University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings

[kekedede28]

Subject Code/Name: FINA20006: Painting Techniques

Workload: The intensive teaching period goes for 6 days, Monday to Saturday, 9:30am - 4:30pm with an 1 hour lunch break at 12:30pm. Hand-in for the folio and visual diary is 10 days afterwards.

Assessment: Folio of work completed during class and 2 x painting done during your own time (80%), and visual diary (20%).

Lectopia Enabled: N/A - no lectures! Painting all day everyday.

Past exams available: N/A - no exams either!

Textbook Recommendation: There's no prescribed textbook but there are some recommended books given in the subject guide at the beginning, which I guess would be helpful to read? Everything is taught by your teacher though and they're more than happy to answer questions so you don't need to get anything. 

Edit: Oh! There's a supply pack and material levy you have to pay for though (~$150 in total). You could probably buy the supply pack yourself (the material levy is the 'stuff for everyone' that they give you) or use supplies that you already have at home but it's artist-grade stuff in the pack and since they buy everything in bulk, you get awesome high quality stuff at an absolute ripper of a bargin!

Lecturer(s): Various professional artists take the classes. I believe most of them are seasonal or teach one term and don't teach the next so it varies greatly.

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Winter. It's run during most of the teaching periods though - Semester 1 and 2, June, Winter, February and Summer - but get in quick cause the subject is quota'ed and places fill up fast.

Rating: 5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: TBA

Comments: Really loved this subject. The teaching staff were helpful and incredibly helpful (there's even this sit-down to check on your progress/ask 1-1 questions mid-way through), and you really improve at the end of it whether your were a total beginner or advanced because you're just thrown into it doing painting 8 hours a day. It's a breadth subject for all courses bar Fine Arts and they assume no painting knowledge so anyone can do it.

The subject is essentially broken down into projects and you work through them during the teaching period.
- Project 1 is the visual diary. You ideally should work on this as you're doing the paintings and it should be filled at the end. It should track your 'creative process' and how you got to your final painting, and this is how they mark it. Take heaps of pictures of everything, research different artists and paintings, and do little random experiments testing out brushwork, a certain colour scheme, blending technique etc.

- Project 2 is one tonal painting of a paper sculpture (which may be as a simple or complex as you like). You do thumbnail sketches to test out different compositions and a tonal drawing to prepare beforehand. This is done using oils on wood - they'll guide you on how to prepare a wood panel for painting.

- Project 3 is two geometric abstraction paintings done in acrylic on wood, one in class and the other at home. You're introduced to colour here so that's the main thing you should be focusing on. Don't go crazy complex with your design - this is abstract art remember and something as simple like white on white could be considered an excellent painting.

- Project 4 is two still life done in oils on wood (one in class, one at home). You basically get some objects and paint it. Choose simple objects.

- Project 5 is an appropriation of two paintings from the NGV's permanent collection. On the 4th or 5th day you'll visit the NGV as a class and the teacher will guide you through some paintings talking about technique and whatnot (you'll have to take notes during these to put in your visual diary). You could choose from them to appropriate but my recommendation would be to go back during the lunch break (it's right next door) and find the simplest paintings to use (check out the contemporary section). This painting is done in oils on canvas - you'll learn how to prepare a canvas in class.   

My main advice for this subject is to be don't slack off. You'll have homework every night during the teaching period and that's mainly stuff to add to your visual diary - do it - and the subject doesn't lie when it says intensive because you have a lot to do in a short period of time. Use the class time wisely, keep up with the work and don't waste the 10 days you have after the teaching period (esp. cause most of them are in oils which take forever to dry - bringing in like 3 wet paintings to submit is gonna be hard lol). Overall though, really fun and rewarding subject and would totally recommend it to anyone looking for a breadth to do.

P.S If anyone is super shitty with maps like me and gets lost to the teaching workshop on the first day lol, the simplest way from the tram stop on the Flinders Street/NGV side is to cross the road from the tram stop, walk left to the the big road, turn right and walk down that big road until you see another big road, turn right and keep walking until you see a big 'Gate 5' sign - turn in and then you're there! There are quicker ways but just in case you're lost and late on the first day lol. 

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Okay, one small gripe about the subject: the oil painting part was essentially a bare-bones introduction to oil painting. You're taught all the technical, unique things about oil painting like odourless mineral solvents, alkyd medium and rabbit-skin glue but then you don't even get to see let alone use them... I guess it's for OH&S reasons but it was kinda disappointing nonetheless.

[AlphaZero]

Subject Code/Name: MAST20009 Vector Calculus

Workload:
- Three 1-hour lectures
- One 1-hour tutorial

Assessment:
- Four written assignments (5% each)
- 3-hour written exam (80%)

Lectopia Enabled: Yes, but only the main document camera.

Past exams available: Yes, lots and lots, some with answers.

Textbook Recommendation:
The lecture slides is available at the Co-op book shop. The lecture notes are online too, but I definitely recommend getting the book. It comes with a printed booklet of the problems sheets too. If you want more material to read, Vector Calculus by Marsden and Tromba (really any recent edition) is great, especially for those who prefer a higher level of mathematical rigor.

Lecturer(s):
Dr. Christine Mangelsdorf

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 1

Rating: 4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 96 (H1)

Comments:
MAST20009 Vector Calculus is really the first subject that combines students coming from both the first year accelerated stream and the main stream, and is a must for students who wish to pursue applied maths, pure maths, physics or mathematical physics. The subject essentially takes what you learn in first year into higher dimensions.

The subject is broken into 6 sections.

Section 1: Functions of Several Variables
This section looks at limits, continuity and differentiability of functions of several variables (rather non-rigorously), as well as the chain rule for multiple variables. It also introduces the Jacboi matrix (derivative matrix) and the Jacobian for change of variables later, and also the matrix version of the chain rule. You will also look at Taylor polynomials for functions of several variables and error estimation. Locating critical points and extrema of functions will be revisited and you'll be introduced to Lagrange multipliers which are applied to optimisation problems with one or more constraints.

Section 2: Space Curves and Vector Fields
This section revises concepts from Specialist Maths / Calculus 1: parametric paths, and its properties such as velocity, speed and acceleration, as well as arc length. Concepts such as the unit tangent, unit normal, unit binormal, curvature and torsion are also seen, along with the Frenet-Serret frame of reference of a particle travelling on a path. In vector fields, you will look at ideas such as divergence, curl and Laplacian. Studied is also an informal look into flow lines of velocity fields and other useful things used later such as scalar and vector potentials.

Section 3: Double and Triple Integrals
This section is pretty self explanatory. Here you will learn how to evaluate double and triple integrals and put them to use against some physical problems (such as finding volumes, areas, masses of objects, centre of mass of an object, moment of inertia, etc). This section also discusses 3 important coordinate systems (polar, cylindrical and spherical) before finally diving into change of variables for multiple integrals.

Section 4: Integrals over Paths and Surfaces
Here, you will learn about path integrals, line integrals and surface integrals and apply them to some simple physical problems such as finding: total charge on a cable, mass of a rope, work done by a vector field on a particle, surface area of an object, flux, etc.

Section 5: Integral Theorems
The previous 4 sections build up to this. Finally, we have the required theory to understand the whole point of the subject. Here, you will use and apply Green's Theorem, the Divergence Theorem in the Plane, Stokes' Theorem (a basic version of it) and Gauss' Divergence Theorem, which make your life so much easier. You also get to apply some theory regarding scalar potentials and conservative vector fields studied in section 2. Some direct applications of the integral theorems include Gauss' Law and the continuity equation for fluid flow (latter not examinable). Those who are studying physics might want to look into Maxwell's equations for electromagnetic fields too (these are not examinable).

Section 6: General Curvilinear Coordinates
Here, we get to generalise some theory regarding coordinate systems. This makes our lives easier when dealing with a coordinate system that you may have not studied before, such as oblate spheroidal coordinates. Some connections to concepts back in sections 1 and 3 are also drawn.


