ECONOMIC$$$$$$
ARSE PAGE 22
reluctantly began recording lectures, and set extremely difficult exams, according to students. Intermediate Macro Honours was not nearly as bad, but students didn’t have a lot of good things to say about it either. ECOS2903 was taught extremely poorly in 2011, and whilst it seems to have improved somewhat in 2012, is hardly a crowd-pleaser. The teaching was average at best, and the lecturer Vladimir Smirnov, made students buy two $150 textbooks, one of which was only used for a few weeks at the end of the course. That’s not on, economics department. Sydney University is meant to have one of the best economics departments in the country, but you wouldn’t know it from the feedback we received. For those wishing to complete a major in the subject, there are four compulsory units in first year, Introductory Microeconomics (ECON1001) and Introductory Macroeconomics (ECON1002), as well as a statistics unit in each semester (ECMT1010 and ECMT1020). In general, students didn’t rave about these units, but they seem to have been taught at a satisfactory standard. That said, there was praise for Jordi McKenzie, who “made ECMT1010 and ECON1002 interesting and engaging [and] was also fabulously dressed throughout and incredibly witty”. Props to him. Once you reach second year, there are two pathways to a major. If you’re not interested in honours, you simply complete Intermediate Microeconomics (ECOS2001) and Intermediate Macroeconomics (ECOS2002), and then four additional economics electives in second and third year. We didn’t receive much feedback on the compulsory second year units, but we gather that they were similar to their first year equivalents: uninspiring, but not awful. If you intend to pursue honours in economics - and you have the requisite 70+ average in first year Micro and Macro - your degree progression will be slightly different. In second year, you must enrol in the ‘honours stream’ units of Intermediate Micro and Macro, ECOS2901 and ECOS2902. In addition, there is a compulsory Maths unit, Mathematical Economics (ECOS2903), in first semester, and a compulsory stats unit in second semester (ECMT2110).
ECMT2110 was previously (in 2011) taught superbly by Richard Gerlach, but the Econometrics department has recently followed Economics in being amalgamated into the Arts Faculty, which has meant courses being taught by different lecturers, and general disarray. Overall, the Economics department has potential to be one of the better departments at the university, but the standard of teaching is low, and students complain that it’s difficult to get the best out of a major. If you continue with the honours units in third year, you are very constrained in the number of additional electives you can complete, due to the large number of honours prerequisite units. If you don’t do honours, it can be difficult to ascertain which of the many electives are the most valuable, students who completed the Counter Course Survey said they were very hit and miss. On that note, please take time to fill out the survey in future, Economics can be a rewarding major if you pick the right subjects, but it can also be difficult to find the gems amongst what is often a quagmire of mediocrity.
The honours stream Micro and Macro units are meant to be more rigourous, mathematical, and one would hope, interesting versions of the regular second year units. Sadly, this wasn’t always the case. Intermediate Micro Honours was apparently “taught astonishingly poorly by Jonathan Newton”. He refused to teach to a single textbook, only SRC Co u n t e r co u r se h a n d bo o k 2 013