Subject Code/Name: CHEM20018 - Reactions and Synthesis
Workload:
3 Lectures/week
1 Tute/week
NO PRACS. NO PRACS. NO PRACS. DO NOT EXPECT CHEM PRACS. I feel this is important - yes, there is a chem subject without pracs.
Assessment: 20% Online Tests, 80% Exam.
Lectopia Enabled: Yes, screen capture works, but on that note the chem lectures are forced into the only room on the entire campus that doesn't use the conventional lectopia. It still works through ECHO, but there are often glitches, and the some lecturers are unsure of how to work the system.
Past exams available: Sample exams can be found on the digital repository, but they don't provide solutions for they believe students should revise using tute questions. Here's a quote from a near-exam period LMS announcement:
Several students have requested solutions to past CHEM20018 papers. School policy is that beyond 1st year, past exams solutions or exam tutorials will not be provided. In higher years, it is expected that students should be able to prepare for exams with the support of the extensive online notes, CA tests, and tutorials with solutions. You should attempt the past exams then consult with the lecturers for each part of the course.
Textbook Recommendation: Don't need to buy anything, just borrow the various books from the library as you need them.
Lecturer(s):
Chronological order as semester progressed:
Organic Chem - Jonathan White (no problems)
Thermodynamics - Ken Ghiggino (no problems)
Inorganic Synthesis: Enthalpic and Entropic Drivers - Stephen Best (major problems, this guy shouldn't lecture, most students found him hard to understand)
Inorganic Synthesis: Coordination Chemistry - Paul Donnelley (stellar lecturer)
Option 1: Theory of Advanced Materials - Angus Gray Weale (I can't vouch for his lecturing in this subject because I didn't elect to do ToAM, but he is a great lecturer regardless)
Option 2: Biological Organic Chemistry - Spencer Williams (another great lecturer)
Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1 2013
Rating: 4 out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: Will update when results come out
Comments:
This subject is used by plenty of people going into various majors.
People pick CHEM20018 to:
- major in chemistry
- major in medicinal chemistry
- major in chemical systems for chemical engineering (coincidentally last chemistry subject they need to do with the chem major students)
- some people who major in pharmacology (depends on how they set up their major; some 3rd year subjects require chem)
- others who decide they like chem and pick it as an elective
The subject difficult, in that it is incredibly fast paced. Expect a big step up from first year - here, if you aren't studying each lecture properly (for at least 2+ hours until you understand everything in it), then you're not doing it right and will probably fail. And given that it's an 80% exam, your really will probably fail.
First up - the lectures. The lectures are not bad, but they are very fast paced. I can honestly suggest that if you're on top of your game, you really owe it to yourself to pre-read. I found myself constantly 1-2 weeks behind in this subject because it would take me longer to learn the lectures than the lectures were actually happening, and I could only catch up when cramming for assessments. It was definitely my hardest subject, and by a ridiculous margin as well - the workload is really massive, and they get the ball rolling from Day 1.
The lectures cover a wealth of material; it starts with organic chemistry where you learn everything you possibly could about C=O, reaction mechanisms, and bond formation and breaking. Then it progresses into thermodynamics where you are expected to start using integrals - everything in this is basically physics and maths, and it's essentially the study of physical chemistry and why it is important. You will find this section a lot easier if you properly read the relevant info in the textbook; in my opinion, the lecture notes are too brief and you'll end up really confused if you don't try to learn this properly. From there, you use all of the information in this unit as pre-requisite information in the next which is inorganic chemistry, and it's probably the worst taught component of the course.
I'm going to give inorganic chemistry it's own little paragraph, because I really feel like I ought to explain why it's shit. It's shit because the lecturer is shit (in the sense that he can't communicate the information very effectively), the parts of inorganic chemistry he selected to teach us are shit (he could have picked much better topics), and the assessment (which is based on the shit topics he selected) is also shit (in that it tests very pedantic pieces information). It's no surprise really that it was the section people did worst on for the Online CAL tasks (which I will discuss). You learn about oxide/peroxide/superoxide formation (of all fucking things, great, useful, and helpful right? not.), then you move onto lattice energy and enthalpy of hydration and just generally learning really well how to work with Hess' law. The second half isn't so bad, because it is interesting. I'll give it that. But it still is super shit for the random things that you are expected to memorise.
