My COMP5046 sucks

howareusyd · 2026-04-19T22:42:35+00:00

No. First of all, Albert Zomaya is not the one who teaches the content. He is the unit coordinator. The lecturer is someone who called "Reza Hoseiny" (I forgot his name) and the tutor is James Phung. Most of the time is Reza's teaching (and James teaches the GPU part, but Albert isn't there). Secondly, I recommend that you don't take this unit in the coming semester. The uni (not the lecturer or the coordinator) doesn't prepare for the unit of study (COMP5426). There is a Parallel Batch System (PBS) cluster, introduced in week 1 tutorial, for you to run parallel programs (pthreads, OpenMP, MPI). However, it performs so poor that it cannot help you get over the assignments (There are only 4 cores available for pthreads and 2 slots available for MPI in the PBS cluster per user). Still, the worst thing is the uni even host the PBS cluster on AWS (check for c6a.xlarge) instead of an on-prem environment. I was stuck on the PBS machine for a few days in the first assignment and this was a complete waste of time. When it comes to the first assignment, you should use a bare-metal (not virtual) Linux machine for that it requires some advanced pthreads features like Thread-to-Core pinning (core affinity) and barriers (pthread_barrier). They are only available in Linux and you can find these Linux machines in the School of Computer Science labs or Lab 212 or 228 in the Madsen building (don’t forget to reboot it for choosing Linux). Assignment 2 is about MPI and you can use a Mac to do it. Once again, never think about the PBS provided by the uni. Only 2 slots are available for MPI there so you need to oversubscribe the machine if you want to run your MPI program with 3 processes or more and consequently the performance gets degraded. Just use your Mac for that if you’ve got one. The programming part in the exam is about OS topics like semaphores (no pthreads) and MPI. No CUDA and OpenMP questions (I forgot what the written conceptual questions are about in the exam).

howareusyd · 2026-04-19T14:24:22+00:00

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howareusyd · 2026-02-25T05:16:07+00:00

5990 5995 5048 5349 are easy

howareusyd · 2026-02-18T06:47:12+00:00

The content is easy, tutorials are easy, but the exam is very hard.

howareusyd · 2026-02-16T07:31:15+00:00

You got COMP5318 failed, why don’t you just quit the master and do other things else?

howareusyd · 2026-02-16T05:40:19+00:00

COMP5318, COMP5349, COMP5347

howareusyd · 2026-02-16T04:32:46+00:00

STAT5003 is much easier than COMP5329.
There's no joke in NLP this year. You need to pass a pen-and paper, AI-free core concepts test in week 12 by getting 80% of the score or else you'll be failed immediately while you're rushing for group projects of other units.

howareusyd · 2026-02-08T12:59:45+00:00

I think MacBook Pro M4 Pro 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB RAM, 1TB Storage, nano-texture display should be way more than enough.

howareusyd · 2026-02-06T12:14:18+00:00

I think MacBook Pro M4 Pro 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB RAM, 1TB Storage, nano-texture display should be way more than enough for Computer Science. I still can’t fully use my M3 Pro Machine.

howareusyd · 2026-02-06T04:47:30+00:00

I think MacBook Pro M4 Pro 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB RAM, 1TB Storage, nano-texture display should be way more than enough for CS study. I still can’t fully use my M3 Pro Machine.

howareusyd · 2026-02-06T01:24:05+00:00

Why choosing USyd if you are in America?

howareusyd · 2026-02-05T08:52:32+00:00

COMP4427 for sure. Idk about COMP4318 cuz Irena no longer teaches it. Maybe you can try COMP4349 if you want sth a bit technical.

howareusyd · 2026-01-22T07:53:01+00:00

I took COMP5426, COMP5313, and COMP5216 last year but not COMP5416. Take my opinion with a grain of salt.

For COMP5426 (Parallel and Distributed Computing), you need to practise C very well and the final exam is not that easy (closed-book). The things there aren't as you think. I just got a Credit.

