Economics and Spanish/Russian

Cant comment on spanish but Economics is great in trinity. I would say its probably the best economics course in Ireland (based on my knowledge of other courses and talking to people on the courses). The department is run very well and its got over 175 years of history so its well respected in ireland and internationally.

As for the course itself the first year isnt really challenging if you've got a good grasp of economics or if your really interested in it but theres a big step up in difficulty in second year and third year(so I hear im only a second year myself). Its also a very maths focused degree from second year on with a heavy emphasis on quantative stuff(much more than other colleges). All in all its a great course, Id never done any Economics before college but found I loved it and thats what im going for my degree in( I did BESS by the way:o )

I do Russian. It's been...interesting. They've had a rather haphazard approach to tuition in my experience, but since restructuring they've got their act together ever so slightly. It's a very small department (apologies, school), which is great - I routinely have lectures with only two or three other students and extensions etc. are never a problem. They also put on lots of tea parties ("Russki Chai") for some reason, which naff as it sounds are a bit of craic.

The size of the department doesn't seem to impact on the range of courses they offer and you can pretty much focus on whatever takes your interest. For instance, we were given instructions in first year to write an essay about something Russian. Anything. So one person did Chechnya, one did the suppression of Jazz under the Soviet regime, one did early avant-garde propaganda, one did Lake Baikal... There are a lot of history courses throughout the years and plenty of literature. You're expected to read poetry, short stories and plays in Russian but novels you can get away with in translation. In third and fourth year the options diversify even more and they let the students determine which courses they'll offer so it varies year to year. Some options include Soviet Cinema, Contemporary Russian Society, Polish, Comparative Slavonic Linguistics, the Avant-Garde, Dystopian Science Fiction in 20th Century Poland and Russia, Comparative Slavonic Film but there are loads more.

As for the language itself, you start from scratch in first year (literally learning the alphabet) but they step it up quickly enough. The primary textbook they use was written by the head of department so our pleas to drop it have not been taken kindly. It's dreadful. The teaching itself can also be a little frustrating - they're academics, not language teachers - so you will need to do most of the work yourself and spend as much time as you can in Russia. The lecturers seem to communicate with each other as little as possible so in second year, say, you might leave a class where you've just conquered "I walked across the road" and head off to a lecture where you're expected to have read a Dostoevsky short story written in 19th century slang.

Still, I love it. It's just...cool. And unfailingly interesting. Can't imagine having done anything else.

Sorry for the long post but you won't find anything remotely informative on their webpage.

The maths aint to much of a problem leo but you will be at a disadvantage. It will require a lot of work. I did higher leaving cert and was always pretty good at maths so the transition was pretty smooth for me. Most of the stuff I did at leaving cert Calculus, matrices, algebra etc. Its not super hard stuff by any means but as the course goes on it gets more and more maths orientated. Second year micro is a lot more maths orientated than first year, lots of calculus. Then in third year theres courses like econometrics.

Basically what Im saying is you will need to put in extra work to catch up having not done maths for a while but as long as you dont mind a bit of maths you should be alright.