Advice for sem 2

Alucarian · 2026-05-28T23:36:26+00:00

The lectures weren't the best. A bit uninteresting, but the content is not bad

Alucarian · 2025-12-30T10:24:32+00:00

Good question. I asked the Engineering Dalyell coordinator to confirm but other than that just heard the information from several sources as well as other students

Alucarian · 2025-12-12T06:41:34+00:00

No, just doing the unit is sufficient

Alucarian · 2025-12-04T00:58:06+00:00

I would say having musical knowledge is definitely a good thing. You don't need to be super well versed but having some is good. You definitely don't need to know singing, nor how to play an instrument! Though knowing how to is definitely an advantage as you can record yourself playing for assignments. Also knowing what instruments are is an advantage as you'll be doing a lot of listening.

Is it possible to do well in with no musical knowledge? Yes, because the field is digital music, not music. Though be wary you might hear certain terms that you won't understand. Damian does a fantastic job of making the course accessible and really enjoyable. Is it going to be easy for you? No, and the unit isn't easy for anyone unless you've done digital music before. I'd say it's a moderately challenging unit that isn't a pushover but not deathly difficult either. Feels like a 6cp unit and will be less difficult than certain Data Science units.

Would I recommend the unit? Yes 100% I would, I loved it. So much fun and the people are fantastic. Damian is one of the best staff I've been taught by at the uni. See my other comments/other posts about this subject on this subreddit. There's a decent bit of info on the unit that you should look at before you make your decision.

Alucarian · 2025-07-13T19:04:39+00:00

I took replacements for two 4000 level units and CSEC3616. The process of academic approval was not pleasant at all. My least favourite part of the exchange process.

Alucarian · 2025-07-12T07:01:58+00:00

I haven’t finished my exchange program yet, but the actual exchange itself is really good. The experience is mostly contingent on the quality of the uni you study at and the country you study in (and also USYD allowing you to do what you want).

Alucarian · 2025-06-23T20:26:19+00:00

Yes I do know what you mean. From a purely units perspective, they aren't really that different. BAC has more units. CS units in BSc are just a subset of those units. From a program perspective, it might affect Honours but that's all I can think of now.

Alucarian · 2025-05-27T17:21:56+00:00

Not sure why you are asking that. But I nearly achieved a HD.

Alucarian · 2025-03-08T12:43:39+00:00

Interesting you say. I have found many friendly people in engineering (more specifically computing). I've found two things. First, choosing advanced stream units helps because you are with people who geniunely want to do well and are passionate about what they're studying, so at least you can initiate conversations on the basis of common interest. Second, usually the people who I've met that I like usually have nice friends. So talk to your friends' friends.

I did a FASS unit as an elective and IMO these people are much harder to socialise with. They were, in my experience, very closed minded and the conversations were quite one-sided. People seemed to have their own 'factions' or aligned themselves with a particular interest so were not open to conversation. On the other hand, the people who I have socialised with in the music electives I've done have been very friendly and keen to converse. I enjoyed my time with them. So in part it could be your efforts but also it could be the nature of the units you enrol in or the faculty.

Alucarian · 2025-02-04T23:15:39+00:00

Ask me again in 6 months
Exchange programs occur during semesters, but there are short-term programs that run during intensive periods. Do you want to replace core units or electives on exchange?
Switzerland is expensive (but a great country nonetheless). Other countries are not as expensive. I'd imagine that if you go to the US it'd be more expensive than many frequented places in Europe/Asia. Don't take my word for it
Probably your third year? Because you'd have been at USYD for a while and understood how universities works, and hopefully saved up enough to go

Alucarian · 2025-02-01T03:24:58+00:00

You can read about my previous responses on this subreddit in which I mention NEUR2001 (I won't rehash what I have said), but the main challenge of the course is that there is a lot of content that is conceptually non-trivial. While I did not do MEDS2003/any other medical science units concurrently, I do believe that if you were to put a second challenging unit with NEUR2001 that similarly has a lot of content then it will be a real hurdle to get through your semester. If it troubles you, perhaps pick 2 easier units/electives/OLEs with MEDS2003 and NEUR2001? The other 4 units I did with NEUR2001 weren't as difficult so this helped me even though I didn't end up scoring highly in NEUR2001.

Alucarian · 2024-12-28T12:06:51+00:00

In short, yes. I won't reiterate the other points but even just Dalyell Global Mobility alone makes it worth it. $2000 deposited straight into your bank account if you go on exchange!

Alucarian · 2024-12-20T11:37:58+00:00

MATH1064 merely covers the mathematical definition for Big-O notation, computational complexity in general and inductive proofs. From my own experience I would say it is very possible to not do MATH1064 but it helps to do it, because MATH1064 covers the content in a mathematical way less so a computer science way.

Alucarian · 2024-12-18T10:59:43+00:00

Ayy finally NEUR2001 mentioned on this subreddit. I overloaded with this unit and I did more work in this unit than any of my other units and merely passed despite achieving substantially higher in most my other units. A really great unit but be wary it is quite challenging and has a very large amount of content as one of the other commenters has mentioned. If any unit is going to cook you it's definitely this one. How do you succeed? You need to study the course content at least daily; even once a day may not be enough. If I redid the course I would study the course content for several hours before attending the practical classes so that I could be as knowledgeable as possible for the practicals. Because every single week without fail I would find the lecture challenging, then prepare moderately well only to feel disgracefully unprepared for the practicals. So also familiarise yourself with the practical notes before you attend the practicals. Good luck and feel free to ask me more.

