we’ve defined.
    Content
The main topics about spaces covered include
  • - Space which we can measure distance from one person’s location to another (metric space)
  • - Space which we study what happens “near” a person (topological space)
  • - Spaces with walls, in which you can only fit a finite number of people (compact space)
  • - Space where everyone is separated from one another (hausdorff space)
  • - Space which we look at people’s movements, particles’ trajectories (functional space)
  • - (A revisit of) spaces which we can measure angles and distance and add points together (inner product spaces)
  • - Space where we have a leader and everyone is given a ranking, based on this leader (normed space)
  • - Spaces in which is home to all families where we believe here that everyone in the family should stays together (Banach space)
  • - A combination of the above spaces, the big boss space (Hilbert space)
Some applications/tools topics include
  • - Isometries
  • - Banach’s fixed point theorem
  • - Stone-Weierstrass theorem
  • - Integral pairs
  • - Symmetry dictates spaces
   

    Skills required to do well in the subject
Some minimal and necessary (but not sufficient) skills/knowledge to do well in this subject
   
  • - You’ll be required to know your MAST20022 Group Theory and Linear Algebra content quite well. More specifically, basic results about groups and especially quotient groups
  • - You’ll need to be in full command of \(\epsilon - \delta\) types of proofs. For example, know how to find the appropriate \(\delta\) given an inequality.
  • - Know your sequences, Cauchy sequence definitions well. For example, how can a Cauchy sequence not converge?
  • - Be able to work with definitions to come up with a proof. For example, you won’t always be able to use your intuition to come up with proofs. It is required that you can use ideas provided in lectures as well as work with definitions to come up with a proof.
    Lecturer
As a lecturer, Daniel is very passionate and understand the subject at an extremely deep level. After all, this is his field. You can pretty much just mention any problems from the notes or any part of a proof and he’d be able to recognise it on the spot and help you with it. He knows his notes extremely well.
As a person, Daniel is very humble, calm and down to earth kind of guy. He is also a very good listener. He’d patiently listen to your question and answer them, not just jump straight to conclusion and assume what you’re asking.
You’ll definitely like Daniel as the lecturer.
   Lectures
Although the pace within the lecture is nothing out of the ordinary, you’ll likely find that the rate at which content is introduced is incredibly fast and that’s because in some sense, it is. A lot of people will say that this is due to the immense about of content in the subject. Personally however, looking back, it was not the volume of content that made this subject so fast for me. It was more that I was not used to thinking about this kind of stuff. Thus, each unit of content required a lot more time to process and while I’m still trying to understand one concept, another one which is built on it has already been introduced.
To do well, I think one just has to grind and devote time to the subject. Over time, you’ll improve and grow as a mathematician, during which you’ll find the subject much more manageable.
Daniel also mentioned that he witnessed how students go through a journey throughout this subject and change, as a mathematician.
Bottom line is, there’s no big secret, you’ve just gotta grind.
   Tutorials
The tutorials do not follow the traditional format of everyone working on problems in small groups. Instead, they are supplementary lectures that is intended to aid students with the main lecture’s topics.
The tutorials are not examinable unless otherwise specified.
   Assignments
The assignment is generally quite difficult and requires small but ingenious ideas to solve. This is why discussion with friends is so beneficial as bouncing ideas back and forth can really give birth to something completely new.
This year, the assignments got easier as the semester progresses. The first one was a killer and I only managed to get through it thanks to discussing it with a friend of mine who is very dedicated to the subject. The second one was more of a you-need-to-be-careful type of assignment and the last one was not bad at all.
The assignments take time to do so make sure you get to it early.
    Exam
The exam’s difficulty completely depends on how much time you devoted to the subject throughout the semester, especially during the revision period leading up to the exam. As a general rule of thumb, if you’ve done very question in the lecture notes, you’ve got pretty much no problem. Some people even went so far as to claim that you’ll get 90+ for sure if you’ve done all the questions in the notes.
The bulk of the exam is pretty much just problems from the lecture notes or problems very similar to those. There will be at least one proof from lectures that you’ll be expected to reproduce.
In 2018, this is consistent. The exam was 100% problems from the lecture notes + a proof.
In 2019, the lecturer is a bit more creative and made 68.75% of the exam marks just lecture problems + a proof. The other 31.25% were some new stuff. One question was on lecture definitions and coming up with an example, which was worth 12.5%. This was fine in the sense that if you studied the material, you should be able to do most or all of it. The remaining 18.75% was a new question which were not from lectures nor similar to anything found in the lecture notes. I think this question really screwed people. To earn these 18.75%, it is not enough to just know the material well. Instead, you needed to come up with a small but ingenious idea in the heat of the exam which I find to be very demanding. Personally, I think I only managed to solve this problem in this heat of battle out of pure luck. Honestly, I don’t think I could’ve done it again, like ever.
    Final comments
In general, this has been rumoured to be the most difficult undergraduate subject in the department of maths and stats in unimelb. I think it’s certainly lived up to it. The volume of the subject wasn’t not too bad, but the unfamiliar content is really what screws people over.
Now, I don’t have the distribution of marks, so these are just my guesses based on experience and anecdotal evidence. From pass to H3, I think it suffices to know definitions and be able to do assignments with help from friends. For the H2B – H2A range, generally you’ll need to know definitions, be able to follow proofs line by line and be able to do assignments with help from friends. For the 80 – 90, I reckon one needs to know definitions quite well, be able to follow proofs line by line and be able to do assignments completely on your own, with maybe exchanges of ideas with friends. For the 90+, I reckon it’s all the above + ace your assignment marks + but also lots of experience in studying in general. I think two people can spend an equal amount of time on the subject, but one will get a higher score (by about maybe 5 marks?) if that person has more experience in studying, especially maths subjects. In addition, at the 90+ range, the element of luck – something I firmly believe is involved in everything we do – plays a major role in determining whether you’re in the low 90, mid 90 or high 90.
Personally, I lost 1 mark on the assignments, but luck was in my favour on the exam so, thankfully I didn’t make any mistakes, putting myself at 99/100. This would not have been possible without not just lots of luck but also the immense effort I put in during the semester. I only got what I did because of the time and effort I put into this subject. If anybody else spent such an amount of time, they'd do just as well, if not, better than I did.

There was a 100, followed by me then a 97, according to the lecturer.

 
« Last Edit: December 11, 2019, 08:11:33 pm by huy8668 »

huy8668

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #768 on: December 12, 2019, 10:10:57 am »
+1
Subject code/name: MAST30012 Discrete Mathematics

Workload: Weekly tutorial + 3 lectures

Assessment: 3 assignments, worth 20% of the final grade

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  1 exam from 2018 with solution. It is a rewritten subject

Textbook Recommendation:  Nothing needed

Lecturer(s): Richard Brak

Year & Semester of completion: 2019

Rating:  5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: Bruh, you gotta chill. Jk marks are discussed later, please keep reading

Comments:

Briefly about the subject
Discrete mathematics basically deals with things that can be counted (at most countable sets). It is arguably one of the most manageable level 3 maths subject in unimelb, especially when you get Richard Brak as the lecturer.
For those looking for the most chill third year maths subject in unimelb, I guess you could say that this is the one. The material is not too abstract, and it is somewhat familiar with what we’ve seen in earlier years of mathematics education. In saying that though, to say that you could do well without trying is a gross underestimation of the subject. The volume of the subject is still comparable with some of the difficult subjects like MAST30026 and MAST30020, in my opinion. I think this subject is deceivingly difficult as I’ve heard of people who were very confident with the exam, expecting a 90+ but ended up with low H2B. I suppose you could say that it is an easy subject to pass but still difficult to do well on.


