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Author Topic: UNSW Course Reviews  (Read 288499 times)  Share 

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Mechonics

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #45 on: January 15, 2018, 12:40:33 am »
+8
Subject Code/Name: MATH1141 - Higher Mathematics 1A

Contact Hours: 6

Assumed Knowledge: Combined mark of 175+ in Maths ex1 + ex2. If you did 3 unit maths, consider taking the 1131 variant, unless you did really well in 2u+3u.

Assessment:  4x class tests worth 20% (best 3/4 count), 8% from online tutorials (maple), 8% maple lab exam, 4% maple practice exams, 60% final exam

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available:  Available on moodle upon enrolment

Textbook: N/A

Lecturer(s): Professor Wolfgang Schief (Calculus), Dr Alina Ostafe (Linear algebra)

Year & Semester of completion: 2017 Sem 1

Difficulty: 2.5/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 76

Comments:
Very enjoyable course. It is split into two parts, Linear Algebra and Calculus. Your final mark pretty much entirely depends on the 60% finals. The remaining 40% is pretty much all free marks.

You will have a total of 12 online maple tutorials - one each week. Your best 8 will count to give you 8% of the course marks. These tutorials are very easy and you're allowed to check your answer before submitting it (There's literally a "How did I go" button which you can exploit an infinite number of times). Try and do a tutorial every week to finish all 12, as they can be pretty helpful. However, worst case scenario you can skip 4 weeks of work and still get full marks if you complete 8/12 of them. Make sure you get all 8% of these free marks.

There will be a 4 class tests throughout the semester. They are very short tests - you are given 20 minutes and there are 10 marks in each test. The first test is in like week 5 and the remaining are evenly distributed throughout the rest of the semester. These are very very easy tests and very similar to the past tests that are provided at the very back of your course pack. If you do them all (or even a few), you should be getting 10/10 for every test. Your best 3/4 class tests will be counted. i.e. each of your best 3 tests are worth 6.6666..% to give a total of 20% of the course. Make sure you get all 20% course marks here!

There will be a maple lab test in around week 10. It will test your understanding of the Maple software, which is used to perform many mathematical calculations. Here is a list of literally every possible question that can come - https://www.scribd.com/document/156497903/1131-and-1141-Maple-Exam-Sample-Solutions. They will choose some of these (not all) for your final exam. Make sure you memorise these (it's not hard, very repetitive). I started memorising the night before the test and got full marks, it's a very easy test - don't lose any of the 8% here.

4% of the remaining marks will come from 2 very simple and short maple practice questions (worth 2% each). These two tests will test your understanding of the maple syntax. There are only two questions in each test, and it is done online. You'll need to use the maple software to enter your answers. Each test should only take you like literally 5 mins at max, so don't put this off.

The remaining 60% of the marks is from final exams. These are harder than the normal class tests you do, so don't get complacent. I got all 40% of the course marks above easily, and underestimated the finals. That's why I only got a total of 76. Study very hard for the final exam, do all the past papers you possibly can do, and get an easy HD!

MLov

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #46 on: January 18, 2018, 08:20:26 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: FINS1612 - Capital Markets and Institutionshttp://www.handbook.unsw.edu.au/undergraduate/courses/2017/FINS1612.html

Contact Hours: 3 (2 hour lecture + 1 hour tutorial)

Assumed Knowledge: N/A

Assessment: 
-2 Quizzes each worth 20%
-Tutorial participation 15%
-Final Exam 45%

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: http://www.unistudyguides.com/wiki/Capital_Markets_and_Institutions

Textbook: N/A

Lecturer(s): N/A

Year & Semester of completion: N/A

Difficulty: N/A

Overall Rating:  3.5/5 ??

Your Mark/Grade: N/A

Comments:
From my perspective, anyone who wants to pursue a business career should take this course first. It provides you a basic business framework and introduces you to many financial/business basics which many degrees neglect to teach. (ACTL especially treated this course as assumed knowledge and they will throw many business jargons at you without definitions.)