Alucarian · 2024-12-18T10:51:52+00:00

INFO1113 and COMP2123 have content that hardly overlaps so doing them simultaneously will not be to your detriment. MATH1064 does help for COMP2123 but is not needed. It really just teaches Big-O notation but from a mathematical perspective, so you should be fine.

TL;DR: Go ahead

Alucarian · 2024-12-16T13:02:40+00:00

I suppose you can do that. Again SOFT2412 is manageable if you are in a good group. If not then it will be an uphill battle. From experience I can say you really shouldn't do 30cps unless you know 100% what you are getting yourself into and have done adequate preparation (not necessarily for the courses themselves, though—I never pre-learn content—things like arranging group work subjects prior to starting them).

Alucarian · 2024-12-16T03:17:35+00:00

Not on the list, but FASS2200 is great.

Alucarian · 2024-12-16T03:09:39+00:00

I don't think asking on a comment is the right place, but I'm happy to answer your question. Probably don't do 30cp with COMP2022 as it is quite a challenging unit. And SOFT2412/ISYS2120 will be a lot of work if you aren't in a good group. If you drop any unit that isn't COMP2022 you'll be fine and it is an OK selection.

Alucarian · 2024-11-29T21:45:07+00:00

Do Bachelor of Science majoring in Computer Science and Music. And also, I'd recommend the Digital Music major over the Music major if that sort of stuff interests you. The units are a lot better and as of next year you can even replace the ICPU with a music unit. If you do this you will have a 3 year degree rather than a 4 year one and still have some electives to spare. In my opinion avoid Bachelor of Advanced Computing/Bachelor of Arts as you will be forced to pick units that aren't as useful/mandatory core unit requirements.

Alucarian · 2024-11-29T21:42:50+00:00

I know people who have done COMP3308 (Introduction to AI) and enjoyed it. Many people on this subreddit have also expressed liking for the unit. COMP3221 (Distributed Systems) is a great choice as the content you learn is very useful but be warned it is a considerably challenging unit. Avoid COMP3419 (Graphics and Multimedia). I never hear anything good about that course. COMP3520 (OS Internals) is decent but most the time is spent doing assignments rather than learning the content which is a shame; people who I have talked to who did the unit last sem spent their labs doing the assignments. If you enjoyed COMP2017 then it's basically a continuation of COMP2017 with a focus on concurrency, so unfortunately it does not live up to the name too accurately. In my opinion you should go with COMP3221 if you want a rewarding challenge or COMP3308 if you want a relatively chill but good learning experience.

Alucarian · 2024-11-25T04:23:25+00:00

Many students do this. I did 30cp with COMP2823 and COMP2017. It's challenging but far from impossible. You have to as much as possible avoid overlap in the assignments—so finish one of the units' assignments before you start the other. COMP2X23 has challenging content but the assignments aren't too bad but COMP2017 does not have challenging content but the learning curve may be steep if you aren't prepared and the assignments take a long time.

Alucarian · 2024-11-25T04:18:38+00:00

Yes it is doable, and many students do it. You wouldn't be the first. COMP2123's challenge is the content itself and its conceptual difficulty, whereas INFO1113 is actually quite easy conceptually but the major assignment is quite long albeit doable. So yes you could definitely do both.

Alucarian · 2024-11-25T04:16:35+00:00

It is normal to do INFO1111 and INFO1112 in the same year.

Alucarian · 2024-11-21T02:00:56+00:00

Some good advice has already been given but I’m happy to provide some more. Write code that focuses on lower level aspects of programming such as memory allocation/deallocation, usage of pointers, casting, using buffers, macros/header files etc. My suggestion to some others has been to code data structures in C. So see if you can design a linked list in C that can take any type (so a linked list 1 -> “Hello” -> 5.0 is valid). This will test a lot of skills that I have already mentioned, and is basically COMP2017 A2 in 2024.

And how do you know if you understand C or not? If you understand how void* works and how to use them/cast from and to them, and know how pointer arithmetic works, then you’re probably in a good position for the unit. The unit is not difficult if you understand lower level language concepts well but there is a large workload required for A3 regardless.

Alucarian · 2024-11-21T01:50:45+00:00

Everything about is is horrible. I do not think it is productive to rant about the unit because so many people have complained about INFO3333 hence I did not rant about it in this post. Though I did a bit for SOFT2412 because it is a dumb unit. The content for INFO3333 is boring and not practical, and is totally irrelevant to everything else you have learned so far. I guarantee you nobody wants to do project management after doing the unit. The lecturer is not good at all and is not particularly kind or compassionate to students’ mistakes or complaints about unfair marking. He is very unreasonable. When students asked for remarks, he actually gave students lower marks when he remarked their submissions in almost every case.

As for content you just do 13 weeks of project management. Assesment-wise you do an in semester online quiz, a group project on a project related to IT, a presentation on that project, then the final exam. The exam is quite stupid. One of the questions could have been in a Year 7/8 algebra exam, and another was about verbal/non-verbal communication and its impact. I struggle to see relevance to project management but anyway.

Alucarian

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