Content
The course is divided into basically 7 parts
Counting stuff (Enumerative combinatorics)
How to walk around places (Lattice paths)
How to putting balls into boxes (Pigeonhole Principle)
Determining whether something is odd or even (Parity argument)
Putting sequences into the coefficients of polynomials (Generating functions)
Interesting sequences and their usage (Fibonacci and Catalan)
Solving sliding puzzles and rearranging stuff (Permutations)


Lecturer
Most of the students’ opinions about Richard Brak that I’ve heard of are extremely positive. The only negative thing I’ve heard of is “when he writes on the board, he covers the writing so I can’t see his writing”.
I’ve been taught by Richard Brak during 2 semesters, one for MAST20026 Real Analysis and one for this subject. In both cases, I found him to be a very good educator. He explains the concepts very well and in-depth, telling you exactly what you need to know for the exam. What’s much better though, is the fact that he constantly reminds you what the terms mean and what the concepts are when he first introduces it to you. It’s something like this: so in DM, the notation is that a k-subset means a subset of size k (it has k elements in it). Here’s how he teaches it to a newbie:
“Here’s a definition: an k-subset is a subset of size k.” *Goes on to explain stuff for 5 minutes* “So then number of k-subsets, which remember that it means a subset of size k, of an n-set, meaning a subset of size n is given by…” *Proceeds to repeat the same sentence again and again until it’s in our brain*
I find this to be very conducive to learning because one’s learning benefits a lot from seeing the same concept over and over again.


Tutorials + assignments
Tutorials and assignments follow the standard format of a mathematics subject at unimelb. Questions are fair and very relevant to the lecture content. They’re pretty much the same as examples provided in the lectures, with small variations. Some are also taken from previous years’ exams. Of course, you’d still have to think about the problem for a while, but you should be able to solve them if you put in some honest effort in studying the subject.


Exam
The bulk of the exam were questions very similar to ones you’d find in assignments and tutorial.  There were no shockingly difficult questions on the exam (unlike many subjects), really, as Richard has been known for making very reasonable exams. The generic advice is that if you’ve studied diligently throughout the semester, you should have no problem dealing with the exam, which is still true.
Both the 2018 and 2019 exams were fair. Richard tried to ask problems on as many topics as possible but unable to ask problems on everything, of course. A question in 2018 was asked again in 2019. There were no trick questions that required you to really think and figure out some tricks.  All questions were pretty much “if you studied, then you can do it” and things you’ve seen before during the semester.


Final comments
A good tip is beware that all material including things from the lecture notes are examinable so if you have time, go through examples and all concepts covered in the lecture notes even if they didn’t make their way onto assignments and exams. I made the mistake of not studying everything and skipping some stuff I thought was not important. To my luck, they had to goddamn appear on the exam and it nearly screwed me over. It took me like 45 mins to figure this 3-mark (out of 100) question out while my friend all did it in like 2 seconds because they’ve seen it in the lecture notes. Thankfully I did fine, lost 1 assignment mark and 1 exam mark, putting myself at 98/100.

« Last Edit: December 13, 2019, 04:42:43 pm by huy8668 »

huy8668

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #769 on: December 12, 2019, 10:26:24 am »
+2
Subject Code/Name: MAST30001 Stochastic Modelling 

Workload: 3 lectures + 1 tutorial weekly

Assessment: 2 assignments worth 20% of the final grade

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture etc.

Past exams available:  Yes, lots with solutions.

Textbook Recommendation: 

Lecturer(s): Nathan Ross

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2 2019

Rating:  5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: wow, you gotta calm yo farm mate. Jk jk marks are discussed later, please keep reading ;)

Comments:

Briefly about the subject
This subject talks about stochastic processes and how you can use them to model certain problems. The format of subject is quite standard: you’re taught certain concepts and then you’re given a problem which can be solved by modelling using the concepts you were taught. One could say it is the next step forward from MAST20004 Probability as there is a strong resemblance in the theme of the two courses.
Difficulty is the debatable part of the course. I reckon that it really comes down to just how much time you want to devote for this subject and your mathematics background. It is not a pure maths type of subject like Probability for Inference, Complex Analysis, etc so you don’t have to do (too much) analysis, mainly just calculations. However, the concepts are not easy to get your head around so I wouldn’t say that you could do well without spending a decent amount of effort, either.
Personally, I found this subject extremely difficult, possibly because of the little amount of time I devoted to it. It was very struggling for me to wrap my head around certain concepts. I'd always have to re-think about concepts that I thought I've already understood it. Honestly though, I find that probability subjects are difficult in general and need to be treated with respect if you wanna do well on it. This subject is certainly not for those looking for a chill third year maths subject.
My review will be pretty short as it’s not much different from MAST20004, MAST20005, MAST20006. If you’re looking into doing this subject, you’ve probably have done those and thus, you know what it was like.

Subject content
•   Stuff that randomly change, one step at a time (Discrete time Markov Chain)
•   Stuff that arrives over time but forgets what happened in the past (Poisson Process)
•   Stuff that randomly change over time (Continuous time Markov Chain)
•   Analysing queues of customers (Queuing theory)
•   Stuff that arrives over time that remembers what happened in the past (Renewal Theory)
•   Stuff that changes as a result of its fluctuations of its small constituents (Brownian motion)
Lecturer
Nathan is a cool dude. In lectures he seems a stoic and emotionless but then in tutorials he’s very enthusiastic and energetic. All I can say is that he is a very knowledgeable lecturer and he really understands this stuff. He’s also very generous when it comes to the exam. He is quite open about telling us what is to be expected on the exam and provides many past assignments and exams with solutions.

Lectures
•   Lectures follow the usual format of a maths subject. You’ll find that Nathan’s lectures are kind of funny because everything he says, he makes it sound like it’s not important but really it is. He’ll often makes subtle jokes, but people don’t seem to catch those, probably due to his stoic expression.
•   Nathan often spends time during lectures to summarise the stuff we’ve gone through and at the end of the semester, he even taught us how to study for the exam, something that seldomly happens at the tertiary education level.
Tutorial
•   Tutorials follow the standard maths subjects format of working on the board together. The questions are either exam-style questions or walkthroughs to help you derive certain things, with the goal of assisting with your understanding of the material. I find these walkthrough questions to be extremely interesting and helpful.
•   Tutorials are thankfully provided with solutions (unlike certain subjects).

Assignment
The assignment questions are on par with what you see in tutorials and what you’d expect on the exam. They’re pretty much just additional problems that can be a little lengthier but conceptually, it is just as difficult (or just as easy, depending on how you look at it).
I found the assignments very difficult, probably due to my lack of understanding of the subject. 


Exam
The exam this year is quite fair, following a similar format to previous years’ exams:
•   Discrete time Markov Chain (2 questions)
•   Renewal Theory (1 question)
•   Poisson Process (1 question)
•   Queueing theory (1 question)
•   Brownian motion (1 question)
In terms of difficulties, everything is quite standard, meaning that they’re just as difficult as previous years’ exams with certain exceptions. Queuing theory this year is a little bit easier but we were thrown with a very difficult Brownian motion question so it balances out. The difficult thing about this subject's exam is that only a few questions are standard in the sense that you've either seen it before in lectures or if you've really studied and understood the material, you'll be able to do it for sure. Lots of the questions are trick questions in the sense that they require you to come up with an ingenious idea to do it. In saying that though, all of this can be solved if more time is devoted to really understanding the material.
I haven’t gotten a chance to see my exam yet, but it seems like I lost 2 assignment marks (out of 20) and 12 exam marks (out of 80), putting myself at 86/100.