If this course is not one of your core courses, then I highly recommend you to study this by yourself. It is very simple and you do not have to stress out preparing for quizzes and exams. There is an abundant amount of related materials online (also on Khan's Acadamy), and you will not have trouble finding definitions and examples. Should take you about 2 weeks (one lecture a day)
(Also saves you bunch of money, now calculate its present value!)

Once you sleep through this course, you will be prepared for ACTL1101!
« Last Edit: January 18, 2018, 08:25:03 pm by MLov »

jyh6

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #47 on: March 09, 2018, 05:50:58 pm »
0
Subject Code/Name: ELEC3105 - Electrical Energy

Contact Hours: 3 hours lecture, 1 hour tutorial, 3 hours lab

Assumed Knowledge: ELEC2134, ELEC3115 (particularly this second one is important)

Assessment: 20% lab checkpoints, 2% online quizzes, 10% midsem, 8% assignment, 60% final exam

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available: -

Textbook: None prescribed, a variety could come in handy as the topics do cover a fair few different disciplines of Elec

Lecturer(s): Dr Rukmi Dutta

Year & Semester of completion: 2017/2

Difficulty: 4/5

Overall Rating: 2/5

Your Mark/Grade: 88 HD

Comments: Another semester, another course with Rukmi - Read any of my reviews above this one to get my opinions. She has still not ever done a full worked example in any of her lectures. Her explanations are, okay - But prepare for lots of work to make them actually relate to any realistic problem. Tutorials also handled by Rukmi, and she doesn't do worked examples there either.

The content is interesting, I'll give it that. It's really fascinating to explore how our motors and generators actually operate, even exploring things like solar cells and thermal engines. It's cool - It's just taught in a really boring way. The labs are really good, though the instructional videos for it are laughably bad. Just give them a chance.

This course normally has a huge fail rate - The quizzes and labs are fine, but the exams and assignment are brutal. However, someone must have been upset with so many people needing to repeat up above, because our final exam was the easiest exam for the course in years and years. So that was lucky.

Not a highlight in the program, that's for sure :(


Good work! I'm wondering if there's a review for 3115 as well. Heard this is a tough one. Also like to know how important the textbook (Field and Wave, David K. Cheng) is for this course. There seem to be a lot of mathematical proofs but not sure if they will be examined on.

katie,rinos

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #48 on: June 08, 2018, 12:59:32 pm »
+12
Subject Code/Name: EDST1104-Social Perspectives in Education

Contact Hours:  2hr lecture, 1hr tute each week, 80% attendance required & rolls passed around

Assumed Knowledge: Nil

Assessment:  600 word Article analysis (20%), 1800 Research Task (mix of 3 article analysis and school description, 40%), 2000 word sociological research report (40%). All education assessments must be passed to pass the course.

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available:Slides were uploaded by the education society for help with assessments, however not much extra was needed.

Textbook: Education, Change and Society. I borrowed it from the library and it is also available as an ebook through the library. It wasn’t really necessary however was used sometimes in tutorials.

Lecturer(s): Dr Greg Leaney, Tutor-Sara Mashayekh

Year & Semester of completion: 2018/1

Difficulty: 2.5/5

Overall Rating:  2.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 76 D

Comments:
I went into education really excited and found this course to be boring and a bit of a letdown. Though some of the information we learnt was important (topics such as inequalities, geographies of schooling and special needs), I felt like I’d already seen it happen only last year at school. I zoned out a lot during lectures, and the lecturer read from the slides which didn’t help.

