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Author Topic: UNSW Course Reviews  (Read 288412 times)  Share 

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emilyygeorgexx

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #105 on: May 27, 2019, 10:25:43 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name: LAWS1052 - Introducing Law and Justice

Contact Hours:  4 hours of lectures per week, 1 hour tutorial (research component)

Assumed Knowledge: N/A

Assessment: 
Court and Tribunal Report - 10%
Extended Case Note - 30%
Class Participation - 20%
Research Exam - 10%
Final Exam - 30%

Lecture Recordings? No, attendance is compulsory as a roll is taken

Notes/Materials Available: Notes given by your lecturer, notes on Moodle, past papers, etc

Textbook: Laws and Justice in Australia: Foundations of the Legal System by Prue Vines - you really need the textbook as all weekly readings are derived from there

Lecturer(s): Lecturer: Justice Selwyn Selikowitz, Tutor: Mr Colin Fong

Year & Trimester of completion: T1 2019

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating:  2/5

Your Mark/Grade: DN

Comments:

I think firstly, the biggest plus to law at UNSW is that the lectures are very small. You only really have about 30 people in your lecture, which is similar to a high school class, and makes it easier to engage and ask questions more. Being my first law course at university, it was very interesting to say the least. This purely stems from the fact that it wasn't really actual law but rather just legal history from like the 1600's and onwards. It covers topics such as Settlement, Glorious Revolution, England, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Rights, etc. I am not really a history fan at all so for me I found this course to be quite boring the entire term and struggled to get through it. However, it did get interesting in the very last week where we learnt about intentional torts and torts. This topic covered in the last week is a nice introduction to the following course in Term 2 called 'Torts'.

Law courses rarely have a tutorial but as this is the first law subject you take, you have a weekly tutorial which is focused on legal research skills and methods. It covers things like how to cite cases, use legal data bases, assisting in interpretating statutes, research methods/strategies, etc. I honestly thought this class was a semi waste of time as the whole class basically did nothing and we barely got through the content each week and ended up having to do it for 'homework', despite minimum assistance on how to actually complete the tasks. There is a workbook that you have to fill in each week and your tutor will check it 2-3 times in the term to see if you have completed the work. Although, I probably didn't use the time as effectively as possible, it's actually really important to pay attention as you need all these skills for the rest of your law degree.

The exam was okay although I personally thought it was a lot of work to do in 2 hours. The final exam includes a statutory interpretation question, which you have to prep for like 2 weeks in advance, an intentional torts problem and a choice of one essay. I tried to split all sections into 40 minutes each however, some sections took longer than others which left me with only 30 minutes to try and get a decent essay in. The research exam was also alright, although I felt underprepared. Questions were pretty straightforward if you had a look at past papers but it generally covers coming up with research strategies, case citation and looking at statutes (extrinsic/intrinsic material). However, there are some really odd questions in there as well. I think for this one question I had to just come up with a title relating to Aboriginal Rights for 1 mark, which imo is pointless. However, main plus side of the law exams is that they are open book! Yet, it can sometimes get overwhelming because you just have so much paper everywhere!
« Last Edit: May 27, 2019, 12:30:54 pm by emilyygeorgexx »
HSC 2018 - (ATAR: 99.10)
English Advanced (90) | General Mathematics 2 (95) | Business Studies (98 - 6th in NSW) | Legal Studies (94) | Economics (93) | Studies of Religion 1 (48)

2019: B Commerce/B Laws @ UNSW

emilyygeorgexx

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #106 on: May 27, 2019, 10:12:34 pm »
+4
Subject Code/Name: ACCT1501 - Accounting and Financial Management 1A

Contact Hours: 2 hour lecture per week, 1.5 hour tutorial per week

Assumed Knowledge: N/A

Assessment:
Class Participation - 10%
Online Quizzes - 15%
Mid Term Exam - 25%
Final Exam - 50%

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Endless notes on the internet, past papers, stuff on Moodle

Textbook: Financial Accounting: An Integrated Approach 7th Edition 2019 by Ken Trotman, Elizabeth Carson, Kate Morgan + Management Accounting Supplement

Lecturer(s): Lecturers: Youngdeok Lim, Chuan Yu, Conor Clune; Tutor: Conor Clune

Year & Trimester of completion: T1 2019

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Your Mark/Grade: DN

Comments:
I found this course to be particularly challenging at times despite having some background knowledge from Business Studies. The first 3 or so weeks were fine but then as the weeks progressed it all builds on top of one another and becomes quite complex and a lot to deal with at once. It became really hard if you got stuck on concepts in like Week 4 and then you were also trying to learn the content in say Week 7. I think this was aided by the fact of yes, trimesters, as at one point they were trying to teach like 3 chapters of the textbook in one 2 hour lecture and this equated to approximately 100 or so pages of the textbook. The management accounting topics were just a bit odd compared to what we had learned in the previous 8 weeks. However, I think I enjoyed it more than the financial accounting content.