« Last Edit: December 13, 2019, 04:41:39 pm by huy8668 »

huy8668

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #770 on: December 12, 2019, 11:30:33 am »
+2
Subject code/Name FNCE10002 Principles of Finance

Workload: lectures + tutorial weekly. Lectures are 2 hours

Assessment: Exam (59%), MST (21%), Online assignment (10%), Tutorial attendence (10%)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture etc.

Past exams available:  no, only sample exams.

Textbook Recommendation:  Introduction to Corporate Finance 2nd Asia-Pacific Edition. Probably a good idea to buy, please keep reading to see why.

Lecturer(s): Asjeet Lamba

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating:  3 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: Gee you gotta relax man. Jk jk please keep reading, marks are discussed later :)

Comments:

1.   Briefly on what the subject is about
The idea behind this subject is that if you give the bank your money, for some reasons, they’ll give you back more money. Everything throughout the subject will be built on this idea.
About the difficulty, this is a difficult subject and covers quite a bit of material + it’s fast-paced. The hardest part though, is not the volume nor the pace, but our (possible) unfamiliarity with the material. In our daily life, we’re not used to thinking about the fact that $100 can somehow be worth the same as $90. Thus, it’ll take a lot of time to get your head around these new kind of weird concepts. In saying that though, with a bit of time and effort, one will get used to it and when everything clicks, it’s all manageable. 
Something I dislike about this subject is how they claim to be teaching the subject without assuming any prior finance knowledge but yet, they throw terminologies and concepts at us like we already know it. To counter this, you’d need to read the book diligently or go to consultations very frequently.

2.   Subject content
The topics covered are in brackets
•   Maths involved in finance, how to add, subtract, take exponents, lots of formulae (financial maths)
•   If I give you money, you’d better pay me back, but with a little more (Debt Value)
•   If I give you money, you can choose to pay me back whenever you want (Equity Value)
•   Putting all your valuables in a safe can be quite convenient as everything is locked up and safe in 1 location but it also means that the thief just has to attack that 1 single safe. If the thief gets his/her hand on it, you’d lose everything all at once right? (Portfolio theory)
•   How much is this product worth, based on how much all the other products are worth? (Asset pricing)
•   How much money should you spend on each of your hobbies? (Capital Budgeting)
•   If you want to buy something and haven’t got any money, should you borrow money from only dad? Or only mom? Or both? (Capital Structure)
•   That iPad pro looks good but I’m afraid something will happen to it so I’ll buy an insurance (Options)

3.   Lecturer
Asjeet is a very knowledgeable and professional lecturer, definitely knows his stuff. On recording, he seems quite chill, nice and tells us a lot about how to do well on the exam, which I quite appreciate. In person, however, he seems a little short-tempered and not so nice, anymore. Maybe it’s just me.

4.   Lectures
Lecture slides are uploaded weekly and the lecturer goes through those slides during the lecture. The format of the lecture is a little different from most other subjects I’ve seen. Instead of introducing concepts, terminologies and go through examples, Asjeet instead goes through a case study with us to help motivate the concepts. This is a cool idea, except that he keeps throwing terminologies that we’ve never heard of before around so it kind of defeats the purpose.
Despite nothing really making much sense when I first listened to the recordings because of these terminologies he throws around, after doing a little bit of researching, reading and thinking, I find that he actually explains the concepts quite clearly on my second time listening to the recordings. That’s when I realise that the difficulty in understanding what he says is a terminology problem.

5.   Tutorial
The tutorials follow the format of the tutor going through the problems in the tutorial sheet with us. The tutor would give you some time to do the problem as a group and then go through it. My tutor was very smart, somehow was able to understand what I was trying to ask even when I didn’t know what I was trying to ask. He knew his stuff and explained concepts quite well.
The problems in tutorials are what you’d expect to see on the exam and are thus all examinable. Keep in mind that not everything on the exam will be something covered in tutorials.

6.   Exam/MST/Online Assignments
The nice thing about this subject is that all assessments were pretty much just problems similar to those you find in lectures and tutorials. Ergo, keep up with all the problems and you’d be in good shape.

7.   Final comments
Personally, I find that the lecture content seems really scary and difficult, but the problems turn out to be not so bad. I guess the calculation questions are the easy bit as you can just follow a certain recipe. The difficult ones are the conceptual, explain kind of questions. Those screwed me over on the MST (lost one multiple choice) and the exam (lost another multiple choice), putting myself at 96/100 for the final grade.
Despite the high score though, I don’t think I’ve quite understood this subject. I feel like I just made it through based on my raw studying experience.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2019, 11:32:04 am by huy8668 »

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #771 on: December 13, 2019, 12:44:39 am »
+3
Subject Code/Name: MAST20030 Differential Equations

Workload:
- 3 one-hour lectures
- 1 one-hour tutorials

Assessment:
- 3 assignments (10% each)
- Exam (70%)

Lectopia Enabled: Yes.

Past exams available:
At least 5, all with solutions except the 2016 sample exam.

Textbook Recommendation:
You don't necessarily need them, but stronger students might like to read more than just the lecture slides.
- Linear Partial Differential Equations and Fourier Theory, Pivato
- Elementary Differential Equations with Boundary Value Problems, Trench

Lecturer(s): Dr David Ridout

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 92 (H1)

Comments:

Course Structure
Section 1: Linear Ordinary Differential Equations
This section looks at, you probably guessed - linear ODEs (ones with no partial derivatives). Here you learn how to solve simple first order ones before drawing some 'hand-wavy' analogies to linear algebra to help solve higher order initial value problems (IVPs). You will learn about reduction of order and how the Wronskian can be used with Abel's theorem to solve some simple 2nd and maybe 3rd order linear ODEs. Then, you will jump into solving some vector-valued first order linear ODEs, where you will recruit linear algebra again using diagonalisation (remember that from over a year ago?) to decouple systems. You then get to look at matrix exponentials and how you can take a more theoretical approach to solving vector-valued first order ODEs.

Section 2: Series Solutions
Some ODEs are a little hard to solve, so instead we guess a solution of the form of a power series and aim to solve recursion relations for the unknown coefficients. That's the idea of this section, but as mathematicians, we must deal with the many questions. Does my solutions even converge? If so, where does it converge? Does my solution genuinely solve the ODE, and if it does, is it the ONLY solution (in other words, is it THE solution)? To answer such questions, one needs Real Analysis, and while MAST20026 Real Analysis isn't a prerequisite, students who have taken it have quite an advantage since most of the analysis material will actually be familiar.

Section 3: Laplace Transforms
The Laplace transform is an incredibly powerful tool for solving many ODEs as they essentially convert derivatives into polynomials (which are way nicer)! In this section, you'll learn how to use Laplace transforms to solve ODEs and learn many theorems to help you take Laplace and inverse Laplace transforms (without any Complex Analysis). You'll also be introduced to the Heaviside step function and the Dirac delta function which are commonly used in modelling problems.

Section 4: Boundary Value Problems and Fourier Series
The difficulty of the subject begins to ramp up in this section. Here, you will look at BVPs for our favourite differential operator, the one-dimensional Laplacian and develop the theory behind Fourier series and more generally, eigenfunction expansion, which will be used extensively to solve IBVPs later on. Lots of linear algebra stuff here, so it might be good to revise some theory of inner products, eigenstuffs, vector spaces, bases, orthogonality, etc.

Section 5: Linear Partial Differential Equations
In this section, you will get to study the heat/diffusion equation, the wave equation and the Laplace equation, and learn how to solve simple enough IBVPs using techniques such as separation of variables and employing eigenfunction expansion, in what will be some very very long questions. Again, we must ask questions of existence and uniqueness, drawing on more Real Analysis and even some Vector Calculus. Towards the end of the section, you'll also get to explore these equations when circular symmetry is involved. Things get quite interesting for the wave equation and this leads nicely into Methods of Mathematical Physics, which explores Bessel functions.

