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March 29, 2024, 03:37:12 am

Author Topic: UNSW General Chat  (Read 80128 times)  Share 

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RuiAce

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #165 on: December 28, 2019, 10:10:29 pm »
+2
In terms of timetabling, is it a better idea to schedule classes back to back (as in one finishes at 11am and the next starts at 11am for example) or leave hour breaks between classes, in your opinion? I'm doing Adv. Science and with all the labs, tutes and lectures, it's getting pretty hard to schedule my timetable so that I'm not there everyday. Is it normal to be a uni 5 days a week? I totally understand if I have to be but my commute is around 40 mins each way so it'd be great to avoid :)

Thanks!
Entirely depends on your preference. You can outweigh the pros and cons yourself. (I find that back-to-back has fewer pros in number, but the pros themselves are more valuable.

Pros of back-to-back:
- More 'compact' timetable.You usually get your classes done quicker. This automatically leads to the benefit of arriving later/leaving earlier.
- Classes are supposed to end 5 minutes before the hour, and start 5 minutes after the hour. This is usually enough of a buffer time to get between two classes. (Note, however, that this is not advised if your back-to-back classes are on opposite ends of the campus. The trek from upper to lower is tiresome, and even worse for vice versa.) (Also note that classes that seemingly don't follow this structure are the lecturer's/tutor's fault.)
- Do all your classes when you're most alert in the day.

Pros of gaps:
- Lunch break, instead of having to eat in class. (Of course, eating in labs is not permitted at all.)
- Lunch breaks are good for people who tend to buy food on campus. Also if you forget your food at home, it gives a safe back-up.
- No rush to go from one place to another typically.
- Extra hour to spare for extracurriculars (e.g. interview for society role), doing an assignment in an emergency situation, chat etc.
- Recovery hour from potential content overload.

I personally prefer a balance between the two. I'm usually completely unfazed by two classes in a row, but I want to eat at some point.

(Although, bear in mind that the average UNSW student's commute is around 1 hour. The extra bus ride adds 15 mins at least.)

5 days a week is pretty normal for certain degrees, but not all. For advanced science, this makes sense because of the lengthy labs.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2019, 10:12:22 pm by RuiAce »

Pearlmilktea

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #166 on: December 28, 2019, 10:18:02 pm »
+1

(Although, bear in mind that the average UNSW student's commute is around 1 hour. The extra bus ride adds 15 mins at least.)

5 days a week is pretty normal for certain degrees, but not all. For advanced science, this makes sense because of the lengthy labs.

Thank you so much! I only had a few clashes so I'll try and figure out where they are situated and weigh up the individual pros and cons.

And yes, well, I recalculated my commute and turns out it's up to 1h30mins? Idk how I thought it would be 40 mins - probably because I forgot about buses and the off chance I catch one to the station. If I were to drive it would be just under an hour on a good day.

If I were to do back-to-back, should I do it between tutes/lectures/labs? I know arriving late to a lab would be a nightmare and probably would rather not walk into a tute late either. Overall, I'm trying to avoid back-to-back at all costs but due to limited slots for some classes it's unavoidable at least once or twice. :) Thanks so much for your list - it's really great to have that insight!
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RuiAce

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #167 on: December 29, 2019, 01:31:59 am »
0
Thank you so much! I only had a few clashes so I'll try and figure out where they are situated and weigh up the individual pros and cons.

And yes, well, I recalculated my commute and turns out it's up to 1h30mins? Idk how I thought it would be 40 mins - probably because I forgot about buses and the off chance I catch one to the station. If I were to drive it would be just under an hour on a good day.

If I were to do back-to-back, should I do it between tutes/lectures/labs? I know arriving late to a lab would be a nightmare and probably would rather not walk into a tute late either. Overall, I'm trying to avoid back-to-back at all costs but due to limited slots for some classes it's unavoidable at least once or twice. :) Thanks so much for your list - it's really great to have that insight!
I reckon the two you've suggested are the more crucial ones. Being late to a lab could easily mean missing out on valuable information, and you don't want to be there. And whilst it's less significant on an academic scale, being late to tutes is more awkward because more people realise.

Whereas being late to a lecture is honestly too bad. And leaving early is something you should have no problem getting away with for lectures and labs. (Leaving a tute early is sometimes awkward, but often the tutors do understand if you need to be somewhere.)

david.wang28

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #168 on: January 07, 2020, 03:26:11 pm »
0
Hello, I'm back again to discuss about timetable suggestions for my first term.
As an engineering/comp sci student, I've narrowed my preffered courses for first term down to:
MATH1131/PHYS1131/ENGG1000
MATH1131/PHYS1131/COMP1511
MATH1131/ENGG1000/COMP1511.

Any suggestions on these course selections? Which is the best combination? Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)
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DrDusk

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #169 on: January 07, 2020, 04:23:23 pm »
+1
Hello, I'm back again to discuss about timetable suggestions for my first term.
As an engineering/comp sci student, I've narrowed my preffered courses for first term down to:
MATH1131/PHYS1131/ENGG1000
MATH1131/PHYS1131/COMP1511
MATH1131/ENGG1000/COMP1511.