So, what do I think of this subject?

Lectures
As a student who came from the accelerated stream, I can say this subject is markedly easier than AM2. From what I've heard from some mates, the pace of the subject is much like Calculus 2 and Linear Algebra. I personally felt that the subject was a bit slow. We spent so much time in lectures on just performing calculations rather than looking at the theory in any sort of depth. It got to the point where I didn't want to attend lectures because it just got so boring. (Like, yes, I think we know how to integrate $\sin^2(x)$ with respect to $x$. Other than that, Christine is a great lecturer and is very easy to understand.

Assignments
There are 4 of them and they are incredibly tedious. They're not hard at all. It's just a calculations fest. The questions basically consist of more tedious exam questions. Eg: here's a region, calculate its area. It's really not hard to full score the assignments. Just pull up Wolfram Alpha or use a CAS to check your calculations. Be careful to justify everything and be wary of direction and cheeky negative signs.

Tutorials
These are the best classes. You just get a sheet of problems and you complete them in small groups on the whiteboard while the tutors watch over your working and make any necessary corrections. I had a great tutor, and since I had my tutorial classes on Friday afternoons, it was a pretty small class and we had great banter. Nothing much else to say (other than "Will, you're a legend").

Exam
Like most MAST subjects, it's 3 hours and worth 80%. There are an insane amount of past exams available. Do as many as you can. Doing well in this subject is about practice.

[Shenz0r]

Subject Code/Name: MD4: MEDS90025: Transition to Practice and MD Research Project 2

Workload: Varies.

Assessment:
MDRP2
Progress Reports (3 short reports, submitted at 6 week intervals, accompanied by supervisor reports), throughout semester (10%) Note: 10% if all 3 submitted, 0% if < 3 submitted.
Literature review, 5000 words, due mid-semester (week 11 of 22 week subject) (30%)
Journal-style monograph describing the research (suitable for peer review, with author instructions), 4000 words, due at end of semester (40%) [Hurdle requirement]
Poster presentation at Student Conference 4, 1500 word equivalent, end of semester (10%)
Supervisor evaluation, end of semester (10%)
Satisfactory standard in professional behaviour, as demonstrated by observed Professional Behaviour Assessment [Hurdle requirement]

TTP
Situational Judgement Tests, written, 2 x 80 minutes, during term [Pass/Fail]
Satisfactory performance in simulation exercises  (basic life support), during term [Pass/Fail]

Vocational Selective
Safety and Quality Improvement Project Plan, 1000 words (eg. patient safety, infection control, clinical audit), during term [Pass/Fail]
Supervisor report (using structured report form), end of term [Pass/Fail]
Case Based Discussion, 2 x 30 minutes each, during term [Pass/Fail]

Trainee Intern
Case Based Discussion, 2 x 30 minutes each, during term [Pass/Fail]
Multisource feedback (coordinated by supervising intern) using structured feedback form, x 2 (one at the end of each term) [Pass/Fail]
Log Book - satisfactory completion of clinical tasks as specified in each rotation
Applied Clinical Knowledge Test, 2 x 2 hr MCQ exam, end of term [Pass/Fail]

Year & Semester of completion: 2019

Comments:
MDRP2
Depending on the project as well as your supervisor, this can either be extremely relaxed or intensive. The main aim of the project is to give you an opportunity to conduct your own research project that you can potentially present and publish. While some students do have the opportunity to go to conferences, sometimes you simply won't be able to due to the nature of your project. Many people continue on with it as junior doctors, so don't be too discouraged if you don't get those chances yet.
Every person will have their own unique experience with this subject, but the most general advice I can give is to be familiar with your topic, regularly communicate with your supervisor (or your team), actively maintain your curiosity and ask questions, and try to be as independent as you can. Since this does take up the first six months of the year, I would encourage you to still go onto the wards and get some clinical exposure - otherwise you will be severely deskilled by the time interviews and TTP come about. Some clinical schools run several clinical skill tutorials throughout the term, but not all do.

PMCV Internship Match
This will be quite a stressful part of the year for you, so it's best to get started early. The Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria (PMCV) is responsible for matching you with health services that you've preferenced. There is an excellent explanation into the process here.
Unlike other states, the Victorian match is merit-based. Different health services will have their own requirements and weighting, which can include:

• Z score
• Cover letter
• Standardised CV
• Interview (video vs. panel vs. MMI)
• Clinical reference
• Non-clinical reference

My advice would be to get started on your cover letters early (late March-early April) and definitely do not forget your interview preparation. Most interviews are conducted in early-mid June, and the match results are out in July. Most people try to use their research supervisor as a reference, but be careful about who you pick as you cannot de-nominate them. You should pick someone who you are pretty confident will give a good reference, and they must have clinically supervised you. The more recent the reference, the better. There is also no "gaming" the match as it runs similar to the GEMSAS and VCAT matches. Go to the information sessions of all the health services, and then draw up a list of what hospitals you want to go to, but do not fill up your preferences with hospitals you're not likely to get into as you'll run the risk of being unmatched. Always put in more applications than you need to avoid being unmatched - 8-10 at minimum. I found that "Marshall & Ruedy's On Call" was an extremely helpful book in giving you a structure on how you'd approach  clinical scenarios that you're likely to encounter. It's also a great book for internship as well.

Transition to Practice
For the last half of the year, you'll finally be back on the wards. There will be a couple of weeks of lectures at the beginning where you revise everything that you've probably forgotten over the years. You'll be allocated a medical term, a surgical term, and then an elective that you can do wherever you'd like.

I would emphasise that unlike MD2/3, this is not a time when learning clinical medicine is your biggest priority. You are not just a medical student observing in the background anymore - you are the trainee intern. Try to stick around the intern as much as possible, because you are going to be doing their job next year and it's worth picking up skills that'll be helpful when you start working. Learn how to document properly, actively seek out opportunities to put in drips or catheters, practice referrals and handovers, help out with admissions and write discharge summaries - try be an active team-player. Develop good work etiquette (AKA being aware of behaviours that piss people off or make life for other people harder) and communicate often with your team. Observe how your intern manages the constant interruptions to their workload. See how they update friends and family of an unwell patient. Ask practical questions as this is probably the last chance you have before you're thrown into the deep end as a junior doctor. Be aware of what guidelines and resources you can refer to. You don't have to know everything (and you won't), but try read up on common things that'll pop up on your ward so you 1) can understand what's happening and 2) are able to somewhat come up with a plan (rather than always needing to defer questions from patients and nurses to your intern).

The team will involve you more as you're a final year medical student, so you will be allocated some jobs to do, but also remember to always liaise with the team on things you're not sure about. You are also not a slave - you're not being paid to do all of the intern's boring paperwork, so it's a fine balance to strike. The more enthusiastic and proactive you are, the more opportunities you'll be handed, and the team is usually way more accepting if you'd like to take a few days off. Do not be that guy who only shows up once in the middle of ward rounds, doesn't come in for the rest of the term apart from when they need to get something signed off, and as a result has no idea how to function properly as a junior doctor. I would usually try to let the team know what I wanted to do early in the term so that when an opportunity came, they'd let me know. Make sure that you're being supervised appropriately and counter-sign all documentation with the intern

I was usually off by lunchtime everyday. You do not have to go overboard and stay back to ridiculous hours though - as a general rule, once the other doctors tell you to leave, there's probably not much for you to do (and you're not being paid for the mundane jobs either). That being said, I think it's better to be on a busier ward.  Gen Med would be a great medical term for learning how to do bread-and-butter referrals and discharge planning of complex patients, while clearing out jobs in the middle of a 6 hour ward round. In surgical terms, you should probably stay and help out the ward intern rather than always going into theatre (especially if there will be too many people scrubbed up in theatre already). Try and attend pre-admission clinic (where patients are assessed for any perioperative issue) - it's a bonus if you can do the history, examination and fire off some investigations to chase too. That being said, if you do go to theatre, definitely practice putting in some urinary catheters, and if you are scrubbed in, ask the fellow/registrars how to close the wound.