The exams were pretty alright if you had done the practice papers and knew your stuff. However, in saying that the final exam was definitely more than challenging, particularly the multiple choice. The mid term was also fine, had plenty of time to spare. The online quizzes are pretty easy as well, a definite easy 15 marks to get. However, there is one group presentation in the term and its important to get a good group otherwise you just don't get the work done (although this is just common with group work in general).

Lectures could get a bit boring and is definitely hard to stay focused for 2 hours straight. Some lecturers are better than others but otherwise they were pretty much the same. My tutor actually ended up being one of the lecturers so that was a bonus.

Although, this course was okay and I did alright, I will not be completing 1B.
HSC 2018 - (ATAR: 99.10)
English Advanced (90) | General Mathematics 2 (95) | Business Studies (98 - 6th in NSW) | Legal Studies (94) | Economics (93) | Studies of Religion 1 (48)

2019: B Commerce/B Laws @ UNSW

owidjaja

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #107 on: May 27, 2019, 10:50:01 pm »
+4
Subject Code/Name: ENGG1000 - Introduction to Engineering Design and Innovation

Contact Hours: 2 hour common lecture (for the first 4 weeks), 1 hour technical lecture (MECH Stream), 1 hour mentoring session per week

Assumed Knowledge: None

Assessment: Depends on the project chosen but this was the assessment outline for Project ARDET:
Impromptu Design Writing Task - 5%
Problem Statement Presentation - 5%
Design Challenge Calculations - 3%
Team Presentation - 5%
Individual Design Report - 5%
Hardware Lab Report - 5%
Design Challenge Testing - 7%
Design Proposal Report - 10%
Compliance Testing - 10%
Design Journal (checked twice) - 10%
Final Testing - 20%
Final Report - 10%

Lecture Recordings? For common lectures, there are lecture recordings but uploaded very late. For technical lectures, no.

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 but we never used it so no need to purchase it.

Lecturer(s): Lecturers are mainly the student mentors and project coordinators and always changed each week.

Year & Trimester of completion: T1 2019

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Comments:
This is the type of course where you spend a whole term in a group project. They made changes to the way ENGG1000 works. It used to be you choose what kind of stream you wanted to go into (e.g. ELEC, MECH etc.) but this year we chose from a range of projects that were multidisciplinary. Project ARDET was mainly mechanical but there was also mechatronics, software and electrical engineering involved. Project ARDET required us to build an autonomous vehicle that can pick up balls and travel through an obstacle course. Because we haven't been taught things like vehicle performance modelling or programming, it was challenging to finish the project since we mainly taught ourself how to build the vehicle. Even the project coordinators and mentors weren't expecting much in the final testing. On the final testing day, most of the vehicles didn't work (i.e. motors were fried, servos broke, wheels fell off) and our final testing marks were moderated.

I didn't mind the course. The assessments weren't too bad. It was just a bit annoying that they threw in the Design Challenge in the middle of the term, so we were scrambling to finish our prototype for the compliance testing (which was the week after). I was also lucky to be put into a good group. When we chose the project, I had to complete a survey about my skills and how I worked in groups and they used that to create the groups. I personally found it beneficial because I was put in a group where we had different skills (some of the members were comfortable with writing the code, others were comfortable with construction, I was comfortable with the report component).

The common lecture was very boring. It was hard to stay awake during those lectures because they were going through standard soft skills like how to work in a group, how to write a problem statement (which does link to one of the assessments), how to do group presentations etc. A lot of us left halfway and by the last common lecture, no one really showed up because my group would prefer using that 2 hours working on the project.
2018 HSC: English Advanced | Mathematics | Physics | Modern History | History Extension | Society and Culture | Studies of Religion I

ATAR: 93.60

2019: Aerospace Engineering (Hons)  @ UNSW

jazz519

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #108 on: May 28, 2019, 11:23:29 am »
+3
Subject Code/Name: CHEM2041 - Analytical Chemistry - Essential Methods

Contact Hours:  3 x 1 hr lectures, 1 x 4 hr lab

Assumed Knowledge: First Year Chem courses (CHEM1031 and CHEM1041)

Assessment:  10% Stats moodle exam, 15% Lab core skills, 10% Laboratory report, 20% Lab results, 5% structural determination assignment, 40% final exam

Lecture Recordings?  Yes, but some lectures write on the whiteboard

Textbook: Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry by A.Skoog (a good book but not entirely necessary I used ChemLibre Texts and it had the same content), Organic Structures From Spectra L.Field (a very good book for practice questions for the structural determination spectroscopy part of the course)

Lecturer(s): Alex Donald, Les Field, Chuan Zhao, Pali Thordarson

Year & Trimester of completion: 2019 Trimester 1

Difficulty: 3.5

Overall Rating:  5

Your Mark/Grade: 96 HD (for any future student that cares this was the mark for 1st ranking)

