BESS (wtf?)

NADA

Hi. I was just on bebo there and all the guys who are doing BESS are like "I know don't slag me". What is the deal. I hear this all the time. Why does everybody have it in for people doing bess. And what is so big about the girls do. I do Comp Science and German so I don't even know anybody doing this course.

Easy target, I suppose.

InFront

Is there a more desirable alternative to BESS? As in some higher points degree course in a similar area with more status in the eyes of employers? Dont jump down my throat Im only asking.... Thinking of doing business/ finance next year and BESS would have been something Id have strongly considered, but it does seem to have a bit of a rep...

ApeXaviour

InFront wrote:

Is there a more desirable alternative to BESS? As in some higher points degree course in a similar area with more status in the eyes of employers? Dont jump down my throat Im only asking.... Thinking of doing business/ finance next year and BESS would have been something Id have strongly considered, but it does seem to have a bit of a rep...

If you want to do BESS then do it! That or something like Commerce in UCD. This "rep" is mostly a bit of harmless fun, like comp-sci students not seeing sunlight or drama students all being camp. There are certain subjects that will tend to have a higher than regular of a certain element, thus a stereotype is born. But by in large the majority of students in most courses are just regular students.

So yeah, I'd advise against choosing a course because of a reputation other students give the people in it. That being completely detached from what's actually taught in the course.

Edit: Just as a btw, I think I've probably given bess students some of the most grief on these boards.

Time Magazine

ApeXaviour wrote:

Edit: Just as a btw, I think I've probably given bess students some of the most grief on these boards.

Yeah... bastid .

BESS is vast. Yes, there are oompa-loompas and courses to suit. But there's also the tough academic element that's pretty much as difficult as you get – a lot of the Economics guys I know are just insanely talented students and have to be. Heh, in fact I showed Ronny Mitchell (remember him?) some of my exam papers yesterday and his response was "These are in BESS?!"

mizz.yelof!!!

InFront wrote:

Thinking of doing business/ finance next year and BESS would have been something Id have strongly considered, but it does seem to have a bit of a rep...

you should do it if you want to do it, BESS is actually pretty good fun, i love it. and the majority of ppl on the course are normal and extremely nice. its only a minority that fit the whole cliché and even they just stick together and dont mix with others so you hardly even notice they are there most of the time.

Nietzschean

i'm sure bess has hard subjects(my god the exams list gives some choice for final year)...

but this
http://www.tcd.ie/Local/Exam_Papers/2006/XS/XST35201.pdf
did give me a bit of a laugh i must say

Enda wrote:

But there's also the tough academic element that's pretty much as difficult as you get

Much of an ego there wrt your course?

xebec

InFront wrote:

Is there a more desirable alternative to BESS? As in some higher points degree course in a similar area with more status in the eyes of employers? Dont jump down my throat Im only asking.... Thinking of doing business/ finance next year and BESS would have been something Id have strongly considered, but it does seem to have a bit of a rep...

Take a look at MSISS, some similar subjects to BESS, some very different ones. Far greater variety and very highly regarded by employers!

Don't let the Stats put you off, you'll have to do that in BESS or Commerce too!

Time Magazine

Nietzschean wrote:

but this
http://www.tcd.ie/Local/Exam_Papers/2006/XS/XST35201.pdf
did give me a bit of a laugh i must say

Hah never saw that subject before. Notice it's taught by the Engineering faculty though .

Much of an ego there wrt your course?

It's a statement of fact, not an ego thing. Look at this exam paper for example. That could pass as a fecking Physics exam. Many Economics & Maths TSM students who take that course find it difficult. Although it might be considered average difficulty to a Maths student – perhaps at a JSish standard – I suggest you have a go at an average difficulty Economics JSish standard course and see how you perform. See my point?

And for the record, I'm not going near that subject

PS Pet you might want to have a look at that link for your insomnia.

ApeXaviour

Ibid wrote:

It's a statement of fact, not an ego thing.

I'm not saying it's not difficult in places. But the claiming that the course is "as difficult as you get" as fact? What could you possibly say to back up this statement? You've never studied any other course...