You'll realise that many of the jobs that an intern does can get quite stale and menial after a while during the day - until you go on a cover shift. Arrive in the afternoon for a cover shift once a week, and chances are you'll probably hold the pager and you can practice prioritising, assessing patients and answering any questions from the rest of the covering nurses. You'll feel more like a doctor, and it's a nice break from all the discharge summaries you'll begin to hate doing. I'd highly recommend doing covers as much as you can.

While there is an accreditation examination at the end of the year, most people pass without needing to study quite intensively. As long as you're familiar with MD2/3 knowledge, you don't need to be constantly studying throughout this year. Teaching MD2/3 students both on the ward and in class is a great way of refreshing content you should probably know. After your day has finished, go and relax (as your interns will probably tell you!)

(As a side note, it's a great idea to be actively involved in teaching more junior medical students, because you'll have to learn how to juggle/prioritise both work and teaching responsibilities as a doctor anyway. Remember how common it is as a medical student to feel discouraged when the team forgets your presence and doesn't teach you? Or that you always feel like you're in the way? By being involved in their education, it's a good opportunity for you to practice being a mentor and role-model, as it'll be expected of you as you climb up the medical ladder)

Final comments
Finishing medical school is the first step in a very long pathway. Of course, you don't need to know the ins-and-outs of recognising and managing every Zebra condition you've been taught, but it is expected that you know how to manage basic, common conditions and that you are safe by ruling out life-threatening causes and recognising when you need to escalate for more help. This is the time to try step up from "just the medical student" to being a trained medical professional who is allowed to have a voice and opinion on what is in the patient's best interest. Next year, you will become a doctor that your patient and team has to trust, so this is an important time to try gain some more responsibility before it becomes expected of you.

That being said, this is also your last chance to really relax before you begin full-time work, so make the most of it after you've developed a good relationship with your team. And finally, congratulations on attaining your medical degree!

[foodrawrocicy]

Subject Code/Name: LAWS10005: Food Law and Policy

Workload: 1 x 1.5 tutorial and 1 x 1.5 lecture per week. Classes don't run the week when the reports are due and class time is used for individual consultations instead.

Assessment: Attendance and participation (10%), a stakeholder analysis on a food issue (30%), and another report, same everything except the issue's different (60%).

Lectopia Enabled: Yup.

Past exams available: No exams for this subject!

Textbook Recommendation: Weekly readings are available online. There's also extra readings provided every week if you're keen.

Lecturer(s): Professor Christine Parker and a bunch of guest lecturers.

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 7 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: TBD

Comments:
This subject was pretty great - the lecturers are top notch, the subject coordination was perfect, and the content and work was very interesting and simulating. Every week you cover a different topic during the lecture and then you use that knowledge and apply it to case studies during the workshop. An important thing to note about this subject, though, is that it's very different any of the other law breadths available. There's very little legislation to be seen and instead you focus on the theory and reasoning behind the legislation - which imo, was so much more challenging and fun.

In terms of assessment, you write two stakeholder report on two food issues. The issues change every year - this year was GM canola for the first report, and a choice between free-range eggs and health star rating for the second. You don't have to do any research as you're expected to only use the weekly readings (and a prescribed list for your topics) and the report is essentially you explaining the different views and proposing the best solution that balances these views.

Topics for the lectures include: food safety (using raw milk as a case study), GM foods, pesticide regulation, food waste, food labelling, governance of healthy food systems, and indigenous food and law. And topics for the workshop: food safety and negligence, GM labelling and consumer safety, bioengineering and pesticides and their effects on the food system, pesticide regulation, health and nutrition labelling, olive oil and false description/misleading conduct offences, and free-range egg labelling.
 

[beaudityoucanbe]

Subject Code/Name: BLAW30002

Workload:  1 two-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial

Assessment: 30% group assignment and 70% exam (non-hurdle)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, but only audio. There are very rarely any extra slides, if there are its just photos when the lecturer explains the facts of a case - not needed. I always attended lectures but I dont think it would be too hard to follow if you just listen.

Past exams available:  Yes, theres a lot held by the library, only a few are relevant but none were provided by the lecturer. However, she does go through EXTENSIVELY whats on the exam. Told us 2 questions with multiple parts and basically tells you the questions you will be asked. However, it doesn't make it much easier because you have to apply the facts to legislation - thats the tricky part off the subject.

Textbook Recommendation:  BUY BUY BUY. Theres two you need to get, the textbook and the legislation. If you want to do well, buy it. Its not a difficult subject but if you want to find extra things then you need  it (explained below).

Fundamental Tax Legislation (Thomson Reuters, current edition); AND
Sadiq et al, Principles of Taxation Law (Thomson Reuters, current edition)

Lecturer(s):  Sunita Jogarajan

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Sem 2

Rating:  4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 75% on assignment (yet to do exam and will update after exam)

Comments:
Lecturer: Sunita is an awesome lecturer. Slides are great and have pretty much all you need is on them. She explains every beautifully. her slides are basically summarised legislation. But if you want to get the "bonus marks" there is some legislation nearby the legislation shes said you need which may be relevant and applicable. That will get you an extra mark if you manage to find it.

Tutor: I had Kayla Milone. Shes also awesome. Knows the content incredibly well and provided summaries and short quizzes for knowledge/retention and then went into the questions in good detail.

Tutorial: You HAVE to prepare. If you dont, its a waste of time and you will struggle. This is my first law subject (commerce major and principle of business law doesnt count as a law subject given its all multiple choice). The content is very straight forward and very easy to understand, theres not a lot that tricky (aside from FBT and CGT which can be at times because of the amount of work required for them which needs pretty much a good knowledge of the whole subject to do). Looking back, i very very highly recommend that you write dot points applying the legislation to the case, go to the tutorial, correct yourself and add anything you missed. Then after the tutorial, write out a proper answer. You can bring ANYTHING into the exam.

Assignment: Was very straight forward, nothing surprising. The structure and wording was very similar to the tutorials. Its done in pairs which is a little annoying. You get the exam very early and you will realise that you havnt done the content required. What I did was after the lecture, id make notes and then do the part of the assignment which was relevant. This meant i was working on it like 2 times a week. I kinda regret this. Towards the end i was getting so sick of it that i started to get lazy and dropped marks because i wanted it over and done with. Maybe do it in 2 sittings (its really not that hard) then read over and fix it up as many times as you want. Otherwise, its not a very tricky assignment.

Exam: Will update when i sit it
In the final lecture, Sunita gives you A LOT of info about the exam. She outlines what the question is and how many marks. She is very generous.
e.g. she said:
Q1 a) residency b) CGT c) assessable income
Q2 a) "specific question" (we assume a theory question cause she said it doesnt apply to the facts) b) tax consequences (literally the whole subject)
We know what the exam is, its not hard to figure out the questions because theres only so many things she can ask before it becomes repetitive. She also gave use 2 sample questions with the exact same format as question 1. Like i said before, the challenge of the subject (and any law subject) is to apply facts to legislation. If you have been practicing with tutorials throughout the semester and did well on the assignment, youre all set. She also said that Q2 "was to reward you for the work done on the assignment" so my guess is that most of it will be similar facts to the assignment with a few new facts/trickier facts to differentiate a H1.
Now some bad news. Sunita never gives out a 90%. She said 80% to 90% is already incredible work. If you want a 90%, youre dreaming. To get 90% you need to write everything was looking for PLUS some stuff that she wasn't expecting. This is annoying but it does not change my opinion of this subject. Its a great subject.

