UTS Subject Reviews

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Subject Code/Name: 24210: Integrated Marketing Communications

Contact Hours: 2 hour lecture + 1 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge:24108 Marketing Foundations + 24202 Consumer Behaviour

Assessment:
- Mid Session Tutorial Quiz (20%): Had an essay to write in the tutorial time. There were multiple versions of the quiz with different essay questions but were all based on what you have learn't so far in the semester. Was quiet difficult to do well but lecturer gives lots of tips and hints.
- Group Project report (30%): IMC plan based report where you chose a cause or beuty product and create a campaign using the IMC plan that is the basis for the subject.
- Group Oral Presentation (10%): Based on the IMC report. Our tutor gave us the option to either make it formal or informal. This is recorded and edited beforehand, and during an assigned time, your group gets to sit with the tutor and watch the video together.
- Final Exam (40%)- Can't remember what the structure is exactly but i remember one part you had to write an IMC report based on a case study so you need to memorise the sub-headings of an IMC report as part of your study. The lecturer told us from week 1 that the final exam is unbelievably hard and that he pops by at the end of the exam and sees people crying in tears. Trust me on this one, the lecturer wasn't lying so make sure your prepared.

Lecture Recordings? Yes, slides and audio.

Textbook: Advertising: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective + "Developing Your Integrated Marketing Communication Plan". The final exam was based on the textbook but you may not need it.

Lecturer(s): Dr David Waller

Year & Trimester of completion: 2019/2

Difficulty: 3/5, was average.

Overall Rating: 4/5, i really liked this subject.

Comments: One of my favourite subjects part of the marketing major. David was such a good lecturer, was really organised and on top of things. Seemed like he cared for the students given he used to pop by to each tutorial almost every week for announcements about assignments and stuff. I absolutely hated my tutor though. He gave us an unfair mark for our presentation where his feedback were about things such as timing, which was clearly indicated on the criteria as 30% of the marks but then told us after arguing with him that "i didnt mark you down for timing". Unfortunately when i emailed David the subject coordinator, he offered to have our video re-marked but we risked getting a lower mark than what we already got, so the group decided to not go ahead. After i made the complaint about the unfair mark, i got a notification on my LinkedIn that the tutor had stalked my profile which was a little creepy.


Subject Code/Name: 21037: Managing Employee Relations

Contact Hours: 1.5 hours tutorial + 1.5 hours lecture (80% tutorial attendance required or automatic fail).

Assumed Knowledge: 26100: Integrated Business Perspectives

Assessment:
- Individual Report (20%): You must chose an industrial instrument and write a report based on the structure provided.
- Group Negotiation, Advocacy and Bargaining Exercise (30%)- Basically its team VS team where your given a case study, and one team is the employer and the other are trade unions. You must have arguments which you put forth to the other team and negotiate based on your goals. Then you have a week to write a report and reflection on what was achieved and how well you think you did.
- Final Exam (50%)- I can't remember what the structure was exactly, but it might have been multiple choice, definitions and a case study essay.

Lecture Recordings? No.

Textbook: Employment Relations: Theory and Practice. I didnt get it but thought it wasn't needed.

Lecturer(s): Stephen Kelly

Year & Trimester of completion: 2019/2

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Comments: They told us on the first week of the semester that last semesters fail rate was 30%. Based on my experience, the reason isn't because the subject is difficult but because of the management. The lecturer/tutor although his a good bloke, never replied to my emails once and never communicated anything such as assesments and whatever. One week we had off because he went on a holiday before STUVAC and he told us the week before in class that there wasnt gonna be a class next week however, didn't post it on UTS online. Half the people wasted there time to come to Uni before realising that the teacher never showed up lol. The guys useless at technology as well, every week he would spend 15 minutes with IT issues and some girl would always be helping him lol. Also, i thought he was a strict marker, the average for the first assignment might have been 8/20. One thing i want to mention is that that they thought because of the high fail rate last semester, the subject coordinator with a phD should stop doing lecturers, and the tutor would do both lecturers and tutorials. THe subject coordinator who we never saw once in the semester was alright because she at least responded with my queries and constant complaining throughout the semester. I want to point out that i usually dont complain this hard so especially to peoples faces so take it for fact that you will have contstant frustration when completing this subject, theres absolute chaos. Defs one of the worst subjects in terms of management i have ever experienced.

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Subject Code/Name: 24999: Business Internship

Contact Hours: Just need to attend 2x 3 hour lectures for the entire semester. This is a requirement to get approval to commence the internship. Otherwise 210 hours working at the internship.

Assumed Knowledge: None.

