Quartile 4

Housing and Residential Real Estate

7UUX0
General

Students experienced the course well. Bit unclear which assignments were mandatory and which weren’t. Canvas was clear, everything was there.

Lectures

In some lectures the speaker referred back to lectures which we did not or had not watched yet. It would have been nicer if this was not the case. However, the new videos were very nice to watch. The cases made the material easier to understood. These kind of videos will likely also be developed for the other modules.

Examination

The two assignments were of a good level. For the second assignment additional explanation could maybe be beneficial. Overall, the assignments were a nice addition, nice that you could put to practice what you learned in the lectures. Lastly, the final test with proctorio also worked well.

Workload

Material was spread well over the quartile. There was a bit more to do in the beginning than later in the course, however this is preferred over the alternative.

Extra

Quizzes 2nd module: Students didn’t do them as much as last year. Most likely because Module 2 fell in the period where everyone was allowed to do more again, making them not likely to do voluntary tests. Some students did mention that they would like it if they could have done these tests closer to the exam to practice.
Mentimeter: Students generally find it easier to keep paying attention when programs like this are used.
Interaction: Due to the videos it seems to students like not a lot of effort went into the course from the teachers. Making the students a bit less likely to interact a lot.

General

Overall this course was seen positively. It was experienced to be well organised with strong communication, the study guide was very clear and helpful to students.

Study Material

The quantity and quality of lectures was generally seen as very good. The use of examples alongside lecture slides by professor Arentze made explanations clear. Some guest lectures were harder to follow, said to have been reading too much from the slides rather than talking more naturally. A suggestion was made to use future lectures as a time for discussion and elaboration on the additional articles (study materials), as the online lectures are already recorded and can be made use of by later years. The return of dr. Jos Smeets for the final lecture was appreciated by students.

Students found the lecture slides well-structured and easy to study from, particularly in combination with the video lectures, which were used by very many students. The articles complementing this were not seen as being as easy to study from. Some students found the variation (style, depth, approach etc) between the articles confusing. More uniformity within study material would be appreciated.

Lectures

Lecture quality and quantity was seen as good by students, and complementary to the progress of the assignment. Students were supported each week in a tutor session in which they were encouraged to give group feedback. This was seen as useful, but a heavier weigh in of the professors/tutors would have been appreciated by some students.

Examination

A final multiple choice exam carried the entire weight of the grade and two ungraded intermediate (or practice exams) were used. The intermediate exams were seen as representative of the final exam and useful practice. However students found it unusual that there was no weighting on these. 100% of the grade depended on the final exam. In the future it would be better to spread the grading, and so the workload, across the quartile.

Workload

Students found the workload for this course very manageable and even light. Work was experienced as being concentrated near exam time, due to the weighting of course parts as discussed above.

Course specific points

A number of students found this course clearer and more representative of real estate that the preceding course “Realization, Exploitation and Transformation” given in the first year. A suggestion was made to swap these courses, so that this be the first impression students have of the real estate side of the study. This is believed to lead more students to choose more real-estate related electives when they choose their direction after the first year.

BPSD Project 4

7TT7X0
General

SD: Overall, the project was well organized and interesting in general. However, the
communication between the teachers could be improved to avoid
miscommunications towards the students. The course could have a bit more
structure to make it a bit more clear what is expected and to avoid different answers
to the students.
Additionally, the take-over of Derk Bos after one of the teachers had to be
hospitalized was very well organized.

BPS: The teamwork with both Marcel and Constant was very smoothly. Additionally,
Marcel gave clear explanations about the different assignments/measurements
which was very much appreciated. Besides, being able to contact/mail him for some
further exploitation about the measurements was considered as very helpful as well.

Project

SD: The PowerPoints with the extra spoken text to give some more information
about certain topics were very much appreciated, especially during this time when
everything has to be done at home, some extra information enabled quite some
students to continue with the project on their own.

BPS: Using Canvas as the meeting platform worked quite well. For the introduction
lecture, it would be very nice to have some information about the BPS project as
well. If this would not be the case, this could be communicated beforehand to the
students and not at the end of the lecture.

Examination

SD: The description of the report could have been a bit more elaborate as it was not
completely clear what was expected of the report.

BPS: The assignment was explained clearly. However, the Elsevier template was
not working in the beginning. Uploading a word file of the template at the beginning
of the course would avoid this problem. Additionally, the date of the deadlines could
be made a bit more clear in the beginning, even though the flexibility was quite nice
in certain ways.

Workload

SD: The workload was fine. Not too much not too little. Corresponds with the 140
hours for the 5 study points.

