Enrol now for our new online tutoring program. Learn from the best tutors. Get amazing results. Learn more.

March 07, 2021, 12:40:48 pm

### AuthorTopic: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings  (Read 1291121 times) Tweet Share

0 Members and 5 Guests are viewing this topic.

#### huy8668

• Victorian
• Posts: 23
• Respect: 0
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #780 on: December 12, 2019, 10:26:24 am »
+2
Subject Code/Name: MAST30001 Stochastic Modelling

Workload: 3 lectures + 1 tutorial weekly

Assessment: 2 assignments worth 20% of the final grade

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture etc.

Past exams available:  Yes, lots with solutions.

Textbook Recommendation:

Lecturer(s): Nathan Ross

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2 2019

Rating:  5 Out of 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#### huy8668

• Victorian
• Posts: 23
• Respect: 0
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #781 on: December 12, 2019, 11:30:33 am »
+2
Subject code/Name FNCE10002 Principles of Finance

Workload: lectures + tutorial weekly. Lectures are 2 hours

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

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture etc.

Past exams available:  no, only sample exams.

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

Lecturer(s): Asjeet Lamba

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating:  3 Out of 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#### AlphaZero

• MOTM: DEC 18
• Forum Obsessive
• Posts: 350
• $\Gamma(z)\Gamma(1-z)=\frac{\pi}{\sin(\pi z)}$
• Respect: +156
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #782 on: December 13, 2019, 12:44:39 am »
+3
Subject Code/Name: MAST20030 Differential Equations

- 3 one-hour lectures
- 1 one-hour tutorials

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

Lectopia Enabled: Yes.

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

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

Lecturer(s): Dr David Ridout

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 5 out of 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exam
The exam is 3 hours long (+15 mins reading time). No calculator, but you are allowed one double-sided A4 page of ORIGINAL HANDWRITTEN NOTES (not even a photocopy). The exam is 100 marks and usually has 7-8 questions with one or two per section. Just do the past exams shown on the LMS. The structure is literally the same every time and there aren't really any surprises.
2015$-$2017:  VCE
2018$-$2021:  Bachelor of Biomedicine and Mathematical Sciences Diploma, University of Melbourne

#### Elizawei

• Forum Obsessive
• Posts: 320
• Respect: +40
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #783 on: January 02, 2020, 01:37:09 am »
+3
Major: Neuroscience

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

Year of completion:
2019

Rating: 5 out of 5

Your Average Mark: 83.667

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

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

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

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

Viscera and visceral systems: 74
Visual Neuroscience: 78

Overall, I really enjoyed neuroscience as a major, as it was the easiest and most crammable major (for s1 at least), and it was perfect for my hectic extra-curricular schedule. It was also so interesting to learn about the visual pathways, and the foundation cores in s1 allowed me to have a minimal understanding of how the brain works. For those who identify as “crammers” or not a fan of labs/practicals, then this major is for you. If you have any more queries, please reach out to me for more questions/advice!
ATAR: 99.70
2017-2019: Bachelor of Biomedicine
2020-2023: Melbourne MD

Founder of Folding Our Futures
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Offering  Chemistry/Bio 3/4 tutoring for 2019! [raw 49, 47] PM me if interested

#### gamma032

• Posts: 19
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #784 on: January 05, 2020, 10:09:30 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: SWEN30006 Software Modelling and Design

Workload:  1-hour lecture, 3-hour workshop

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

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

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

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

Lecturers: Phillip Dart and Patanamon Thongtanunam

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating:  4/5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Although the questions are far clearer than the workshops, it did require a strong understanding and intuition of the concepts taught in the subject. It was not enough to ROTE learn the content or rely on your cheat-sheet.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2020, 03:37:07 pm by gamma032 »
2016: Business Management [40]
2017: Spesh [37] Methods [40], Physics [42], Accounting [47], English [36]
ATAR: 97.70
2018-2020: BSci, Computing & Software Systems @ Unimelb

#### Sutanrii

• Fresh Poster
• Posts: 3
• [Sleep Time] ∝ 1 / (1 + [# of Assignments]) ^ 2
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #785 on: January 13, 2020, 05:58:57 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name: MAST10009 Accelerated Mathematics 2

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

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

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

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

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

Lecturer(s): Prof. Barry Hughes

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Sem 2

Rating:  4.5 out of 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#### hums_student

• MOTM: SEP 18
• Forum Obsessive
• Posts: 372
• Respect: +508
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #786 on: February 20, 2020, 11:27:43 am »
+4
Subject Code/Name:  ECON20002 Intermediate Microeconomics

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

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

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

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

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

Lecturer(s):  Svetlana Danilkina

Year & Semester of Completion:  2020 Summer Term

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

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

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

Lectures

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

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

Tutorials

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

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

Assessments

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

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

#### Eric Patrick

• Fresh Poster
• Posts: 3
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #787 on: February 23, 2020, 05:57:03 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: ACCT10001 Accounting Reports and Analysis

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

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

Lectopia Enabled: Yes, but not quite helpful.

