Help picking an elective...

sarz55

I have an elective to pick for next semester and I want to pick something that is relatively easy to pass, because why not. So I was thinking of something from Level 1.

Can anyone recommend to me an interesting/not too difficult first yr module?

Modules I've been considering so far:
Philosophy
Celtic civilisation
Irish folklore


Thank you.

rainbow kirby

Any stage 1 language module.

gubbie

Best one I've heard is "Irish for foreign nationals"... aka beginners Irish!

They prob won't let you into that so I'd definately recommend an easy language-beginners Spanish and Italian are both the easiest by far, especially if you have a bit of French. Italians easier and nicer (and its true you can make up words by adding an o/a to the end!!) but Spanish may be more use considering the fact that more people speak it

Pantsless

Dont take Celtic Civ.. It will make your brain cry in and bring you to levels of torture that you never thought possible...

Im 2nd year Mode 1 and I took Philosophy Ethics from the 1st year course for an easy pass. Hopefully.

The_Minister

Don't touch Philosophy or English.

abelard

What are you actually studying sarz55?

Umaro

Intro to Information Studies

Actually.. anything from Media Studies really. They're a complete joke. (Much love to anyone who's doing Media Studies you know I'm kiddinggggggggg)

Avoid anything that's a real subject to be honest. Choose easy electives so you can get a higher GPA, it's the American way.

Scraggs

Anybody else finding it near impossible to find electives with space left? It seems like even the crap ones are full! I accidently dropped my sem 2 elective while pottering about and 5 mins later when I copped the place had already been snapped up. Boohoo:(

holland501

Dam poxy electives will be the death of me!! :mad:

princess-sprkle

don't do celtic civ, it'll make you want to stab someone in frustration.
i did it in semester 1 in first year and it ruined the whole term for me!well almost.

Stay away!! for the love of god stay away from it!:D

griffdaddy

The_Minister wrote:

Don't touch Philosophy or English.

What? I dont think first year english could be any easier?! I wrote an entire exam essay about consumerism in harry potter last year, as well as one on subversive elements in alice in wonderland, having not read either. 2nd year however, gets pretty tough. That philosophy of ethics thing is pretty easy, i talked a couple of engineers into doing it last year who had no other philosophy experience, both got B's. One of the questions on the exam was 'From studying philosophy of ethics, i have learned...':D

passive

Choose easy electives so you can get a higher GPA, it's the American way.

Someone...please? I don't understand this. Can i really make up 1/3 of my degree with first year elective modules from various easy courses and have that actually count for my degree? I... I don't want to do it... but... Can it be done!? And where is the incentive not to? (within the whole "you're graded" system)..

Waltons

As far as I know, it's possible to make up a lot of the 1/3 of your degree with electives, if you'd like to do that. You can only take 4 electives though, and the 30% is made up of your best 6 modules.
To the best of my knowledge anyway!

passive

(continued over msn)
Alan says:
go to bed waltons!
Cillians says:
go to bed, passive!
(...)
Alan says:
no, i didn't mean that... i meant 1/3 of my overall degree could be electives..
Alan says:
actually... jesus... more than that...
Cillians says:
indeed
Cillians says:
if you get electives next year...
Alan says:
8/18ths if 4 of my top 6 modules of this year were electives..
Cillians says:
yep
Alan says:
jesus that's retarded..
Cillians says:
on a hilarious scale
Alan says:
I'll stick this little exchange into the thread..
Cillians says:
quick, before it dies!

holland501

Got into Irish culture studies there. Seems to be one of the last electives left with space. Seems to be interesting enough and no exam, just 2 essays to hand in so that's pretty sweet

sarz55

I can't do an English elective because I'm already studying English.

What about 'Problems of Philosophy' (1st yr)? Whats that like?

Scraggs

holland501 wrote:

Got into Irish culture studies there. Seems to be one of the last electives left with space. Seems to be interesting enough and no exam, just 2 essays to hand in so that's pretty sweet

Did this as a minor last year, its really interesting! Go to all your tutorials they can be great and especially useful when it comes to writing those blasted essays.

Brimmy

Umaro wrote:

Intro to Information Studies

Seriously? I picked Information Studies as my minor for next Semester, I thought it was going to be hard, so glad to hear that now!

