Subject Code/Name: COMP2521 - Data Structures and Algorithms
Contact Hours: 3 hours of lecture, 1 hour tutorial followed by 2 hours laboratory
Assumed Knowledge: COMP1511 is the sole prerequisite and is sufficient for this course.
Assessment: A bit complicated. Involves labs, assignments, prac exams and final exam.
Calculation
labs = mark for lab exercises (out of 5)
pracLabs = mark totalled over both lab exams (out of 12)
ass1 = mark for first assignment (out of 9)
ass2 = mark for second assignment (out of 14)
Finals:
finalPracExam = mark for practical component of finals (out of 36)
finalTheoExam = mark for theory component of finals (out of 24)
To pass the course, either one of the following two must be satisfied (similar to a double-pass criteria):
- finalPracExam >= 26
- finalPracExam >= 18 AND pracLabs >= 6
Calculation of mark:
assMarks = ass1 + ass2
// Convert marks into percentages:
assPerc = assMarks as a percentage
pracPerc = practical component of exam as a percentage
// Adjusts assMarks only if necessary:
if (assPerc > pracPerc) {
adjusted_assPerc = (2 * assPerc * pracPerc) / (assPerc + pracPerc)
assignmentMarks = 23 * (adjusted_assPerc / 100)
}
Then, the final mark is the sum:
marks + assignmentMarks + pracLabs + finalPracExam + finalTheoExam
The idea is that if you lose too many marks in the practical component of your final exams, your assignment marks get dragged down. The factor is in accordance to the harmonic mean (with appropriate weightings)
Lecture Recordings? Yes
Notes/Materials Available: Lecture notes, lab exercises, tutorial exercises all uploaded to webcms3.
Textbook:
- Algorithms in C, Parts 1-4: Fundamentals, Data Structures, Sorting, Searching (3rd Edition) by Robert Sedgewick, Addison-Wesley
- Algorithms in C, Part 5: Graph Algorithms (3rd Edition) by Robert Sedgewick, Addison Wesley
Both are VERY good, but not needed for this course.
Lecturer(s): Dr. Ashesh Mahidadia
Year & Semester/Trimester of completion: 18 s1
Difficulty: 2/5
Overall Rating: 3.5/5
Your Mark/Grade: 85 HD
Comments:
This course is one of the immediate continuations of COMP1511. It replaced COMP1927. UNSW CSE recommends taking it in second year, however there really is no problem taking it in the second semester of first year. It is a prerequisite to almost all future computer science courses.
The disappointing amount of marks I threw away in the final exam killed a bit for me. It's really my own fault and the course ain't to blame for it, but it does skew my rating quite far away from what it should've been.
Algorithms are perhaps the most fundamental tool computer science students use. The study of algorithms involves trying to solve problems as efficiently as possible and also create the program to do so. On one hand, you need to understand how the algorithm works, but then on the other hand you need to know (or figure out) how to implement it. They're quite fun to explore when you sit down and attempt to understand it.
This course serves as the introduction to algorithms, with two areas of focus: sorting and graphs. Sorting is quite self explanatory, but I think this video helps introduce the fun behind it all. The graph structure forms the basis for shit tons of stuff we do (it becomes clear that even Facebook is essentially just a huge graph). It leaves you with pretty much all the basic needs for you to get a job as a computer scientist, and you really should never forget what you learn in this course. It's just that important.
At times, I found some of the lab exercises and assignments quite draining. The only thing that bugged me was that occasionally, our tasks weren't clear enough with what we had to do.
I feel like the rumours that maths helps computer science starts here. My mathematical background certainly simplified a lot of bizarre algorithms for me a lot. But I don't think they're necessary though. At the end of the day, the algorithms are backed by logic, and that's a skill any computer scientist must have.