Section 6: Fourier Transforms
Here, we start to look at BVPs on unbounded domains (makes sense right?) and how that leads to the motivation for the Fourier transform (more hand-wavy stuff here). In this section, you'll get to explore the similarities and differences between the Fourier and Laplace transforms (and their inverses), and understand their strengths and weaknesses in solving a variety of differential equations. You'll also get to look at Green functions and their use with convolutions. With some sneaky algebra and manipulation, Fourier transforms can also help evaluate some pretty tricky integrals.

My thoughts:
What an amazing subject! I thoroughly enjoyed this subject, and this so far has been the only subject to receive a 5 out of 5 from me. It is very well organised, I found the content to be incredibly interesting, and it has made me really excited to explore the world of applied mathematics further.

Lectures
I believe David produced the slides from scratch when he took over the subject 2016 and boy are they really well done. These should be your number one study tool. David is a great lecturer. He's pretty funny and always loves a bit of banter. David also supplies plenty of extra material including problems sets, and links to textbook exercises and readings for those who are keen. Consultation is also good to visit every once in a while.

Tutorials
Problems sheet, whiteboards, small groups. Same as always.

Assignments
The assignments are pretty standard. Easy to score high in if you put the time and effort in, but usually quite hard to get perfect in. There is always the small nuance to miss or the silly error. Check your answers thoroughly, and be careful to justify any steps that aren't obvious (being sure to correctly quote the relevant theorems). Oh yeah, and you can LaTeX your assignments if you crave the nice looking equations and typesetting like I do lol.

Exam
The exam is 3 hours long (+15 mins reading time). No calculator, but you are allowed one double-sided A4 page of ORIGINAL HANDWRITTEN NOTES (not even a photocopy). The exam is 100 marks and usually has 7-8 questions with one or two per section. Just do the past exams shown on the LMS. The structure is literally the same every time and there aren't really any surprises.
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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #772 on: January 02, 2020, 01:37:09 am »
+3
Major: Neuroscience 

Third Year Subjects:
Principles of Neuroscience (NEUR30003)
Neurophysiology: Neurons and Circuits (NEUR30002)
Visual Neuroscience (NEUR30004)

Year of completion:
2019

Rating: 5 out of 5

Your Average Mark: 83.667

Comments:
Unapologetically, I do have to admit that I picked neuroscience because of its flexibility and its reputation of being the easiest biomed major. In third year, I was involved in about 5 different committees for various clubs/organisations, alongside a hectic volunteering and part-time work schedule. When choosing my major, I knew my priority was to find one that is “crammable”, and that will get low maintenance. Neuro and HSF were the most popular majors for biomed students, and they are actually very similar with a lot of crossover. For my study plan, I applied for permission to take Visceral and Viscera Systems as part of my neuro major, as I was really keen on doing that anat core, but not so keen on doing Locomotor (the other anat core). Neuro was certainly a kind major, and offered a lot of flexibility in terms of what the other two subjects were. To take this major, you only need to take the two neuro core subjects in s1 and have free choice in s2 for the other two major subjects.

Semester 1
Neuro sem 1 was super chill, with both core subjects (principles of neuro and neurohpys) being all multiple choice, for both MST and end of sem exam. Content were hugely carried over from HSF and second year subjects, with the content really quite reasonable. The only downside to these subjects was that there were often weird facts that came up in MCQs in MSTs, and if you haven’t memorised those random points, then there’s not much you can do. Principles end of sem exam was almost identical to previous year exams, so highly recommend doing all the past exams you can find (however that may be changing that next yr :’(). If I had to choose, neurophysiology was certainly more enjoyable than principles of neuro, as I found principles to be a bit vague, as it covers a lot of philosophy, and history. Even though I did get a better score in principles in the end, neurophys was more interesting and I felt it had more relevance to what I was interested in. Lectures for both subjects were good, but some lecturers might ramble. I unfortunately never really went to lectures, but the content was manageable enough to watch on 2x speed later at home ;)

Principles of Neuroscience: 87
Neurophysiology: Neurons and Circuits: 84

Semester 2
Sem 2 passed by with a blur, and I did Viscera and Visceral and Visual Neuroscience as my major subjects. Gotta say, I did relax a bit in sem 2 (as sem 2 GPA didn’t count for med entry), and I chose visual neuroscience because I was genuinely interested. (I have heard many good things about Complex Functions, and if I needed to pick a wam-friendly subject, I would have gone for complex functions). I have realised, unfortunately, after the first MST for both subjects, that neither viscera nor visual neuro were “easy/crammable” subjects. Visual neuro gave an amazing overview over everything related to vision, and how we perceive vision in the brain. There were a lot of emphasis on the pathways, as well as the mechanisms involved in processing vision. There were 2x MCQ MSTs, which I found was fair (but copped Ls since I couldn’t cram enough content in time), and one final exam (3 hrs, with 2 hrs extended long writing). To be honest, not a fan of the long answer exam questions on the exam and came out of the exam feeling quite terrible. Similarly, I knew about 60% of the content going into the anat exam, as I realised last minute that it was impossible to cram all the blood supply, nerve supply, attachments, function for all the systems in the human body. But although viscera was my worst subject this year, it certainly was the most enjoyable and special, as we could work on cadavers. I highly recommend viscera, as it is so well coordinated and the practicals for dissection were super well led. Unfortunately, I was a terrible student and never studied enough to get 100% out of the practicals, but I still loved the subject. I feel like it’s so rare to be able to have the honour of working on a cadaver in a small group, it truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. For visual neuroscience, it was super fascinating to learn about the eye, as well as some of the eye diseases and technology that was there to restore vision. The lecturers for visual were also super knowledgeable, with most of them having their own amazing research in the field. I barely made it to 20% of the lectures, but I’m sure they were super high quality and well delivered.

Viscera and visceral systems: 74
Visual Neuroscience: 78

Overall, I really enjoyed neuroscience as a major, as it was the easiest and most crammable major (for s1 at least), and it was perfect for my hectic extra-curricular schedule. It was also so interesting to learn about the visual pathways, and the foundation cores in s1 allowed me to have a minimal understanding of how the brain works. For those who identify as “crammers” or not a fan of labs/practicals, then this major is for you. If you have any more queries, please reach out to me for more questions/advice!
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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #773 on: January 05, 2020, 10:09:30 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: SWEN30006 Software Modelling and Design

Workload:  1-hour lecture, 3-hour workshop

Assessment: 
  • 12% Project 1
  • 20% Project 2
  • 8% Workshop Attendance (for completing the excercises in 8 of the 10 assessable workshops)
  • 60% Exam
Lectopia Enabled:  Yes

Past exams available:  5 past exams and one practice exam provided on the LMS at the end of the semester.

Textbook Recommendation:  The course closely followed Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development (3rd Edition) by Craig Larman, 2004. An ebook version is freely available on the University Library.

The suggested readings, provided on week one, include most of the first four parts. Although the subject does not follow the order of the book, Larman's diagrammatic style and advice are repeated in lectures and tutorials. I felt I had a far better understanding of the content after reading it each week; Larman's depth and explanation style worked well for me.

Lecturers: Phillip Dart and Patanamon Thongtanunam

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating:  4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 87

Comments:
Although all of the subject's content is in the text, it taught me a valuable set of skills I'm sure I will use in the future. I enjoyed the projects and found the exam reasonable, though the lectures and workshops need some work.

Subject content
Software Modelling and Design (Softmod) analyses the stages of the agile software development cycle. Parts have already been briefly explored in Object Oriented Software Development. For example, software patterns, design class diagrams and object-oriented principles make notable returns.