!!Making Notes!!: OK. making notes in any law subjects is incredibly important. You have to do it as you go. For every subject i recommend this rather than cramming and freaking out in SWOTVAC. In my notes, i basically copied and pasted the slides and added what ever was said in the lecture that i thought was useful. You can bring in any amount of notes, books, papers. There is absolutely no requirement on what you bring in. My friends are bringing their notes, the textbook and legislation. That ridiculous. You only have 2 hours to write and it can be very time consuming, especially if your looking for cases that apply or legislation. I plan on doing the same thing. BUT my notes INCLUDE the legislation and summarised cases. Theirs dont. Im bringing em in as a backup or to make myself feel better. I wont need to touch them. In your notes, do this as well. This way, you have everything you need together. When youre answering a question, i have everything together - the theory, legislation, cases, tutorial.
The reason why i recommend buying the textbook is if you want to do well. You can easily get away without them - sunit provides all the legislation references (and explains them). She tells you what the cases are and when they are needed (so you can pretty much just drop em after a sentence).

Overall: Its a great subject. Im probably the only one who enjoyed tax. Some subjects can be incredibly draining. During the lecture, Sunita would read out the facts of the case after the theory and would ask us what we think the courts decided. You just vote by raising your hands and then she tells you the outcome. This was genius although she didnt do it often (told her to do more in SES). Its so great becasue you get a list of facts and then can quickly answer it. (plus it was fun for me... thats kinda sad but yea..)

[beaudityoucanbe]

Subject Code/Name: ACCT20007 

Workload: two 2-hour lectures and one 1-hour tutorial

Assessment:
4 SAP assignments (due weekly toward end of semester) (10%)
Group assignment (20%)
Tutorial (10%)
Exam (60%)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes with screen capture

Past exams available:  Yes, 3

Textbook Recommendation:  No point in buying

Lecturer(s): Matt Dyki

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Sem 2

Rating:  a solid 0.2 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade:
SAP: 100%
Tutorial: 100%
Group assignment: 79% (fuming i didnt get that H1)
Exam: TBD

Comments:
Lecturer: TERRIBLE LECTURER. Confusing. Inconsistent. Boring. The slides are confusing to follow. You do a LOT of poll everywhere WHICH IS ASSESSED and is part of the tutorial mark. It doesn't recored correct answers, just participation. The poll everywhere was confusing and pointless. most gave up towards then end and just entered random shit, especially when he dosent give you enough time to answer.

SAP Assignment: The worst assignment I have ever done. You are given about 20 steps for each set (theres 4) and you just have to follow the steps on some software. Its easy but an absolute waste of time. Easy 100%.  made the mistake of blindly following the steps (it just gets too difficult to care about it. Especially when some dumbass takes your code and screws everything up the NIGHT before its due. I wa stuck in Giblon till 11pm redoing it). There are questions on the exam that ask you to directly reference/discuss the SAP.

Group Assignment: So stupid. This semester, you do a videos presentation. You have to wear formal business attire. Its a 10 minute video. A lot easier than a 2000 or 3000 word assignment. After the video submission, theres a Q&A where 2 people ask questions about your videos and critique it. You have the opportunity to explain why you did something. They will make you feel like you have done something wrong - you need to defend yourselves, but then if there is a flaw they are trying to pick up on, accept it and provide a recommendation on the spot. It a very calm "interview" you dont have to be nervous.

Tutorial: A COMPLETE AND UTTER MESS. WASTE OF TIME. I ripped my tutor to shreds in the SES survey. She wasted 30 minutes of it talkign about something from the lecture and it never made sense cause she didn't even know what she was talking about. You need to do a 5 minute presenation summarising the lectures which was supposed to get you some short feedback to work on for the group assignment. This always took like 10-15 minutes. We rarely went through the tutorial and when we did, she would say "i think its better to show you HOW to answer rather than give you the answer". I think this is absolutely ridiculous. You SHOW how to answer as you go through the answer.

Exam: Will update
Overall: I absolutely loathed this subject. i gave it .2 for the effort they go through (which is pretty terrible anyway). I really hop they change coordinator or just piss the subject off completely. Im in my 2nd last semester and id rather drop out and not finish my degree than repeat the confusing, irrelevant mess that is called AIRcon. My deepest condolences for those that have to experience the absolute crap fest that is this subject. (I get so triggered when i talk about this subject...)

[M909]

Subject Code/Name: ECON30019 Behavioural Economics

Workload:(per week) 1 × 2 hour lecture, 1 × 1 hour tutorial

Assessment:
Assignments, 4 × 5%
Group Presentation, 10%
Tutorial Participation, 5%
2 Hour Exam, 65% (Hurdle Requirement)

Lecture Capture Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  No, standard advice was that tute/assignment/lecture questions were enough. I also found some old exams (2011 was earliest) on library website but these were hardly relevant.

Textbook Recommendation:  Nothing is required, the subject references certain books outlined in first lecture, but they're definitely not needed.

Lecturer: Siqi Pan

Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2, 2019

Rating: 4 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1 (87)

Comments:
Overall, if you've done and enjoyed Intro and Inter Micro, and are looking for a relatively easy and light elective/breadth, this one would be a good choice. It was also pretty interesting as it extended on some standard (neoclassical) economic models, and introduced the behavioural versions, making them (somewhat) applicable to the real world.

Topics:
1. Introduction
2. Preferences and Choices
3. Beliefs and Probability Judgement
4. Choice under Risk and Uncertainty
5. Intertemporal Choice
6. Behavioural Public Policy
7. Fairness and Social Preferences

Lectures
Mainly involved Siqi talking through and explaining the slides. I feel she explained things well and added onto what you would have just gotten by reading through the slides, so definitely worth listening to or attending lectures. Assignment answers were also talked through during lectures (worked solutions also given though), and we did a few behavioural experiments/surveys. As I mentioned above, this subject was relatively light in content, and even with the assignment discussions and surveys, lectures pretty much always started later and finished earlier than the standard 5 min after/before advertised times.

Tutorials
Standard tutorials from weeks 1-5 where you'd get a tute sheet before, are encouraged to give it a go beforehand, then the tutor would take the class through it during the tute. From week 6-11, the first half of the tute would involve a group presentation and questions/discussions, and then the second half would be back to the standard format where the tutor goes over the tute work.

Assignments
Pretty straightforward, 3-4 questions similar to tute/assignment questions that we had about 2 weeks to work on. Don't know if this will be continued, but in 2019 when I did this subject, to prevent people copying each other's work and encourage people to actually give it a proper go, marks were based solely on if we put the effort in, showing full working ect! I got things objectively wrong and still secured the full 20%, and from what I heard many others were in the same boat That being said, they still served as good practice for the exam.

Group Presentation
There are 6 behavioural economics based papers available on the LMS in the tutorial section. At the start of the semester, you're required to form groups within your tutorial and let your tutor know your preference of paper (according to my tutor all the papers were all of equal difficulty). From there, you and your group need to present a paper one week during the second half of the semester (each particular paper was allocated a week). An outline was given about what to talk about regarding the paper, then your group needed to create their own application of the main theory discussed in the paper.

Participation
A bit different the usual ECON tute participation mark scheme. In each of the 5 weeks there was a group presentation that wasn't our own, we were required to read the paper and make 2 comments/questions/critiques ect. on it and hand this in to our tutor. Our participation marks are based on these submitted comments. Presumably each sheet of comments handed into our tutor was 1%, but this wasn't explicitly stated and I didn't think to ask.

Exam
A few harder questions, but overall I didn't find it too bad (although I don't know my mark yet!). I don't think the lack of past exams would have impacted anyone's score. Exam mainly involved applying the knowledge rather than memorising things and no major surprises which was great.