Ibid wrote:

Look at this exam paper for example. That could pass as a fecking Physics exam.

I dunno, JF/SF maths exams look similarly as incomprehensible to me tbh, and my course is somewhat related to it.

I thought question 4a "give the gist of the proof" was kinda funny though.

Ibid wrote:

Many Economics & Maths TSM students who take that course find it difficult.

From what I can gather its a heavily specialised subject. Difficult to get in to but handy to do well in, ie a subject that 80% wouldn't be too hard to get if you put the work in.

Time Magazine

ApeXaviour wrote:

I'm not saying it's not difficult in places. But the claiming that the course is "as difficult as you get" as fact? What could you possibly say to back up this statement? You've never studied any other course...

I said "pretty much". If you take on the harder (and more employment-rewarding) courses you're spreading yourself an insane amount....

I dunno, JF/SF maths exams look similarly as incomprehensible to me tbh, and my course is somewhat related to it.

This is kinda my point. When I do Economic Analysis it sort of helps with, say, Industrial Economics. But you can pick courses with feck all "economies of scale". Quantitative Methods is a million miles away from Transport Economics, or Economics of Less Developed Countries, or Economic and Legal Aspects of Competition Policy. Now only a sort of select few go down this route, taking the harder courses. Certainly, as I said, I'm not going near Quants. But the spread is huge and the courses are deep, making my statement that it can be "pretty much as hard as you get" true tbh.

Nietzschean

dude unless you do our courses thats not a true statement, its purely idle speculation.

Nietzschean

Ibid wrote:

Look at this exam paper for example. That could pass as a fecking Physics exam.

No , no it couldn't, thats purely idle speculation on your part of what could pass as a physics exam, that subject material isn't even physics.

Time Magazine

Nietzschean wrote:

dude unless you do our courses thats not a true statement, its purely idle speculation.

That hurts my eyes . Firstly there is not necessarily exclusivity between something being speculated and something being true.

Secondly one does not need to do a course to know how hard it is; lest ye wish to accept, as I am a BESS student, my assertion that it is the hardest course evAr.

If your statement is true, prove me wrong.

Crash

You made the statement - the onus is not on others to disprove your speculation, its on you to prove it.

ApeXaviour

Ibid wrote:

But the spread is huge and the courses are deep, making my statement that it can be "pretty much as hard as you get" true tbh.

How is this different from "pretty much" any other course? Do you think my electronics course bears any resemblance to my statistical thermodynamics one? Of course you do! Cos you don't know any better...
Same with me. Way I see it is you have economic maths (quantitative) and economic theory (qualitative). That's not that much breadth.

&#231 wrote: »

You made the statement - the onus is not on others to disprove your speculation, its on you to prove it.

Exactly. You could make any kind of ridiculous statement. I believe there is an omnipotent invisible Flying Spaggetti Monster (FSM) controlling all things. Prove me wrong. Actually no, just give me the gist of the proof

Time Magazine

&#231 wrote: »

You made the statement - the onus is not on others to disprove your speculation, its on you to prove it.

I agree entirely.

There's two problems though.

First of all, there is no "proof". There are so many variables involved. One person may find writing a short essay hard (e.g. Stargal); others are the converse (e.g. Apex) for example.

Second of all, Ian basically asserted that there could be no assertion on the relative difficulty of courses. Generally speaking a student only does one course (in the general sense) and, by his assertion, is excluded from stating that any course is any harder than any other lest they have personally done said other course. Which is cack; particularly with some people having previously said things on this forum like "BESS is easy piss" and so on and so forth. Now personally I've no problem with people asserting things like that – with reason. I have some limited computer programming skillz; if I could pass a SS Computer Science exam I'd consider it extremely easy. Furthermore a spectrum exists; if I was perhaps unable to pass the exam but make a reasonable stab at it without ever attending a lecture and not doing the course, it could be assumed that the course is not as easy as theoretical course number one, but relatively easy nonetheless.

My non-rambling point? If Ian's assertion is true there is no way I could possibly even say BESS is easy because, by proof by contradiction, I could not say that it was hard.

