ENEN20002: Earth Processes for Engineering

4 group assessments worth 10% each, 1 lab report worth 10% and exam worth 50%

Note that I took this subject during 2020 where everything's online so it may be a slightly different experience to what others might experience.

Earth Processes is one of those subjects with a general opinion of "meh". It's not too difficult but not too easy either, the content can be either interesting or dry af depending on the person and there's really for many it's just a prereq for civil majors and nothing much more than that. With that said, I feel like overall I enjoyed the subject (may not be the general opinion) but there is a bit to dissect.

CLASSES
Lectures
There are 3 lecturers that you'll go through during the semester, Murray for Water Cycle and Climate/Weather (Weeks 1-5), Giancarlo Solid Earth and Landscaping (Week 6) and Samintha for Soil Mechanics and Characteristics (Weeks 7-11). Murray explains the concepts quite well and generally in good detail. While some do think he is a bit monotone which I can agree with, I feel like it's more the content itself that makes it difficult to be taught in a really pumped and energetic way, more on that later. Giancarlo has a heavier accent which can be difficult to understand at times but brings his own interesting parts as he likes to relate the concepts to real life examples a lot and even to his own projects. His part only goes for a week so it's not focused too much. Samintha which goes for the last 5 weeks has differing opinions, which I'll give my own. She also has a similar problem to Giancarlo with her heavier accent making it difficult to understand at times, and there is also a problem in that many of her online lectures were 1 hour and 30 minutes long (instead of 1). I found this problem to generally be solved by just playing at 1.25x speed as the longer duration was due to her speaking slower than other lecturers. Overall, with some pausing and rewinding sometimes and increased concentration, I feel that much of her explanations are actually quite detailed and made a lot of sense. I transcribed some of what she said for my notes which ended up being very useful and clear for working out concepts, and I think that her lecturers, albeit with some annoyances, were fine. I do think I am in the minority with this however, so keep in mind that you may not have the same opinion as me.

As someone who I think overall enjoyed this subject more than most, I can agree that the lectures and content can be quite dry at times. Learning about rain, rocks and dirt doesn't sound like the most fun thing in the world and I do admit that while uni was still open for the first 3 weeks, I dozed off in some of the in person lectures. What made this subject interesting to me was the application of this content, in engineering examples and modelling etc which you can see when doing the projects (which I'll get to later). The information gained from this subject is actually very useful and is more than just some rote learning.

Workshops
They might be named workshops, but these are basically tutorials. During the in person session, what would happen is just mainly them giving you an intro and then you doing questions on the problem sheet for the hour and them going through near the end of the session. This was changed up once you went online. Instead, they were run by having the worksheet and a video sent out at the beginning of the week. The video would essentially show the tutor going through the worksheet and answering it, and then the timetabled workshop was used as consultation. The worksheet contained questions either using excel for content related to the content learnt, or calculating and theory type more general questions in the later parts of the semester. One thing I will say about the workshops from me doing them online is to make sure you actually do the worksheet questions and complete all of it. Although it sounds fairly easy to skip and in online the consultations generally I did skip, the worksheet itself is very important because everything you do in the projects and assignments directly relate to and sometimes are even straight ripped off the worksheet. On average it took me about 1 and a half to 2 hours to complete each worksheet, but it was definitely worth it because I knew exactly what to do in the assignments afterwards.

CONTENT AND EXAMS
The first topic is focused on Water Cycles, Climate and Weather. The topics are as follows
• Climate Systems and General Circulation (Coriolis Effect, Hadley, Polar and Ferrel Cells)
• Rainfall and Stochastic Modelling
• Radiation, Solar Zenith, Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change
• Water Cycle, Catchment Processes and Evapotranspiration
• Runoff Processes, Catchment Modelling and Nature of streamflow
This part generally requires a lot of modelling in excel (as you'll see in ASSIGNMENTS) and the content is well what you'd expect. Most of the theory is straightforward although some might be a bit confusing to think about at first (ex. Solar Zenith, Coriolis effect). On the exam, the questions are pretty much recycled from previous years with half of it being theory based while the other half requiring calculation using a catchment model. If you do the past exams and prepare and answer all the questions in detail beforehand (particularly the theory ones), this will be the easiest part of the exam. The most important part is preparing properly. The questions don't change in an online format.

The second topic goes for just a week and is focused on Solid Earth and Landscaping. They are about
• Rock types and Earthquakes/Tectonics
• Weathering, Erosion and Deposition
• Soil and Climate
This is pretty much all theory. On the exam, there'll be a question on it that generally will be the same or similar to previous years.

