UoM General Chat

[Ballerina]

The most plausible excuse I've heard while sitting near the tutor includes 'I was there, you didn't see me?! I was sitting at the back!' He tried to convince the tutor for 10 minutes that he was at the last tutorial. THERE WERE 8 PEOPLE AT THE LAST TUTE. YOU WERE NOT ONE OF THEM. The tutor began to quiz him on the content of the tutorial and he was like '...it was on...psychology...and the mind.'

[Hancock]

If you don't go to non-compulsory tutes or lectures you're only wasting your own time and money ("ohh but the government pays for it" yeah and you have to pay it back...). You're missing out on valuable time to get help with problems you're having with the learning material so why wouldn't you go?

On the contrary, if you know the material well enough, you're wasting your own valuable time which could be spent more productively, eg. getting money through a job, or learning the next lecture. Obviously the ability to learn material by yourself varies from person to person and is different for different faculties.

[b^3]

I may not even go here, but well this goes for other universities as well, not just UoM

Sometimes I feel that I can get more out of going through the tute questions at home rather than at the tute, given that we're given solutions to the questions afterwards. Don't get me wrong, some tutes are great to go to, others I feel that there isn't much to be gained from actually going into the tute when we're just doing exactly the same as what we could do at home, and with the solutions there we can still get help without the need of the tutor (also considering that some of the tutors will just read off the solutions anyways). I think that might be because I'm better at independent learning though, so it's what works best for me most of the time.

This may come down to the fact that you guys are probably talking about tutes from different faculties? I see what Hancock is getting at, as I was mostly talking about engineering style tutorials. For your other areas and faculties it might be a lot different, a lot more valuable than what we're getting. Being able to take that time which I would have to go to the tute and move it somewhere else during the week can be valuable when there are other assessments that are due. It's more flexibility for the same result.

A lot of the time when we had participation marks for some eng tutes, most people would just do some incorrect working to get to a correct answer to show the tutor so that they could just get out of there and go home (was a later tute and some people had their last bus home leaving during the middle of the tute). As a result they wouldn't go and do it properly at home as they'd already spent time on it. whereas for the units that we didn't have participation marks in tutes they actually did do it properly at home, which was more beneficial than the other tute.

We're adults now, it's our choice whether we choose to attend or not, and for those tutes that I didn't go too as much I wouldn't give them a bad review, but rather not give the review at all (although I guess that's because I wasn't pissed off from not doing as well, could still do well in the end). Once we finish uni we're not going to have someone there pushing you to do this or to do that, you've got to make that decision yourself, and to an extend that has to start now if it hasn't already.

[Russ]

From memory physics was 3x lectures, 1x tute and 1x prac a fortnight, which makes 3 hours lecture theatre, 1 hour class room and 2 hours lab. Things might have changed though.
Maths was 3x lectures and 1x tute.

[e^1]

Wanting to do quite a bit of maths as a first year, I am thinking of doing either:

1. Accelerated Maths 1 & 2 (first taking the advanced placement test) or
2. Calculus 2 (sem 1) and Real Analysis (sem 2)

For the second choice however, I'm planning to skip Linear Algebra as I will be doing a edX course on it. Is it possible that I could some test or verification so that I can skip it?

Thank you!

[vox nihili]

Wanting to do quite a bit of maths as a first year, I am thinking of doing either:

1. Accelerated Maths 1 & 2 (first taking the advanced placement test) or
2. Calculus 2 (sem 1) and Real Analysis (sem 2)

For the second choice however, I'm planning to skip Linear Algebra as I will be doing a edX course on it. Is it possible that I could some test or verification so that I can skip it?

Thank you!

Would not recommend either. Just do both subjects. Accelerated courses are hard enough for people who get really, really sensational scores in spesh, so taking the test and getting in would be suicide. Same with Linear Algebra, it's apparently death (I've only heard one person say it's easy).

With all that said, if you're really confident that you can perform at a higher level than you did last year (41 in methods is great by the way, but this is super high now), and can do it, then go for it. Just wouldn't recommend it.

[awesomejames]

Would it be possible to obtain the exam timetable from previous semesters ie: semester 1 2013?

Or if someone did the subjects (in semester 1 2013): intro micro, QM1, ARA and PBL, could you please tell me the dates of those exams?

Also, do exam dates usually change from semester to semester?

Cheers

[LeviLamp]

Exam dates change, often unpredictably, so giving you access to previous timetables wouldn't achieve anything

[Shenz0r]

1. Accelerated Maths 1 & 2 (first taking the advanced placement test) or
2. Calculus 2 (sem 1) and Real Analysis (sem 2)

My friend got 43 in Spesh and 45 Methods and did AM1/2. He got a H2B or H2A, can't remember. All I remember is that he kept on bitching about how fast and in-depth it was. Calculus 2 would probably be a fair bit easier.

[vcestudent94]

You can't really compare VCE scores with uni scores though. I didn't get higher than 40 for spesh but I managed to get 96 in Real Analysis which everyone says is a subject for math "geniuses" (I'm no math genius by any stretch). So for the guy that was asking about AM don't be intimidated by other people's stories and what not...

[vox nihili]

You Victorian kids... Glad QLD maths covers linear algebra. I checked out the material, and pretty much everything is discussed in year 11 and 12, except linear transformations and a few things (mainly the proofs) regarding vector spaces. We are a bit behind in calculus though, so I guess it kind of balances out.

Straight from the state that gave the world Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Clive Palmer, to the state that gave Australia football.



Queensland/Victoria bashing aside, you strike a point that I was actually talking about with someone today—the VCE courses seem absolutely obsessed with calculus. I have no idea why though either. I really enjoyed the abstract stuff was pretty sad that it was too late for me to really pursue any maths!

[vox nihili]

I know right; I was checking out the specialist curriculum the other day. But I guess calculus is the most important topic you can cover, so you can't complain. Also, the abstract stuff in QLD isn't that great. Since we covered it all in year 11, we didn't really go into much depth. In year 12, it was all just calculus and linear algebra. I think it's good that Victoria doesn't cover as many topics because you can go into a lot more depth with the important stuff. And most students in high school don't want to become mathematicians anyway, so learning pure maths is kinda of pointless.

There are definitely applied uses for linear algebra and abstract maths like that. I'm certainly no expert, I haven't even taken the subject, but it can be extremely useful apparently.

I see what you mean though. Calculus gets a bit boring after a while. You're not really gaining appreciation of anything new or interesting in the methods curriculum at least. It's the same tired old methods over and over again, just applied to different situations. It's no wonder students become really shitty with the maths curriculum. When you're excited about being able to find areas under a curve, you know the maths is boring hahaha

[charmanderp]

Exam dates change, often unpredictably, so giving you access to previous timetables wouldn't achieve anything

It's almost as though the university doesn't care at all about its students, or anything other than making money ):

[vox nihili]

It's almost as though the university doesn't care at all about its students, or anything other than making money ):

Just have a read of some of the things our Vice Chancellor has said in the media...

My personal favourite was when he suggested that he wants UniMelb to be open and available to everyone, but that they want to be able to charge what they like so they can better determine their own student mix. (paraphrased)

[Hancock]

Just have a read of some of the things our Vice Chancellor has said in the media...

My personal favourite was when he suggested that he wants UniMelb to be open and available to everyone, but that they want to be able to charge what they like so they can better determine their own student mix. (paraphrased)

Source?

I reckon Full-fee undergrad / CSP undergrad split it a good idea in some cases. Uni gets more funding, which is desperately needs after the cuts made by the Govnt over the last couple of years, which can be used to better facilities and education.