Now, with regard to my assertion that BESS can be hard if one so desires, I'll extrapolate. I do single-honour economics. Some colleagues, such as the beautiful Right_Side, do Maths & Economics TSM. They're exempt from the mathsy-side of economics in (at least) the Freshman years because they're already covering more difficult stuff in their other component. Now, these guys, who are doing Maths degrees, struggle with the maths in economics; particularly the aforementioned Quantitative Methods course. This provides indication that it is difficult in an absolute sense, as maths students struggle with it. Furthermore, they're more specialised in maths than your average economics student so one can assume that it's even more challenging for them. Thus it's also difficult in the relative sense.

Now this analogy can be extended to other courses. Taking one course of particular interest to me, the furtheraforementioned (:D) Economic and Legal Aspects of Competition Policy provides two modules, in entirely in law. There is absolutely no linky between the statistical modelling in Quants and the statute-nitpicking in law. I agree with Dec about his diverging subjects, I didn't suggest they were easy or similar – in fact I assumed there were more difficult courses by my inclusion of my phrase "pretty much" – but the brunt of my assertion that BESS can be 'as hard as you get' still rings true. Are you suggesting you could deviate further from Article 48 of the Treaty of Rome to the derivation of the Ordinary Least Squares principle? Perhaps, but not a whole lot.

</blitherings>

Nietzschean

Ibid wrote:

First of all, there is no "proof".

Stating it as fact, as you originally did implies you have proof, if I went off and said maths is the hardest course in the college you'd be the first to tell me i'm wrong. Considering you can't sit one of the final year exams i did, and i wouldn't be able to sit one of your final year exams i don't see how you can make out yours is harder?

One person may find writing a short essay hard (e.g. Stargal); others are the converse (e.g. Apex) for example.

Very true, this alone I believe defeats the entire notion of one course being the hardest.

Second of all, Ian basically asserted that there could be no assertion on the relative difficulty of courses.

i didn't really say that, but since you put it like that, i do agree with its sentement.

Generally speaking a student only does one course (in the general sense) and, by his assertion, is excluded from stating that any course is any harder than any other lest they have personally done said other course. Which is cack;

Stating ones own courses is the hardest only leads to pointless circular arguements since there is no metric with which to compare courses, everyone here could claim they have the hardest course, and i'd say we were all talking out our proverbial assholes.

particularly with some people having previously said things on this forum like "BESS is easy piss" and so on and so forth.

Who where what now? people may have suggested its easy, but thats more people having fun with the stereo type, i'm not sure there's anyone here who's asserted it as being fact.

Now personally I've no problem with people asserting things like that – with reason. I have some limited computer programming skillz; if I could pass a SS Computer Science exam I'd consider it extremely easy. Furthermore a spectrum exists; if I was perhaps unable to pass the exam but make a reasonable stab at it without ever attending a lecture and not doing the course, it could be assumed that the course is not as easy as theoretical course number one, but relatively easy nonetheless.

Thats entirely bogus, for one thing i can make a stab at a few of those economics maths courses you have there, does that make them easy? i doubt it, but with the ammount of stats and economic maths i've done i can certainly make a stab. There are final year comp sci courses i've seen i could get a first in , never having been to a lecture, but i bet people do crap in them every year, just because you excel at something doesn't make it easy.

My non-rambling point? If Ian's assertion is true there is no way I could possibly even say BESS is easy because, by proof by contradiction, I could not say that it was hard.

I never said it was easy, or at least ment to imply it any serious manner. I've yet to find a degree which is realistically easy in final year. If they were easy people wouldn't get degree's for them.

Now, with regard to my assertion that BESS can be hard if one so desires, I'll extrapolate. I do single-honour economics. Some colleagues, such as the beautiful Right_Side, do Maths & Economics TSM. They're exempt from the mathsy-side of economics in (at least) the Freshman years because they're already covering more difficult stuff in their other component. Now, these guys, who are doing Maths degrees, struggle with the maths in economics; particularly the aforementioned Quantitative Methods course.

