(no subject)
Well, I haven’t updated in a while. And I’m a fairly boring person, so I’ll follow suit from a few other fellow lj-ites and review last semester / results. I was going to write nice useful reviews, but then holidays happened, and … well… some days it’s hard enough to be motivated to get out of bed, let alone write properly. Meanwhile…
ECMT2110 Regression Modelling
I only did this subject because it’s a requirement for my major… econometrics is not something I’m particularly fond of or excited by. Nevertheless, the lecturer (Diane Dancer) did her best to make it interesting and she explained things particularly well. I hadn’t done econometrics for over a year (since first year), so it was a bit of a learning curve at first seeing I’d forgotten most of the basic theory and it was assumed knowledge (as in, being applied from the first lecture). If anyone reading this does this subject: Don’t get put off by the textbook. I’ve heard from more advanced ECMT students that it’s the bible of econometric theory and covers just about everything. Trying to memorise all the formulas etc. is also not really necessary - I tried to for the mid-semester, panicked, and made myself sick (nausea) just in time for the exam - not a good idea. And the formulas weren’t even in it - the focus is on concepts (well you don’t say! But anyway). In terms of usefulness for an economics major, this subject probably gets 10/10. In terms of, well, passion to learn more, about 3/10.
Enjoyment: 3/10
Overall judgement: 8/10
Result: 89 (HD)
ECOS3901 Advanced Microeconomic Theory
Not for the faint-hearted. It’s third-year, microeconomics and can only be done by students in the honours program, so I really shouldn’t have expected it to be a walk in the park… but .. oh my god it was hard. The lecturer (Abjihit Senupta) was very nice, helpful and sometimes even funny, but didn’t use too many examples or refer us to some that we can use to understand the material (yes, I did try google, but not much on there even), and this made studying very hard. The topics were mostly game theory related, including auction theory, and some general equilibrium and welfare theory towards the end. Very much a mathematics-based course. It’s the first year being a 6-credit point subject (and it’s gone from ‘Theory & Policy’ to just ‘Theory’ at the end of the subject name), so maybe there’s room for adjustment - looking at the old exam papers on the library website, it seems a lot of the real-world examples and case studies have been dropped in favour of a strictly mathematical approach. Nevertheless, probably extremely useful for people silly enough to write an honours thesis on something micro.
Enjoyment: 4/10
Overall judgement: 7/10
Result: 88 (HD)
ECOS3004 History of Economic Thought
Head and shoulders (no, not the shampoo brand) above any other economics subject I’ve done so far. Definitely the most interesting, even if it’s not useful to everyone. I hadn’t done any sort of history since year 8 high school (I hated it!), so wasn’t too sure what to expect. In the first lecture, it appeared everyone else in the class was reading some form of historic text out of personal enjoyment and they all liked to argue with the lecturer over views of historical figures. Crikey! But anyway, the lecturers (Tony Aspromourgos, then Matthew Smith) were excellent. Prof. Aspromourgos was quite passionate about many topics/theories, and had a rather unique way of explaining things. If you can accept that he’s trying to give a real interpretation rather than a bland-unbiased-boring-textbook lecture, and not get too offended by his strong views on some things (only a few things), then the lectures are very enjoyable. Dr. Smith’s lectures were good as well, although he did tend to rely on powerpoint slides crammed full of words/text a bit too much, which got tedious at times. There was a moderate amount of reading, but it was heavier earlier on in the course, and was quite manageable. The essay was a nightmare - 1,350 words!! - and the mid-semester was multiple choice, which I thought was a bit silly. But nevertheless, it was a very well set-out course, and it’s obvious it’s been taught the same way for many years. The textbook was very comprehensive and fairly concise, which made things easier. A lot of the topics, especially the Classical Economics taught by Prof. Aspromourgos, were thought-provoking and had a couple of philosophical overtones - eg, why study history? For that matter, why study economics? What is economics? Does every economist have an ideological bias, since it the subject concerns material wealth at its core? Should we look at distribution, or accumulation? Why is economics today so narrowly focused and disjunct from social issues? Etc. A highly recommended course for anyone that’s done the prerequisites.
Enjoyment: 8/10
Overall judgement: 10/10
Result: 92 (HD)
GEOS3912 Tourism Geography (aka 'Contemporary Global Geographies')
Well, it’s human geography, and taught by John Connell, so what more can I say? An excellent course, and very interesting. The focus was tourism (obviously), and it pretty much covered every possible aspect, from history to post-tourism, psycho-social reasons for travelling to economic reasons places attract tourists, from environmental/social impacts on host populations to niches (literature, pilgrimages, music, sex, etc) and concepts of authenticity and nostalgia. This was the first time this course has been run, so it will probably be fine-tuned in future years, but it’s highly recommended. There’s a fair bit of reading, and a huge list of extra readings on all the topics, which is especially useful for the essays/presentations and even to just find out more about the interesting topics. I did the ‘advanced’ version of the subject (ie, 3912 rather than 3512 -- because I can, really), and since this involves printing out a form, getting it signed, taking it to the relevant faculty yada yada, it turned out I was the only person enrolled in GEOS3912. The plus side was, of course, I could suggest what changes were made to my assessments. One (which everyone in the course did) was a prac, which was quite interesting. The options are: designing a brochure for a niche tour, analysing tourism at a small, specific location in the Sydney area, or researching a festival. I chose festival and ended up at Bundanoon is Brigadoon in the Southern Highlands with Jen (small groups were allowed) which actually turned out to be quite fun (dare I admit it). We got a bit carried away with out report - it was huge - but was one of the few assignments I’ve had that was actually fun to research/write up. The other assessments were two in-tute presentations, the final exam (yuck!) and another essay - I chose mining heritage tourism in Central West NSW as a topic. Big mistake, totally boring, but anyway. A great course, and heaps of fun! Interesting and varied too, which is always good, and more than I can say about most of my economics subjects.
Enjoyment: 9/10
Overall judgement: 10/10
Result: 87 (HD)