Civil Engineering in Swinburne Sarawak

I just feel like summarising what I've learnt in Civil Engineering so far.

I'm studying at Swinburne University of Technology, an Australian branch campus in Sarawak. I must emphasise Australia's universities generally have different structures from that of Malaysia and UK. If you're a civil engineering student intending to study the course in Swinburne Sarawak, hope the below helps.

p/s it'll be updated once in half a year.

Main courses

CIVIL ENGINEERING PROJECT (DROPPED)
It's a first-year course that aims to provide general knowledge about civil engineering by forcing students to do research on a project. We don't have to provide analysis, give recommendations or make arguments. No calculation is involved. Students are given topics like "build a school" (to be simplistic), and the topic is broken down into structural units, water units and so on. Every member in the group would pick a subtopic and do extensive research on it. After the submission of the project, a presentation will be carried out. It's a foundational unit that aims to encourage students to pick up some skills relevant in the course.

MECHANICS OF STRUCTURE

It's a first year structural course that aims to provide a foundation of structural analysis. It's the topic that exposes students to drawing shear and bending moment diagrams, calculate the moment of inertia and calculate shear forces. It's a foundational unit for civil engineering programme.

ENERGY AND MOTION 

It's also a foundational programme in the course. You'll be exposed to some pure physics topics such as work, power, circular motion, thermodynamics, kinetic theory of gas, and mechanics and kinematics. If you graduate with STPM, this is an extremely simple unit for you.

ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS 1 (DROPPED - REPLACED WITH CALCULUS AND APPLICATION)

It's another first-year foundational unit that aims to provide basic concept of mathematics. You'll be learning functions, calculus and some geometry. If you're a STPM graduate, this is a unit that you can get HD even if you get a C in STPM Maths T. Too simple.

PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING (DROPPED - REPLACED WITH ENGINEERING, DESIGN AND INNOVATION)

There are two parts in this unit
Part 1: In this part, you'll be doing a case study relevant to your course. The emphasis is on writing a quality report.
Part 2: You'll first learn to hand sketch some drawings. There'll be a test on hand sketching. Then, you'll be exposed to AutoCAD drawing.

STRUCTURAL MECHANICS
Prerequisite: Mechanics of Structure (MOS)

It's just an advanced topic of MOS. It's a combination of a wide variety of topics that seem a bit irrelevant.

ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS 2 (DROPPED - REPLACED WITH LINEAR ALGEBRA AND GEOMETRY)
Prerequisite: Engineering Mathematics 1

You'll be exposed to complex numbers, vectors, and geometries. Extremely simple unit if you did well for your STPM.

MATERIALS AND PROCESSES (RENAMED TO ENGINEERING MATERIALS)

Heard it will be renamed or undergo restructure, but this unit isn't exactly relevant for civil engineering. Not sure why civil engineering students have to take this unit. You'll be studying some minor chemical topics (which is much easier than STPM Chemistry). You'll learn about atoms and s, p, d, f orbitals (no hybridisation of orbitals), intermolecular forces, slipping, stress and strain of materials, and some material and their properties such as ceramics and glass under heat or stress.

COMPUTER AIDED ENGINEERING CIVIL
Prerequisite: Professional Engineering

It'll be split into two parts.
Part 1: You'll use AutoCAD to draw some design drawing. It's assignment-based. You might be required to draw a housing area, with the road width, kerb, roundabouts and parking size in accordance with Australian Standard. Then, you'll be given first exposure to the use of AutoCAD Civil 3D, which will be an instrumental computer software program in this course.

Part 2: You'll first be exposed to Spacegass, an extremely useful structural analysis computer software that will greatly help you in future courses. Then, you'll learn to use Excel. Excel could be very useful in doing design projects, which are aplenty in Year 2 onwards.

FLUID MECHANICS 1
Prerequisite: Engineering Mathematics 2

You'll be exposed to fluid mechanics. The flow rate of the water, the momentum, energy and the hydraulic jump of the fluid. Just some basic exposure to fluids.

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN (DROPPED) 

Since this course is about to be abolished, I'll not elaborate on it.

DESIGN OF CONCRETE STRUCTURES
Prerequisite: Structural Mechanics

This unit is the beginning of your nightmare in university.