I'd suggest you consult with Right Side, TSM's do only a tiny proportion of mathematics courses, and by all accounts nothing like the hardest of them, is Right Side doing QFT? you basically picked what is probally one of your hardest courses and compared it to what would be our easier ones......

This provides indication that it is difficult in an absolute sense, as maths students struggle with it.

They are TSM's, not maths students, there is a difference. I'm not saying TSM's arn't good at maths, but they tend not to excell to the same extent as pure maths students in the hard maths courses, heck they don't even do most of them. Most TSM maths students don't get beyond our second year courses(TSM Maths + Economics is an exception)

Furthermore, they're more specialised in maths than your average economics student so one can assume that it's even more challenging for them.

Thats entirely flawed, thats like me recon'n one part of ecnomics is easy so the entire lot must be? Maths is just as varied as any other field, your economics included.

Thus it's also difficult in the relative sense.

As stated above, no.

I agree with Dec about his diverging subjects, I didn't suggest they were easy or similar – in fact I assumed there were more difficult courses by my inclusion of my phrase "pretty much" – but the brunt of my assertion that BESS can be 'as hard as you get' still rings true.

Based on an entirely biased logic i'm sure it must, doesn't make it true though.

Are you suggesting you could deviate further from Article 48 of the Treaty of Rome to the derivation of the Ordinary Least Squares principle? Perhaps, but not a whole lot.

It might look the same to you, but trust me, QFT and classical Encryption standards are worlds apart.

I now remember why I hated Economics (and therefore my school for only leaving me limited options) in the Leaving Cert.

Of course BESS can be as hard. All courses can be hard. And that's it.

Time Magazine

Myth wrote:

Of course BESS can be as hard. All courses can be hard. And that's it.

I really can't be arsed responding to Ian's points, I really can't, and they can be responded to pretty easily with Dónal's quote and a little bit more...

Ian wrote:

It might look the same to you, but trust me, QFT and classical Encryption standards are worlds apart.

The problem here is that you're psuedo-defending your course in the absence of an attack.

To quote the original offensive line "there's also the tough academic element that's pretty much as difficult as you get". There's no contradiction between what you're saying and what I'm saying. I didn't say Economics was harder than everything else ever. I simply said, if you so desire, it can be as difficult as just about anything. The "just about" error term there is basically accounting for the potential of an unknown to me super-difficult course which probably doesn't exist. My point was that, contrary to what I believe to be common opinion, BESS degrees aren't dispensed in toilet-cubicles. If you didn't believe that then you are in agreement with me and your arguments and this discussion was moot and unnecessary.

ApeXaviour

I'd just like to challenge one point here cos I gotta go to bed.

Ibid wrote:

Now, these guys, who are doing Maths degrees, struggle with the maths in economics; particularly the aforementioned Quantitative Methods course. This provides indication that it is difficult in an absolute sense, as maths students struggle with it.

Not necessarily. There is I think a very relevant analogy here for TP and Physics since TPs study half their degree with the maths department and hence would study a good bit more maths than I would have. However often they'd sometimes find problems with some physics papers if it requires the use of differential equations or fourier series and the integration theirin, where the physicists wouldn't have so much a problem. This does not mean we know more maths than them. So it also doesn't mean that your TSM friends will find much useful from the maths side of their studies, for that paper you referred to. Except maybe a false sense of security.
You really must believe ian when he says maths is an exceptionally varied area. It's like learning history, knowing 14 centuary european history won't help you much with what happened in china around the same time other than give you but the most vague clues.

Tricity Bendix

But would it not be true to say that TSM Maths & Economics students would generally have a better aptitude for the mathsy stuff than pure economic students?

By the way, all this self-conscious defending of courses that were never attacked is really quite silly.

To answer the original question, I don't know if there are any comparable courses to BESS, given that BESS contains such a wide array of courses. Most people dislike BESStards because we come from wealthy families, are conspicuous with our consumption, and our women-folk have a healthy orange glow. It all just jealousy. People in the Hamilton are all in longterm relationships with their computers, while engineers have resorted to highly experimental means of pleasuring themselves using power drills.