Assessment:
- Internship Proposal (20%): Along with attending the compulsory lectures, completing the required online modules, this assignment is part of the approval process of your internship. If you commence your internship before gaining approval from the facultly, you won't be covered by insurance, and hours wont be aloud to be recorded. Basically this assignment is all about setting goals and details of the organisation.
- Career Pitch Video (25%): At the end of your internship, you record yourself pitching about your experience. Was really easy and took me about an hour to complete. Theres a given structure for you to know what to include. This is due 28 days after the completion of your internship.
- Intersnhip Report (50%) : The big assignment you hand in 28 days after completing your internship where you write and reflect on your experience. There is also a logbook you have to include of each day at the internship that you need to attach with the report at the end.
- Evaluation by Workplace Supervisor (5%): Just need to give your supervisor an online form to fill out on your performance. Should be an easy 5% if you did well.

Lecture Recordings? No, its compulsory to attend the 2 lectures in person or you cant commence.

Textbook: No.

Lecturer(s): Mira Skoric was the main lecturer. Otherwise Nicole Papworth was involved heaps as well.

Year & Trimester of completion: 2019/3

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Comments:
210 hours was a crazy amount of hours to work, which is why its probably better to do this subject in the summer like i did. Whats good is that you get 3 semesters to complete the requirements of this subject. I even was able to enrol in the summer, and complete the internship requirements in the first few weeks in Autumn. A great tip to find an internship is to use the UTS careers site as they have a good repsonse rate ans maybe half of the companies i emailed responded and inviting me to attend an interview which was awesome because i got to chose between multiple companies. If you complete all the requirements and put effort in, this subject is an easy HD. I did this part of my marketing major as an elective and highly recomend because although its free work, its very easy to score high marks and good for your resume. The lectures were more life career advice rather than internship related however, its a pretty good deal if you only need to attend 2 lecurers for the entire subject. What i didn't like is the approval process, especially because mine took forever because of the Christmas closure of UTS which could have been assumed but was never confirmed till the day before lol. Otherwise i was always emailing the team about changes of workplace supervisour, internship completion dates etc which is a requirement for insurance reasons, and they were nice and always responded within 24 hours. Just want to mention that there was a point during my internship where i had to go to hospital for a few days because i needed emergency surgery for my appendix, forcing myself to miss out on the internship work that week. Luckily, UTS let me off for the hours i missed, and only had to do 180 hours instead of 210. Im not sharing this to encourage free sickies , but to also mention that they are flexible with any disasters that happen during your time.

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Subject Code/Name: 24713: Marketing Channels

Contact Hours: 2 hours lecture + 1 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: 24108 Marketing Foundations.

Assessment:
- Multiple Choice Quizes (30%): 3 online quizzes with 10 multiple choice questions per quiz and you get 30 minutes to do it. Was open book and you could make multiple attempts till you got full marks on the quiz.
- Project Report: (30%): Theres a given real life case study that your group needs to write a report for thats worth 25%. Also, in your tutorial, you will be assigned a week where you must present an article critique thats worth 5%.
- Final Exam (40%): Part A is a list of definitions where you chose 5 to answer. Part B are short essay questions where you chose 4 to answer from 6 questions.

Lecture Recordings? Yes, audio and visual.

Textbook: Marketing Channels: A Management View. Probably dont need this.

Lecturer(s): Dr Nigel Bairstow

Year & Trimester of completion: 2020/1 ***Note: Completed during COVID-19 Online Semester***

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating: 5/5

Comments: Chose this subject as an elective part of my marketing major. I have no regrets chosing this subject because i really enjoyed it and was easy. Nigel is one of the best lecturers/tutors ive had at UTS and was very supportive and organised especially during COVID-19 struggles. Marketing channels is such an important part of business to i would highly recommend that people chose this subject.


Subject Code/Name: 24415: Marketing Planning and Strategy

Contact Hours: 2 hours lecture + 1 hour tutorial

Assumed Knowledge: 24108 Marketing Foundations + 24202 Consumer Behaviour

Assessment:
- Project Report (20% group and 10% individual): You chose a company thats struggling with implementing a strategy, and you provide recommendations to improve it. Theres also a presentation component.
- Mid Session Quiz (20%): 20 online multiple choice questions and you get 25 minutes. This was definatly very hard and because our cohort did so bad, they had to scale up the marks. One thing you will struggle on is time because it takes a while to think about it and also its open book. This was originally a 15 minute quiz but the coordinator changed it to 25 minutes the day before the quiz (thank god) and we still didn't have enough time for it.
- Final Exam (40%): We had a take-home 24 hour exam where we were provided a case study, and had to answer 4 questions (350 words max each). Was quiet easy compared to other subjects final exams.
- Business Case Discission (5%): Your group gets given an article that and you create a presentation critiquing it.

Lecture Recordings? Yes, audio and visual.

Textbook: Marketing Strategy and Text. Just google the textbooks name and author, and you will find a free PDF you can download.