[Mischi]

BIOL10003: [https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/subjects/biol10003[/url] 

Workload: 3 x 1 hour lectures a week, 1 x 2 hour practical a fortnight, 1 x 1 hour tutorial a week

Assessment:  5% ILT, 5% MST, 25% Practical, 5% assignment

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available:  Only a sample exam unfortunately, but Dawn provides a lot of practice questions for her part of the course.

Textbook Recommendation:  The recommended textbook is the same as it was for BIOL10002: Biomolecules and cells. I personally didn't get much use out of it this semester at all.

Lecturer(s): Dr Alex Idnurm (Lectures 1-6), covering: animal classification/taxa, fungi, protists, bacteria, medical mycology, parasitic protists
Prof Rob Day (Lectures 7-14), covering: disease/history of disease, parasite strategies, evolution of parasite resistance, new technologies in biomedicine, and evolution.
Assoc. Prof Dawn Gleeson (Lectures 15-26, 33-35), covering: mendelian genetics, epigenetics, sex determination, blood typing, extensions to Mendel, independent assortment and gene linkage, genomic imprinting, pedigrees and lots of problem solving questions for genetics.
Dr Patricia Jusuf (Lectures 27-32), covering: DNA transcription, translation, mutations, mutant case studies, gel electrophoresis

Year & Semester of completion: I completed this subject in 2019 semester 2

Rating:  3.5/5

Your Mark/Grade: Not out yet

Comments:
Overall I found this subject less enjoyable than its semester 1 counterpart BIOL10002. But I think that is because I preferred and was much more interested in the content taught in semester 1, especially the physiology aspects. I must say, the genetics part is taught very well in my opinion and I enjoyed the problem solving aspect to them. To me from everyone else in the course the overall impression of this subject is mixed, those who are like me didn't exactly dread it, but found it a step down from last semester. Then there were others who much prefer this stream of biology and found it much more interesting. For someone who did not complete biology in year 12, I found that first year biomed (and I'm sure subsequent years) has helped me narrow down where my passion is in biomedical sphere.

Anyway, now for lectures:
Alex's lectures started us off for the semester, he only does a single lecture regarding animal taxa and classification yet it popped up as a 15 marker on the exam, so don't disregard it! This also means that what Dawn says at the end of sem that the marks are allocated proportional to how much they are covered in lectures is a lie. We barely saw any of his other content in the exam, maybe a MC or two on fungi? I found the best way for me to study his section of the course was to compile a "Disease Files" as well as a brief report on the rules and semantics of classifying organisms. My friend made Pokemon-like cards for each parasite on them and then their strengths, weaknesses, life cycles etc and I thought that it was really creative and effective.

Rob's lectures are probably the most frustrating to learn. Whilst he does have less content than what Alex has, he claims that a lot of what he examines cannot be found on the lecture slides or in the textbook, we kind of have to magically infer it all. His two lectures on evolution also had more questions allocated to them on the exam than his other 5 or so on parasites. So don't disregard them either. For his evolution lectures I made my own cladogram following the different species of primates, how they changed physiologically to adapt to new conditions, etc etc. His other lectures were okay to study, because for parasite strategies and resistance the things you need to know are more clear cut. However for his questions about disease history and what leads to disease, he is very vague in the answers and it could genuinely be any one of them, so make sure you practice those.

Dawn and Patricia's lectures were probably the best in my opinion. Dawn is a very captivating lecturer and always relates all the genetic concepts to disease to keep your interest. I found that sometimes however her lectures are hard to compartmentalise in the sense that sometimes they don't follow a logical order so it is hard to imagine some of the concepts. Patricia's lectures are also very good, and what I loved about her lectures is that she makes it very clear what is actually examinable and what isn't. For both of their lectures, I think problem solving and practice questions are the best way to go, and both of their lectures are heavily assessed in the exam relative to Rob's and Alex's, so keep that in mind when you plan your study.

Pracs:
Pracs for this subject in my opinion were a lot harder than the pracs in semester 1. They require a lot more background research and work, definitely do study for pracs as you would an assignment or for the MST, as an individual prac weighs almost the same as them! Also, losing marks here and there in prac can really reduce your overall score in the subject, so keep that in mind!

Tutorials:
I have never found bio tutes helpful at all, I think its a much better use of my time to study in that hour on my own, but I did go to the majority of them anyway to be a good student and I think the only info they hold that may actually give high yield info is the prac advice they give, other than that, for content learning it's not really worth it.

Overall: tl;dr
I gave this subject a 3.5/5 primarily because I found that although some lecturers did teach their aspects quite well, others did not. Tutorials were not a good use of time (other than for prac advice), and pracs were for the most part pretty boring.

Don't hesitate to PM me if you have any questions

[tiredandstressed]

Subject Code/Name: [https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/subjects/phyc10007/]PHYC10007 Physics for Biomedicine

Workload: Contact hours: 3x one lecture per week, 1x problem-solving class (tute) per week (starting from week 2) and 6x two and half hour laboratory sessions + 1 take-home experiment (up to 6 hours of work)
Total Time Commitment: Estimated total time commitment of 120 hours

Assessment:  Ongoing assessment of practical work during the semester (25%); ten weekly assignments (10 x 1.5% = 15%); a 3-hour written examination in the examination period (60%).
Satisfactory completion of practical work is necessary to pass the subject (i.e. attendance and submission of work for at least 80% of workshop sessions together with a result for assessed work of at least 50%).

Lectopia Enabled: Yes, with screen capture. However, Professor Prawer often failed to use the recording system correctly, meaning the lecture wouldn’t always be recorded, would recommend attending his lectures at least

Past exams available:  Yes, all the way back to 2008, however solutions were limited for more recent exams

Textbook Recommendation:  Physics for the Life Sciences 3E, Martin Zinke-Allmag, Ken Sills, Rezza Nejat and Eduuardo Galiano-Riveros, Cengage Learning: ISBN 9780176558697
Very important as the lectures do not go into enough depth of what is examinable, and the suggested problems are often featured in the exam

Lecturer(s): Dr David Simpson: Weeks 1-6- Kinematics & Dynamics, Energy and Transport Phenomena, Vibrations & Waves
Prof Steven Prawer: Weeks 7-12- Electricity & Magnetism, Radiation & Imaging, Optics (but Steven fell very behind schedule so Optics was removed for 2019)

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semster 2

Rating: 1/5

Your Mark/Grade: TBD

Comments: All the reviews on here are quite outdated, Physics for Biomedince has changed quite a bit, so hopefully this is helpful for future students.
The first big change is Physics for Biomedicine only has 6 labs instead of 8 (woo yea!) instead we do a take-home experiment that is worth the equivalent of two labs. I think the coordination is much better compared to previous years, as rumours have suggested and our lectures although not amazing were sufficient.

Before I begin my review, its best I reveal that I hated physics before going into Biomedicine, I’ve always enjoyed sciences (bio & chem) but I could never understand physics and ended up not doing it in VCE and chose to do psych instead (best decision ever) even though my parents weren’t so happy I was doing a “fake science”. So as you can see I was not looking forward to this subject and after completing the horror of Chemistry for Biomedicine, Physics was not looking appealing.

Dr David Simpson takes you for the first six weeks and teaches you on Kinematics & Dynamics, Energy and Transport Phenomena, Vibrations & Waves. He is a great lecturer very clear and interesting, I personally never slept in his lectures and found is slides quite detailed and clear to read. The only problem was since he was a new lecturer he often uploaded his slides very late (like an hour before the lecture) which wasn’t ideal since I wanted to print the slides and write on them (which I would recommend for Physics for Biomedicine- handwrite your notes- so you are actively learning. David’s content looked scary at first but once you took some time to go over his slides and the textbook it wasn’t too bad. And many of us found his stuff easier compared to Steven’s (which I’ll go into later…). Make sure you try to over his lectures after each one and practise a question or two in the suggested problems to ensure you understand what is going on. It very easy to fall behind as the lectures build up for each other, so consistency is key, physics is hard but doable if you take the time to understand the content. In the lectures there always a demo- which is sometimes cool quite boring but they do illustrate the content being learnt so try to take notes of what is happening and why it occurs since the demonstrations are very much examinable in the final exam (popped up in the 2019 exam lol)

Steven then takes you for the final six weeks his content is Electricity & Magnetism, Radiation & Imaging, Optics. Steven was a boring lecturer his voice ended up getting annoying and was quite unengaging- however his long explanation is examinable and his questions focused more on the theory than the calculations. The great thing about Steven is he is very transparent he will tell you if something is important and will be on the exam (he told us that neurons would be 20 marks on the exam and this was indeed true) so there were no surprises there. However, his content was quite challenging and after doing the subject I still don’t know what was going on xD. For Steven’s content it is very important you attempt the suggested problems as he tends to just copy questions from there and put it on the exam, rewarding students who do the extra work.