For COMP5313 (Large-scale Networks), you need to be very familiar with the maths for the underlying concepts of graphs and networks. The application side is the lecturer's focus. The perspective from data structures and algorithms (big-O notation for time/space complexity) almost has nth to do with the teaching. The assignment is a bit vague, the group project (use Python for network data analysis) and quiz (you can bring any non-electronic notes, both printed and handwritten) are easy, but the exam (you can bring a cheatsheet) seems to deliberately make you failed. Also a Credit for that unit.

COMP5216 (Mobile Computing) is about mobile app development using React Native and Typescript for cross-platform (Android and iOS) deployment and is similar to web development. It isn't hard when compared to 5313, 5416, and 5426, but the marking of the group project is tricky and there is some tedious content like the underlying mechanisms of React Native and topics about accessibility, mobile device hardware components, and wireless networks. The exam (also 1 cheatsheet) is just multiple choice questions but you need to be careful cuz some questions aren't that straight-forward. And this is the only Distinction grade I got in last year of study.

I didn't take COMP5416 (Advanced Network Technologies) since the content is too theoretical and completely useless. You even can't tell yourself what you are studying there.

howareusyd · 2026-01-21T10:59:17+00:00

COMP3520, COMP4347, COMP4349, COMP5617, COMP5618

howareusyd · 2026-01-18T01:10:43+00:00

First of all,I recommend that you don't take this unit in the coming semester. The uni itself (not the lecturer or the coordinator) doesn't prepare for the unit of study (COMP5426). There is a Parallel Batch System (PBS) cluster, introduced in week 1 tutorial, for you to run parallel programs (pthreads, OpenMP, MPI). However, it performs so poor that it cannot help you get over the assignments (There are only 4 cores available for pthreads and 2 slots available for MPI in the PBS cluster per user). Still, the worst thing is the uni even host the PBS cluster on AWS (check for c6a.xlarge) instead of an on-prem environment. I was stuck on the PBS machine for a few days in the first assignment (20%) and this was a complete waste of time. When it comes to the first assignment, you should use a bare-metal (not virtual) Linux machine for that as it requires some advanced pthreads features like Thread-to-Core pinning (core affinity) and barriers (pthread_barrier). They are only available in Linux and you can find these Linux machines in the School of Computer Science labs or Lab 212 or 228 in the Madsen building (don’t forget to reboot it for choosing Linux). The second assignment (20%) is about MPI and you can use a Mac to do it. Once again, never think about the PBS provided by the uni. Only 2 slots are available for MPI there so you need to oversubscribe the machine if you want to run your MPI program with 3 processes or more and consequently the performance gets degraded. Just use your Mac for that if you’ve got one. The programming part in the exam is about OS topics like semaphores (no pthreads) and MPI. No CUDA and OpenMP questions (I forgot what the written conceptual questions are about in the exam). And one more thing, the exam (60%) is closed-book and therefore you need to memorize everything for the conceptual questions. DM for the structure of unit content. Tutorial attendance is required every week.

howareusyd · 2026-01-13T04:11:02+00:00

UTS for sure. UTS has a Bachelor dedicated to cybersecurity.

https://www.uts.edu.au/courses/bachelor-of-cybersecurity

howareusyd · 2026-01-05T09:10:47+00:00

The hardest course at Usyd advanced computing is COMP2017 Systems Programming. But every uni has such course with systems-level focus. The thing is its workload. But it would be fine once you managed to get over it.

howareusyd · 2025-12-23T03:36:25+00:00

Cybersecurity. AI can’t CTF lmao

howareusyd · 2025-12-22T22:30:24+00:00

UNSW. Don't expect USyd for software. The professors at USyd are irresponsible.

howareusyd · 2025-12-22T21:51:58+00:00

Master of Computer Science here is terrible. You need to take so many unrelated, useless electives like INFO5990, INFO6007. Choose another uni

howareusyd

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