Comments:
I really enjoyed this course as it was very well designed and the assessments are designed to try to maximise your learning but while having fair marking and helpful feedback. The lectures were on the most part really good for this course, all were very knowledgable on the topics they taught. This course will favour people who did well in the structural determination aspect of CHEM1041 as it goes into more detail (I.e. C-13 NMR and other forms of spectroscopy) for Les Field's section. Other topics covered include chromatography and mass spectrometry (what the different types are and how the machines work), electrochemistry (how pH electrodes, ion selective electrodes work) and nano-particle characterisation (different techniques and machines you can use to measure the size of and structure of nano particles)

The final exam for some people was tough but myself I found it fairly easy and straight forward as I made sure I covered all aspects of the course in depth. One thing I would recommend to study for the spectroscopy section is to do the problems in Les Field's Organic Spectra textbook. The questions are hard and difficult to understand at first but after a while of maybe 30 problems I figured out the different tricks you can use to figure out the structure of the chemical. This is a really important section to be good at, as the final exam had 10/40 marks for this and the questions are very similar to his textbook (you might get lucky and he chooses one you have done already).

The 10% stats exam is really easy and a free 10% as they give you the questions prior, which are the same in the exam but with different numbers. You may struggle initially if you haven't used Excel for calculating things but if you have prior experience requires very minimal studying

The 5% structural determination assignment is a bit more difficult but consists of a Moodle quiz (that you can do at home at your own pace) where you have about 40-50 marks of questions. I found this section relatively easy as I spent the time going through the spectroscopy textbook as mentioned above and the rest of the answers you just have to use your application of content in the lectures

The laboratory component is a large amount of marks at 45%. However, many of those marks are not extremely difficult to get. You get 15% for core skills (just have to complete all the tasks involved in the first 4 pracs - very easy just have to turn up to class. do 2-3 min pre labs and write up a section of a practical report such as an introduction or results section - which you do in groups which makes it even easier), 10% lab report on one of the practicals you are assigned to in the remaining weeks. The marking is fair and transparent as they tell you how much each section is worth. If you follow the scaffold they give you, you should do well as they provide a decent amount of feedback in the earlier pracs. The last 20% a little more difficult to get as it relies on the accuracy of the results you get but 8% of that mark is for getting the pre lab questions right so 12% on results which you can get unlucky in if your practical doesn't work perfectly but seeing as the rest of the course up until then is easy to get marks shouldn't bring down your overall too much

In all I really enjoyed this course and learnt a lot from it and in my opinion of the courses I have done so far for chemistry it has been the most useful in terms of increasing my knowledge on the subject
« Last Edit: February 15, 2020, 06:16:57 pm by jazz519 »
HSC 2016: 99.7 ATAR

UNSW: Advanced Science: Major Chemistry & Minor Mathematics

Recipient of Late Stephen Robjohns Science Scholarship
and AAA Scholarship at UNSW

jazz519

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #109 on: May 28, 2019, 12:18:26 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: CHEM1041 - Higher Chemistry 1B: Elements, Compounds and Life

Contact Hours: 3 x 1 hr lectures, 1 x 2 hr lab, 1 x 1 hr tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: CHEM1031

Assessment:  20% laboratory (made up of 10% core skills and 10% non-core skills), 10% midterm exam, 10% weekly quizzes, 60% final exam

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Moodle, lecture notes, past papers (released closer to the exams), tutorial questions

Textbook: Chemistry 3rd Edition (the book is fairly useful for the content but its more useful in terms of the practice questions because the tutorial questions apart from the ones with numerical calculations they don't give you any solutions apart from asking in the tutorial)

Lecturer(s): Prof Thordarson, Dr Nguyen, A/Prof Ball

Year & Trimester of completion: 2018 Semester 2

Difficulty: 4

Overall Rating:  3.5

Your Mark/Grade: 88

Comments:
This course is very different from CHEM1031 because there aren't as many calculations in this course compared to that one, but even for people who aren't as mathematically inclined I feel like this course is harder than 1031 because of the need to understand the content rather than follow steps that you can get away with in calculations.

Many will find this course challenging in the organic chemistry section which I would say is the hardest part of the course. This part of the course it's really important you don't leave it until the last minute to study because it is literally impossible to do this due to the shear amount of reactions and potential questions you could get. The questions here involve detailing the mechanism for a chemical reaction or test the synthesis of a complex molecule from a more simpler one. The first part of the course, the isomers, rate theory and structural determination section, is relatively easy it just takes a little bit of time to remember and understand how to do the problems. The inorganic section of the course is fairly easy to understand and is explained relatively well in lectures.

For this course the best way to study the content is to do the tutorial questions they provide on the week you have the tutorial because there are no answers that you can look at afterwards. The textbook is also helpful for this as it has similar questions and they have answers so that is good for testing your knowledge.