Time Magazine

b.ie curious wrote:

But would it not be true to say that TSM Maths & Economics students would generally have a better aptitude for the mathsy stuff than pure economic students?

Of course it would. The analogy of TP dudes doesn't work as well because, for example, Physics is far more mathematical than economics. Thus the relative variance is lowered.

Similarly Ian's analogy of him being excellent at CS doesn't hold. My analogy was based, very clearly, on the fact that I had very little programming skills. He's obviously uber-nerdy in that regard, isn't he doing a PhD in it?

Obviously I'd do better in a modelling course than the likes of Stargal, but that doesn't say much of the difficulty of the course. Some people just don't have it.

paperclip

Pfft. Everyone knows that pharmacy is THE hardest course of them all!!

Seriously though, if I had to choose the most difficult course, from my point of view, it would be something like theoretical physics/pure maths. But that's mostly because my physics skills are somewhat akin to a mouse's. Just ask professor Weldon.

Nietzschean

Ibid wrote:

Of course it would.

Why?

Similarly Ian's analogy of him being excellent at CS doesn't hold. My analogy was based, very clearly, on the fact that I had very little programming skills. He's obviously uber-nerdy in that regard, isn't he doing a PhD in it?

Yes i am doing a phd in it, but my point was wrt your view if someone doing another course can do a paper or believes they can make a stab at another courses paper then that course is easy, doesn't hold.

Obviously I'd do better in a modelling course than the likes of Stargal

That in itself is a massive assumption.

By the way, all this self-conscious defending of courses that were never attacked is really quite silly.

We were defending the fact enda manage to somehow apply a metric to something that there is clearly none for, and in doing so is trying to somehow inflate his courses worth at the expense of others. Or at least mislead the OP.

The problem here is that you're psuedo-defending your course in the absence of an attack.

Its not my course, i don't even do it, my examples refer to maths because that was my UG, i'm more refuting your metric applying antics than defending anything.

To quote the original offensive line "there's also the tough academic element that's pretty much as difficult as you get".

There we diverge, i see that as applying a difficulty metric where there clearly is none defined, thus its an entirely meaningless statement.


Now i'm going to sleep as i'm quite drunk.

Crash

See, my problem here is that you're trying to make very obvious assertions without all of the facts - which is one of the things I would have thought first year business would have taught you, to be truly honest. you're making large logical leaps and so on.

oh well, guess a BESS degree ain't worth much! </LOGICAL LEAP>

ApeXaviour

b.ie curious wrote:

But would it not be true to say that TSM Maths & Economics students would generally have a better aptitude for the mathsy stuff than pure economic students?

The exact same thing could be said about TP students having more an aptitude for maths than pure physics students.

Ibid wrote:

Of course it would. The analogy of TP dudes doesn't work as well because, for example, Physics is far more mathematical than economics.

It works fine, TP is again more mathematical than TSM. It's almost the same, just shifted up the spectrum a little.

Nietzschean

and its a blur if infact physics is more mathematical than some of those economics courses, its back to weighing how mathematical one thing is over another.... they both use different fields of mathematics...

Time Magazine

Nietzschean wrote:

Why?

Do you want the theoretical answer or the empirical one? I expect you'd accept the empirical one more. MathEcons have an average of about an A2 in the Leaving Cert. BESSturds have an average of about a B2. I'm sure you'll accept the former. The latter is based on analysis of Leaving Cert points; results in the roughly LC-standard JF maths course; results/numbers of fails in SF maths course; the number of people who do not continue with economics because of the mathematical element. Furthermore you might be interested in the fact that out of forty-nine TSM economics students, three got Schols. All three were MathEcons.

Yes i am doing a phd in it, but my point was wrt your view if someone doing another course can do a paper or believes they can make a stab at another courses paper then that course is easy, doesn't hold.

It does hold ffs. Did you read my post? My point was if they don't have much experience in the subject and they find it easy it's reasonable to assume it's easy. If it just so happens that your dad is Niall Ferguson I'd expect you'd make a good attempt at some history essays; it doesn't mean history is easy. FFS can't you see the distinction here?