The three main content areas are:
  • UML diagrams and documents
  • GRASP and GoF Software patterns
  • Agile processes
I think the lessons are invaluable and Phillip has deeply expanded my perspective and changed how I will approach software problems out of Uni.

Softmod has a focus on skills, not raw content. We were asked to analyze requirements, summarize, model, evaluate alternatives and justify decisions. By doing the workshops and submitting assignments, you can generate a feedback cycle and improve.

Although the paradigm seems dry, I was continually struck by the level of practicality and utility in the ideas taught. If you have the energy to try to become a better programmer, you will no doubt find the content engaging.

The code examples, workshops and projects are in Java, but there is no further discussion of its features and syntax.

Lecture
Only one hour of lecture is provided every week. Therefore, the lectures are relegated to introductions of concepts before they are explored further in workshops.

The lectures use the same ideas, case studies and diagrams as Larman's text, but are presented with context, anecdotes and Java code examples.

Workshops
The workshops are the heart of this subject. They are unique to other subjects' workshops in that they present new assessable content.

Each workshop was led by two tutors, who made a one-hour presentation before letting us complete the week's problems. The questions took me between 1 and 4 hours to finish, though some can be completed in groups. Your work had to be presented to a tutor to receive the attendance point, accounting for 1% of your grade up to a maximum of 8%.

To allow for absences and the length of the work, students were allowed to submit in the following week's workshop.

The workshop content is critical to the subject. Missing out on the cycle of practice and feedback as well as the assessable content is a huge loss, so I think you should at least review the workshop slides and attempt the problems.

I wasn't a fan of the current model. I felt the content could have been presented in the lecture instead to make the workshop less draining.

Projects
We were asked to complete two separate projects. Groups of three must be enrolled in the same workshop, so I recommend organizing a group beforehand if you want to work with someone. The same group completes both projects.

Project 1 involved a mail delivery robot. The robot's intelligence had already been coded in a simulation. We were asked to add a new function to the robot in software and complete a model of the domain, a model of our proposed software changes and a written justification of our decisions.

Similarly, project 2 was on an automated parcel pickup and delivery car. We had to provide many of the same documents and then build our solution in software. This problem was significantly more complex and made use of algorithms seen in Design of Algorithms.

The projects took us 10-20 hours of our time each, about half done independently.

I enjoyed the projects. They brought light to the content and encouraged you to step through the entire software development process. I was particularly surprised to see how differently my teammates might have solved the problem. Working on a software problem in a team was a valuable experience.

That being said, the existing code bases we were given had been reused and modified from previous years. There were unused code fragments that led to confusion within the groups.

Our team organized our code on Github and completed our diagrams together on Lucidchart. Although these technologies aren't taught, we found success with them. I've made our second project public if you'd like to take a look.

I heard that teams that did not have all members contribute to each part were penalized and there is a peer-review survey after both projects.

Exam
The exam contained a good mix of theory, modelling, and programming.

Because the focus isn't on content, we were allowed two double-sided cheats in the exam hall. For some context, here are page 1 and page 2 of mine, but I found plenty of better ones online.

Although the questions are far clearer than the workshops, it did require a strong understanding and intuition of the concepts taught in the subject. It was not enough to ROTE learn the content or rely on your cheat-sheet.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2020, 03:37:07 pm by gamma032 »
2016: Business Management [40]
2017: Spesh [37] Methods [40], Physics [42], Accounting [47], English [36]
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2018-2020: BSci, Computing & Software Systems @ Unimelb

Sutanrii

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #774 on: January 13, 2020, 05:58:57 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name: MAST10009 Accelerated Mathematics 2

Workload:  For each week: 4x 1-hour lecture, 1x 1-hour tutorial

Assessment:  2x Written Assignments (5% each), Mid-Semester Test (10%), Final Exam (80%)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture. However, Barry writes on the whiteboard which isn’t recorded, so lecture attendance is necessary (or alternatively you can borrow someone else’s notes).

Past exams available:  Yes, Final Exam 2009-2018. No short answers/solutions given, but the 2017 and 2018 Final Exam were discussed on the last two lectures.

Textbook Recommendation:  Barry's Accelerated Mathematics 2 Printed Notes, which is available at UniMelb’s Co-op. The book contains all the lecture slides and exercises with short answers and is realistically necessary.

Lecturer(s): Prof. Barry Hughes

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Sem 2

Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 97

Comments:
This subject is part of the accelerated stream and covers the rest of Real Analysis and Calculus 2 (roughly 90% and 70%, respectively) that aren’t covered in its sem 1 counterpart, Accelerated Mathematics 1. Despite being a first-year subject, this subject puts a lot more emphasis on RA than Calc 2 so expect the difficulty to be of at least a second-year subject. Moreover, this subject covers the content of pretty much two subjects (although there are some overlaps) in the span of one semester so the pace will be very fast, in fact much faster than AM1.

If I were to describe this subject with one word, it would be rigour. Many computations we used to do straight away are not allowed in this subject. Nearly every step requires proper justification and any assumptions made must be stated clearly (even when doing a simple integration by substitution). Visual proofs are also pretty much worthless in this subject, so some theorems that are obvious will take about half a page to prove. One of my mates described this subject as a mathematical essay, which I think is why this subject is a hit or miss (albeit much more likely to be a miss).

I find one of Barry’s quotes to be fitting in describing this subject:
"A common emotional response to my treatment is: this stuff was so easy at school, why does Barry make it so hard? Well, the reason why I make it so hard, is either that your teachers lied, or probably more likely, they have carefully protected you from things that might be troubling. However, most of you are over 18 now, so you can deal with R-rated Mathematics"

Nonetheless, if you find the pace to be bearable and you’re willing to commit extra effort to appreciate the content, this can be a very eye-opening subject. You get to encounter numerous R-rated concepts that are crucial and interesting in mathematical analysis but are often neglected.

The topics covered in this subject are (in order):
Content
1. Sequences (RA)
You’ll learn what a sequence is and the definition of a limit of a sequence using the ε-N definition. From this definition then several common limit theorems are proven. You’ll encounter a lot of limits, fractions and inequalities here, and you must get comfortable working with them (decreasing the denominator increases the fraction, etc) as they will be used a lot throughout the subject and will help a lot for the MST and the final exam.

You’ll also learn about bounds in sequences, in particular, the supremum (least upper bound) and infimum (greatest lower bound). You’ll find several unique theorems/properties possessed by real numbers which many seem visually obvious but are damn hard to prove. Towards the end, you’ll encounter the “order of hierarchy”. Make sure to remember this by heart as they will be extremely useful in Improper Integrals and Infinite Series.

This topic was discussed in the first six lectures (which is before the last self-enroll date) and I’d say is a good representation of how rigorous this subject can get. My suggestion is that this is a good time to decide whether or not to continue if you’re trying out this subject.

2. Limits and Continuity of Functions (RA)
Similar to sequences, you’ll learn what a function is and the definition of the limit and continuity of a function, this time with the ε-δ definition. You’ll also be introduced with the first major theorem in this subject: The Intermediate Value Theorem, which again, visually obvious but not so easy to prove.

3. Differential Calculus (RA)
Remember the first principle of derivative? Well, this subject tells that the first principle doesn’t happen to be the “first principle” after all. You’ll start by defining what it truly means when a function is differentiable at a point, and from there you’ll derive the first principle and prove several common rules eg. chain rule. You’ll also be introduced with some major theorems: First and Second-Order  Mean Value Theorem, Taylor’s Theorem with Lagrange’s Remainder and L’Hôpital’s Rule.