Lecturer(s): Sorush Sepeher

Year & Trimester of completion: 2020/1 ***Note: Completed during COVID-19 Online Semester***

Difficulty: 2/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Comments: Was quiet an easy subject but i didn't like the management of the subject. The coordinator was my tutor and when you would ask him administrative questions got to do with exams for example, he would be like "ask Soroush (lecturer)" and when we would ask why he would respond "because he makes the decisions about these things". Was the first time a subject coordinator was having somone else do his job lol. Also, because of COVID-19 and online classes, the lectures were always uploaded a week late because they were having an employement crisis where the lecturer had to lecture 3 subjects in one semester and had barely enough time. Otherwise it was quiet easy (except for the mid semester quiz) and everything else you would expect during COVID-19 with technology problems and groupwork problems.

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Subject Code/Name: 21512: Understanding Organisations: Theory and Practise

Contact Hours: 1.5 hour lecture + 1.5 hour tutorial (80% attendance required or automatic fail).

Assumed Knowledge: 26100 Integrated Business Perspectives

Assessment:
- Individual Essay (30%): You must write a 2500 word essay based on a struggling organisation (i chose to use COVID-19 as a struggle for the business i chose) and apply the theories in the subject to the organisation. There is a list of the theories as well as an indiciation of its difficulty. Basically, the more complex/harder the theories you chose, you will recieve bonus marks.
- Group Report (30%): Similar to the individual essay, you must write a 2500 word essay based on a struggling organisation (similar to the individual. You must use the literature provided in the guide. There is also a presntation component to this where everyone must present.
- Final Exam (40%): Online 24 hour take-home exam where there are there are 4 questions you must answer based on lecture material. Responses must be between 500-1000 words.

Lecture Recordings? Yes, audio and visual.

Textbook: Organization Theory. Its recommended so probably don't need this as much.

Lecturer(s): Dr Marco Berti

Year & Trimester of completion: 2020/1 ***Completed during online COVID-19 session***

Difficulty: 3/5 (medium).

Overall Rating: 1/5

Comments: Although the difficulty was pretty average for this subject, i really hated this subject. I didn't like the people, the content, the exams nothing. One thing i will mention is that this subject literally has 0 assesments till week 10 where the individual assignment is due, then after 6 days the group assignment is due. Its absolutely ridiculous that we get smashed with 2 assignments for 1 subject during the busiest time of the semester. Also, i thought that the marking was very strict for this subject as i didn't do as well as i would have thought. The tutorials made us work so hard as well compared to other subjects, especially when the tutor picks on the same people to talk every week and i was one of them .


Subject Code/Name: 21505: Human Resource Management (Capstone) 

Contact Hours: Timetabled for a 3 hours lecture (more like a seminar), but only lasted maybe 1.5 hours max. Subject outline states that its compulsory to attend ALL classes (not just 80%) unless you have approval from the coordinator.

Assumed Knowledge: 21555 Introduction to Human Resource Management + 21407 Strategic Human Resource Management OR 21306 Managing Strategic Performance OR 21037 Managing Employee Relations.

Assessment:
- Group Project Proposal (20%): Just need to write a proposal for your project as a group. If you split it up amongst the group, it should be maybe 200 words per person.
- Individual Final Project Presenation & Reflection  (20%): Personal reflection where you record yourself and submit the video. I wasn't sure if i did the right thing but i did a screen recording of a powerpoint and put a voiceover. Theres a given structure on what to include.
- Individual Final Report (60%): The big 3500 word final report that you must hand in based on your findings. Although this is due at the end of the semester, i urge you to start early because firstly its 3500 words, and also the research takes forever.

Lecture Recordings? Yes, audio and visual

Textbook: Research Methods in Human Resource Management. I struggled with the final assignment and borrowed the textbook from the library and it helped me a lot.

Lecturer(s): Dr Robyn Johns

Year & Trimester of completion: 2020/1 ***Completed during online COVID-19 semester***

Difficulty: 5/5 (very difficult)

Overall Rating: 2.5/5 (bareable)

Comments: This subject is defs the most hardest subject in HRM major, but what else would you expect from the capstone. Its a lot of individual learning especially towards the end and especially because i did this subject during COVID1-19. This subject has only the proposal due in maybe week 6, and the other 2 assignments due during final exam period so you get a lot of time off. Furthermore, classes only run till week 7 and after that, theres only group consultations so i kind of felt like i wasn't doing this subject for most of the semester. The assesments work like this: there is a real life case study of an organisation (in our case Domain) and there are 5 problems that you are to focus on in the semester. You are assigned a group where you preference from 1-5 on what problem statement you want to persue and the lecture team sort out who does who. You are also given a contact from your organisation where you can resource materials to incude as part of your research. This is a difficult sibject so i urge you to only enrol towards the end of your degree, prefferebly in your final year or final semester if you can. I did this in my second-last semester but only did so because i am doing a double major and am doing the marketing capstone in my last semester or in other words, i didn't really have a choice lol.