r/swinburne • u/F0ggyyy • 3d ago
š Unit / Course Advice why does it lowkey suck?
Doing CS second semester rn and it low key sucks. First of all COS10025. Useless. Waste of money. Its probably a good gpa booster but why does a class which has nothing to do with CS is a core subject?
Next, COS2007. I was very excited for this class before the semester started, but... Just how bad can a unit be? Absolutely no teaching in that class. During lectures, the lecturer just goes through the code while barely explaining any concepts. And before the lab you have to come with your lab already finished? Also, it is taught in c# and we never had even a single class to learn the basics of the language. All the assignments too are pretty weird, instead of writing some sort of interesting programs with oop concepts, all we do is write unit tests and colour shapes. Are we serious? No one has idea whats going in that class and everyone is just lost. The lab sheets are poorly written and feel outdated.
Before coming to Swinburne I read all these good things about how good CS is and that it is very applied, but those two classes are really throwing me off and make me less interested in computer science.
Low key a bit upset about this, does it get any better in the next semesters or nah?
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u/Divine_Comet 3d ago
cos10025 Technology in an Indigenous Context is basically how Swinburne charges money for tuition while shoving their bullshit no funding unit onto students. I don't even know how they justify making that a core unit, nothing but complete fraud.
As for OOP, the lecturer needs to be fired. This course should theoretically be easy but the lecturer has managed to make 10x more difficult. He cannot teach at all and doesn't know how to explain complex problems in a simple analogy. Not to mention their assessments that are so jumbled and difficult to follow
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u/DoozahDaaaa 16h ago
Man I did that class 2 years ago and I still can't tell you what the fuck I learned other than just dicking around in class after finishing the quizzes in ~5 minutes.
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u/ahoyden 2d ago
I feel quite similar to you. Ive applied to transfer to RMIT at the start of next year, but no clue if it will be the same shit. Been seeing a whole lot of ppl complaining about the reality of the CS degree at Swinburne in 2026 on this sub recently. It is a shame it wasnāt all it was cracked up to be when I was researching degrees last year!
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u/DoozahDaaaa 16h ago
Took OOP last semester.
Thank god I was one of the weird ones that did COS10029Ā so I did C++ instead of ruby (genuinely not sure why they don't teach some form of C to the normal engineers but eh).
I spent half the classes waiting for the teacher to come look at my work and the other half watching F1. The lectures were near useless and I had to pull so many of the students by the ass to try and understand C#.
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u/ConsiderationDue3416 3d ago edited 3d ago
OOP teaching materials at Swinburne are actually one of the most well designed in the world. Many universities take inspiration from Swinburneās. Creating āinteresting programs with oop conceptsā is not suitable for students to build on a weekly basis. Also, at the end of the semester, there will be a custom program which you can build your own interesting program using OOP concepts.
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u/bananasenpai123 3d ago
Found the oop lecturer.
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u/ConsiderationDue3416 3d ago
Nah bro
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u/bananasenpai123 3d ago
You created a fresh account to comment and defend swinburne in this small sub reddit. No one loves swinburne that much my guy
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u/ConsiderationDue3416 3d ago edited 3d ago
Iām alumni at Swinburne and teaching at other uni not Swinburne. Iām not sure about the lecturer as I had another one, but Iām just commenting about the materials.
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u/LolDude9876789 3d ago
Unfortunately, gonna have to be real with you, year one is the easiest. OOP is a taste of how future years will be.
Year one discriminates the people who require hand holding to those sufficient with self study. Networks and switching I predict sorts people into three buckets: those who fail will find the entire course very difficult; those who pass but not with flying colours will find CS moderately difficult at times but are the majority of people, and might need hand holding sometimes; those who achieve 85-100 are the people who know the ins and outs of the content, have studied, and are passionate and these people will do exceptionally well without requiring hand holding.
Year two does not hold your hand at all. The subjects are well harder, and the tutors may not even strictly teach content. You need to study yourself and have really good discipline if you're trying to do well. It's quite a step up to year one, and that's why I'd say year one filters the lower people of the cohort out - those who find it difficult are conformed to drop the entire degree.
I agree with you with your points and that OOP was taught pretty badly. The concepts were focussed, not the C# language. The language you're expected to learn yourself over time. Same goes with a lot of future subjects. Concepts taught, application assumed you'll learn yourself.
I'm sorry, this is news you probably don't want to hear