Subject Code/Name: MAST10007 Linear Algebra Workload: 3 x 1 hour lectures per week (3 hours)
1 x hour tutorial per week / 1 x hour practical per week right after tute (2 hour stream)
5 hours per week
Assessment: 8% Online assignments, 2% Written assignments, 10% MATLAB test, 80% exam
Lectopia Enabled: Yes, with screen capture / only one half of lecture slides are recorded (like most maths subjects ie calc 1 and calc 2)
Past exams available: Yes, 1 per sem from 2014 - recent. No answers.(Doesn't matter too much, you can always double check your answers for good practice)
Textbook Recommendation: Lecture slides are sufficient. Do not buy any textbook they offer you. (same goes for mostly all maths subjects in years 1-2)
Lecturer(s): Diarmuid Crowley (very good lecturer)
Year & Semester of completion: 2018 Sem 2
Rating: 2 Out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: pending (most likely between 70 and 85)
Comments: if you didnt get above 38 in spesh, or haven't even done spesh and are planning to do actuarial this subject is one of the maths subjects which are compulsory for entrance into actuarial (ir ur not doing am1 and am2). also, if you are planning to do actuarial, i'd suggest doing calc2/lin alg - unless you truly hate yourself or are VERY interested in mathematics would i suggest am1/am2. anyways, firstly, the bane of this subject and most other maths subjects are these ridiculous 80% exams. if you don't have to take a maths subject for your major, do not take any maths subjects, as I've taken both arts and commerce breadths (taken their core subjects ie reason for arts and finance for comm), and I can fairly safely say science cores are some of the hardest of all cores in the first year (granted, mostly in my experience). dont listen to commerce people when they say their course is hard unless they're doing maths heavy subjects (ie actuarial - these guys are read deal). other than that these people have no idea what they're talking about.
professor crowley is mad. great lecturer who from background is mainly into maths/physics, and u can definitely see he has a passion for maths and wants to share it with others. this is great from a lecturer, especially when initially starting topic 4 of the lecture slides (general vector spaces) do you start to have second thoughts on doing the subject.
weeks 1-3: not too hard; matrix row operations mostly, consistent/inconsistent systems - walk in the park - do as much of the orange problem booklet as you can in this time - uni will only get harder. introduction to 3 dimensional space somewhere around this time, cross product, and geometric applications (learn geometric applications really well, these come up in the exam 10/10 times).
weeks 4-8: general vector spaces, inner product spaces. only advice here is to try not to get overwhelmed. theses are new concepts, and they will take time for you to get used to. keep doing the orange booklet, watch youtube videos if they help. eventually if u keep revising and looking over this section, it will all make sense.
weeks 4-8 contain some of the most important concepts you'll have to learn to be able to pass in this subject. as i said, at first it might seem overwhelming, but keep revising and it'll all make sense.
week 9-10: eigenvectors, eigenvalues : fairly simple don't worry too much - practice diagonalisation (comes up in exams often)
weeks 11-12: linear transformations: this section uses concepts from weeks 4-8, not too hard but close exam time so a bit tricky. you dont want to fall behind so by the end of week 12 finish all questions u can do in the orange booklet.
swotvac: cram, revise, you know do your thing.
during this time, you'll have weekly assignments, 8 of which are online, 2 are handwritten. handwritten assignments are a good resource for studying for exams, although, some of the proofs can be quite tricky. while i'm on the matter of proofs, you'll encounter many proofs during lectures and even in the orange booklet. these aren't necessary to learn for the exam, but if you understand these you're ahead of 80% of the cohort, and it'll prove useful for 1-2 questions on the exam (you'll be able to get an h1 without learning proofs if u can do everything else near perfect).
also, go to your tutes. if you're struggling in this subject these are the greatest resources. ASK YOUR TUTOR QUESTIONS. you're PAYING them in your subject fees to HELP you. who cares if you ask a stupid question, get it through your brain, make everything make sense, and if you're at melbourne uni it will eventually. (also extra help at mathsassist when u need).
here's the thing though with tutors, 99% can be great, but there is always 1%. in this instance, if you ever encounter Allen Russell for one of your tutes, RESCHEDULE this class IMMEDIATELY. you will hate your tutes in this case; half the time i went to another tute alongside this tute to get my attendance marked (it was too late for me to reschedule; ur not actually meant to do this but if ur a keen learner nws). allen's tutes can sometimes be helpful; some of the explaining he does at the start is, but other than that everything is terrible; answering questions, marking written assignments, marking the matlab test - ridiculous. avoid at all costs to get +10% to your grade (of course, im overstating this- personal bad experience here). but anyways avoid him. (also the reason why this is a 2/5 instead of a 3.5/5)
matlab sessions are fairly ok; bit of a waste of time to go to them after week 4. if ur only doing lin alg, you dont get matlab program. if you do esd 2, u get matlab and can practice commands during the programming and mechanics section. if u do esd 2 u have an advantage, if not, good luck. (u can use computer labs for matlab to practice closer to the test in week 12 when they're free).
i've spewed everything i can think of about this subject in this post, hope u find it helpful. feel free to dm me if u have any other questions. good luck with lin alg.