The midterm exam is out of 15 multiple choice questions on the first part of the course (isomers, rate theory and structural determination) and is relatively similar to the past paper provided however, I would say slightly more difficult

The laboratories are relatively easy to perform if you follow the instructions and you should be able to get a mark of 15/20 even with an average performance. The mastery in experiments is hard to get sometimes because you have to get within 2% of the actual value but if you can get this a few times throughout the term then you should end up with a lab mark around 18/20

The weekly quizzes you have 3 attempts and they are not too difficult as they just test concepts in the lectures that week

The final exam is very challenging especially for the organic section on reaction pathways but if you study consistently and do the tutorial questions you should be able to get most of the questions correct
HSC 2016: 99.7 ATAR

UNSW: Advanced Science: Major Chemistry & Minor Mathematics

Recipient of Late Stephen Robjohns Science Scholarship
and AAA Scholarship at UNSW

jazz519

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #110 on: May 28, 2019, 12:37:15 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: GENM0707 - Nutrition and Health

Contact Hours:  1 x 1 hr Lecture, 1 x 2 hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: None

Assessment: 20% Weekly Online Quizzes (2% each), 20% Nutrition Self Reflection Project, 20% Group Presentation on a Nutrition Topic, 40% Capstone Paper

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available: lecture materials are sufficient for most of the course

Textbook: No textbook

Lecturer(s): Dr Rebecca Reynolds

Year & Trimester of completion: 2018 Semester 2

Difficulty: 2

Overall Rating:  4.5

Your Mark/Grade: 90

Comments:
Quite an interesting general education course that will teach you about many aspects of nutrition. 20% weekly quizzes are pretty easy as the material is taken directly from the lecture, lecture attendance may be beneficial to make friends but you can easily complete the course watching the lecture at home. 20% nutrition self-reflection project involves writing a 1500 word report about your nutrition habits and evaluating them in terms of if you are getting the recommended nutritional value and justifying why you took certain food choices (good idea to try talk about all the different factors affecting your eating such as health reasons, cultural or religious reasons). The marking for this is relatively fair and if you follow the structure provided it is not too difficult of an assignment. The 20% group presentation is in tutorials where you are given about 2-3 weeks to make a presentation about a certain nutrition topic. Common ones I saw were on intermittent fasting, dairy alternatives and their effects, keto diet etc. This presentation is around 15 minutes long where each person has 3 minutes to speak in the group and there is a 3 minute interactive activity at the end you have to do most people did some type of quiz or gameshow for this. It depends whether you get a good group for this but even so most of the marks for the project are on your individual presentation skills and there is a small component for the overall group aspect. If you are someone who is good at presenting then this is a good option for you. The 40% capstone paper I won't lie is really long to write because it is around 2000-2500 words. In the assignment you have to choose a certain nutrition question specified in the assessment detail and write about it using scientific journals and other resources. However, a benefit of this is that you don't have to do a final exam so as soon as you finish the assignment you are finished with the course
HSC 2016: 99.7 ATAR

UNSW: Advanced Science: Major Chemistry & Minor Mathematics

Recipient of Late Stephen Robjohns Science Scholarship
and AAA Scholarship at UNSW

jazz519

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #111 on: May 28, 2019, 12:52:12 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: MATH1231 - Mathematics 1B

Contact Hours:  2 x 2 hr lectures, 1 x 1 hr tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: MATH1131

Assessment:  20% tutorial class tests, 20% Maple (lab test and online tutorials), 60% final exam

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available:  Course pack and lecture notes have everything needed

Textbook: Don't need the textbook just use the course pack

Lecturer(s): Daniel Mansfield (Algebra) and Joshua Capel (Calculus)

Year & Trimester of completion: 2018 Semester 2

Difficulty: 3

Overall Rating:  4.5

Your Mark/Grade: 90

Comments:
The lectures first off were excellent. Daniel Mansfield is probably the most interesting and engaging lecture I have had while at UNSW. Joshua Capel although not as on the funny side of telling stories as Mansfield he still a really good lecture who throughly explains and works through the problems and is easy to understand and follow.

The 20% class quizzes are definitely harder than MATH1131, however, still same as before if you do the tutorial questions and the past class tests at the back of the tutorial books you will do relatively well as the questions are similar. Maple as usual is something that is boring to do but gives you free marks if you do it. The 60% final exam was difficult but similar to the past papers provided and the amount of resources on this section is more than ample to help with your preparations as they even have livestreams where they go through some past papers.

Overall the course was really good and well taught but as usual with a maths subject you have to put in consistent effort through the term to get a good mark as it is difficult to absorb a large number of concepts in a short time particularly if you are not mathematically inclined
HSC 2016: 99.7 ATAR

UNSW: Advanced Science: Major Chemistry & Minor Mathematics

Recipient of Late Stephen Robjohns Science Scholarship
and AAA Scholarship at UNSW

FutureLawStudent

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #112 on: May 28, 2019, 01:40:24 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: LAWS1052 - Introducing Law and Justice

Contact Hours: 5

Assumed Knowledge: None

Assessment:10% Court Report, 20% Class Participation, 30% Case Note, 10% Research Exam, 30% Final Exam

Lecture Recordings? No

Notes/Materials Available: Various things floating around, some lecturers more generous than others in terms of notes provided.