I wholeheartedly despise this course
Subject Code/Name: COMP4920 - Management and Ethics
Contact Hours: 1x 2hr Lecture, 1x 2hr Tutorial
Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites: - COMP2911 or COMP2511 - None of this course is used in COMP4920
- Completion of 96 UoC in Computer Science
Assessment: - 10% Lecture Summaries - Two sets of two summaries of the lectures; peer-marked; your mark is not only dependent on how other students marked you, but also how close you marked others' summaries to the average mark for them; as long as your markers are decent people, relatively easy marks, at least compared to everything else
- 20% Seminar Participation - participation not only involves participating in the weekly seminars by asking questions and discussing the issues, but also weekly reflections on the seminar of that week; although it's against university guidelines, an email from a tutor implies that this is based on how much you participate, and not the quality, and the number of students who can get high marks is limited; turns seminars into a snake pit
- 30% Student Seminars - Two seminars done in groups of size 3-5 depending on your class size and whether your tutor is okay with 5 person groups; each seminar on one of the supplied list of topics, and has to be different to everyone else's topic, so it's first-come-first-served; total length is appro. 50 minutes, and a small part of the mark if based on specifically your performance in the seminar rather than the seminar overall (four criteria are content, structure, presentation, and individual)
- 40% Company Case Study - An approx. 2000 word (apparently but also not? See comments) essay discussing ethical issues surrounding a company; topic is of your own choice but should differ from your group's student seminar topics; topic needs to be IT related (see comments for what this means); expected to be balanced and come to a conclusion or some justified stance on the actions of the company
Lecture Recordings? Yes; live but all recorded, but possibly only because COVID forced us online
Notes/Materials Available: Lecture slides available online.
Lecturer(s): Wayne Wobcke
Year & Term of completion: 2020 T3
Difficulty: 4/5 (varies wildly depending on your tutor, and also whether you can lie your way through an ethical discussion well)
Overall Rating: -/5 (varies wildly between -500 and -5 depending on your tutor, and whether Wayne had a red or green apple today)
Your Mark/Grade: 75 DN
Comments: The content involves professional conduct, developing ethical arguments, and ethical perspectives, with lectures provided entirely by guest lecturers actually qualified in the area, excluding the first lecture introducing the course and its (lack of) structure. The guest lectures were actually interesting.
I'll keep it brief, but in short I despise this course. The following is probably very biased, but I encourage you to talk to past students and their experiences with the course. The course chat turned into a rant room against Wayne by the end of term, and almost no one I know was happy with their mark. I have heard that you can get this course replaced with an equivalent ethics course from another school or faculty. If you can, I highly suggest you do so.
Wayne Wocke (also referred to as Wayno, Wobkek, or Wobcuk amongst previous cohorts) is by far the most incompetent course administrator I have ever seen, and his actions (or inaction) come off as deliberately malicious. Many many complaints have been made against him, but UNSW refuses to replace him since "there's no one else qualified to take over the course." This term, it got to the point that the student representatives for CSE compiled a two-page document listing improvements for the course, after collecting 14 or so pages of complaints from students (there was a google doc we could fill with complaints, and it reached 14 pages before it was made private and they moved to an online form instead). A large amount of questions on the forum remain unanswered, and Wayne refused to acknowledge many questions asking to clarify assessment criteria. After being told that the quality of our contributions in class mattered, we found out that tutors were told not to give more than 2 marks of 9 or 10 out of 10 for participation, and some tutors used number of contributions to directly rank students. Within 2 hour, there is not enough time for 25 or so students to contribute to discussion sufficiently. There were several accounts of tutors acting unprofessionally, from ripping into a group for their seminar ("providing feedback") in front of the entire class, to asking what nationality a student was because their name didn't sound like a name typical of their accent. My tutor, Ali, was very chill, though our marking was still incredibly harsh. There was mention of 17/20 being the highest mark of seminar 1 amongst the cohort. 16 was the highest in our class. Tutors reported being told to reduce marks because their class average was too high. Considering 17 was the max mark, this sounds insane. There were a lot of questions on the forums regarding the length of the case study. Wayne refused to give an expected length, insisting that you should write an essay with "appropriate length", though mention of 2000 words was made at some point, so many took this to be satisfactory. By the end of the course, most were over the course, and putting in very little effort. The definition of what an "IT-related issue" was was not only vague, but misleading. Many of the companies provided as examples in the case study specification were not sufficiently IT-related for Wayne, and what was or was not considered IT-related differed between tutors, with many tutors providing contradictory opinions on which topics were IT-related. Wayne's actions throughout this course border on unethical. We discussed professional conduct in seminars, and Wayne is a perfect example to show that you can still get a job without caring for professionalism and competency.