This unit is where you'll be first exposed to indeterminate structures, and hence you'll learn to use flexibility method and Moment Distribution Method (MDM) to analyse those structures. Then, you'll begin to design concrete structures. You'll decide the size and dimensions of beams and columns to be used in a structure. You'll analyse whether the load in which they are being subjected to have exceeded their design shear and moment capacity. In the design project, you'll learn how to design a concrete structure. How much beam is to be placed, and how much spacing is to be provided between beams. You'll also learn to design columns and concrete slabs.

DESIGN OF STEEL STRUCTURES
Prerequisite: Structural Mechanics

Unlike concrete structure design, this unit mostly focuses on determinate structures. But steel structures can be very annoying. The analysis of a steel structure is simple, but the design is downright difficult. It's the same as designing a concrete structure: you give a preliminary design - how many beams to place, how far apart, how many columns, and you provide an initial design. You'll then do the load analysis and determine whether the structures are sufficiently reinforced or strong enough to withstand the load (whether the load exceeds their maximum capacity. If it's exceeded, provide new design). You'll also learn to design connections of members. It's, in my opinion, an easier unit than concrete (but not easy, still extremely tough), but much more annoying due to a multitude of constraints in design.

TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERING
Prerequisite: Computer Aided Engineering Civil

You'll be doing land surveys in this unit. You'll learn how to use total stations and other machinery needed in a land survey. You'll also learn a lot of geometries. You'll be working in the sun for a minimum of 2 hours per week. Enjoy it. In one of the assignment, you'll spend 3 weeks to do a land survey by collecting points and data in the field. The data will be transferred to Civil 3D and your data should outline the entire field plan depicting the location of drains, trees, fire hydrants and other structures found in the field.

URBAN WATER RESOURCES
Prerequisite: Fluid Mechanics 1

It's basically a unit where you'll study hydrology. You'll learn to find a unit hydrograph of an area due to rainfall, you'll also learn to design drainage systems. You'll also learn to estimate the flood occurrence in an area and the subsequent design to counter it. In one of the assignment, you'll be designing drainage in a given area.

ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS 3C (DROPPED - REPLACED TO ENGINEERING MATHS 3)
Prerequisite: Engineering Mathematics 2

You'll learn a bit of matrices. Then, it's mostly statistics - probability, hypothesis testing, chi-squared tests. Still much easier than STPM Mathematics (T).

ROAD ENGINEERING
Prerequisite: Topograhical Engineering

This is a unit that focuses solely on road. The first part of the course will focus on calculations. You'll be introduced to cross sections of a typical road, the horizontal and vertical alignments and earthworks required in road formation. The hardest part of this unit is where you have to do the assignment. It's nightmare. In the assignment, you'll have to design a road that would connect two roads. The road will cut through a mountainous region so you'll be coordinating horizontal and vertical alignments. You'll need a number of annoying trial and errors and I've known people who broke down and just wept for the whole night after an umpteen time of trial still failed. It's very tiring and very tough and requires strong mental strength. I'm not joking here.

The second section will focus on the theories - compaction of road, properties of crushed rock, aggregates and bitumen and so on. Those theories are quite mundane but you'll have to study them anyway.

To elaborate more on the assignment, there are two parts. The first part involves manual calculations of the horizontal and vertical alignments, and the second part will be the design of vertical alignment using Autocad Civil 3D. The first part is downright exhausting and will wear you out very badly. The second part is less tiring but still tedious as you'll also need a number of trial and errors.

COST ENGINEERING

You'll be exposed to some engineering economics. You'll learn how to make estimates, how to prepare gantt chart and cash flow and to prepare for a tender bid. You'll learn about earned value, planned value and budgeted value. You'll also learn how to use Microsoft Project.

To say the truth, the assignment is the most important part of this unit. This unit aims to prepare you for project management.

ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT 1

Quite a useless unit where you'll learn about human resource management and resource planning. There is a lot of memorisation, more than your much loathed SPM Sejarah. But resource planning involves a bit of calculation which is rather simple.

The focus is on managing resources and humans. You'll learn about organisational behaviour, ethics in professional practice et cetera. Things that, theoretically, should help a manager better manage an organisation and his employee. But sadly, what you learn in theory is usually inapplicable in real life, and that's why I said it's a useless unit.