There was a lot of help with assessments so they weren’t as daunting as they could have been. The education society ran workshops for each assessment that you could attend if you needed help, and also posted the slides on a Facebook group afterwards. The assessments were also discussed in detail in the tutes and lectures.   
« Last Edit: June 25, 2018, 10:25:56 pm by katie,rinos »
Class of 2017 (Year 12): Advanced English, General Maths, Legal Studies, Music 1, Ancient History, History Extension, Hospitality
2018-2022: B Music/B Education (Secondary) [UNSW]

katie,rinos

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #49 on: June 08, 2018, 01:43:30 pm »
+11
Subject Code/Name: MUSC1701-Performance Lab 1

Contact Hours: 2hr Lecture/Masterclass weeks 1,4,7,10,13, 2hr Studio wks 2,5,8,11, 2hr ensemble contribution per week

Assumed Knowledge: You must be enrolled in a Bachelor of Music to be in this degree stream. Arts students can do MUSC1703.

Assessment:  Performance critiques/blogs (15%, must do 3 out of 5, 400 words each), Performance workshop demonstration (15%, 5-10 minutes), Ensemble contribution/performance/part-checking test 20%, Practical exam (50%, 15-20 minutes)

Lecture Recordings?  No

Notes/Materials Available:  Nil

Textbook: No-however some readings for critiques are available on Moodle

Lecturer(s): Kim Burword, however had guest lecturers for some masterclasses.

Year & Semester of completion: 2018,1

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating:  4/5

Comments:
The class was only every three weeks so there wasn’t a large amount of contact hours. Even though it was a performance class, I only had to perform twice, once in week 5 which wasn’t marked and again for the performance workshop. The environment when performance was always really supportive. The masterclasses were very interesting, even though some of them were on instruments I didn’t know a lot about.

Assessment wise, you need to be part of an ensemble that meets weekly and makes up 20% of your total assessments. There is a list here of all the ensembles you can be involved in, I really enjoyed wind symphony. There is a part checking assessment where you get into small groups of 4-5 people and play some of the pieces that you played for the concert.

The performance exam is worth 50% and needs a 15-20 minute set of pieces. You must play a study, pieces, and then do sight reading.  For the course, you need to have at least 10 hours of lessons with a registered UNSW music teacher. I was lucky enough that my clarinet teacher was already on the list. You are given a $600 subsidy for these lessons.
Class of 2017 (Year 12): Advanced English, General Maths, Legal Studies, Music 1, Ancient History, History Extension, Hospitality
2018-2022: B Music/B Education (Secondary) [UNSW]

katie,rinos

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #50 on: June 09, 2018, 01:26:41 pm »
+9
Subject Code/Name: MUSC1101-Music Reinvented

Contact Hours: 2hr lecture, 1hr tute per week

Assumed Knowledge: None

Assessment:  400-500 word definition of term (12.5%), 400-500 mini biography of composers early life (12.5%), 2000 word essay (45%), music literature/listening test (20%), Ethnomusicology test (10%)

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Some readings and a listening list are available.

Textbook: Nil

Lecturer(s): Dr JJ Napier

Year & Semester of completion: 2018,1

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating:  4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 70 CR

Comments:

I really enjoyed this course and most of the content in the lectures. The first half of this course focuses on the musicology of the early 20th century and is a mix of both historical background and different pieces/composers. The 2nd half of the course focuses on ethnomusicology and the music of different cultures.

With the writing assessments, there were three different topics that you could choose from (Modernism, Impressionism, and Nationalism). The definition, biography and essay built on your knowledge of the topic and you were able to use information from your bio and definition in your essay. There is a listening list of pieces that you need to know for the listening test, which is worth 20%. Napier could play any section of the pieces and you need to be able to recognise the piece and write down the title, composer, genre, section/mvt and 25-50 words of historical significance/techniques. This is something that definitely can’t be studied overnight and needs a lot of work.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2018, 11:32:43 pm by katie,rinos »
Class of 2017 (Year 12): Advanced English, General Maths, Legal Studies, Music 1, Ancient History, History Extension, Hospitality
2018-2022: B Music/B Education (Secondary) [UNSW]

blasonduo

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #51 on: June 25, 2018, 10:20:17 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: EDST1104-Social Perspectives in Education

Contact Hours: a 2-hour lecture and a 1-hour tutorial each week, 80% attendance is required to pass the course.