Textbook: Law and Justice in Australia by Prue Vines (and the Torts textbook, although you can hold off until LAWS1061 to buy it, I don't see why you wouldn't purchase them at the same time, especially if you want to do the Introductory Moot).

Lecturer(s): Prue Vines and Dao Coorey (Research Tutorial)

Year & Trimester of completion: 2019 T1

Difficulty:3.5

Overall Rating:  4

Your Mark/Grade: 88

Comments: ILJ is a course that many students find difficult and frustrating, however it imparts some really important skills and I feel that it is is a good introduction to law and is well balanced in terms of legal history and content. It certainly is a lot of work in comparison to other first year courses (such as Micro 1) however, if you can keep on top of the readings and do the online activities, it's not too bad. Trimesters have definitely made things cramped and rushed, but you can still definitely learn the required information in the time given. All the material is posted online, so it is easy to work at your own pace. The research component is very useful and engaging, although many students seemed to ignore it. Overall the course was enjoyable, but there were certainly frustrations. However, I feel this is expected when you study something that you have never really studied before.

Dao and Prue were both great and engaging.

jazz519

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #113 on: May 28, 2019, 06:46:06 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: PHYS1221 - Physics 1B

Contact Hours:  3 x 1 hr lectures, 1 x 2 hr lab, 1 x 1 hr problem solving class

Assumed Knowledge: PHYS1121, year 12 physics also helpful

Assessment:  50% final exam, 20% laboratory mark (10% group project, 10% other labs), 10% fortnightly quizzes, 20% 2 in class exams using Moodle (basically questions selected from the 10% fortnightly quizzes)

Lecture Recordings? Yes, but both of the lectures write on the blackboard so its harder to follow without being there

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture notes, past papers on Moodle and MIT opencourseware (I found was helpful)

Textbook: There was a textbook but the lecture notes material is more than enough as there is also a problem solving booklet given

Lecturer(s): Adam Micolich and Richard Newbury

Year & Trimester of completion: 2018 Semester 2

Difficulty: 4

Overall Rating: 5

Your Mark/Grade: 95

Comments:
This course is quite difficult however it is quite an interesting course more so than PHYS1121 I would say. The lecturers for this course are really good and explain their content with adequate practice problems shown as well. The course is split into two main sections. Electromagnetism and Quantum Physics. I found both parts of the course really interesting and useful

The 20% lab mark has two aspects. One which is a 10% group project where you have around 3 weeks to run experiments on a certain area you use from the ones provided. You write a report on the experiments and do a 10 minute presentation as well. This is a great way to make friends in the course, however, as with all group work projects if you don't have members putting in equal effort then you may lose marks in this area. The marking in the presentations was quite tough but for the report marking was a little easier. The other 10% for the lab marks comes from doing pre lab quizzes and performing a few more practicals on which they mark your results and responses to questions in the lab manual. The experiments are probably harder than PHYS1121, however, these marks are still relatively easy to get if you work well with your lab partner.

The 10% fortnightly quizzes (about 6 of them) are quite difficult and it can take multiple attempts till you get a full mark on them. These questions I would say are the most important study resource you have at your disposal because even if you get the question wrong it comes with a full worked solution with explanation at each step. However, because there are around 30 questions in the quiz bank from which each attempt is selected, if like me you put in the dedication to doing them all you will get the 10% in this area. An added benefit of putting in the time into these quizzes, is that because both the in class tests are questions selected from the quiz bank used for the fortnightly quizzes. So if you have already studied or completed these questions prior you can get a good mark for another 20% of the course as well.

The 50% final exam was a quite difficult exam however the questions are relatively similar in type to the ones covered in lectures and because there are so many past papers they make available to students you have a lot of practice resources to have a go at prior to the exam. Professor Newbury also released additional questions for his section as well that were helpful.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2019, 06:49:02 pm by jazz519 »
HSC 2016: 99.7 ATAR

UNSW: Advanced Science: Major Chemistry & Minor Mathematics

Recipient of Late Stephen Robjohns Science Scholarship
and AAA Scholarship at UNSW

owidjaja

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #114 on: May 29, 2019, 08:42:55 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MATH1131 - Math 1A

Contact Hours: 6

Assumed Knowledge: HSC Mathematics Extension 1 but if you got 85/100 in HSC Mathematics you should be fine.

Assessment: 
Weekly quizzes - 20%
Lab Test - 2 x 10%
Assignment - 10%
Final Exam - 50%

Lecture Recordings? Yes

Notes/Materials Available: Course notes, lecture slides and past papers.

Textbook: S.L. Salas, E. Hille and G.J. Etgen, Calculus – One and Several Variables, any recent edition, Wiley but not compulsory (I never really used it).