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

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

Lecturer(s): Noel Boys

Year & Semester of Completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 4.0/5.0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#### honlyu

• Posts: 12
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #788 on: February 23, 2020, 08:43:01 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: FNCE10002 Principles of Finance

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

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

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Two sample exams with answers were provided

Textbook Recommendation: No need for that

Lecturer(s): Asjeet Lamba

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 3 out of 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

#### honlyu

• Posts: 12
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #789 on: February 23, 2020, 08:44:59 pm »
+2
Subject Code/Name: MAST10008 Accelerated Mathematics 1

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

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

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

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

Textbook Recommendation: No need for textbook

Lecturer(s): Alexandru Ghitza

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 4 out of 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#### honlyu

• Posts: 12
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #790 on: February 23, 2020, 08:46:21 pm »
+2
Subject Code/Name: ACCT10001 Accounting Reports and Analysis

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

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

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

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

Textbook Recommendation: No need for that

Lecturer(s): Noel Boys

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#### honlyu

• Posts: 12
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #791 on: February 23, 2020, 08:47:20 pm »
+2
Subject Code/Name: ECON10004 Introductory Microeconomics

Workload: two 1-hour lectures and one 1-hour tutorial per week

Assessment: Online MCQ quiz: 5%, Assignment 1: 10%, Assignment 2: 15%, Tutorial participation: 10%, Final exam: 60%.

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Four past exams with detailed answers were provided.

Textbook Recommendation: Get one if you’re bewildered by the ambiguity in this subject

Lecturer(s): Phillip McCalman and Tom Wilkening

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 4 out of 5

For someone who's done economics in high school, over half of the content in Micro should appear rather familiar. But one important caveat is that the topics in Micro you reckon you’re familiar with might not be exactly the same as what you learned before — Uni-level Micro can sometimes be far more in-depth in terms of quantitative reasoning.

Lectures:
The difficulty and pace of lectures in Micro really depend on your prior knowledge of both economics and maths. Those who’ve done economics before and are good at maths are likely to digest lecture slides faster and more easily.

Tutorials:
At the start of every tut you will be given a worksheet. Your tutor will firstly take you through relevant concepts for each question and then give you some time to work on it yourself, after which the solution will be shown and explained. Pre-tuts are done online. I’m not sure whether they’ll count towards tutorial participation, but I’d suggest you do all of them to secure the easy 10 marks.

Online quiz:
In my year there were only eight questions in total in the online test. But considering that the quiz takes place only a few weeks into the semester, many people might not have gained a good grasp of this subject. Added to that the questions can be quite tricky. So don’t underestimate it just because it’s all MCQs.

Assignments:
Both assignments are done individually. There’s a weird mismatch between the difficulty of questions and the marks you get. Most questions are much harder than the exam, with some requiring self-teaching (e.g. partial derivatives in my semester) and some ambiguously worded. As long as you put some effort into the assignment, however, a decent mark is guaranteed. Most people I know got over 90% for both assignments.

Exam:
You should be able to find a common pattern after scrutinising all past exams provided. But there’s no guarantee that the actual exam will follow that pattern. The exam I had, for example, had a much stronger focus on maths than any of the past exams

« Last Edit: February 23, 2020, 08:50:09 pm by honlyu »

#### honlyu

• Posts: 12
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #792 on: February 23, 2020, 08:51:20 pm »
+1
Subject Code/Name: ACTL10001 Introduction to Actuarial Studies

Workload: two 1-hour lectures and one 1-hour tutorial per week

Assessment: Group assignments: 2x10%=20%, MST: 10%, Final exam: 70% (no marks allocated to tutorial participation)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Two past exam papers and one sample exam, with brief answers provided

Textbook Recommendation: Absolutely no need for a textbook as everything you need will be taught in lectures

Lecturer(s): Shuanming Li

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 4 out of 5

Despite being named Introduction to actuarial studies, it’s actually not a compulsory subject for actuarial students. But it’s been highly recommended by the actuarial department and past students as it’ll give you a solid foundation for level 2 actuarial subjects (I shall find out next semester). And for students from other disciplines, this subject might be a good choice if you are good at maths.