4. Integral Calculus (RA + Calc 2)
You’ll first be taken into a journey of how the early 19th-century Mathematicians progressively attempted to find the area under a curve. Here, you’ll be introduced with the terms Riemann Sum, Upper/Lower Sum, Upper/Lower Darboux Integral and finally Riemann Integral which is the integral we learned in high school. After all that then connections are made to differential calculus, also known as the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. (Unlike in most high schools where integration was directly taught to us as the “inverse” of differentiation). This subject then gradually shifted into the Calc 2 part as you’ll learn numerous techniques of integrations.

5. Differential Equations (Calc 2)
This is probably the easiest topic as almost everything is computational. You’ll learn numerous concepts surrounding 1st/2nd order ODE and how to solve them. You’ll also touch on the application of ODEs in Mathematical Modelling: Malthusian/Logistic Population Growth Model, “Solute-Solvent Mixing” Model, Motion with Drag, and RC/RL/RLC electric circuit.

6. Improper Integral (RA)
After taking a stroll through computational ODEs, you’ll be pulled back to the rigorous side of this subject as you’ll cover this topic. This topic covers the possibilities of standard (Riemann) integral going wrong eg. integrand goes unbounded or interval of integration is infinite, and whether the integral can still exist as an improper integral or is forever a bad integral. You’ll learn various tests to determine the fate (convergence) of such integrals. Try to develop the intuition in quickly determining which convergence test to use for certain scenarios, as these questions will definitely be on the exam and are worth quite a lot.

7. Infinite Series (RA)
Ever heard of the controversial Grandi’s Series (1-1+1-1… = 1/2) or perhaps the notorious Ramanujan Summation (1+2+3+... = -1/12)? This topic starts by rigorously defining what it means when an infinite series converges, and how deplorable (or what Barry likes to call, antisocial) it is to treat infinity as a number. Similar to Improper Integral, you’ll learn various tests to investigate the convergence of a series, and it’ll be very advantageous for the exam to develop such intuition. Towards the end, you’ll encounter some known types of series: Taylor Series, Power Series, Complex Series, Fourier Series (the last two I reckon are non-examinable).

Lectures
Everything examinable on the lecture slides is in the textbook and are organised really well, so there’s no need to copy down the lecture content. However, when you read the textbook, there will be example problems in every lecture but often with no solution. This is where Barry would write down the solutions to these questions on the whiteboard during the lecture, which is not recorded and is one major downside of this subject.

Aside from that, Barry is an old fashioned yet fantastic lecturer. He has taught this subject since 2009 and his experience does show in how well he explains the concepts. He often uses simple analogies or hand gestures which I find helpful. He shows a lot of passion for this subject, and I generally find his explanations and his quotes to be intriguing. If you’re curious about how Barry explains stuff, here’s a video where Barry was interviewed about the Indian JEE exam: https://youtu.be/0h_x13xHjVs?t=376

Due to a large amount of content covered, it is crucial to stay up to date with the content by reading the textbook after each lecture and immediately come to consultation sessions when in doubt. Otherwise, it’ll be very difficult to catch up on the content since there are four lectures per week. Just as Barry said, “If you do no work in your time in this subject for about three consecutive days, you will be completely destroyed.”

Tutorials / Problem Solving
A standard maths tute. You’ll sit in groups of 3 or 4 and solve the exercise questions in the textbook which you can actually do beforehand. The tutor will go around the class to check on your workings and give feedback. It’d also be wise to use this time to ask your tutor if you have any problems with the content.

Assignments
There are only two written assignments throughout the semester but they are very lengthy and worth 50 marks each. Barry recommended not spending over 8 hours on each assignment, although personally, I spent around 12-15 hours. The questions seemed intimidating at first, but after giving some thoughts I don’t find them to be too bad. The 1st assignment covers topic 1-2 (100% RA), while the 2nd assignment covers topic 3-5 (25% RA, 75% Calc2). The 1st assignment involves more analysis and proofs with limits, while the 2nd assignment involves more computations with ODEs (although the integrations are very nasty). I think most find the 2nd assignment to be easier but I prefer the 1st one as I’m more comfortable working with proofs and I dislike working with long and nasty algebra.

Also, make sure that all notations have been used properly as the markers are very scrupulous about that. Getting one simple misuse of notation is like bringing water through airport screening and will be an instant deduction. “Please, we don’t want any notational abuse. If you abuse notation, I will abuse you” - Barry

Mid-Semester Test
The MST will cover topic 1-3 up to the Mean Value Theorem, so it will be purely RA. Furthermore, it will be very fast-paced as the duration is only 45 minutes. Time management is paramount here. Fortunately, a lot of marks are allocated to simply stating definitions or theorems, so you can save a lot of time for the harder questions. Just be sure to include the important keywords, or memorise word by word if necessary. I lost 4 marks (out of 40, which equates to 1% of the final grade) simply because I didn’t include a few keywords I thought was unnecessary/obvious. Also, it’d be a good idea to familiarise with the example and exercise problems in the textbook as Barry may put some of them in the test.

Final Exam
Ok, this one’s definitely scary. A 3-hour, 80% weighted exam covering two subjects (one being a 2nd year subject), and to make matters worse, Barry persists that no formula/cheat sheet is given/allowed.

However, I think that the exam was fairly doable if you have understood the content and done several past papers. Just like the MST, there’ll be a lot of “state the definition/theorem” questions and a couple of problems taken directly from the textbook, both are very handy to save time. Also, roughly 35% of the total mark is allocated to solving ODEs or integrals. They should be straightforward so it’d be great to work on your agility/techniques in integrating and in dealing with nasty algebra, and beware of miscalculations.

The scarier part is probably where you need to apply appropriate convergence tests to random improper integrals and series. This is purely analysis and will require more thinking as there are many tests to choose from. But after doing enough exercise questions you can notice some kind of pattern and develop the intuition to solve them instantly.

Conclusion
Due to the fast-paced nature of this subject and the four lectures per week (where attendance is necessary), it can get overwhelming trying to keep up with the content. A substantial amount of effort and commitment will be required through consistent studying and attending lectures in person. Instead of taking this subject, you can actually take Calc 2 and RA separately and you’ll still cover the same content without having to struggle too much. Or if you have no interest in doing RA, it’s definitely better to just take Calc 2.

However, if you’re up for a challenge, completing this subject can be a rewarding experience, especially as a first-year. As far as I know, this subject can also replace both Calc 2 and RA as a prerequisite to numerous other subjects, which I think is pretty cool.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2020, 12:54:18 pm by Sutanrii »
University of Melbourne 2019-now: Bachelor of Science (Electrical Systems)
Higher School Certificate (HSC) 2018: Maths Extension 2, Maths Extension 1, Physics, Chemistry, SDD, ESL

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #775 on: February 20, 2020, 11:27:43 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name:  ECON20002 Intermediate Microeconomics

Workload:  2x2hr lectures and 2x1hr tutorials a week for 6 weeks.

Assessments:  Online midsem test (10%), 2 x 2-Part Assignments (10% each), Final Exam (60%), Tutorials (10%)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:  Yes - plenty, but none are fully relevant to current course, and many do not come with answers. There is however a sample Section A exam released at the end of the teaching period on LMS.

Textbook Recommendation: Microeconomics, 7th or 8th Edition, by Rubinfield and Pindyck. It's not an absolute necessity.