Lecturer(s):
Algebra: Daniel Mansfield
Calculus: Arnaud Brothier

Year & Trimester of completion: T1 2019

Difficulty: 4.5/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Comments:
As someone who dropped from 3U to 2U, I struggled a lot. It also doesn't help when your tutor straight up tells you in the first tutorial that I'm gonna struggle because I only did 2U (totally great for my self esteem). This meant that I had to do a lot of preparation during the holidays and brush up my 3U stuff. And because I'm a slow learner, it did get very overwhelming to try and keep up. I personally liked algebra over calculus. Part of it was because Daniel Mansfield is a very engaging lecturer and explains concepts really well, but also because there isn't a lot of theorems to remember (although I did struggle with complex numbers). On top of that, I liked how Mansfield explained each step in his working out.  Calculus, although the content is very familiar, was difficult because most of the working out required you to refer to theorems and a lot of the familiar concepts were taught in a more formal way with new notations, which made it even more confusing. It didn't help that Brothier literally read from the slides and went through the topics really fast. He also tends to put the working out on the slides in big chunks and would kinda talk through it, but he doesn't go step-by-step, which made it even more confusing.

However, the course notes were very helpful. It was my go-to source for studying because they have the important theorems and definitions but then they'd go through 2 or 3 examples and do a step-by-step working out. What I found annoying is that they don't have solutions for the recent past papers, only solutions for the ones in the exam pack. As for the actual final exam, I struggled a lot. When I look back on the paper, there are some questions that are doable but I'd still find it difficult. One thing to note, if you final mark is between 45-49 (and I think if your tutorial attendance is minimum 80%) they'll let you take a supplementary exam. The supplementary exam is done on Maple TA and the questions are a lot nicer than the final exam.

In general, it was very challenging but the math department does give a lot of support (i.e. Mansfield's math livestreams, the math drop in centre, course notes etc.).
2018 HSC: English Advanced | Mathematics | Physics | Modern History | History Extension | Society and Culture | Studies of Religion I

ATAR: 93.60

2019: Aerospace Engineering (Hons)  @ UNSW

FutureLawStudent

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #115 on: May 30, 2019, 08:54:49 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: ECON1101 - MICROECONOMICS 1

Contact Hours: 2*1.5 hour lectures a week, 1 1.5 hour tutorial

Assessment:  20% Playconomics, 10% In-Tutorial Test (10 Short Answer Questions), 20% Mid-Semester Test (12 MC worth 6 marks and 14 marks of short answer), 50% Final (2 Hrs, 50 MC)

Lecture Recordings?  Yes

Notes/Materials Available:  Heaps. UQ past papers are very useful.

Lecturer(s): Alberto Motta <3

Year & Trimester of completion: 2019/1

Difficulty: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 85

Comments: I would not review Micro 1 if it weren't for trimesters. As the other reviews noted, this an enjoyable and interesting course that isn't too challenging. However, trimesters have made it more difficult than it used to be (at least, it seems to be the case). The mid-semester exam was particularly brutal, with the average being a fail. While the content isn't overly difficult, especially if you did well in HSC Economics, the fact that you have 6 weeks to learn and revise what is probably close to 75% of the course difficult makes it difficult. Previously 20% of the cohort would get an HD, however I highly doubt this is the same for this trimester. I know someone who received 95 in HSC economics yet only received a low distinction in the course. In saying that, I know someone who got 96 in the course (yet they received a perfect score in PHYS1131 and MATH1141). The fact they only used 8 weeks to teach the course means that it was crammed and there wasn't sufficient time to revise the concepts, meaning even if you understood them you wouldn't necessarily be rewarded for this.

TL;DR the course has not been adjusted for trimesters, at least effectively. Nonetheless the course is still relatively easy from a content perspective, so if you take it after your first term of uni you could still probably do very well.

Alberto Motta is the best and funniest lecturer alive and if you can get him as a lecturer I 100% recommend him (especially because he has a habit of "forgetting" to turn his microphone on ;).



kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #116 on: June 01, 2019, 02:16:40 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: COMP1521 - Computer Systems Fundamentals

Contact Hours: 2hr + 1hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial + 2hr Lab (Combined)

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
  • COMP1511 - Need to know how to program in C

