Jeremy’s Little Corner Of The Web…

That's right, Uni is over for the year… I had my last exam today. I'm so happy!!! This semester has been hell… tons and tons of assignments mixed in with a 20-hour working week and living out of home does not result in a terribly healthy existence…

So here's a round up of what subjects I did this semester (so I can finally get them out of my system… and if someone from UNSW happens to pass by this site):

GENM0201 - Human Origins, Human Problems
Although technically not a Semester 2 subject, I did this during the winter holidays… The course covers human evolution, some genetics and basic human anatomy. I found it fairly interesting, but it crammed a lot of information into one week. It involved sitting in a lot of lectures, doing some practicals (playing with skulls, looking at cadavers, brains, legs, etc), two quizzes and an essay due a couple of week later.

GENS4010 - Science & Religion
I took this as a web-based course, an it involved doing a couple of readings each week, reading lecture notes, contributing (at least once a week) to a discussion forum, doing two essays and keeping a journal for the semester. I originally thought this was going to be a bludge (== easy), but it turned out to be quite a lot of work. However, I did find many of the topics interesting, covering the origins of the universe, the bible, bioethics, evolution (and many others). If you need to do a gen ed, and don't mind a bit of work, then this is a good choice.

INFS2607 - Business Data Networks
This was a compulsory subject for my course… To be honest, I went to one lecture and I don't think I missed out on much. We had a 2-hour tutorial/lab every two weeks, which involved doing some preparation questions in advance (these came in very handy for the exam). The only assessments we had were a quiz in the middle of the semester, a group assignment (where you plan the network of an organisation) and a presentation. Our exam (which I had today) was made up of 40 multiple choice questions and 4 long-answer questions (with different parts). The subject is a bit dry, but if you are interested in networking, it may be of use.

INFS3604 - Information Technology Management
This was one of my less favourite subjects… The subject itself is quite relevant and important (talking about change management, project management and issues, collaboration and a whole heap of other stuff), but I found the lectures quite dry. The tutorials were interesting, and the assessments were OK too (tutorial participation, an essay on collaboration technologies and a group essay).

LEGT2771 - IT/Law
This was my absolute favourite subject of the semester. It involves a ton of work and at times you may not understand what the heck is going on, but everyone seems to agree that it is a great subject. The lecturer (Bruce Gordon) is EXCELLENT - he's very enthusiastic about the subject, he knows his stuff, and he's approachable if you ever need help. The subject covers copyright, patents, trademarks, encryption, contracts and others I've probably forgotten. There's readings and tutorial questions for each week, which you really have to do if you want to stay on top of your work. The exam is tough (answer up to 5 questions out of 9 or 10 that are given to you a week earlier), but if you work as a group (and have the help of past papers ;)) the exam isn't so bad. Highly recommended.

MATH2841 - Statistics SS
This was another compulsory subject, which can be a lot of work. It's important to stay on top of the theory and do the questions, otherwise you'll just be lost. The subject covers probability, special distributions, observational and experimental design and inference testing. I'm a bit so-so on this subject. Sometimes I found it interesting, other times it was just plain annoying.