BPS: The workload for the course was quite in line with the 140 hours, could be a bit
less, but overall it was nice to have a project that did not require 180 or 200 hours
which is often the case for the A projects.
Next, for the midterm report, the feedback/grade was given in week 7 which resulted
in quite a high workload the last few days, as there were only 6 to 7 days left to
incorporate all the feedback for the midterm, finish the report and make the entire
presentation. Especially, as the SD project received the midterm grades already after
2 days. This could be an improvement point for next year to avoid an unnecessary
high workload at the end of the project.

Course specific points

SD: Overall the project was found as interesting and meaningful for further studies in
the SD track. The PowerPoints with the spoken text was found as a useful solution to
provide an extra explanation of the topics. Being able to choose whether you wanted
a meeting or not was found very useful as well. Lastly, the soon results of the
midterm were very much appreciated as in this way continuing with the project was
possible almost immediately after the midterm.
Some improvements are to avoid different communication towards the students by
different tutors and some more detailed explanation of the expectations of the report.
At last, it was a pity that the experiments could not be carried out in person like the
previous years, but the at-home assignment gave a nice and interesting twist to this.

BSP: An introduction to Excel or MATLAB would be very much appreciated as this is
required for the measurements. With no previous experience in both Excel and
MATLAB, this was quite a struggle in the beginning. Even making a small overview
of some helpful YouTube tutorials that can be watched to understand Excel a bit
better would be very helpful for the students.
Even better would be if it was possible for Cheops to organize a basic Excel course
that explains the main necessities which are needed for these kind of courses.
Overall the project was quite interesting and meaningful. It was a pity that the
experiments could not be carried out in person like the previous years, however,
working with the data from the previous years worked just as fine. The tutoring of
both Constant and Marcel was experienced as very pleasant and helpful especially
for some better understanding of the measurements.

USRE Project 4

7PP5X0
General

Overall perceived as a good course. Students liked that they were able to ask questions two times a week, but only had to show their work once. Additionally, students liked that the groups were of 3 people. It forced them to work together, but there was enough discussion to solve things.

Tutoring

Some students found the calculations a bit difficult to do. They didn’t know exactly what they had to fill in. Some tutors helped the students a lot with the calculations, however others not as much. Additional explanation could be nice for these calculations, or maybe a link to the excel training.
Some students found there was a bit too little feedback in the sessions, while others did not experience this. This could be due to the different tutors themselves.

Workload

Students found the workload a bit higher in the beginning than later in the course. Was also noticeable in the results. The first assignments were generally made a lot better than later assignments.

Extra

Gap between project 4 calculations and multi. Course urban projects and finance would be really helpful for the calculations to be made in Multi. Maybe some additional explanation could be done in project 4 to make the calculations of multi easier.

AUDE Project 4

7OO4X0
General

General about the course – Overall idea of the course it helped a lot with learning urban design better and how the architecture relates to it. In this course it really forces you to look at the surroundings, many found it quite interesting. General setup of the course was also good to have. Many found it a welcome change as opposed to other A-projects.
Tutors – All of us had a good tutor, gave very good feedback. However, there was a lot of differences between tutors. Some tutors gave clear feedback and input for what is expected at an urban scale. However, some don’t and since it is a first urban design more input would have been nice from those tutors.
Communication – Generally good, clear announcements. The only problem was the PRV, there was little information on what was expected. The assignment that was given seemed to not fit well with the skill that they wanted to text.
Study guide – No information about the PRV. The exercises were great to keep on track. In the end it was unclear what the end product was supposed to be.

Tutoring

In project 3 you had drop in sessions. Now you only had check-in points, which not all tutors provided. Furthermore, the drop-in sessions you had feedback from another tutor now you were only able to ask small questions. Two times a week gives many students a lot of stress, so we would not advise to go back to this. However, the drop-in sessions provide you the opportunity to get extra feedback if it is really needed.

Examination

Some students were a bit disappointed with the final presentations. We had to do a very quick presentation of only 5 minutes and only got about a sentence of feedback. The whole presentations were very hurried. It would have been nice to be able to discuss your project a bit longer in the presentation. And get some feedback from your own tutor during this session as opposed to only from another tutor.
Furthermore, for students who did not to A projects before this quartile, the expectations for the end product were unclear.

Workload

It was well spread due to the exercises, making it manageable. Also overall a bit less than the previous quartile. It was good that there were a lot of exercises in the beginning and less in the end. Giving inspiration in the beginning but room to work out details in the end.

Extra

This is very different from other A projects, therefore it would have been nice to have more of an introduction into the topic. Additionally, the small lectures that were there in other projects could have helped with this as well.