Lectures:
A major upside of this subject is its clarity as it’s one of the most (if not THE most) maths-based subjects in commerce at level 1. So ambiguity should not be expected. Also, almost everything you’ll need for your assessments would be put on lecture slides (I say almost because answers to some example questions would only be shown in recordings). Some students were complaining about the lecturer’s accent. Well it’s true that he had an accent but, trust me, you’ll quickly get used to it. And on top of that, his accent wouldn’t really affect understanding. So why bother being picky about that? I mean, how often can you get a lecturer who can always get things across and puts everything on the slides?

Tutorials: Tutorials are basically pointless. First of all, there’s no participation marks. Moreover, detailed answers to all questions in tutorials would be posted on lms at the end of every week.

Assignments:
Both assignments were rather easy, either involving simple calculations or basic spreadsheeting. Added to that they are done in a group of 4. Some moderate effort and double-check would suffice to get your group full marks.

MST:
A sample exam and a past exam were provided, whose difficulty was beyond my expectation. But the MST in my year was relatively easy, with most people I know scoring around 90%. Regardless of the difficulty, you really have to be alert to the time limit. With only 45 minutes available, you can’t afford to get stuck on any question. So make sure you not only have understood all concepts and simple derivations but also are able to solve questions quickly.

Exam:
Sample and past exams are highly indicative of the actual exam. However only final answers will be given, so you’ll have to ask your tutor or lecturer for detailed explanations. My tip for the exam is: DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE IT. Admittedly a large part of the exam simply involves applying formulae and thus doesn’t require much thinking. But a weird thing is: quite a lot of marks could be taken out for unknown reasons (could be missing steps I guess). When I saw my mark, I thought the exam got scaled down, but it then turned to be the other way round.

#### honlyu

• Posts: 12
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #793 on: February 23, 2020, 08:51:50 pm »
0
Subject Code/Name: ECON10003 Introductory Macroeconomics

Workload: two 1-hour lectures and one 1-hour tutorial per week

Assessment: Two online quizzes: 2x5%=10%, Two assignments :2x10%=20%, Tutorial participation: 10%, Final exam: 60%

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: Three past exams from 2016 to 2018 were available, with detailed answers provided

Textbook Recommendation: It might be a good idea to get one as some topics may lack clarity

Lecturer(s): Nahid Khan and Lawrence Uren

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 3 out of 5

Compared with Micro, Macro has a stronger focus on theories. So take some time to figure out the logical reasoning for every topic.

Lectures:
The pace in Macro is just as slow as that in Micro. There wasn't much content in every lecture as Lawrence would sometimes go into detail on a really simple idea or derivation. In the meantime, however, there was a lot of ambiguity in his explanations, which necessitated the reading of textbooks or searching online. A highlight of lectures was a comprehensive final revision of all major topics –– different topics were reviewed in the last lecture of each of the four streams.

Tutorials:
Macro tutorials have basically the same structure as Micro, in which you are handed a worksheet at the start and given some time to think about each question before your tutor walks you through them. There are pre-tuts as well but my tutor stopped checking them from around week 5. You’ll get 10 out of 10 for participation as long as you attend all tutorials. If you really want to make sure you don’t lose marks for tutorials, do the pre-tuts.

Online tests:
Online quizzes were generally easy, with a few hard questions and some weird ones on non-examinable topics. Most people I know got close to full marks.

Assignments:
In Macro, you get to choose whether you’ll do the assignments alone or in a team (teammates limited to in-tutorial). Most, if not all, questions were pretty generic and required more copying off from lectures than original thinking. Added to that marking was as lenient as Micro’s.  So the assignments should be a breeze if you’ve understood everything from relevant lectures.

Exam:
The exam has 15 1-mark MCQs and SAQ of 45 marks grouped under three topics. MCQs in my exam were a bit tricky, which was partly due to their ambiguous wording. For SAQs, my suggestion is to focus on topics with models, which you’ll probably have to sketch in the exam. The pattern of questions can be somewhat inferred from past exams, but there’s no guarantee that the exam in your semester is not an anomaly. The exam I did, for example, had two questions worth 9 marks in total on a case study which was barely even touched on, despite the fact that all SAQs from the three past exam papers were largely generic.