Assessment:
  • 10% Weekly Lab Exercises - 9 labs, since a few weeks were skipped; grading system ambiguous but completion of the exercises was 100% for the lab, and completing (or in some cases, a decent attempt at) the extra exercises netted >100% to make up for marks lost in other labs; mostly covered lecture content, so were easy if you understood the lectures
  • 10% Quizzes - Fortnightly quizzes completed on WebCMS; four question multiple choice, and a week to complete; best 5 of 6 counted; as with labs, easy marks if you know the content, and the week to complete them meant you could look up the answers anyway
  • 20% Assignments - Two assignments, weighted 7% and 13% respectively; first assignment was a MIPS assignment (assembly language you learn in the course) and was fairly easy overall; second assignment was in C emulating virtual memory, very easy but the given template code was kind of a mess; overall simple assignments with easy marks
  • 60% Final Exam - Split into two parts, theory and practical; theory section asked for explanations of code and concepts taught in the course, along with some simple answers to various questions, worth 30 marks overall; practical part had three questions, each worth 10 marks, two of which were in C and one in MIPS; practical questions were easy, and theory was only slightly more difficult than the tutorial questions
  • 1% Blog - You might notice this adds to 101%, which is because this blog mark was given to make up for losing marks elsewhere; completing a blog regularly (like, maybe once per week) would get you an extra course mark you could use to make up for a lost course mark in other assessments, but overall capped the course at 100% (guess who didn't see this in the course outline until it was too late)

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture slides and course material all uploaded to WebCMS. Since it was the first year offering this course, there were no past exams available, but tutors made sample questions, and past COMP1927 exam questions were located by students, of which a few related to COMP1521.

Textbook: None, but the following resources cover some of the course content:
  • Introduction to Computer Systems: From Bits and Gates to C and Beyond , by Yale N. Patt and Sanjay J. Patel, McGraw Hill
  • Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective , by Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron, Prentice-Hall
  • nand2tetris: The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles , by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken, MIT Press

Lecturer(s): Dr. John Shepherd

Year & Semester of completion: 2017 S2

Difficulty: 1/5

Overall Rating: 2/5

Your Mark/Grade: 99 HD

Comments: A very easy course, with very little content. A few weeks were spent learning MIPS, which is easy to anyone with experience programming before, and is basically a few weeks of free marks. Lecture slides were sufficient for me, and I didn't go to lectures, so I can't comment on the lecturer. Overall a kind of boring course, but I enjoyed the MIPS programming somewhat. Those interested in embedded systems will probably like this course a lot more. Bit of a tip: don't change your perfectly fine code just before the submission deadline; it will break everything and you'll lose a mark because they have to roll your submission back (FeelsBadMan).

kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #117 on: June 01, 2019, 02:35:46 pm »
+5
Subject Code/Name: COMP2521 - Data Structures and Algorithms
Postgraduate Equivalent: COMP9024 - Data Structures and Algorithms

Contact Hours: 2hr + 1hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial + 2hr Lab (Combined)

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
  • COMP1511 - Need to know how to program in C

Assessment:
  • 5% Weekly Lab Exercises - 9 labs, since a few weeks were skipped; marked out of 5, but 4/5 was 100%, and 5/5 gave you extra marks to make up for lost marks in other labs; a few of the labs were time consuming, but mostly straight forward and pretty easy marks
  • 12% Lab Exams - Two exams taken in your lab session both worth 6%; given a practical problem (as you would see on the final exam) and asked to solve it; the problems were pretty simple and covered stuff generally taught one or two weeks beforehand anyway
  • 23% Assignments - Two assignments, weighted 9% and 14% respectively; first assignment was very easy, and was basically revision of COMP1511; second assignment was a little harder, but still pretty straightforward; do note, however, that some terms the second assignment is much harder (Dracula assignment, ask around if you're curious), but I believe this is usually only done in SUmmer terms
  • 60% Final Exam - Split into two "parts" (each question was either theory or practical, but the order was mixed), theory and practical totalling 39 marks; theory section was worth 24 marks and was much more difficult than the practical section; asked to analyse time complexity of algorithms and run through algorithms step-by-step; practical section had three questions worth 5 marks each, and were very straightforward easy marks

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture slides and course material uploaded to WebCMS.

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness
  • [Recommended] Algorithms in C, Parts 1-4: Fundamentals, Data Structures, Sorting, Searching (3rd Edition) by Robert Sedgewick, Addison-Wesley
  • [Recommended] Algorithms in C, Part 5: Graph Algorithms (3rd Edition) by Robert Sedgewick, Addison Wesley

Lecturer(s): Dr. Ashesh Mahidadia

Year & Semester of completion: 2017 S2

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Your Mark/Grade: 96 HD

Comments: An interesting course, with a few difficult parts, and very useful overall. One of my gripes with the course is the harmonic scaling applied to assignments and final exam results. If you get a lower mark in the final exam than your assignments, your assignment marks are scaled down using the harmonic mean. It's used to stop plagiarism, but serves to punish students regardless, since you're almost certainly going to go better in the assignments than the final exam. Didn't attend lectures so I can't comment on the lecturer, but the written materials were more than sufficient, and the tutorials went along with them well. In week 4 there was a "Sort Detective" lab where you were given two programs (compiled and with no read permissions so you couldn't decompile them) and had to run tests on them to figure out which sort they were, and write up a report about it (like a couple pages or something, not a proper report), which I found interesting.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2021, 10:38:52 am by kierisuizahn »

kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #118 on: June 01, 2019, 02:54:42 pm »
+7
Subject Code/Name: MATH1081 - Discrete Mathematics