The problem-solving classes were similar to math tutorials- answering question in a group on the whiteboard, my tutor was George and he was okay at explaining some of the stuff but often I would leave the class more confused going in, if you can try to have a look at the questions before going into tute and familiarise yourself with the formula and theory relevant to the tute, otherwise attendance is not compulsory, but recommended problem-solving questions have been on the exam before.

The seven practicals you complete are not all that fun, and can be draining- in your timetable it says the practical go for three hours- but it is only 2.5 hours. Before each practical, there is a pre-lab however they are not too challenging (except for the radiation one) and they contribute to your practical mark. Make sure you get the logbook and handbook as they are essential for the practicals.
Different demonstrators prefer different things in your report, all of which usually want you to follow the Predict-Observe-Explain model which is covered in your lab book and not hard to understand. My demonstrator, particularly wanted me to emphasise the conclusion (limitations and improvements for the experiment).  When you pick your lab time you will also be randomly allocated in one of four groups; groups 1 & 2 do their labs in odd weeks, groups 3 & 4 do their labs in even weeks. I was in group 4 meaning I got to my lab after learning the content for the relevant practical, people in groups were 1 or 2 were unlucky because often we had not gone over the content for the lab. Now I will go over each practical. Being concise is key in your report, and often they marked quite nice for physics labs.

Experiment 1: Linear motion
As your first experiment, this is probably one of the toughest to finish on time (since none of us did) but the demonstrators are nice and they tell you this before the lab that they don’t expect you to finish so don’t stress. This experiment was probably the easiest theory wise you are simply moving the cart (similar to lectures) and recording position-time, velocity-time and acceleration-time graphs and understanding the relationship between all three. You will also explore Newton’s second law but this is not too bad you will find the force is proportional to the product of mass and acceleration.

Experiment 2: Energy conservation 
Here, we investigate the difference between kinetic and potential energy and how energy is conserved- it is very easy to predict that you will be equating equations. Just keep in mind the formula for kinetic energy and you should be fine. I this experiment, you will be bouncing a ball and recording the curve and establishing the relationship between potential and kinetic energy and then you will compare this with an inclined plane.

Experiment 3: Gas laws
Probably one of the easiest experiments, as everything is centred to the ideal gas equation, here you will be blowing to a pipe and observing and how far deep will you no longer blow bubbles (be careful don’t blow too hard because water will flow out and you might get your lab partners wet). In the next part of this experiment, you will investigate the relationship between volume pressure which all relates to the ideal gas equation.

Experiment 4: Thermal effects
This experiment was pretty crap, least biomedical one there is. You will first explore heat transference which relates to colour spectrum and you will find which colours are absorbed more at different temperatures. Then you will look at energy absorption and cooling and simply comparing the absorptions of a black disc compared to a white disc.

Experiment 5: Ultrasound
One of the easiest experiments (and you’ll finish early) unfortunately you won’t be using medical ultrasound. Instead you will use some bootleg one, it is important for this lab you know before going in how to use each setting as this will save you plenty of time in the lab, this lab centres on the speed of sound which is great since you know you will be trying to achieve a value/ gradient of 343.

Experient 6: Radiation
I will not go into much detail in this lab since I wasn’t really sure what was going on but the physics demonstrators are nice and they marked quite nicely and I got full marks in it. 

Experiment 7: Take home (group) experiment
You will either be given the muscles experiment or the worms experiment
In which for both you will be looking at some type of neural activity, once receiving your box you will decide on an experiment to do and perform ad submit a report of 500 words per person. Most of us did not know what was going and somehow managed to get good marks in it so do not stress about it. Our groups were not able to get any numerical data and we were still able to do well in just follow the lab manual and the BackyardBarns website and you will be fine. If you get a worm box you will need to use diluted vodka to anaesthetise them but be careful too much vodka and you will kill the worms. The group experiment is work\th two practicals (you will receive a group mark), the estimated time to complete the experiment is 3 hours but we were able to do it an hour, and the report won’t take you long.

The weekly assignments were an easy 15%, you three attempts to get it right which was nice, but some of them were quite hard and took over 30 minutes, they aren’t too bad just know that you should not just be doing the weekly assignments in order to do well in this subjects it is imperative you also do textbook questions.

The great thing about physics compared to Chem is that the exam is only 60% so it is not as stressful as compared to Chem.
The final exam is three hours in duration and worth 60% of your grade. It consists of short answer questions only, with a total of 120 marks. Each major topic is assigned a question on the exam, the exam is all short answer, with an even split of calculation and theory questions. Many of us were very stressed as the past exams were challenging and I went into to swot vac only able to answer 2-3 questions at most, but as previously mentioned the physics workshops during swot vac were great and the support the tutors provided was amazing they really did help to tackle each past exam question and get you into the mindset that you should approach each type of questions- with my favourite tip “If it is a theory question and you don’t know what’s going try to use common sense and bs an explanation and you might get a mark”.  The exam was challenging, but I was able to have a go in every question which was nice I know I got some totally wrong but I was still able to attempt every question (except for the 2019 exam the radiation question was horrendous) but otherwise use swot vac wisely and you’ll be able to answer many questions in the exam. The exams follow a similar pattern and they tend to ask similar things every year, which is why it is important to do past exams as early as you can to familiarise yourself with the style of questions you will face on the exam. Three hours is not a lot of time I wasn’t able to finish the exam keep your eye on the clock and if you are stuck you are better off moving on to the next question.

Physics for Biomedicine is a pain, but if you were able to survive Chemistry you will be okay! Take some extra time to learn the content, apply it questions and you will do well. It is a challenging subject but very doable.
Good luck

[Sutanrii]

Subject Code/Name: PHYC10004 Physics 2: Physical Science & Technology

Workload:  For each week: 3x 1-hour lecture, 1x 1-hour tutorial, 1x 3-hour lab (although we needed to be dismissed after 2.5 hours)

Assessment:  10 Weekly Online Homework (15%), 8 Lab Practical (each with an online prelab) (25%), 3-hour Final Exam (60%)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture, but lecture demonstrations are usually not recorded

Past exams available:  Yes, Final Exam 2008-2018 along with the solutions.

Textbook Recommendation: The prescribed textbook is Halliday & Resnick, Fundamentals of Physics, 11th ed., Wiley 2018, which we were recommended to buy in the subject's LMS FAQ. I personally didn't buy any textbook, but one of my mates who had it didn't find it very useful and instead recommended Physics for Scientists and Engineers.

Lecturer(s): Prof. Christopher Chantler (Week 1 - Week 6), Prof. Elisabetta Barberio (Week 7 - Week 12)

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Sem 2

Rating: 2 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1 (90)

Comments:
Around the start of the semester, you can purchase a handbook and a lab book for $12 and $10, respectively. The digital copy of the handbook is available on the LMS so it is not necessary to buy the handbook. If you a leftover lab book e.g. from Physics 1, you can reuse it for this subject. Otherwise, it is compulsory to buy the lab book for $10.