Lecturer(s):  Svetlana Danilkina

Year & Semester of Completion:  2020 Summer Term

Rating:  5 out of 5 (objectively 3 out of 5, but +2 for Svetlana's presence)

Your Mark/Grade:  H1 (86)

Comments:
Intermediate Microeconomics is the second-year continuation of ECON10004 Introductory Microeconomics, which is also a prerequisite. The 7 topics of inter-micro are:

   1. Consumer and producer theory
   2. Competitive markets and monopolies
   3. Partial and general equilibrium
   4. Oligopoly and duopoly
   5. Game Theory
   6. Choice under uncertainty
   7. Economics of information

Lectures

2 x 2hr lectures weekly. Svetlana, the lecturer, is highly engaging. Occasionally she goes off-track to rant about socialism (she opened the first lecture with a passionate 30 minute monologue on why socialism failed) so if you have radical left-wing political views here's your trigger warning. She is a great lecture and I enjoy her rambles.

Lectures are incredibly content heavy and fast paced. Each lecture also has a short online quiz on LMS (which Svetlana calls "nobody expects the Russian in-quiz-ition"). It doesn't contribute to your grade, but gives you a good revision of the content, and also mimics the style of questions in Section A of the exam. In the final weeks, Svetlana re-uploads all lecture quizzes for more practice.

Tutorials

2 x 1hr tutorials weekly. Just like previous ECON subjects, pre-tutorial work are uploaded to the LMS and must be completed prior to class. They account for 2% of your grade and are checked randomly 4 times throughout the teaching period. Tutorial participation accounts for 3%, and the final 5% comes from attendance.

In-tutorial work are also uploaded to the LMS prior to class however you do not have to complete them before. It's good to have a look through the questions prior to the tute anyway just so that you won't get lost when your tutor goes through the sheet.

Assessments

Midsemester test: Worth 10%. 1 hour, 10 questions (mostly multiple choice). The MST only covers consumer theory.

2 x Assignments: Worth 10% each and are both done individually. Both are split into two parts - part A (10 marks) is an online test similar to the MST except you get multiple attempts (your highest attempt taken as final score); part B (20 marks) is just like your average intro micro/macro assignment.

Final Exam: Worth 60% and is split into 3 parts. Part A (20 marks) is multiple choice. Part B (20 marks) short answer, and Part C (40 marks), extended response. For Parts B and C, they both contain 3 questions, and you pick two do complete each. I thought the summer 2019 exam was definitely on the difficult side, even though according to my tutor Svetlana is known for writing quite straightforward questions.

Joke Competition: There is a bonus assessment in the form of a joke competition -  seriously. Of course, there are rules - aside from the obvious ones like plagiarism, the joke must also be either directly relevant to the course material (for example, no jokes about GDP as that's macroeconomics), or alternatively you can poke fun at socialism. Participation is optional, but it does give you a bonus mark if you choose to do it.

Final Thoughts

I loved intermediate micro and found it much more enjoyable than intro micro/macro. For non-economics majors, I highly suggest taking intermediate micro as elective/breadth if you have already done ECON10004.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2020, 08:32:09 pm by hums_student »
2019-21: Bachelor of Arts (Politics & Int'l Relations / Economics)

Eric Patrick

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #776 on: February 23, 2020, 05:57:03 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: ACCT10001 Accounting Reports and Analysis

Workload: 1 × 2 hour lecture, 1 × 1 hour tutorial

Assessment: practical-based individual assessment 10%, group assessment 10% (quiz 3% + memorandum 7%), tutorial assessment 10% (4 × examinable quizzes 4% + tutorial attendance and participation 6%), final examination 70% (with hurdle)

Lectopia Enabled: Yes, but not quite helpful.

Past Exams Available: There are seven exams provided, but sample exams only.

Textbook Recommendation: There is one required textbook, but not necessary to buy it.

Lecturer(s): Noel Boys

Year & Semester of Completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Your Mark/Grade: 89

Comments:

1. Lecture
Noel Boys is a great lecturer, although I went to only two lectures for the whole semester. His teaching style is extremely enthusiastic such that the lectures, although with somewhat boring accounting stuff, are overall entertaining. Lecture recording is not quite helpful for this subject, since everything is clearly listed and explained on the lecture slides. I seldom watched the recording during the semester (except for rare circumstances such that a particular word might not be clear enough in explaining the idea); instead, I simply looked through the lecture slides and took notes simultaneously.

2. Tutorial
Fortunately, my tutor Alisha is nice and can explain the knowledge clearly and concisely. In order for us to participate in the tutorial, she usually came up with various group discussion topics and walked around to see how each discussion group was going. At the end of each tutorial, she would back up all important knowledge and give a personal prediction on what might be examinable based on her past marking experience. Sometimes, she failed to back up everything within the time limit; in this case, she would kindly send us an email with detailed explanations of the topic.

3. Assessments
The computer- and practical-based individual assessment requires us to analyse a company's transactions and prepare a transaction analysis worksheet and two financial statements on Excel. This assessment should be overall straightforward with some tricks involved (eg. formatting issues). Although it is a bit hard to get a full mark due to the tricks, most students find it relatively easy to get a high enough mark.

The group assessment is the most difficult part of this subject (personally speaking), since I am not good at doing any kind of group task indeed. The start point of this assessment is calculating some ratios as a group; after that, the group needs to answer some quiz questions in terms of interpreting the ratios, and a memorandum (actually a report) should be written with more detailed ratio analysis provided. The difficulty of the quiz component is far beyond my expectation, since most questions are really ambiguous. For example, one question asks whether a 3% increase in Inventory Turnover is insignificant, moderate or significant. This is very hard to say since there is no benchmark provided in the lectures. The memorandum is marked with a rubric, and remember, most assignments with a rubric in UMEL can be tough, since it is really a subjective issue in determining the quality. My recommendation is to analyse one point in detail rather than include many points with on-the-surface analysis.

Tutorial assessment is a reward and most students can get a full mark (or almost). Do not rush when doing the examinable quizzes and try to get most questions correct (by searching the lecture slides or even asking your friends directly). Try to ATTEND every single tutorial, and even if you do not speak a single word for the whole semester, you can still get almost 5 out of 6 in this component (if your tutor is not so strict)! I feel sorry now since I missed one tutorial and was late for almost every tutorial hence lost 1.5 out of 6 in terms of tutorial attendance and participation (the easiest mark), and ARA (89) is the only subject that I failed to get a 90+ in my first year.

The final exam is not as horrible as you may think now. Since I lost so many marks in terms of the group assessment, I was a bit depressed during the SWOTVAC and did not prepare for the ARA exam carefully (even did not know how to prepare an Income Statement in the right format). However, the overall mark for this subject is far above my expectation due to an excellent performance in the final exam. The key point is that, for ARA and future accounting subjects, the time may be a bit limited in the final exam; do not hesitate and think about what to write, just write everything you know, since redundant answers are not punished. Allocate your time reasonably for each exam question; if you spend too much time on a single question, just skip it and move on! The sample exams may be useful, but since I did not look at them at all, I cannot provide recommendations on how to utilise them.

Overall, this is a great subject, especially for those with accounting background prior to entering university. Enjoy it and wish all the best for your university life!
« Last Edit: February 23, 2020, 11:56:02 pm by Eric Patrick »

honlyu

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #777 on: February 23, 2020, 08:43:01 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: FNCE10002 Principles of Finance

Workload: one 2-hour lecture and one 1-hour tutorial per week

Assessment: Online individual assignment: 10%, MST: 20%, Tutorial participation: 10%, Final exam: 60%

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Two sample exams with answers were provided

Textbook Recommendation: No need for that

Lecturer(s): Asjeet Lamba

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 91

Comments:
POF is sometimes deemed the easiest commerce subject in level 1 and is widely regarded as a WAM booster by people from other disciplines. Well, it is true that POF is rather easy in terms of the maths (or more precisely arithmetics) involved, which explains its popularity among science students. When it comes to theories, however, POF can sometimes get a bit tricky.