Assumed Knowledge: None (A mark of 80+ in HSC English recommended).

Assessment:  600 word Article analysis (20%), 1800 word Research Task (40%), 2000 word Research Report (40%). All assessments must be passed to pass the course.

Lecture Recordings?  Yes (but weirdly still needed to attend :/ )

Notes/Materials Available: None - The education Society did hold sessions where they explained how to complete the assignments.

Textbook: Education, Change and Society. This is NOT needed unless you are aiming for 80+ marks. Tutorials do base some content off the textbook, but nothing googling can't solve.

Lecturer(s): Lecturer: Dr Greg Leaney, Tutor: Sara Mashayekh

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 Semester 1

Difficulty: 1.6/5

Overall Rating:  1.2/5

Your Mark/Grade: 68 CR

Comments:

This course was kind of all over the place; it didn't feel like a course that was caring. Their communication skills would vastly improve the overall quality of the course.

The staff almost never answered questions on the courses question forum, out of the 34 different questions asked during the semester, 3 of them got responded to by staff. This was very lazy of them and annoyed the cohort, we felt lost. Although the feedback in assignments wasn't actually that bad, it never gave me a defining explanation on what to improve on for the next task (like 1108 did).

The worst part of it all was the dates in which we should have received our marks back. The last two assignments were delayed by a week, and we weren't notified about this until 2-3 days after the due date, leaving us confused, it shouldn't be hard to let us know beforehand about the change of dates.

The lectures were fine for the quality of the course, just a man reading off the slides about things that were kind of already known (such as lower SES students struggle more in schooling). The lectures overall were very slow and easy to understand, and conversations about the content were encouraged which was nice.

The tutorial sessions mainly consisted of concepts introduced in the weekly readings or textbook. If you had already done the readings, this hour was spent by explaining to others what the concepts meant, but (on my table at least) just had everyone google them. :P

The assessments were quite fitting and actually quite enjoyable, and were the defining aspect of the course, they allowed for the insight of schools and the complexity of them, and the theories and strategies a certain school implements. The assessments were not hard to complete, but they were hard to get right, and this is where the tutorials and readings were able to help. Constantly in the feedback, I was told that the way I did an aspect of the assignment was not the way they were looking for, and hence losing marks, but  I really enjoyed this.

Overall, if this course were able to better communicate to us, the course would have been much better overall. Was this worth the $800? No. Should it be needed to get a teaching degree? Yeah, I think so, just needs a few tweaks. :)
2018: UNSW B science (physics)/B education

Kicking myself into gear

HSC Physics Topics 1 & 2 Exam!

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #52 on: June 25, 2018, 11:05:57 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: ARTS1510 - Introductory German A

Contact Hours: 5 - 2 hour lecture, 2 hour tutorial and 1 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None

Assessment: 3x portfolios (45%), speaking test (15%), listening test (15%), written exam (25%)

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: There was so much extra content on Moodle like grammar exercises, stuff about German culture, song recommendations, listening exercises - you name it, it's probably on Moodle.

Textbook: Kontakte 8th Edition

Lecturer(s): Dr Miriam Neigert, Tutor: Denise Hantel

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: Semester 1, 2018

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Comments:

I really enjoyed this course! The course itself was quite organised - lecture slides go up a day or two before the lecture, and additional material is released pretty early which is quite helpful. The teaching staff were great. Any questions people had were answered and in general, the teaching style was super engaging. Intro German is also quite a small course (~90 people) which created a good learning environment because especially in the lectures, there aren't as many distractions and it's not as intimidating when speaking German in class! I was also really fortunate to have been in a small tutorial.

As for the assessments, my goodness the portfolios dragged on. The first one was fun, but the second time it came around... there was already one too many portfolios. The tests were all okay - just your standard language exams.
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

blasonduo

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #53 on: June 25, 2018, 11:12:36 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: EDST1108-Indigenous Perspectives in Education

Contact Hours: a 2-hour lecture and a 1-hour tutorial each week, + a compulsory cultural walk mid-semester. 80% attendance is required to pass the course.