The final topic is on Soil Mechanics. The topics are
• Soil Characteristics and Classification
• Water in Soil
• Soil Stresses
• Soil Strength
• Soil stability and minerology
This part is what I would consider the most difficult part of the subject. There is quite a bit to learn, but overall the difficulty is decent and not too bad. The exception I'd make to this is the soil minerology parts, as out of nowhere a lot of chemistry was referred (which as I don't do chem I was extremely confused). I transcribed and noted down what she explained and used that in the exam. The content you'll get out of this are a mixture of calculations using formulas, drawings with Mohr Circles and general theory. Like I said in the lectures, if you're struggling a bit to understand certain parts, try to just pausing and rewind a bit, maybe even transcribe Samintha's explanation and you'll be fine. On the exam, it will be generally similar to that of previous exams and parts may be the same. However, maybe due to an online format this semester some parts did differ from previous years and there was a controversial question where the rest of the marks all required you to get an initial question correct.

So as you can see, the exam is actually very similar and even mostly the same as previous years. And they don't try to hide this as well, you get the exam from 2009 all the way to 2019 (this is 2020) and revision lectures which show these questions. In exchange though, solutions are NOT provided for any of the exams (understandably). Therefore, studying for this subject's exam is much more straightforward than other subjects. The tips I would give are a couple of things. The first is to go through each of the questions they'll go over during the revision lectures, and answer each of them as well as you can, with the best explanations and answers you can provide, going through lecture slides and lecture capture to do so. The next tip is to just do some past exams IN EXAM TIME, the time for earth processes is actually quite tight and goes fast so make sure you know what you're getting into. And lastly, particularly for those doing it online, make sure you have good lecture notes that you've written and can ctrl + f and refer to. Despite the online situation, the questions are pretty much the same or similar so if you have these notes you'll be in a much better position, particularly if they mix it up (which they did for soil mechanics). I just copy typed what was on the lecture slides during the lectures and occasionally also wrote what the lecturers said if it was important, you may have a different way.

ASSIGNMENTS
During the semester, you'll have 4 group assignments and 1 lab report due, worth 10% each. These are not small assignments, they are genuine fairly large assignments and if you think that it's a lot, you'd be right. This is where the majority of your time will be spent in this subject and it can be a bit difficult and stressful particularly towards the later weeks (I had 3 consecutive assignments due in 3 weeks for just this subject). However, don't start panicking. It is a lot of work, more than other engineering subjects in level 1, but it is doable. Again, it is doable.

The first 2 assignments are based off Murray's content and are all about modelling rainfall and water storage using excel. It is here that you'll really be using your excel skills a lot to model but I wouldn't worry about studying excel beforehand as most of the modelling is generally explained in the workshop videos. Something to note is that although there are marks are based of your excel modelling, most of it is based off the theory, that is the analysis, interpretation and discussion of it and so understanding what the model actually does and explaining it in detail is the focus. Assignments 3 and 4 on the other hand are based off Samintha's content, the soil mechanics topics. Instead of excel, you'll be doing calculations and drawing diagrams (Mohr Circles), but the analysis and discussion are still the important part of it. Note that assignments 2 to 4 are specifically written as a REPORT. That is, with a proper structure of an introduction, methodology etc. If you're not the strongest with report writing, don't worry so was I, but you'll learn to learn to figure it out eventually, it's not as scary as it may seem as long as you know the content and the explanations. From my experience, although the word limit was 1000-2000 words for each assignment, even though it may seem like a lot for my group, we ended up always going over 2000 words and had to spend quite a bit of time shortening it down because of that.

As for the lab report, that is of course also in a report format. For online, instead of actually doing the lab, it was instead recorded as videos for us to watch and the data sent to us. This was both a bad and good thing because while you didn't get to actually experience and do the prac, you knew the data you were getting was going to be correct and the tutor helped explain some of the concepts more as it was through video. The lab report took a decent amount of time but was in line with the time it took for assignments (individually).

The last thing I would like to stress is the HUGE importance of a good group. With Earth Processes, 40% of your mark is automatically based on group work and you'll be working with the same group throughout the entire semester. When you have these large amount of assignments especially, it's really important to have a group that is willing to do work and in sync with each other. I would say make sure you find a good group, but groups for better or worse are automatically allocated. I was lucky that I had gotten allocated good group members, we all put in a lot of effort into the assignment and we could also banter and chat as well. However, to contrast this I had a friend who had the opposite experience. His group members essentially ghosted them for the better part of 3 of the assignments and so he was left to do them all by himself, which trust me, that is not something you would ever want to experience. Other than just luck, the main tips I'd give with this is just to make sure to actively communicate not just over text but have meetings over zoom (or if not 2020 in person as well) fairly often, particularly the week before the assignment is due. It helps a lot with the relationship of the group and is also a lot easier to communicate together than just say through text.

FINAL WORDS
And that's Earth Processes! At first, I felt like the subject was pretty dry and stressful as I did assignment 1. However as I continued on, I started to feel more indifferent about the subject and actually started enjoying it towards the end as well. Out of this, I feel like I got a lot out of it, more than many other subjects. This isn't the most difficult, but it certainly has quite a bit of work and effort required and it isn't an easy subject either. Others may have a different opinion and I feel like the general consensus is that this is a fairly dry and mundane subject but I think it was alright. I gave this a 4/5, but if you get a bad group this would probably reduce to a 2/5. The general opinion I think would be a 3/5.