Lectures
The first half of the semester involved Chris covering the topic of Electromagnetism (including the four Maxwell Equations). Chris was a light-hearted lecturer. He tried to make the lecture entertaining while encouraging the audience to participate in answering questions on the slides. In my opinion, his lecturing style was suited for students who are new to the topic to get them interested. The drawback to this was that Chris tended to make the lecture content much easier than it was in the exam.

The second half of the semester involved Elisabetta covering the topic of Fluids, Thermal, and Modern Physics (although particularly in this sem Prof. Geoffrey Taylor served as a replacement lecturer for the Fluids part for one week). Compared to Chris, Elisabetta was a much more serious lecturer and it'd be best to not generate any noise/distraction during her lecture. She'd pause whenever this happened which perhaps may be reasonable but certainly tensed up the lecture atmosphere.

The issue I see in the lectures was that we were mostly taught the theories and would rarely solve any problem. In fact, a lot of these theories weren't actually examinable, especially the Modern Physics part (in the exam we were just expected to use sophisticated formulas and plug in the unknowns). This issue was expected to be resolved by doing the tutesheet and the online homework, but I still think that they were insufficient. I guess this is where the textbook shines as stated by Hancock.

Tutorials / Problem Solving
We sit in groups of 3-4 and then attempt to solve the tute sheet problems in our groups. There was also a tutor who would supervise the progress of our discussions and help answer our questions. A more detailed solution would be posted on the LMS at the end of the week.

One thing I could appreciate of this subject was there were standby tutors in the Laby Ideas Centre every weekday from 11am-3pm, so it wasn't difficult to get help.

Lab Practical
Before each lab session, we needed to finish the Online Pre-Lab questions. The questions were usually quite easy and straightforward but some can be tricky.

At the start of the lab, a demonstrator would brief about the experiment and gave possibly some warnings or tips. We then got into our lab partners (whom we were free to choose) and started doing our experiment. We were required to take down our observations, publish results (mostly using excel), and give analysis and discussion in our lab book, which would be graded by our demonstrator.

This is honestly my most hated aspect of this subject. Since most of the practical marks are based on our lab book, I personally felt that the whole purpose of doing the experiment was to compose a well-written report rather than doing the experiment itself. It was common to see students rushing to finish their report before 2.5 hours have passed, and it was just painfully hectic.

Another annoying part was that the marking of our report was subjective to our demonstrator. There were times when I think I wrote really well but got lower than I expected. I found it hard to improve my report as my demonstrator barely bother to give any comment/feedback. There was one time where I get to have my report checked in front of my demonstrator and I was told my report was incomplete, only to realise that he/she forgot to read the last page of my report (which may explain why I got lower than I expected?) .-.

Online Homework
The weekly online homework consists of more or less 10 questions which we were to input the final number and the corresponding units for each question part (although sometimes it can be multiple choice). We were provided with 3 tries to obtain the correct answer along with a hint which if used would set the maximum score attainable for that question to be 80%, although I felt that the hints were most of the time blatant and not really helpful. It's worth noting that the questions were all taken from the exercise questions from the prescribed textbook (with the numbers altered, but the question wording is preserved) and were generally harder than the exam questions.

Final Exam
There were a lot of past papers provided and the School of Physics was generous enough to provide us with the solutions. These past papers were very valuable for the final exam because many questions were recycled, if not reused. They also served as an indicator of what may not be examinable. Having done really well in Physics 1 and observing the question styles on the past papers, I was confident that I could ace the final exam, but oh boy how wrong I was.

This year they decided to dramatically increase the final exam's difficulty level. They added several questions that were very unconventional relative to the past papers' questions, and many of us were just speechless. One example was that in the past papers, there were usually questions asking about R (resistor + emf) circuit analysis and perhaps questions about capacitors, both are very straightforward. This year they combined both topics into one big question where we were to analyse an RC (resistor + capacitor + emf) circuit + a switch. Many of us were just hoping that our exam mark would be scaled up. (I myself skipped around 15% worth of the exam lol) Update: They did!

Conclusion
In my opinion, this subject was harder than Physics 1 and involved a lot of calculus, especially in the Electromagnetism part. I was particularly disappointed with us having to use Maxwell's Equations without having to know how to use Vector Calculus properly, and how most of the Modern Physics questions were just using formulas and plugging in the unknowns.

As I've stated, I definitely loathed the practicals in this subject, and it's primarily why I gave this subject a low rating. The things commendable about this subject were probably the availability for help through the standby tutors and the abundance of final exam papers and solutions.

Due to the long contact hours as well as online homework and prelab every week, I don't recommend taking this subject if you don't have to unless you have a strong interest in the topics in this subject.

[kiwikoala]

Subject Code/Name: COMP30020 Declarative Programming

Workload: 2 lectures, 1 hour tutorial

Assessment:  2 assessments 15% each, 70% exam

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes

Past exams available:  Yes 2 were give, 1 sample. only 2010-2014 available from library.

Textbook Recommendation:  Any Haskell intro book would get you through the first 6 weeks. I didn't use a textbook however, resources from the classes are enough.

Lecturer(s): Peter Schachte

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating:  5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1

Comments: You study Haskell and then Prolog. Both are interesting, I enjoyed Haskell as it felt more like a modern language. Have been told by many to do this subject as it opens perspective as you finally learn a language that is not C like. It definitely was enjoyable. Hard to motivate without knowing a little bit about the content.

Exam had no abstract theory in it and so it was more applied theory as it was all coding questions, so if you become king at Prolog/Haskell the examination will be a breeze for you.

I enjoyed Peter (the Lecturer), however he does use a laser pointer which won't show up on lecture capture. It aids a little bit being able to see the point he's specifically talking about but you can infer usually.

1 assessment on Haskell, the other on Prolog. 160 lines of code and 100 respectively (this is including documentation). These languages make you feel powerful. They are dense languages so you do not have to write as much code but it can still take you a long time. The Prolog one was made trivial this semester because he said we were allowed to use a library and due to the nature of Prolog (that you will learn if you pick this subject) just stating the question and the constraints solves the problem for you, i.e. you don't have to write specifically on how the solution is crafted.

If you attend the tutorials, the material is just questions, that you can access at home so what tutor you get will impact the value you get from the class. I stopped attended after like 6th week but doing the questions weekly is very useful at getting actual practice on the content.

This semester was the first time we had Haskell and Prolog on Grok, (which you should have used for COMP10001?) Did its job, I used that rather than the tutes but some of the questions were recycled from Models of Computation this semester. Might change, but they were pretty good questions.

Overall a good intro to some declarative langauges.

[kiwikoala]

Subject Code/Name: COMP20008 Elements of Data Processing

Workload:  2 lectures and a 2 hour workshop

Assessment:  2x 20% assignments, 1x 10% Oral, 50% Exam

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes

Past exams available:  Yes plenty

Textbook Recommendation:  Nothing

Lecturer(s): Pauline Lin, Uwe Aickelin and Chris Ewin

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating:  4 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1

Comments: Subject could be renamed Data Wrangling and gives the the appreciation of dealing with data, processing it, combining data sources, privatising and some intro to creating predictive models from it. You learn basics of correlations, blockchain and ethics too which I thought were interesting subjects.

In the workshops you learn how to actually use Python along with Numpy, Pandas and some other libraries inside the Jupyter Notebook to do the above mentioned things on the data. The workshops are pretty handholdy if you got the right tutor, but the assignments... if you know how to google Python documentation, you will find alright.

Feels much more like a practical science subject than any other computing subject I've taken so far. You still learn some high level algorithms, some math, but there's a lot more theory involved.

Exam is all theory short answer, no programming knowledge expected.

Each of the assignments is like a take home prac, except you are equipped with your data and your programming skills. Googling and your practice from your previous workshops is essential. You end up with a long report showing your findings after following the specification.

This semester was the first time you could do assessment 2 and the oral in a group project (same group). Good change.