Any suggestions on these course selections? Which is the best combination? Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)
Definitely not the second one. That's the exact one I did in T1 and as I said before I was worked to exhaustion. Reason being Comp gives weekly tests + weekly labs that are due every week. Math1131 gives weekly online tutorials that are also due each week and Phys arguably out of all of them gives the hardest weekly online tests that are also due each week. So yeah it's waaay too hectic. I would probably recommend the first combination.

RuiAce

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #170 on: January 07, 2020, 04:37:58 pm »
+1
Hello, I'm back again to discuss about timetable suggestions for my first term.
As an engineering/comp sci student, I've narrowed my preffered courses for first term down to:
MATH1131/PHYS1131/ENGG1000
MATH1131/PHYS1131/COMP1511
MATH1131/ENGG1000/COMP1511.

Any suggestions on these course selections? Which is the best combination? Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)
All of them are intense. You're just lucky that you didn't do PHYS1131/ENGG1000/COMP1511 - that is very likely the toughest of the four options.

I won't make the decision for you. But here are the cons behind each course.
PHYS1131: Ridiculously intense, frequent, labs. Can take forever to do sometimes, especially with all the excessive writing.
COMP1511: Weekly labs to do on top of assignments. Assignments can make you scratch your head a lot, especially when your code doesn't work.
ENGG1000: It's a huge group project throughout the term, and you never know if you'll get a good group until you meet the people you're assigned to.


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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #171 on: January 07, 2020, 04:54:28 pm »
+1
A few things to also add to everyone else's opinions:

- ENGG1000 is difficult to fail. All your assessments weigh less than 10% so if you're REALLY stressed about math or physics, you at least have the room to push ENGG1000 as a last priority. Your project doesn't have to work at the end and you can still get a high distinction, a.k.a it's a WAM booster (it's also a good intro to what it's like to be in a student-led project because they love to push student-led projects in the subject)

- PHYS1121/PHYS1131 can be taken at any time. A lot of my electrical eng friends took it in T2 so they can do ELEC1111 and PHYS1231 in T3 (half of PHYS1231 covers electricity and pair well with ELEC)

- COMP1511 is hard lmao. The assessments are ridiculously hefty with small percentage weightings along with weekly tests. You're already doing 6 math quizzes PER WEEK (and if you plan to take PHYS1131 in T1, that's 2 extra quizzes a week: 1 pre-lab quiz, 1 quiz on lecture content). I took COMP1511 in T2

Just like Rui said, we can't really make the decision for you because you're the one that's gonna be studying it (and I'm definitely biased because I took the first combination, except PHYS1121). But keep an eye on the enrolment numbers, especially for ENGG1000 (I knew people who left enrolment to O-week and they ran out of spots for ENGG1000).

Hope this helps!
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david.wang28

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #172 on: January 07, 2020, 09:59:19 pm »
0
Thank you guys! :)
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david.wang28

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #173 on: July 27, 2020, 03:08:01 pm »
0
Hi guys, I'm planning on taking COMP1521, ENGG1300 and MATH1081 next term. I heard MATH1081 and COMP1521 are quite tough, but I don't know much about ENGG1300. Can anyone give me an insight into these courses? Thanks :)
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owidjaja

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #174 on: July 28, 2020, 10:42:43 am »
+1
Hi guys, I'm planning on taking COMP1521, ENGG1300 and MATH1081 next term. I heard MATH1081 and COMP1521 are quite tough, but I don't know much about ENGG1300. Can anyone give me an insight into these courses? Thanks :)
I'd describe ENGG1300 as a mix of MATH1131 (the algebra part) and PHYS1121 (the mechanics part). If you did Engineering Studies in the HSC, there may be some overlaps (mainly just truss analysis). If you're doing the course with the School of Mech (which is most like with Kellermann), the course would be a split of statics in the first five weeks and dynamics in the remaining 4 weeks - there's only 9 different topics. I will say the School of Mech version of ENGG1300 is a bit more difficult than the School of Civil one (which I believe is run this term) because we focus more on dynamics. But if you do have Kellermann as your lecturer, he's a really good lecturer and makes a lot of good resources.

If you're really keen and want to see what kind of topics we do, this website gives a good overview of half of what we cover in ENGG1300.
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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #175 on: July 28, 2020, 11:33:06 am »
+1
I've been taking MATH1081 and COMP1521 this term - pretty nice courses. If you've done Extension 1/Extension 2 Maths, a lot of the content in 1081 will be pretty familiar to you (proofs, perms and combs). There's more interesting stuff as well like number theory, logic, sets and graph theory - I'd say it's an 'easy to grasp, hard to master' type course. It's fun and a lot easier if 'more abstract' maths is your thing. COMP1521 is honestly a very small step up from COMP1511 so far - I'm still getting used to the topics later in the term but everything covered previously shouldn't really be that hard to grasp if you've done well in COMP1511 - half the time covered so far has been looking at extra nuances in file and bit manipulation (really just more stuff in C libraries and operations) and the other half has been learning lower-level code (which is basically C with different syntax).  Hope this helps a little :)
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david.wang28

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #176 on: July 28, 2020, 04:36:57 pm »
0
Thanks for the insights guys :)
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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #177 on: November 20, 2020, 01:12:29 pm »
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Is this university hard to get into? I recently became quite obsessed with this university. What ATAR do I need to get so I can enter?

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Re: UNSW General Chat
« Reply #178 on: November 20, 2020, 01:35:38 pm »
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It would depend on which course you want to do