Assumed Knowledge: None (A mark of 80+ in HSC English recommended).

Assessment:  1500 word Teacher ‘standpoint’ statement (45%), 5-minute video + 1500 word film justification on support teaching and learning (55%) All assessments must be passed to pass the course.

Lecture Recordings?  Yes (but weirdly still needed to attend :/ )

Notes/Materials Available: None - The education Society did hold sessions where they explained how to complete the assignments.

Textbook: Phillips, J. & Lampert, J. (2012). Introductory Indigenous studies in education (2nd Ed.). This is NOT needed unless you are aiming for 70+ marks. Tutorials do base some content off the textbook, but nothing googling can't solve.

Lecturer(s): Lecturer: Dr Greg Vass, Tutor: Katherine Thompson

Year & Semester of completion: 2018 Semester 1

Difficulty: 3.7/5

Overall Rating:  2.4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 58 PS

Comments:

 This is a difficult course, the fail rate is high, and this is only because you do not get told what you need to do for the assignments, you are left in the dark. As for the content itself, it's not difficult, only implementing it in a resourceful way in the future, makes it difficult.

Apart from the vagueness in the assessments, most of the time, they would answer questions on the forum. Out of the 56 different questions, 52 were responded to by staff. The feedback in the assessments was impeccable, the critique and feedback were extremely useful, and it was shown that extra time was utilised to help us as much as possible.

The lectures were very repetitive imo, although the content was different, it continuously directed onto the same couple of points. The lecturer was very slow and monotone, it took forever for him to convey a certain point. I feel like the lectures could've been done by week 5.

The tutorials normally consisted of one whole big discussion where some students would always be the ones to share their opinions, rarely you are forced to comment, and that is terrifying :) The tutorials were normally based on set readings and the textbook, but going to the tutes without reading them does not affect anything.

The assessments, sadly were just the most mind-numbing frustrating thing, you have to be very particular and careful in which you are trying to convey, which was very difficult to do. It felt very repetitive, and you feel like you've done everything wrong. The 5-minute video that was required was just terrible (but better than a speech I guess haha).

Although much harder than the 1104 equivalent, this course was much more helpful and organised, which was really great.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2018, 11:26:29 pm by blasonduo »
2018: UNSW B science (physics)/B education

Kicking myself into gear

HSC Physics Topics 1 & 2 Exam!

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #54 on: June 25, 2018, 11:16:32 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: ARTS1090 - Media, Culture and Everyday Life

Contact Hours: 3 - 1.5 hour lecture, 1.5 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None

Assessment: Concept reflection (20%), annotated bibliography (20%), literature review (30%), final exam (30%)

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Yes - there was a bit of guidance for the assessments

Textbook: Media, Culture and Everyday Life

Lecturer(s): Scott Shaner, Tutor: Heather Ford

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: Semester 1, 2018

Difficulty: 2.5/5

Overall Rating: 1/5

Comments:

This course was such a bore especially when compared to my other ones this semester. I dreaded going to the tutorials, and never went to the lectures, choosing to watch them online instead. The course wasn't hard; like the concepts aren't hard to grasp but some of the readings were quite complex. As for the textbook, buy second hand if you can! Some of the readings are from there but most aren't so it's not worth it to buy brand new.

Usually Media/Communications subjects don't have exams, and this one did which was really strange. The assessments were okay - they weren't hard, but they were very annoying to do and I don't think there was enough guidance, especially because most people who did ARTS1090 were first-years who had no idea what a concept reflection, annotated bibliography or literature review was, let alone how to write one. I was really fortunate to have had a great tutor who was super helpful with the assessments and the readings.
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #55 on: June 25, 2018, 11:36:20 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: INST1005 - Key Debates in International Studies

Contact Hours: 3 - 2 hour lecture, 1 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None, but if I'm not mistaken you have to be enrolled in B International Studies to take this course

Assessment: Weekly tutorial presentations (25%), essay (25%), final exam (50%)