#### honlyu

• Posts: 12
• Respect: +2
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #794 on: February 23, 2020, 08:52:49 pm »
+2
Subject Code/Name: MAST10009 Accelerated Mathematics 2

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

Assessment: Two written assignments: 2x5%=10%, MST: 10%, Final exam: 80%

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, but whiteboard writing is not captured

Past exams available: Loads of past exam papers available from around 2009 to 2018 (but only the ones in recent years would be relevant), with NO answers provided

Textbook Recommendation: The yellow book written by Barry

Lecturer(s): Barry Hughes

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

This is probably one of the hardest subjects in year 1 (according to Barry himself) as it essentially covers both Calculus 2 and Real Analysis (it can replace both Cal 2 and Real Analysis as a prerequisite). Added to that AM2 digs deeper into some topics (especially those Barry is passionate about). So get prepared for a punishing workload. There is no question booklet in AM2 and all practice questions are from the yellow textbook written by Barry himself. And the fact that not all practice questions are provided answers can make the learning process in AM2 particularly arduous. In our mid-semester subject survey, no one rated the pace ‘slow’ or the difficulty ‘easy’. This really shows how challenging AM2 is considering that most of the cohort were maths, physics, and actuarial students with a lot of chancellor scholars among them. Unless you are doing a maths related degree or have a strong passion and aptitude for maths, particularly mathematical rigor and proof, I would NOT recommend doing this subject.

Lectures:
Barry is a fantastic lecturer who vivifies seemingly dreary concepts by making witty comments on a regular basis. Respected and loved by all students, he received an ovation which lasted a minute at the end of the course. He is also known for his undisguised preference for mathematical analysis over things like calculus techniques. So you can tell this subject will be heavily skewed towards its analysis part. In fact, what gets expanded on in Calculus 2 like is oftentimes only touched on in AM2 (especially integration techniques!!). As a result, some extra effort is more than necessary when you are studying such topics. Another unique feature of AM2 is that Barry writes EVERYTHING on the whiteboard and DOES NOT record it. So you either have to attend every lecture physically and take notes or get those notes from trustworthy mates (by trustworthy I mean those who can take quality notes). There is also a third option if you’re skilled in dictation by any chance (use it as a last resort, trust me it’s really time-consuming).

Practicals:
Practicals are probably the only way for you to get detailed explanations of textbook exercises and feedback on your working (unless you go to consultations on a regular basis, which I never did). So make sure you clearly lay out your working on the whiteboard so that your tutor will be able to provide valuable feedback on it. And in order to do that, you’d better do some revision before every tutorial (attempting a few questions is even better)

Assignments:
I got the lowest mark I’d ever got in my first assignment (73% for your information) and most of the marks I lost were for sloppy notations and proofs, which came off as a bit of a shock –– no subject I did before had such an emphasis on mathematical rigor. I did much better in the second assignment as I was gradually getting the hang of it. An important piece of advice I’d give regarding the two assignments is to carefully go through the solutions provided, which are probably the most detailed ones you’ll get in this subject, and reflect on your mistakes and potential room for improvement because these solutions are to some extent indicative of the marking scheme for the final exam.

MST:
The MST in my year took place at lecture 23 and covered the first 18 lectures (with l’Hopital’s rule being lecture 19, you can see how nasty the test was gonna be). The test was 45 minutes long and no sample tests were available, so you’d expect it to be challenging. Fairly speaking though, most questions shouldn’t be a problem except a few tricky ones of course. If you’re not aiming at full marks, my suggestion is to ignore the hard ones and get all easy ones correct to secure an 8 out of 10.

Exam:
Difficult though AM2 might be, the final exam is actually not that intimidating. Half of the exam is overlapped with Cal 2. This part should be a breeze  given that you’ve managed to follow along through the semester. Barry did not mention the overlap with Real Analysis (as far as I can remember). But after comparing past exams, I reckon at least a quarter of the final exam is from the Real Analysis exam. Anyway, the analysis part of the exam would be much harder than the Cal 2 part, with quite a few tricky questions that require some in-depth thinking. But still, a large proportion of analysis questions are pretty generic. Overall I think more than 80% of the exam shouldn’t be a problem IF you’ve thoroughly understood all topics and on that basis memorised all theorems and formulae (you have to do that since there’s no formula sheet, otherwise you’ll have to derive them). An important tip for the AM2 exam is that EVERYTHING, except the lecture introducing complex analysis, can appear on your exam. And it is not useful at all to try to summarise a pattern from past exams. Before the exam in 2019, for instance, the last topic (power series) had almost never been tested, yet it constituted about 10% of the actual exam. It is also noteworthy that answers to the past exams would not be provided in a direct way –– Barry prefers to go over them in the last two lectures (and still he won’t present final answers to you so you’ll have to check with your peers). If you haven’t finished your revision before the last two lectures, I’d suggest that you ditch the two lectures and get notes from others. In that way you’d be able to take mock exams during the swot vac when you’re more prepared.