Then, you move onto coordination chemistry, which, being taught by Donnelley, is a pleasure as always. Super clear lectures, super interesting stuff. You learn obviously about metal complexes and revise a whole bunch of first year stuff, but you actually move a little deeper into redox. By the end of inorganic, you'll have a generally good understanding of how chemistry works - why reactions happen and linking everything to everything. Linking salts dissolving in water to energy transformations to pH to redox to transition metal chemistry. It's a pretty good outlook. Except for pourbaix diagrams - that shit's hard.
Finally, there's an option!. You get to pick from two different topics - biological organic chemistry or synthesis of advanced materials.
I picked biological organic chemistry, which was great. It's a pity it was the last topic in the course, because it made me realise I should have picked Biochem over physiology. You learn about the major groups of molecules - sugars, fats/polyketides, and proteins. It's incredibly eye opening and if you have any interest in expanding on the general structures of organic molecules that you learned in Year 12 chem, then this is really a good pick, and I'm sure it would complement any subject (it helped with Physiology for example because I was able to see how a couple of hormones, like prostaglandins, were actually synthesised). Note: I think there MUST be overlap with biochem, because from what I've seen of my peers' biochem work, it was pretty similar.
I'm fairly sure that Synthesis of Advanced Materials is about getting you to be able to look at anything and tell you everything about what it's made out of. E.g. you look at all of the macroscopic properties of materials - stretch, density, reactivity with atmosphere, how easy it is to fracture, etc. I'm not so sure, but that's the general gist.
Now for the CAL tasks:
There are 5 topics and there are 5 CAL tasks, but only your top 4 grades count towards your 20%. That means that your top 4 out of the 5 CALS are worth 5% each. It's not as easy to get 100% in the CALS as in other subjects, but you get two attempts at each one and the questions do not change, so anyone technically SHOULD be able to do it. I did get 100% for all of the topics except one - can you guess which?
Spoiler
that's right, fuckin' inorganic
. The questions are mostly fair and model the lectures and tutes pretty well. Which is good.
I think the best part of taking this subject was that it actually links all of the main ideas in ways you've never before seen; you begin to think about the world in terms of thermodynamics and whether processes will or will not happen and you also begin to understand connections between phenomena you always thought were unrelated, like pH and redox stability and energy transformations and enthalpies of just about any process you like. The other good part about this subject is it leaves you reflecting that you have learned so much, but you realise that you've only scratched the surface of what Chemistry really is - a lot of the mechanisms you learned are simplified (and still incredibly hard), and a lot of theory still needs to be covered.
The worst part of the subject were
a) inorganic
b) the workload
Might edit this a bit later for readability / might feel like adding stuff
Subject Code/Name: UNIB20007 Genetics Health and Society
Workload: 2 x 1 hour lectures a week, 1 x 1 hour tutorial (starts in week 5).
Assessment: 3 x in-semester online tests (MC): 5%, 10% and 10% respectively. 1 x group assignment - construct a Wiki based on a book/movie and present it in a tutorial: 15%. 1 x exam: 60%.
Lectopia Enabled: Yes, with screen capture.
Past exams available: None, but they provided you with sample questions. The quizzes and tutorial sheets could also be used as revision. It's not really about doing 100 questions for revision, it's just about how well you can construct a response that will address the issue at hand (more on this later).
Textbook Recommendation: None prescribed.
Lecturer(s): Have many lecturers/speakers for this subject, it’s a collaboration of lecturers from different departments giving talks on their take on genetics health and society.
Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2013.
