CVEN90050: Geotechnical Engineering

2 online assessments (5% each)
2 lab reports (14% and 7%)
Retaining wall design group project (10%)
3-hour end of semester exam (60%)

Didn't see a review of this subject so hopefully this brief review is useful to those who will take this subject in the future.

Lectures and Tutorials
Mahdi covered revision on the soil mechanics component of Earth Processes and Systems Modelling and Design in the first week. Revision was quite brief so if you feel there is a gap in your knowledge its best to take out your soil mechanics notes from previous studies and start revising. But to be honest, as long as you know how to calculate total and effective vertical stress in soil, you'll be more than prepared to tackle the content in this subject.

Mahdi then covered consolidation and geotechnical strength in weeks 2-6. A lot of the content for these components should feel familiar if you took Earth Processes for Engineering. All in all, I think Mahdi did a good job in explaining the concepts and there was an adequate amount of examples presented in the lectures to help you understand the content.

Weeks 7-10 covered lateral earth pressure and retaining walls. Mahdi decided to bring in ARUP's geotechnical team to teach these components of the course. I felt like the quality of lectures varied greatly. The MSE section was covered very well with slides relevant to the tutorial problems and a lecturer easy to follow. But other sections were at times either too fast paced, slow paced or confusing. I believe the problem is that a lot of the slides were adopted from previous years rather than being written by the lecturer themselves. Furthermore, it didn't help that there were discrepancies between what was presented in lectures and tutorials.

The last two weeks covered compaction, pavement design and liquefaction. I felt that the content was quite rushed and didn't get much out of it. In regards to the exam, as long as you know how to design a pavement using a design chart and know what numbers to plug into the liquefaction related equations you'll probably be fine.

I can't speak too much about the tutorials since I only attended one of them. As per usual, tutorial problems and solutions are posted on the LMS.

Assessments
My main gripe with this subject is how the teaching staff refuses to answer any questions in regards to assessments. Don't expect much help from the discussion board. This subject made me realize how great the structural teaching team is in providing assistance.

However, if you know what you're doing, then you'll be able to get through the assessments without much problem.

The quizzes were give away marks, as long as you're up-to-date with the lecture content and tutorial problems it shouldn't be too difficult.
The lab practicals weren't particularly difficult, my only gripe was the vagueness in what was expected from students.
The group design project was quite time consuming so I recommend finding a group of mates you work well with.

Exam
The 2018 exam tested literally everything covered in the course . When I say everything, I mean everything. If 2018's exam is indicative of future exams, make sure you go through all the content covered in assignments, tutorials and lectures in preparation for the final exam. Since you aren't given a formula sheet, try to memorize or at the very least be able to derive formulas that were covered in the course.

My best advice for preparing for the exam is to not tunnel into working through tutorial questions exclusively but to go through the lecture notes and assignments as well.

TL;DR
A good subject that gives you an introduction into consolidation, geotechnical strength, retaining wall design, pavement design and liquefaction but was hampered by the mixed quality in guest/industry lectures and lack of assistance. Furthermore, it wasn't clearly communicated to students what was expected of them in the final exam.

Yes

Mahdi Disfani, ARUP geotechnical team and various other guest/industry lecturers

Yes, no solutions

3.5 Out of 5

None, lecture notes are sufficient

1x 1-hour weekly lecture, 1x 2-hour weekly lecture, 1x 1-hour weeklyish tutorial and 2x practicals

2018 Semester 1

H1