Lectures:
In POF, most stuff you’ll need for assignments and exams are written on lecture slides. But I do think it’s quite important to listen carefully to recordings from week 5 on because that’s when theories start getting more and more confusing. You may even have to google some of them and teach yourself a bit due to the ambiguous wording of slides and even more ambiguous explanations from the lecturer.

Tutorials:
You will be required to complete a set of pre-tut questions on a worksheet every week, which will contribute to your participation marks. But don’t worry if you’re not sure about your answers because the marking of participation depends solely on the submission of works instead of quality. As for the tutorials themselves, my suggestion is to particularly focus on theory questions. Your tutor’s explanation may serve as an elucidation of the lecture. What’s more, keep taking notes during the tutorial as the solutions posted on lms would be incredibly brief.

Online assignment:
This assessment is called an assignment, but it’s essentially an online test, which is required to be completed at a designated time. Despite being a test under time constraint, it’s actually a giveaway of 10 marks because the question set will be released beforehand. So you’ll have enough time to complete it and discuss your answers with others. As a result, losing marks for this test should be a rarity.

MST:
The MST also has 14 MCQs, so one hour should be more than enough. All questions were purely based on calculations and no theory was tested. It may seem rather easy to get close to full marks in this test but you really have to read the questions carefully to avoid making silly mistakes (I made two although I was super confident before the test)

Exam:
One important thing to note is that sample exams are not indicative of the exam AT ALL as the actual exam would be far more calculation-based, with most questions involving only pressing your calculator. So don’t be intimidated by the overwhelming amount of theory questions in sample exams. As far as I know, they haven’t been updated for years.




honlyu

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #778 on: February 23, 2020, 08:44:59 pm »
+2
Subject Code/Name: MAST10008 Accelerated Mathematics 1

Workload: four 1-hour lectures, one 1-hour practical, and one 1-hour computer lab per week

Assessment: Six assignments (three online, three written): 3x2%+3x3%=15%, Computer lab test: 5%, Final exam: 80%

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Past exams from 2009 to 2018 were available, with brief answers provided for 2017 and 2018.

Textbook Recommendation: No need for textbook

Lecturer(s): Alexandru Ghitza

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 87

Comments:
AM1 covers all topics in Linear Algebra (with some extension) and multivariate functions in Calculus 2. Having looked at LA’s past exam papers, my conclusion is that AM1 is not too much harder than LA. So don’t get intimidated by the ‘accelerated’ in its name (AM2 is a different case though).

Lectures:
The pace of this subject is moderate. Alex always took us through every example question step by step, so there shouldn’t be any confusion as long as you concentrate. Alex also put all his writing into the recording, so missing a few lectures wouldn’t be a problem.

Practicals:
Just like in other maths subjects, you are given a handout of questions which you will try to solve on whiteboards in a group and show the answers to your tutor.

Computer labs:
Scheduled to be right after your practical, in the computer lab you’ll learn to solve problems using knowledge of linear algebra on MATLAB, a mathematical modelling software. At the start of the class, you get a booklet of MATLAB demonstrations and questions (not necessarily relevant to what you have learned). And you’re free to leave whenever you wish.

Assignments:
The three online assignments should be a breeze as ALL questions are fill-in-the-blank. What’s more, you get three attempts for every question. So although you cannot check your answers with others (everyone got a different set of questions if I remember correctly), you should be expecting full marks for this part. Regarding written assignments, I personally think there weren’t any hard questions, except one which was excluded in marking.

Lab test:
The MATLAB test took place towards the end of the semester. As far as I can remember, most questions were rather simple to anyone who had done some revision. There were indeed a few tricky ones and you may even run out of time before you finish. But it’s worth only 5% anyway and those easy questions should set you above 3/5. So don’t worry if you don’t have any programming experience.

Exam:
The exam was rather fair with a large proportion of questions resembling those from past exams. That being said, there were a few questions that required in-depth thinking. Make sure you’re really familiar with the more generic question types so that you can take some time to contemplate the hard ones. It is also noteworthy that there could be questions on theory explanations and applications. So don’t miss out on that in your revision.







honlyu

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Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #779 on: February 23, 2020, 08:46:21 pm »
+2
Subject Code/Name: ACCT10001 Accounting Reports and Analysis

Workload: one 2-hour lecture and one 1-hour tutorial per week

Assessment: Online individual assignment: 10%, Group assignment: 10%, online tests: 1x4=4%, Tutorial participation: 6%, Final exam: 70%

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Past exams were provided, with questions from two or three exams rearranged into seven files

Textbook Recommendation: No need for that

Lecturer(s): Noel Boys

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 89

Comments:
As an introduction to accounting, ARA necessarily involves a huge amount of rote learning. Due to such a dreary nature, even a lecturer as hilarious as Noel cannot manage to vivify this subject –– Oftentimes he had no choice but to read off from the slides.

Lectures:
Lectures are generally easy to follow as not much thinking is required in ARA –– it’s all memorising with only a tiny bit of flexibility (if at all). For every lecture there should be around 50, 60 slides (with every slide filled with words), most of which you’ll have to remember. The only upside about this subject is probably the lecturer, Noel, who occasionally tells jokes that lighten the lectures up a bit. But overall, lectures are rather boring and listening to them are not much different from reading the slides (for about half of the lectures what I did was to read the slides first and only turn to the recording when I ran into something confusing).

Tutorials:
ARA tutorials were a bit inefficient as the pace was incredibly slow. Also, the questions in tutorials were either too basic or irrelevant to the exam. So there’s really no need to pay much attention in tutorials.

Individual assignment:
The individual assignment consists of two parts. The first part is a worksheet, whose solutions will be given to you after the deadline (for part one). You are then required to make a balance sheet and an income statement based on the corrected worksheet. Both of the two parts are rather straightforward and not that difficult. One thing to be particularly careful of is the assignment’s strict format requirements, which can cost you quite a lot of marks (trust me it really does). If you don’t make any mistakes in formatting, full marks are definitely achievable.

Group assignment:
The group assignment has two parts as well and it’s done in a group of three or four. Part A involves making vertical and horizontal analyses and calculating some ratios. This part shouldn’t take too long as it’s purely mechanical. Also every group got the same data so it’s quite easy to compare your answers with other groups. Surprisingly, however, this part wasn’t assigned any weight at all according to our final mark for the assignment. But still, don’t be too offhand with it as the marking scheme is subject to changes. After your group submits part A, every group member will have to do an online MCQ quiz based on the figures you got (the quiz has 3 questions for a group of 4 and 4 questions for a group of 3, so that’s 12 questions in total). This contributes 3% to your total mark and is marked on a group basis (i.e. all 12 questions will count towards you mark). Then comes part B, in which you’ll write a 1000-word report for a different company than the one in part A. The marking for part B is stunningly harsh (most groups I know got under 80). But it’s not really a problem as it’s worth only 7%.

Online tests:
Four online tests will take place throughout the semester. Every test has around 20 to 30 MCQs and are mostly rather basic. You should be able to get most of them right even without revision.

Exam:
Despite the overwhelming amount of theories in ARA, a large part of the exam was on preparation of financial statements (and probably worksheet as well) and calculations. As the calculations in ARA only involve simple arithmetics, you should aim at full marks for this part if you’ve known all formulae by heart. For financial statements, unfortunately, there was only one practice question provided. So you’ve got to make good use of that. As far as I’m concerned, the key to this part is the classification of items. If you could get that right, you would have got approximately 40 marks already (based on the exam I had). So my advice is to make every effort to know where exactly every single item belongs to. The rest of the exam is on theories. As mentioned before, ARA mainly entails rote learning. And if you do spend a decent amount of time on memorising definitions and figuring out how to apply them, these conceptual questions should appear straightforward as well.