You'll have two assignments. One is to compare two organisations that are similar (MAS and AirAsia, for example), and contrast how they run their operations, and find out the pros and cons of each organisations. You'll have to know the histories of the organisations, the ethics, how they promote their companies, how they have contributed to the societies et cetera.

The second assignment is on resource planning. You'll have to prepare manpower and try to prepare a schedule that would allow your task to be completed in time and efficiently.

WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
Prerequisite: Urban Water Resources

This is a project-based unit which is actually quite tiring. You'll be tasked to design a water supply to a pre-determined area. You'll have to determine the water demand so that you can supply it, you'll have to design a water storage tank, and subsequently the location and the height of the water storage tank above ground. You'll also need to determine the pipe size required, the thrust blocks and so forth for the project. In addition to that, you'll have to do cost analysis and perform an environmental assessment of your project.

It's an interesting project, but it's very hard to score good grades because it is project-based.

GEOMECHANICS
Prerequisites: Structural Mechanics

This is a unit that focuses on soil behaviour. You'll learn a bit about geology, the rock cycle, and the properties and behaviours of each rock. Then you'll move on to study the behaviour of soil, starting with the basic phase relationship which is extremely important. You'll learn how to draw flow net, and the Mohr's Coulomb failure-criteria, and the consolidation behaviour of the soil.

It's an interesting unit which is extremely important for civil engineering. It's fun, but it's loaded with many assignments and is quite a tiring unit.

TRANSPORT ENGINEERING
Prerequisite: Road Engineering

Road Engineering was a nightmare, and Transport Engineering is not much better. You'll have a lot of theories in this unit to memorise and understand, and the amount of stuffs to be memorised is only a tad lesser than what you'll encounter in Engineering Management 1.

Road Engineering is on geometric design on the road. Transport Engineering is on pavement design, and the performance of the traffic. Pavement design is about flexible or rigid pavements, and you'll need to perform some empirical design for it. Traffic Engineering emphasises more on the design of signalised and unsignalised intersection and a roundabout. Rail design is part of the unit, but because rail is absent in Sarawak so the emphasis is not on rail. But hey, learning a bit about it might be useful as one day, rail might be re-introduced in Kuching and you might be able to design one!

The assignment is tiring as well. Assignment 1 is about the supply and demand of traffic. Some place would be used for development and that is going to generate traffic. You'll need to carry out a traffic impact assessment, and to evaluate the current intersections around the site to determine whether it is capable of supporting the growing traffic. If it can't, propose changes to it so that it can better cater the traffic. Assignment 2 is on SIDRA analysis, which would analyse an existing signalised intersection.

Useful unit, but also very tiring.

STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF LOW RISE BUILDINGS
Prerequisites: Design of Concrete Structures & Design of Steel Structures

This unit focuses on timber design and masonry design, which is much simpler compared to concrete and steel structure design. Timber is not commonly used in Malaysia anymore, but it is still very relevant in Australia and hence this unit is compulsory. You'll learn how to analyse a timber beam and column, timber connections and so forth. For Masonry, you'll learn its flexural and shear behaviour.

There is, thank God, no group projects, but individual assignments as of 2017. Assignment 1 is to design the components of a timber house. The drawings of the house would be provided so basically you just need to design based on the given dimensions. Very simple. Assignment 2 is to analyse whether the masonry structures can sustain what you have calculated in Assignment 1. Also very simple.

But the final is the killer part. There are too much (and I use 'much' to exaggerate how many are there) questions for you to answer in a mere 3 hours. It's very possible you know how to solve all questions, and yet the time allocated is insufficient because the steps are too long and there are too many questions to answer. Can't be blamed, as you have 30% easy marks to get. The final is 70%, and if it is too easy I guess too many people would get HD, and hence the deliberate toughness.

CONSTRUCTION LAW 
Prerequisite: 250 CP, Master of Construction Management Unit, an Elective

Construction is a 3D job (Dirty, Dangerous, Difficult), and it involves a hefty sum of money. Hence, the construction industry is always embroiled in legal suits, especially on payment disputes. Construction Law is an elective for civil engineering students, and I personally think this is the best unit so far, and a unit that I've enjoyed the most, though it is also a unit that is extremely, extremely tiring.