Subject Code/Name:
ENGG1000 - Engineering Design and Innovation
Project eEVee (Evolving Electric Vehicles for Emerging Economies)
Contact Hours: Depends on project
Assumed Knowledge: None
Assessment:
NOTE: Varies based on project
Impromptu Design Writing Task - 5%
Design Journal (checked twice) - 15%
Engineering Design Process - 15%
Professional Communities - 10%
Team Evaluation - +/-25% (Used to moderate marks within teams)
Design Performance - 20%
Design Commercialisation - 15%
Final Report- 20%
Lecture Recordings? Yes, available on Moodle and Teams
Notes/Materials Available: Depends on what project you chose
Textbook: Dym, C.L. and Little, P. (2014). Engineering Design: A Project-Based Introduction, 4th edition, John Wiley and Sons (Not required)
Lecturer(s): Varies based on project
Year & Trimester of completion: 21T1
Difficulty: 1/5
Overall Rating: 2/5
Comments:
For context, ENGG1000 is an introduction to design course generally taken in the first term of any engineering degree, and is setup so that students can preference projects to choose (I've attached the list available in T1, feel free to PM me if you want the detailed project pitch for anything)
21T1 Projects
Airborne Terrain Mapping
Autonomous Container Delivery
Battling the Big Dry
Bionic Hand
Project eEVee
Impact-proof Buildings
Mars Regolith
National Emergency Supply Equipment
Renewable Energy from Waves
Robots to the Rescue
SunRay Speedway
In response to previous reviews, the Impromptu Design Challenge has been moved to the start of the course. While this is nice in terms of not being disruptive, it also meant that we only got our group and project assignments well into in Week 3, which is a pretty significant amount of time into the term for a Trimester considering that we also had to do safety and lab inductions before we could even start work.
I picked and got into Project eEVee (Evolving Electric Vehicles for Emerging Economies), a chemical engineering project focused around designing an effective battery to drive a lego car, with the actual electric vehicle component being secondary. This project requires that you supply your own PPE (Lab Coat, Safety Goggles, and Face Mask) as well as some other precautions like closed shoes and long pants to be able to work in the chemical engineering labs.
While this project specifies no prior knowledge is necessary, you're basically screwed if you haven't taken HSC Chemistry or equivalent. While the course offers technical lectures on electrochemistry, it's simply not enough to facilitate more advanced cell designs which require a strong foundation in chemistry. Similarly, little to no support is given for the car design and things like torque, current, and gear ratios are never taught. I felt that I learnt more from my group members than from the teaching staff, which is a problem when you consider the massive disparities in skillset between groups.
Overall, I think this would be a fun course if you were adequately prepared and had the background knowledge to work systematically and effectively. As it is now, it feels like you're being thrown headfirst into a project with little to no support, with your success being entirely determined by the team you're assigned. While I was lucky to have a good team who was able to teach me a broad range of concepts, I know friends who ended up learning little to nothing in their projects as well teams who couldn't get a working battery by the end and so couldn't participate in final testing. With only 6 effective weeks to work on the project, it was difficult to do anything meaningful and to develop the technical knowledge needed before actually starting work.
I also dislike the assessment format, with things like structured reflections feeling very forced in that questions are specifically written to direct you towards certain insights to get marks. The Professional Communities assignment was also a bit strange in that it gave credit to people who attended camps and required you to create a LinkedIn profile. In the end, you do get exposure to lots of different areas of engineering (at least in this project) but I agree with earlier reviews that the course seems like a massive waste of time, and that these skills could be much more effectively gained through things like participation in student led projects and internships.