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Extra readings every week, sometimes extra video content, assessment guide

Textbook: None

Lecturer(s): Anne Bartlett, Tutor: James Dhizaala

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: Semester 1, 2018

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Comments:

This course was actually quite interesting. It's really hard to describe but it's mostly theories which are then applied to current world issues. I think the course tried to introduce a practical aspect to International Studies through the tute presentations which had a different topic each week relating to the lecture. However, one thing I didn't like about the tute presentations was the lack of feedback given, which was pretty much none. Marks really varied across different tutorials, and standards weren't consistent at all which was a pain. There weren't any comments with the marks either. This was the same with the essay, which we had hardly any guidance for. As for the final exam, there was always an air of mystery around it because we had no idea how it would be structured, yet it was weighted 50%. Despite this, a list of key terms from each week was provided for exam prep.

This course also had a lot of reading, but it wasn't really necessary because they were always summarised in the lectures. The lectures were very engaging and there was always a lot of room for discussion which was great. As for the tutorials, I didn't really like them because although we had the tute presentations, those took up a lot of the allocated hour, and an hour was definitely not enough to cover everything that could be discussed, especially with the readings - if there were questions, you couldn't have them answered in the tutorials.
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

fantasticbeasts3

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #56 on: June 25, 2018, 11:50:17 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MDIA1002 - Media Industry Contexts

Contact Hours: 2.5 - 1 hour lecture, 1.5 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None, although if I'm not mistaken you have to be enrolled in B Media (Comms/Journalism or PR/Advertising) to do this course.

Assessment: 10x tute prep tasks (20%), multiple choice quiz (20%), 2x professional writing tasks (60%)

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Extra readings

Textbook: Media and Journalism: New Approaches to Theory and Practice

Lecturer(s): Louise Ravelli, Tutor: Diane Nazaroff

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: Semester 1, 2018

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Comments:

Out of the two Media courses I completed this semester, this one was way more enjoyable. It definitely related more to actual Media rather than just a ton of theory so I didn't feel like I was wasting money.

The lectures were pretty much just the lecturer reading off the slides, so they were easy enough to skip and you could do alright just by reading the slides provided. The tutorials were much better - my tutor explained concepts in more depth than the lecture and especially with writing, gave detailed feedback on the tute prep tasks and assessments both in class and comments on the actual assessments.

In terms of assessment, marking was fair. The minimum requirement for the tute prep tasks were that you completed 6 in order to pass that component (and I think the course as well) and as long as you did them and it looked like you put effort into them, you got 100%. They were also quite simple to complete which didn't make them a huge burden. The MC quiz was okay, but there wasn't any content for preparation which was inconvenient because you didn't know how questions could be asked, and this semester there were two questions worth four marks at the end of the quiz which was strange. As for the professional writing tasks, you could choose to do either a news article or press release because the course is for both journalism and PR students. In my opinion, they were marked fairly and there was a lot of feedback which was helpful.
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
2018-2022: B International Studies/B Media (PR & Advertising) @ UNSW

katie,rinos

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #57 on: June 26, 2018, 11:14:19 pm »
+6
Subject Code/Name: MUSC1602-Materials and Structures of Music 1 Harmony Tute Stream.

Contact Hours:  1hr Lecture, 1hr Studio, 1hr Tute per week.

Assumed Knowledge: Basic knowledge of music theory, Recommended (but not needed) to have completed AMEB Musicianship grades (possibly grade 5 level?).

Assessment:
I found that there were a lot of assesments in this course compared to some of my others.
Portfolio of Harmony & Composition Exercises: In-class test during lecture (2 worth 15% each), Written Composition Assesment (20%).You must receive 50% or higher in this part to pass the course.