Contact Hours: 4x 1hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Corequisites (prerequisite or to be completed alongside MATH1081):
Assessment:
  • 30% Class Tests - Four tests, best three of four counted; each test was on one topic (there were five topics, the last one was only tested in the final), and were pretty easy, but it was easy to lose one or two marks
  • 10% Online Tests - An online test every week, for a total of 12 tests; administered through the SCORM system on Moodle, which had a few issues; as many attempts as you want, so you can get 100% regardless, and free marks
  • 60% Assignments - Much more difficult than the assessments throughout the term; past papers are a must, and generally each question (of which there were four), focuses on one topic with maybe another topic sprinkled in; at least for my exam, the combinatorics section was much harder than the others; preparation is highly advised

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen/document camera and voice recorded.

Notes/Materials Available: Lecture notes uploaded to Moodle, and past exams provided as well. A few with solutions were uploaded to Moodle, but there were many in the exam bank anyway. Past class tests were also uploaded on Moodle.

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness
  • [Prescribed] S.S. Epp, “Discrete Mathematics with Applications”, Fourth Edition, 2011 OR Second (or Third) Edition, PWS 1995.
  • [Prescribed] J Franklin and A. Daoud, “Introduction to Proofs in Mathematics”, Prentice Hall, 1988 or “Proof in Mathematics: An Introduction”, Quakers Hill Press, 1995.

Lecturer(s): Prof. Jim Franklin, Dr. Tarig Abdelgadir

Year & Semester of completion: 2017 S2

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Your Mark/Grade: 95 HD

Comments: My favourite first year maths course. The content is often interesting and some of the harder questions are really interesting (they're also more common than the harder questions in MATH1141 and MATH1241). I didn't go to lectures, so I can't comment on the lecturers, but the course material is mostly sufficient anyway. The notes on combinatorics are kind of all over the place though. It would be nice if more problems were in the problem set, for more practice, but there are multiple questions in the lecture notes you can turn into exercises for extra practice. The course focuses on making you think like a mathematician, rather than solve problems simply, so the questions are more conceptually difficult, which I know many people struggle with, but is certainly more fun for a purist like me. The graph theory topic is also very applicable to CS (specifically COMP2521), and I definitely recommend this course.

kierisuizahn

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Re: UNSW Course Reviews
« Reply #119 on: June 01, 2019, 03:12:24 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: MATH1241 - Higher Mathematics 1B

Contact Hours: 2x 2hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:
Prerequisites:
  • MATH1131 or MATH1141, both with CR or higher

Assessment:
  • 20% Class Tests - Four tests, best three of four counted; two test on algebra and two on calculus, much like MATH1141; very simple questions if you're up to date
  • 8% Online Tutorials - A tutorial in the form of a test every week, with four "modules" each, and best 8 of 12 counted; alternating between algebra and calculus, and good revision content; as many attempts as you want, and you can verify your answers every time you do them, so it's free marks if you put in the time, but they can be time consuming sometimes
  • 4% Online Maple Tests - Four tests, which follow the maple notes much like MATH1141; an extra fifth test which isn't assessable as well; just like the online tutorials, very easy, as many attempts as you want
  • 8% Maple Lab Test - Same as in MATH1141, a lab test with all 15 questions given beforehand but numbers changed, taken on MapleTA, and designed to require use of Maple; there are some questions where it's easy to lose a mark or two if you mess it up, since there's no partial marking, and it's recommended to look over your answers before submitting; straightforward otherwise, and basically free marks
  • 60% Final Exam - Four questions, 20 marks each, with the first two questions shared with MATH1231 students; difficulty generally increases towards the end, and the last couple are more conceptually difficult than the rest; past exams help a lot in preparation for the final, and doing all the harder questions in the course notes as well; difficult test overall

Lecture Recordings? Yes - screen and voice recorded.

Notes/Materials Available: Course pack sold as with MATH1141, and again available online to print yourself. Many past exams provided for both final exams and class tests, which are good preparation material. Some extra final exams uploaded to Moodle with full solutions as well.

Textbook: Note: I don't use textbooks and can't comment on their usefulness
  • [Prescribed] S.L. Salas, E. Hille and G.J. Etgen, Calculus – One and Several Variables, any recent edition, Wiley.

Lecturer(s): Prof. Catherine Greenhill, Dr. John Steele

Year & Semester of completion: 2017 S2

Difficulty: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Your Mark/Grade: 95 HD

Comments: Very similar to how MATH1141 is run, but some more interesting content (specifically integral and series convergence). I didn't attend lectures so I can't comment on lecturers, but the course notes covered the content to a good depth anyway, just as with the MATH1141 course notes. The number of questions in the course notes is sufficient. Most of the difficulty is from the sequence and series topic from calculus, and the algebra content is pretty easy overall. A good foundation for the second year courses, but sort of dry barring the few interesting questions in the final.