You'll learn the basic legal systems in Malaysia, and the very simple contract law, tort law, occupational safety and hazard, insurance law, and the process of tenders. There is a heavy emphasis on contract.

There is no final examination. It's mostly assignment-based. Basically you'll be given a number of scenarios that involve a lot of parties, and you have the free will to do your research to provide legal advice to the parties. There is no right or wrong, it just involves a lot of research.

Throughout the research I've learnt a lot about those things that engineers should know. For example, contracts need not be in writing. An e-mail transaction can lead to a contract formation. Tenders that are too low can be declared a bad decision in law. Usually, we'll think it is a professional mistake, but it actually carries legal repercussions. In short, this is a very useful unit, one that I would highly encourage everyone to take.

GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING
Prerequisite: Geomechanics

If geomechanics is your nightmare, geotechnical engineering is something close to night terror. Unless you have a good grasp of geomechanics, you'll find this unit to be extremely tough. If you understand geomechanics, geotechnical is going to be a relatively easier, but not easy, unit than geomechanics.

You'll learn to design retaining walls, shallow foundations, PVD for ground improvement, deep foundations and slope stability. However, this unit covers only the very basic of all these topics. It isn't close to what an actual engineer practises in the industry. This unit merely provides you the very basic concept, and there are still long procedures to go for a proper design to be considered acceptable. However, this is a very important unit as all projects would somehow require a geotechnical consideration.

There are two assignments: one is a research assignment, and another one is on PVD design. PVD design is especially useful and relevant in our market. The final exam is fine.

INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN PROJECT (IDP)
Prerequisite: Design of Concrete Structures & Design of Steel Structures & Urban Water Resources (Proposed)

This is a very heavy unit that I would caution you not to take until your final year. It's basically a unit that compels you to revise every unit you've taken. You'll be designing an industrial warehouse consisting of a portal frame with a concrete slab and possibly offices with RC design, so it's all concrete and steel structure design all over again, with considerations of wind loads you learnt in Structural Design of Low Rise Buildings but in a much more detailed manner. So I'll also advise you to take this unit after you've taken Low Rise, but if you haven't, it won't matter much as what you have to learn in IDP is much more complicated in Low Rise and even if you've learnt it in Low Rise, it won't be a guarantee you can understand what is needed in IDP.

You'll need to design a road alignment to provide access from the main road to the warehouse, so it's Road Engineering all over again, with considerations of vertical and horizontal alignments. You'll need to design a flexible pavement so it's a little of Transport Engineering. You'll have to also design drainages for the project so it's Urban Water Resources all over again. In the meantime, you'll also have to design sewerage system which is part of the elective unit Wastewater Engineering.

It's a very heavy unit with multiple submissions and deadlines, so I'll caution you to make sure you are prepared for it, and that before you take it, make sure you've scored well for all other previous units. Else it's very hectic, and you'll find that most of the time spent on that semester is actually on this unit.

FINAL YEAR RESEARCH PROJECT (CIVIL) 1
Prerequisites: 287.5 CP

Nothing much to say about this unit as it depends quite much on who your supervisor is. Your FYRP1 would focus mostly on literature reviews and methodology. Take full use of what Swinburne Library could provide.

Don't make last minute attempt as your final report is going to sound silly. Do the stupid online modules as early as possible. You have to submit it as part of your final report even though it carries no mark because the absence of its submission constitutes a failure of the unit.

ELECTIVE: INFRASTRUCTURE DETERIORATION MODELLING (IDM)
Prerequisite: Design of Concrete Structures & Design of Steel Structures

This is a unit I say you must take as an elective. It's almost a must for civil engineering students. You'll learn about various types of structural deterioration such as concrete cracking, steel rusting, masonry chemical attack and so forth and they're absolutely important if you intend to be a structural engineer. You'll learn what kind of deterioration could occur, how they occur, and how to repair them.