Portfolio of Harmony exercises/melodic dictation exercises: In-class quiz during tute (10%), Take-home exam (15%), two melodic dictation exercises held during the last two weeks (5% each)

Auralia test and progress: Student progress during Auralia exercises (5%), On-line Auralia test (10%)

Lecture Recordings? No :(

Notes/Materials Available: Some examples of music to analyze as well as definitions of non-harmonic tones. We also had to buy a program called Auralia for aural training. I didn’t find there was a lot of examples of excerpts to practise to prepare for the tests in the lectures: the lecturer expected that we could find pieces to use online.

Textbook: The musician’s guide to theory and analysis. It was really expensive so I brought it secondhand, however I think it can be used for all four M&S courses. The textbook did really help explain some of the more difficult concepts.

Lecturer(s): John Peterson: Lecturer, Brad Taylor-Newling: Harmony Tutor, David Taylor: Aural Studio Tutor

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 2018, 1

Difficulty: 4/5 (but would definitely depend on your prior knowledge of music theory)

Overall Rating:  2.5/5

Comments:
As someone who didn’t really have a lot of music theory or knowledge of piano chords going into this course I struggled at times and found the beginning of the course a bit difficult. The classes were also a little bit boring sometimes, which didn’t help. However, towards the end of the semester, I realized how much I had learnt and improved in analyzing music and chords.

The course is loosely split into three different parts: the harmony lecture, tute and aural studio.

The harmony lecture went for an hour a week and was unrecorded (which was annoying as I wasn’t able to listen to parts that I hadn’t understood during the lectures). During the lectures, we covered topics such as triads/chords, inversions, dominant 7ths, non-harmonic tones, & cadences. The lecturer worked on a whiteboard and moved fairly fast each week which would have been difficult to catch up if you had missed a class. He didn’t really make sure everybody understood a concept before moving on (which was difficult as everybody had a different level of theory knowledge going into the course). He picked on people to answer questions about chords which was terrifying as I wasn’t very confident. I found the two tests during the lectures to be fairly difficult, especially with the 50 minutes time limit. However, we did have some help/guidance with the composition assessment.

The harmony tute (which was the stream for people who weren’t at a high level of theory) mainly went over content that was covered in the lectures. It was a small class (around 10 people) and Brad was really helpful in trying to make sure we all understood the concepts and we were able to ask heaps of questions. The harmony tests and what we needed to study for them were both explained very well and were some of my best marks.

The aural studio was with everyone in the course (around 70 people) and began to teach us basic singing. We began just learning simple warm ups and then progressed to four-part harmony pieces in smaller groups. This felt weird at first because I’d never sung before, however was really fun, learning how to sing in four-part harmony especially with our last song ‘Chasing Cars’.
« Last Edit: June 26, 2018, 11:19:59 pm by katie,rinos »
Class of 2017 (Year 12): Advanced English, General Maths, Legal Studies, Music 1, Ancient History, History Extension, Hospitality
2018-2022: B Music/B Education (Secondary) [UNSW]

RuiAce

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #58 on: July 02, 2018, 02:18:46 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MATH3611 - Higher Analysis
Equivalent postgraduate variant: MATH5705 - Modern Analysis

Contact Hours: 3 x 1 hr lectures, 1 hr tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: Formal prerequisite involves 12 UoC of Level 2 mathematics courses, one of which must be (MATH2111 or MATH2011(CR)). Essentially, first year calculus and MATH2111 concepts are assumed knowledge. MATH2701 gives you useful skills to make this course easier, but is not required.

Assessment: 
- 3 x Short assignments, each 10%
- Main assignment, 20%
- Final exam, 50%

Lecture Recordings? No

Notes/Materials Available: The lecture notes and the past papers provided are generally all you need. Some other past papers may be floating around if you look hard enough.

Textbook: A.N. Kolmogorov and S.V. Fomin: Introductory Real Analysis (Dover, 1970; Call number: P517.5/125). All content is taken out of this textbook, but it's really unnecessary; the notes are enough

Lecturer(s): Dr. Pinhas Grossman

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 18 s1

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 4/5 

Your Mark/Grade: 85 HD

Comments:
This course is one of the core courses for a major in Pure Mathematics.