There were some great guest lectures on privacy, that alone was pretty TED talk worthy.

Since this is a prereq for Machine Learning, this subject a pretty good intro to data wrangling and what that entails, lecturers were great in my opinion. Apparently a previous lecturer was terrible and fired a year ago.

[hums_student]

Subject Code/Name: HPSC10001 From Plato to Einstein

Workload:
   - Lectures: 2 x 1 hour per week
   - Tutorials: 1 x 1 hour per week

Assessment:
   - Source Analysis: 10 x 200 words [50%] (Separated into 3 separate assessments worth 15, 20, and 15 percent each)
   - Take-home Exam: 2,000 words  [50%]

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: Nope

Textbook Recommendation: Subject reader available from Co-op, but is also for free on LMS

Lecturer(s): Kristian Camilleri

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 4 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H2B (72)

Comments:

HPSC10001 is generally taken by BSc students as breadth. I was one of the few arts students taking it as my elective. There is quite a lot of science concepts involved, and while the lecturer/tutor explains them as they pop up, it is much more beneficial if you know them already.

This subject starts off with pre-Socratic philosophy in Ancient Greece to modern physics. The subject is split into different time periods: ancient/medieval, early modern, and modern science. There is a heavy emphasis on maths, physics, and astronomy, with not much on other areas of science like chemistry or biology (alchemy gets brought up in one lecture but that's about it).

Lectures

Lectures are ran by the subject coordinator Kristian, who is very experienced, very knowledgeable, and very enthusiastic on the topic. Lectures are very content heavy and Kristian moves through quite quickly, but he always pauses in the middle for questions. Overall, lectures are very interactive and you get the most out of them if you attend.

Tutorials

For tutorial readings, you're given a PDF each week which contains both primary and secondary sources. There is a fair amount of reading, but generally if you just do the primary ones, you're set for tute discussions. Tutorial discussions are incredibly useful because 50% of the assessments (the 10 source analysis tasks) are all based off of the readings set.

Assessments

Source analysis: Throughout the semester you're given 10 different primary sources to analyse, each worth 5% of your total grade. Each source analysis is 200 words and you're required to identify the author, date, summarise the text, and briefly talk about its historical significance. They are given out in three different sets and four days are given for each set.

Final Exam: The final exam is a 2,000 word take-home research essay. Exam topics are released at the start of the semester in the subject guide. There are 10 topics in total, the first 5 are due during the middle of the semester and concerns content from the first half of the course (antiquity and medieval science), the last five are due a month later during the exam period and covers content from the second half (early modern and modern science).

Final Thoughts

HPSC10001 is definitely a great subject for students majoring in physics, maths, or history. The subject is very well organised and the content was very interesting. There is a larger emphasis on the history over the philosophy of science so if you're looking for a subject that looks at philosophy and ethics, this isn't the best option; however if you want to learn more about how science and maths developed and became the way it is, then I highly recommend.

[hums_student]

Subject Code/Name: POLS10003 Introduction to Political Ideas

Workload: 
   - 1 x 2 hour lecture per week
   - 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week

Assessment:
   - Source Analysis, 500 words  [12.5%]
   - Research Essay, 2,000 words  [50%]
   - Take-home Exam, 1,500 words [37.5%]

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: Nope

Textbook Recommendation: N/A. Readings made available online.

Lecturer(s): Dr Clayton Chin

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 4 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1 (90)

Comments:

I did Intro to Political Ideas as an arts elective (I’m a history/economics major) and loved this subject. Students are recommended to have done the arts foundation subject MULT10018 Power, but it’s not necessary. IntroPol goes into so much more depth so students who have done Power are not really at an advantage.

Lectures

Lectures are definitely the worst part of this subject (the review will go uphill after this). There is one 2-hour lecture a week and it was often difficult to sit through the whole thing (the lecture theatre was practically empty after week 4). Lectures were also incredibly content heavy so often the lecturer could not get through all the slides.

The length is the only downside though. Clayton makes the 2 hours more bearable - he asks a lot of questions which makes lectures interactive. He is also one of those absolute legends who do not merely read from the lecture slides.

Tutorials

There is one 1-hr tutorial per week. In tutes we generally went through tutorial readings and discussed key ideas brought up during the lecture. As POLS10003 is mostly a political philosophy subject, there are less heated debates than subjects such as International Politics. Modern politics do still get brought up quite a lot though.

If you are doing POLS10003, try to get John Green as your tutor. He is extremely fair with in-class debates, marking assignments, and brings up a lot of points for all sides and different POVs. Finally, if that doesn't convince you, he takes his entire tute to the pub at the end of the semester.

Assessments

Assignment 1: 500 words, due early on in the semester. For this assignment you are given the writings of two political thinkers and you must discuss their views regarding a particular topic. As an example, I did "Karl Marx vs Thomas Hobbes - What is Human Nature?".

Research Essay: 2,000 words, due around the mid-sem break. Topics are given out quite early, there is a wide variety of topics so you're bound to find one that you like. The topics are quite arbitrary and broad so there are many different ways you can go about them.

Exam: 1,500 words. The exam is split into 3 parts: Part 1 is 3 short responses (150 words each) discussing  3 different political ideas. Part 2 and 3 are longer responses (500 words each) responding to two prompts.

Final Thoughts

Intro to Political Ideas is an amazing unit and it is a perfect introductory subject to the different political ideas and key debates. This subject is an absolute must for anyone thinking of majoring in politics/int'l relations, and I highly recommend it for other students too.

[hums_student]

Subject Code/Name: ANCW20025 Archaeology of the Roman World

Workload: 
   - 1 x 1.5 hour lecture per week
   - 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week

Assessment:
   - 2 x 2,000 word research essays [90%]
   - Oral presentation [10%]

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available: Nope

Textbook Recommendation: N/A. Readings made available online.

Lecturer(s): Gijs Tol (pronounced 'high-zz')

Year & Semester of completion: 2019 Semester 2

Rating: 4.5 Out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: H1 (93)

Comments:

Roman archaeology is a very small subject (in 2019, there were a total of 27 people) and there is also a higher proportion of mature-age students compared to other subjects, which makes it quite an interesting class.

Lectures

Lectures are 1.5 hours long and are run weekly by the subject coordinator Gijs (which is pronounced with exactly none of those letters). As it's a small subject (in 2019, there were 27 people), most lectures are very empty, which leaves a great amount of room for discussion. Lectures are quite interactive and Gijs usually leaves 15-20 minutes at the end for questions each week.

In week 6, the lecture is run by a guest lecturer who talks about how Roman archaeology was used by Fascist Italy in the 1920s-1930s. Other than that, the content is very much based in ancient times.

Tutorials

Due to the size of the subject, Gijs runs both tutorials. Tutes are very much discussion based, and unlike lectures, which generally only focus on historical aspects, tutes also look at political/social/ethical aspects of archaeology, so there is more of a focus on the present-day.

In week 5, there is a prac held in the Object-Based Laboratory in Arts West where we get to examine authentic Roman-era coins to try and date them. This is the only practical aspect of this subject.

From week 8 onwards, tutorials are dominated by individual presentations of our 2nd research essay topics. Each presentation goes for 10 minutes, with an additional 5-10 minutes of question time, feedback, and discussion.

Assessments

There are two assessments in this subject, which are two 2,000 word essays, one due in week 8 and another due early in the exam period. Each is worth 45%. The final 10% comes from your tutorial presentation.

For the first essay, you must choose from the prompts given, but for the final one due during the exam period, you come up with your own topic and it can be about literally anything as long as it relates to Rome. The tutorial presentation (which weighs 10%) is on your final research essay.

Final Thoughts

On the whole I thought Roman Archaeology was an amazing subject. There was a good balance between archaeology, history, and present day applications. It’s a small subject so classes are very interactive and you receive very detailed feedback for assessments.