Ibid wrote:

Obviously I'd do better in a modelling course than the likes of Stargal ... Some people just don't have it.

Nietzschean wrote:

That in itself is a massive assumption.

Sigh.

We were defending the fact enda manage to somehow apply a metric to something that there is clearly none for, and in doing so is trying to somehow inflate his courses worth at the expense of others.

This in itself is a contradiction. I assert that there is, of course, no conclusive proof to a course's difficulty. But that does not mean that some courses are harder than others. Nor does that mean that one can not reasonably speculate using reasonable measures as to the general difficulty of a course. For example, if Maths students struggle with a quantitative course, and we don't assume that these Maths students are cretins, it could be reasonably assumed that that quantitative course is difficult. Furthermore if we assume that MathEcon students are generally better at quantitaive mechanics than non-MathEcon students (note: I am not asserting that I have conclusive proof of this, but it is fecking reasonable) that those non-MathEcons will find it proportionally even more difficult.

Now you assert, essentially, that nobody can say anything about the difficulty of any course evAr unless they've personally done that course. Yet, despite having never done economics, you claim that I cannot claim that it is as difficult as other courses. You even go further to infer that economics is, in fact, not as difficult as other courses by suggesting my acknowledgment of the difficulty of the course debases other courses. This statement would only be logical if those courses were more difficult than economics - a fact that you espouse to be indefinite - because if economics is more difficult than said other courses it would not be to the detriment of said other courses to state that economics is more difficult than said other courses!

Which is going to be? I agree that he who makes an assertion should be the one to prove it; but, as I asked you to do earlier, please explain how you can claim that I may not claim economics is as difficult as course x if you think all of this is indefinite as I have not studied course x; please explain, concisely, how you rectify this when you haven't studied economics yourself?

Or at least mislead the OP.

That's extremely unfair and untrue. He questioned, or someone else did, the 'worth' of a BESS degree under the inference that it was easy. I think we are all in agreement that, upon looking at courses such as Quants and Econometrics, it cannot be called "easy". But, as I mentioned, you exclude yourself from saying this because you haven't done the course yourself and you clearly cannot accept testimony from other people.

Its not my course, i don't even do it, my examples refer to maths because that was my UG, i'm more refuting your metric applying antics than defending anything.

Okay, without referencing any metrics, tell me how and why my assertions are "inflating" my course? Your argument is entirely flawed. To state that one cannot state the difficulty of a course relative to others, how can one "inflate" the difficulty of one's own course?

Apex wrote:

The exact same thing could be said about TP students having more an aptitude for maths than pure physics students.

Not at all. It's a matter of relative size. Let's say the average LC maths grade (a flawed metric, but a metric nonetheless) for a Physic is an A2, while a TP is A1. That's a pretty statistically insignificant quantity; certainly dilutable within the differing range of mathematics. However I can tell you now, although I do not have hard evidence to hand, that the average MathEcon grade is probably about an A1 with the average economics grade about a B2. That's far more significant.

ApeXaviour

Ibid wrote:

Okay, without referencing any metrics, tell me how and why my assertions are "inflating" my course? Your argument is entirely flawed. To state that one cannot state the difficulty of a course relative to others, how can one "inflate" the difficulty of one's own course?

Oh for the love of god enda... Would you listen for a minute? You're just circling around in nonsensical semantic logic.
You don't know how difficult your course is compared to others. So you can't say it is more difficult, but you are. So you're trying to inflate relative to other courses. Aka you're talking out of your hat

Ibid wrote:

Not at all. It's a matter of relative size. Let's say the average LC maths grade (a flawed metric, but a metric nonetheless) for a Physic is an A2, while a TP is A1. That's a pretty statistically insignificant quantity; certainly dilutable within the differing range of mathematics. However I can tell you now, although I do not have hard evidence to hand, that the average MathEcon grade is probably about an A1 with the average economics grade about a B2. That's far more significant.

Again with the hat talk. What do you know of science entrants maths grades? I can't even tell you near what the average grade is, yet you can somehow pluck a number from the air?