Analysis generalises the concepts of limits, continuity and all of the basic stuff taken for granted in calculus. It goes into the theory of all such concepts, and expands their applications into not just involving what you see IRL, such as numbers and vectors. Analytic tools can appear less rigid; the whole notion of limits is not something that's really observed and requires us to believe in some kind of 'extension' on what we can actually see.

Personally, I find it works better with my brain. Especially after losing it with algebra, I needed some kind of pure maths left in my soul. I found that I was alright with constructing counter-examples a lot and didn't have too much figuring out the proof, but probably lacked the ability to write it out properly at times. More or less accepting this grade whilst biting my teeth because hey, an HD is an HD, but I would've much preferred a 90+.

Some analysis proofs are pretty long, whereas others are no-brainers. A part of the skill in this course is spot what you can do easily and then come back to the hard stuff later. Finding examples and counterexamples is pretty common stuff. Perhaps the other thing I'd say is that you really want to know all of your definitions and theorems. Because I've found that with analysis proofs, bashing definitions and theorems is quite a fair bit of what you do.

There's a mix of hard and soft analysis in this course, but I think there's slightly more soft analysis; epsilons were everywhere but still a fair bit of the course involved topological spaces and compactness.

(The course outline isn't really accurate in my year; the course content was somewhat cut down. Quite grateful to Pinhas for it; I had a better understanding of what was examinable as a result of it.)
« Last Edit: May 04, 2020, 11:22:19 am by RuiAce »

RuiAce

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #59 on: July 02, 2018, 02:39:42 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MATH5505 - Combinatorics

Contact Hours: 3 hours of lecture per week (1 x 2hr, 1 x 1hr)

Assumed Knowledge: Formal prerequisite is 24 UoC of Level 3 mathematics courses, but it can be wavered by permission from the lecturer. Having said that, MATH1081 is seriously strongly recommended as this course builds directly on it. MATH5425 is a recommended co-requisite.

Assessment:
- 3 x Assignments - 20%
- Open-book final exam - 40%

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture notes and lecture slides released. (Also Facebook group.) Although no past papers

Textbook: N/A

Lecturer(s): Dr. Thomas Britz

Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 18 s1

Difficulty: 4/5 (somewhat skewed - its difficulty could be as low as 1/5 for an actual honours/postgrad student)

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: 88 HD

Comments:
This is one of many courses offered in postgraduate pure mathematics studies and is typically offered once every 2 years.

Combinatorics is, from what I've been able to see, quite a unique and beautiful part of maths. Questions like "how many ways can we do something" and "what is the least/most amount of things we require for something" can seem quite elementary, but in practice actually requires deep thought. Yet these thoughts can be turned into seriously amazing proofs and results. It also helped me think algorithmically, which is good because I'm now in computer science.

I took on a gamble and subbed out one of my 3rd year electives for this postgrad course. The fact that I still came out with HD despite being carried the entire semester makes me pretty satisfied with it.

The course is taught somewhat differently to most traditional teaching methods. Lectures are more or less used to present amazing (although mindnumbing) proofs of pretty challenging results. The course's difficulty goes down as the semester progresses (the hard stuff is blasted out of the way first). No tutorials and problem sets are released; your thinking during the semester is mostly through the assignments. Assignments involve very proof-based questions and challenge you quite heavily, although sometimes you can do some research and then source a solution you found online. Final exam was very fair; half of it involves essentially free marks whilst the other half are somewhat lighter difficulty proofs. I couldn't get out every question on the exam but I found I was able to get at least halfway with almost all of them.

Thomas Britz was my supervisor for my summer research project, and also the lecturer for this course. As always, he's one of the nicest lecturers in arguably the entire university. Won't talk too much about why here though ;)

This is perhaps the most theoretical course I've done at uni so far. Definitely challenged me a lot more than what I ever had thus far. Which is to be expected for a postgrad level course really, but it was ultimately a fun one.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2018, 02:50:00 pm by RuiAce »