I wholeheartedly despise this course
Subject Code/name: COMP4920 - Professional Issues and Ethics in Information Technology - Course renamed in 2021
Contact Hours: 2hr lecture in weeks 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 (note: week 4 was a public holiday), 2hr seminar (tutorial)
Assumed Knowledge: Not really anything to do course content. Prerequisite is COMP2511 (or the old COMP2911), and have completed 96 UoC within a computer science degree, but really this just reflects that you should be towards the end of a CSE degree and hence have the background of a software engineer.
Assessment:
- 10% seminar participation
- 10% lecture summaries
- 20% movie review (reflection)
- 20% student seminar
- 40% company case study
Lecture Recordings? Yes
Notes/Materials Available: Mostly just the lecture slides. However, some seminars also required preparation material, which was provided.
Textbook: Quinn, M.J. Ethics for the Information Age. Eighth Edition. Nobody used it though to my knowledge.
Lecturer(s): A/Prof Wayne Wobcke. He only really delivered the first lecture though. Content was instead delegated to guest lecturers: A/Prof Stephen Cohen, David Vaile, and members of FPA Patent Attorneys Pty Ltd.
Year & Trimester of completion: 21T3
Difficulty: 3/5
Overall Rating: -2/5
Your Mark/Grade: 76 DN
Comments:
This is a core course to all CSE students that don't have SENG4920 required instead. Note that in 2021, SENG4920 was an identical course to COMP4920, and students between COMP4920 and SENG4920 could partner together for the movie reflection and the student seminars. (Effectively, the "management" component of the course has now been completely phased now, which justifies the course name change.)
Clearly, I hated every moment of this course. But when comparing to the aforementioned review, one should at least observe that -2 is a better rating than any number from -5 to -500. This is because improvements should be acknowledged where due. Some of the more noticeable improvements from last year:
- Essay plans were actually reviewed
- Removal of the second student seminar from 2020 certainly freed up more time
- Participation cut from 20% to 10%, which made it feel considerably less like a warzone trying to participate in the seminar.
- A couple admin improvements as well. (For example consultation hours, though I didn't use these specifically myself.)
Also, in all fairness the content is fine. And the best thing about the course for me was the absence of a final exam. This freed up my time a lot at the end, and this I am thankful of. (Oh and also, I found out my final mark before release of results day because of this.)
So why is the rating still non-positive? Because:
- Although the documentary itself wasn't bad, the movie review task itself was nothing but confusion. Many marks were lost for things that were just bizarre. 750 words also feels way too short for ethical argumentation and reflective components to be mixed together.
- Feedback received was often ambiguous. It felt like a plus that marking guidelines were given, but sometimes the feedback received just seemed to have nothing to do with it. The feedback was also usually very brief and hence unhelpful.
- For some reasons HDs are just a non-existent concept in this course. Though DN is very much possible (including DNs higher than the mark I received), HD seems to be eliminated altogether.
- Hard limit for the essay was certainly a benefit. But alongside everything else we needed to include, it just seemed impossible to have stuff like "stakeholder perspectives" covered with the 1500 words we were given.
- It's never clear what the right balance of stuff is. How deep should the ethical arguments be? How do we incorporate everything (e.g. background context, the "stakeholder perspectives" mentioned above)?
- Information surrounding the lecture summaries was often unclear, or ambiguous.
- Oh, and not being taught how to write. Movie reflection and essay both suffered here. (Perhaps also student seminar, but can't really comment here.)
- (On a personal note, I find it hard to envision when I'd ever use Kantian ethics to analyse behaviour in the workplace.)
The level of subjectiveness in the marking really makes me question what arts faculty students have to go through when they take courses similar to this. It's hard to not believe that deliberate limitations are placed on each student denying them from truly feeling any "success" in the course. (Some people also argue that some of the marks released are really just an RNG.)
Often times, it was very unclear to me why this course felt necessary. I do support the concept of an "ethics" course in the 21st century. (And again, to be fair the content itself is not bad.) But expecting me to be satisfied with something that hinders any sense of academic accomplishment is a completely different matter. No wonder some students seemed to run off into the electrical engineering version (despite that one having a final exam and blah).