Secondly the LC hardly matters a bollox now does it? Yes some did very well in maths, some didn't. A friend of mine just graduated with a II-1 in phys and chem of advanced materials and he got a B in pass maths. Another person I'm acquainted with went from 355 in his LC to a 1st in his degree, second in his class (and yes it was in trinity).

Tricity Bendix

ApeXaviour wrote:

You don't know how difficult your course is compared to others. So you can't say it is more difficult, but you are. So you're trying to inflate relative to other courses. Aka you're talking out of your hat

I really didn't want to get embroiled in this, but you're talking crap there.

What Enda said was that there are elements of BESS that are pretty much as hard as you'll find in any other course. He never said it was more difficult, and he never put down any other course.

Again, all the self-conscious defending of courses that were never attacked (unless you view being called equally difficult as some areas in BESS as an attack) is just silly.

Stargal

Ibid wrote:

Obviously I'd do better in a modelling course than the likes of Stargal, but that doesn't say much of the difficulty of the course. Some people just don't have it.

Was it really necessary to use me as your example there?

Time Magazine

b.ie curious wrote:

What Enda said was that there are elements of BESS that are pretty much as hard as you'll find in any other course. He never said it was more difficult, and he never put down any other course.

QFT.

Again, all the self-conscious defending of courses that were never attacked (unless you view being called equally difficult as some areas in BESS as an attack) is just silly.

QFT.

Apex, I never said that LC Maths was the be-all and end-all. In fact I specifically acknowledged it wasn't, and of course there are deviations. But that doesn't mean that it's illogical to assume a reasonably large group of people who did better in a subject than another relatively large group of people are better at that subject.

Stargal wrote:

Was it really necessary to use me as your example there?

Stargal wrote:

you have to bear in mind that he's a right-wing, Blueshirt economist and as such, all efforts, no matter how small, should be appreciated

You weren't getting away with that.

ApeXaviour

b.ie curious wrote:

What Enda said was that there are elements of BESS that are pretty much as hard as you'll find in any other course. He never said it was more difficult, and he never put down any other course.

Hmm.. I had a big schpeel written out here but before posting I went read what Ibid wrote originally and you're right, the word "element" was there. Hmmh, wonder why I missed that the first time.

b.ie curious wrote:

Again, all the self-conscious defending of courses that were never attacked (unless you view being called equally difficult as some areas in BESS as an attack) is just silly.

I didn't consider myself being defensive over anything. I thought he had made an outrageous statement (an accusation he failed to counter effectively I think), and I was chastising suitably

No but you seemed very adamant that BESS was not that 'hard' a course - by implying other courses were much more difficult. Thats why you probably missed the 'element' bit because saying that any bit of BESS is difficult is like waving a red rag at a sexually frustrated bull with a rocket shoved up its arse.

If Ibid had said that 'philisophy' or 'tp' or 'chaos theory studies' (just finished Jurassic Park and the Lost World) were the most difficult, the reaction would have probably been a lot more accomodating becuase those courses as seen as 'difficult' ones.

Please note that I am differentiating difficulty with validity. I don't believe that there are any courses offered in TCD that are not valid for the field in which they are based, I'm just saying that even BESS can have very difficult modules as well as its easy ones such as Service Ops / The IT module thing

ApeXaviour

original_psycho wrote:

No but you seemed very adamant that BESS was not that 'hard' a course - by implying other courses were much more difficult.

Not true at all. I have never studied bess so how could I know? That was my central argument.

Bartronilic

BESS is as hard as you make it! In first year you may be terrible at essays so Sociology and Pol Sci will be hard. Then u can drop them and never deal with them again for 2nd, 3rd and 4th year or you could be terrible at maths (even though the lecturer puts an identical end of year maths test on the internet a week before the exam) and drop it after 1st year. Or keep it on for a certain degree and 2nd year will also be hard.

OP there is none of that BESS stereotype in BESS although there are tons of people whose dads/mams/sisters/brothers/uncles/aunts own huge companies or are very famous (well in my class anyway). The only people you should watch out for are Cavan girls :rolleyes: .