This is a relatively easy unit with very little assignments. You'll have two assignments, where one requires you to go to a designated building to do structural assessment and make it a presentation, and submit a report of your findings. It's relatively easy. The second assignment is a continuum of your first assignment where you have to choose one of your many findings, and elaborate on it as in how it occurs and how to fix it. It's also relatively simple. I strongly encourage you to take it as one of the approved electives.

ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT 2

This is another unit which I find pretty useless for an engineering student. The person who mandates the undertaking of this unit would argue that this unit imparts the necessary knowledge for one to become a future manager, but one needs to go through only one semester to know that one's memory normally lapses so fast that they cannot remember what they have happened in the previous semester. When you graduate you'll be a fresh graduate with lots of stuff to pick up, and whatever you've learnt in this unit will be pretty well forgotten when you need it in the future.

Anyway, this unit focuses more on cost engineering which is partly covered in Cost Engineering. There are also lots of heavy calculations and memorisations that make this unit a tad more miserable than Engineering Management 1. It is more concerned on how to set up and run a business, and therefore your assignment would accordingly be pertinent to these concepts and it makes this unit even more miserable because group discussion becomes difficult to navigate when you've lots of different opinions. There's also gonna be a section about law, with a heavy focus on contract, but it is pretty minor and shallow when compared to Construction Law which is a Master's unit. But the core of the knowledge is undeniably important, just isn't exactly very helpful at this stage, or for engineering students whose first exposure in the workforce is unlikely to be contract-related (other than employment).

FINAL YEAR RESEARCH PROJECT 2

It is hard to comment on this unit as it highly depends on your supervisor. But the purpose of doing FYRP2 is to gauge one's ability and commitment to producing a quality report with appropriate and quality experimental data, so even with a lousy supervisor, you'll get by if you have a good attitude.

You'll have less stupid online modules to waste your time with, but you'll have shorter time to produce your report too because the last few weeks are reserved for compacting your two semesters' work into a final report. By the middle of the semester, you should be producing some data which could validate or refute your hypothesis, else you would have to start over and that would be a nuisance.

ELECTIVE: CONTEMPORARY DESIGN ISSUE
A unit in the Multimedia Design Course

This is a first-year design unit which is available for engineering students to take as an elective. Majority of people are not aware they could take an elective outside of what is mandated, because, first of all, the university did not inform the students that this option was available. I only knew it because the course coordinator told me.

Because it is a first-year unit, it is easy with very light tasks. You'll need to attend weekly lectures, and do online tasks, and also three assignments throughout the semesters. There is no final exam. There are no tutorials. You get one mid-semester break which is not available for engineering students and also get to use the design studio which comes with Apple desktop.

It's actually an interesting unit that civil engineering (might not be true for other branches) should consider taking. It is more like a case study unit, where you study how people use different techniques to subconsciously invoke artistic sense in our daily lives. Biophilic cities, which are cities beautified using plants and greeneries, often go unnoticed but in actual fact, designers put in a lot of efforts in it (though as an engineer, I know it's an engineering nightmare). You get to learn also how cities around the world are designed to discourage public vehicle usage, and also some minor design techniques like light shades or the usage of endearing objects to make daily paraphernalia like rabbit-shaped soaps.

You do not need artistic skills to survive this unit. You just need some interest in the design, and also ability to write. You'll be doing lots of case studies, which are very light because it's a first-year unit, and writing a lot of short essays. All you need is the ability to write, you do not need any single minute ability to draw.

ELECTIVE: INNOVATION CULTURE - PERSPECTIVE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
A unit from the Faculty of Language and Business

This unit is very new and it sounds interesting. It is for people who love languages, as the main focus is reading. It is about how technology evolves over the year, from some basic tools to becoming an intangible artificial intelligence.

I find this unit a little disappointing because it - okay, pardon me but probably my expectation was inappropriately high as it is a first-year unit - does not delve deep into the issues. You get to learn a little about posthumanism all those things (that have begun to escape my minds as I am writing this in November 2019 because I took the unit Semester 1, 2018) and it actually was quite an interesting unit until the final exam comes. In the final exam, be prepared to write with all the strength of the muscles you have because you'll have a very long essay to complete. Other than that you'll be expected to work on a poster which is rather simplistic and also an essay which would gauge your ability to produce an argumentative text. Other than that, it's an interesting unit worth taking only for those who have an interest in reading.