Rating: 4.5 Out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: H1
Comments: As with any subject where there are many lecturers from different departments giving lectures, it will be a subject that many students may feel like there is no direction or cohesion. But on reflection, it’s held together and integrated really nicely. Perhaps you will not realise this until later in the year because you’re too busy studying for BIOM20001.
The lecturers are practically all great communicators and are of high status in the community. As many students discovered, as they were spending time during the lectures Googling the lecturer, you are essentially being lectured by super pros in the field. World renowned, often in the media. Fundamental researchers to what we understand today. The big guns.
Starting off with the first few weeks, it’s all about nature and nurture. The fundamental biological concepts are introduced, and reproduction is explored. Ideologies are uncovered about what we view the world today in terms of nature and nurture. Twin studies, GWAS and epigenetics were touched on. Remember, this subject isn’t all about the details, it emphasises on the concepts. I found this was introduced really well, and the questions that were on the first test corresponding to it was at a level that a large amount of people got H1 on, as once again, it was mainly fundamental details.
The second slot was about personalised medicine, economics, clinical and non-clinical uses of genetic testing. Also, thinking in general about genetic testing with regard to ethics, morals and psychology were undertaken. The test was once again fundamental concepts. Probably on par with the first test in terms of friendliness. Once again, brilliantly taught.
By now, many people have locked in 15% plus minus 1-2%. Then, the course gets fired up to differentiate people.
The final slot was about genetics and the law, paternity fraud, race, visible differences and art/blogging. Once again, good diversity. Many found the law lectures enjoyable. The test for this is quite hard, because it starts to get more specific and the questions more ambiguous. So bulk up is what I am saying.
The tutorials as already mentioned start in week 5; the tutor I had was fantastic. You go through a bunch (4-6 usually) of discussion questions which is often based off a reading or readings that you were provided with earlier and were expected to have read. Because there are relatively few tutorials in total, you cannot afford to miss many.
The Wiki assignment was quite dependent on all members, as most of the time you will all get the same mark (unless someone does no work or a very disproportionate amount of work where they may be separately penalised). There was no guideline as to how much information you could put into it if I am not mistaken. If the group holds together, an H1 should be attainable. There is somewhat an emphasis on creativity.
Alright, by this time I have been relatively positive, with how the lectures, tutorials and overall the subject is great. Let me add to that the pace was just right for me. But there must be things that the subject could change right?
1. There was easily an emphasis on some lectures (or even portions of lectures) more than others in the testing/examination. You could have studied some lectures that you believed they emphasised on in detail and none of the others and probably do better than the person that did everything but in a bit less detail. Whilst this perhaps is very hard not to do, perhaps some lectures still should have had at least a somewhat more significant contribution to the questions than almost nothing or maybe nothing itself, given that there are relatively few lectures as well (22 direct content lectures, one introduction to the subject, one ties it all up).
2. Whilst there was nothing significantly wrong with the actual Wiki project itself, the Wiki system that is set for some reason appears to have had many issues, and hence many emails were sent. The mark we got back didn’t have any feedback, nor the scores we obtained for each of the criteria.
Overall, if you’re mildly interested in genetics, you’d find this subject interesting. I know I did. It was just an introduction but to get the viewpoints from the many lecturers opened up a new world away from textbook based questions. It was more applicable to real life coming in from all directions. But if you’re the type that prefers more definite answers, or more specific details, or perhaps even want a subject where you know more for sure where it is going and what is expected of you, then maybe this subject isn’t for you. You will get tested in the exam with many open ended questions, asking things that may not be clear to you. Just imagine something like*:
Someone just found out their niece had a disease x, what do you think they will make of this? What should they recommend to the niece? What can be done? Etc.
Hard to split students? Perhaps. Do they need to split students? Probably. Just hope for the best in how you'll end up being split.
*Spoiler
Please note that this was not a question they actually gave, but is somewhat similar in style. I am not allowed to specify the actual questions because the paper is not lodged in the Baillieu.
Enjoy.