Yes, with lecture capture

Dr Murray Peel, Mr Giancarlo Bonotto, Dr Samintha Perera

Yes, all exams from 2009 - 2019 were given (for 2020)

4/5

No textbook used or needed

3x1 hour lectures and 1x1 workshop per week. 1 lab session during the semester (changed to video if online).

2020 Semester 1

88 (H1)

4 group assignments worth 40%, 1 individual assignment worth 10%, Exam 50%

Unfortunately this is a core subject for Engineering, which is a disappointment because it's a boring and uninspiring at best. You spend the first half of the course pulling your hair out over two veeeerrryyyy long rainfall catchment excel model assignments which aren't even assessed in the final exam or anywhere outside of the assignments. Whether you do the assignments or not makes no difference to exam preparation.

The whole Earth Processes team are a bunch of clowns who are far too concerned with red tape and proper procedure to realise that the subject needs major improvement. The first two assignments are completely unnecessary and actually hinder your ability to learn the first 6 weeks of content. The workshops are an absolute joke even by engineering workshop/tutorial standards. You spend half the time either doing nothing or listening to the tutor talk rubbish, or both. Since there are good worked-solutions available for the tutorials, you're better off going through them in your own time.
The exam structure almost never changes. Knowing this, you can simply spam all the papers out (2009-2013) and you will become very familiar with the questions as they almost always repeat every year. The solutions exist, but the Earth Processes team refuse to make them available because they know people will just memorise the solutions. There are Google Docs floating around with good-enough solutions. Many of the answers conflict with each other but if you work through it you'll be able to figure it out. Additionally, a lot of the exam questions are repeated word-for-word in some lectures. So checking solutions to papers is a matter of finding them in the lectures or using Google Docs. You can find the student-produced Google Docs solutions by searching for ENEN20002 Earth Processes for Engineering on Facebook and joining the group that appears in the search results.

Yes, with screen capture

Andrew Western, Sam Yuen

Yes, on library website - crowd sourced answers (Google Docs)

1 out of 5

None

3x1 hours lectures, 1x1 hour "workshop", 1 single 3 hour practical at some point between approx. weeks 6-9

Sem 2, 2014

TBA

4 group assignments worth 40%, 1 individual assignment worth 10%, Exam 50%

If your coming from the BENVs stream of Civil Eng as I am, the first few weeks of this course can be pretty monotonous as it is essentially a three-week revision session of Natural Environments.

On a whole, the lectures are pretty dull. They essentially just cover natural processes that govern and pervade engineering. The subject is split into two halves. The first half is on rainfall and runoff and is run by Western, who is good lecturer and pretty good guy. The second half is on soil characteristics and soil strength and is taught by Sam Yuen, who is sometimes a bit hard to understand but is very good and the saving grace for most of the other staff in the subject. More on that later.

Overall, the subject matter is very well taught and laid out. All lecture slides are posted a week in advanced and in .ppt format (my preferences as you can print out in basically any layout you need). The lectures are easy to understand and flow on well between each other. Each week, a set of review questions are posted which require you to have some understanding of the lectures and ability to express it in your own words. They are entirely optional, but I would recommend doing them.

What lets this subject down is the "workshop" experience, particularly the hopelessness of head tutor Adrian Yong. This is a man that cannot provide a straight answer to a question, constantly answering them which vague retorts and questions of his own. While he seems like a nice guy, he is extremely stubborn and a PRAZE (peer/self evaluation) nazi. He's also unwilling to listen to any reason regarding marking or submission leeway.

The workshops themselves are also bad. They consistently don't start till 15 minutes after the hour and thus finish 10 minutes after they should (e.g. start at 10:15 and finish at 11:05). They are extremely boring and monotonous, ranging from filling in excel spreadsheets for week 1-6, to listen to the tutor speak for week 7-12.

In the first workshop, you are allocated a group of three (not that I think group allocation is a bad thing) in which you will work for each of the four group assignments. None of the assignments are too difficult, but require a bit of time and some knowledge of excel. If you have a decent group you shouldn't have any issues.

The exam was fairly simple and similar to tute questions and past exams. It is a hurdle and is apparently the reason most people fail, but if you known your stuff you'll have no issues.
Overall this is well organised and well lectured subject. The subject matter is reasonable interesting (for a civil engineer), but the subject is let down but the terribleness of Adrian Yong and the extremely boring and mismanaged workshops.

Yes, with screen capture

Andrew Western, Sam Yuen

Yes, on library website - crowd sourced answers (Google Docs)

3 out of 5

None

3x1 hours lectures, 1x1 hour "workshop", 1 single 3 hour practical at some point between approx. weeks 6-9

Sem 2, 2013

H1