Waltons

Brimmy wrote:

Seriously? I picked Information Studies as my minor for next Semester, I thought it was going to be hard, so glad to hear that now!

Nah, it's quite easy. Marks for going to tutorials (15%, I think) and the exam's pretty easy. I found it very boring though

Brimmy

I can do boring, no problem. So next semester it's Information Studies as a minor with English/History majors.

Anyone got any advice on an easy elective? I'm down for Anthropological Philosophy but I really don't want to do that

griffdaddy

Brimmy wrote:

I can do boring, no problem. So next semester it's Information Studies as a minor with English/History majors.

Anyone got any advice on an easy elective? I'm down for Anthropological Philosophy but I really don't want to do that

Anthropological Philosophy is fúcking impossible for 1st year, i'm in second year philosophy now and it's easily harder than any of the really complicated stuff i'm doing now, simply cause there's so much stuff to read in it. the two lecturers are really sound, but one of them, a priest, is far far too qualified to be teaching first years, and references about 15 authors and essays in every lecture, i spent loads of time on it, and it's only because the other modules i had in semester 2 last year were so easy that i was able to strike a balance. if you can fit the first year ethics module into your timetable do it, it's really easy.

Umaro

waltons wrote:

Nah, it's quite easy. Marks for going to tutorials (15%, I think) and the exam's pretty easy. I found it very boring though

When I did it last year it was something like
10% for showing up at tutorials (and theres only 5 of these)
10% for handing in a 200 word paragraph saying what your essay was going to be about
30% for keeping a diary of how you're getting along with your essay
50% for handing in your 3000 word essay

Spread that out over 12 weeks... easy peasy.

Shame the lecturers are dull dull dull.

Waltons

I think you're thinking of Information Literacy. The Information Studies course description gives the details involved with the course

Brimmy

griffdaddy wrote:

Anthropological Philosophy is fúcking impossible for 1st year, i'm in second year philosophy now and it's easily harder than any of the really complicated stuff i'm doing now, simply cause there's so much stuff to read in it. the two lecturers are really sound, but one of them, a priest, is far far too qualified to be teaching first years, and references about 15 authors and essays in every lecture, i spent loads of time on it, and it's only because the other modules i had in semester 2 last year were so easy that i was able to strike a balance. if you can fit the first year ethics module into your timetable do it, it's really easy.

Right so, not doing that...

Information Literacy you say?

pretty*monster

sarz55 wrote:

What about 'Problems of Philosophy' (1st yr)? Whats that like?

That's one of the best first year philosophy course. I did it back in the day when we didn't mess about with electives. It's occasionally frustrating (the problem of scepticism may convince you that philosophy is a usless diciplin but fear not) but the lecturers are great and the material is easy enough.

pretty*monster

griffdaddy wrote:

Anthropological Philosophy is fúcking impossible for 1st year, i'm in second year philosophy now and it's easily harder than any of the really complicated stuff i'm doing now, simply cause there's so much stuff to read in it. the two lecturers are really sound, but one of them, a priest, is far far too qualified to be teaching first years, and references about 15 authors and essays in every lecture, i spent loads of time on it, and it's only because the other modules i had in semester 2 last year were so easy that i was able to strike a balance..

Yeah but it's easily the best 1st year philosophy going.
Brendan Purcell's lectures are an experience to say the least but since he's retiring soom one should consider themselves lucky for the chance to be taught by him. The material he covers (it's still the Last Days of Socrates and Notes from the Underground, isn't it) is simple enough if you read it. Yeah he makes a lot of references to other people in his lectures, this is a good thing, it means you can follow it up if you so chose. You don't have to.

The other lecturer on the course is Eliot, yeah? I love that man, simple as.

It I had to pick one 1st year course to do it would be that by a long shot. There's no way anyone could seriously describe it a 'impossible'. No first arts course is impossible.

Jonny Arson

Waltons wrote:

I think you're thinking of Information Literacy. The Information Studies course description gives the details involved with the course

Urrgh had that Michael Casey guy for a few 2nd year lectures last month and about 10 people out of about 90 showed up, I know why now...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The 2nd semester 1st year Info Studies modules are here
both are very passable but if you want to get A's B's you have to work at them. Information Design is..zzzzzzzzzzzz and the other is ok but I never had Lee Komito so I don't know what he's like.

P.S. Waltons and Umaro - Did you ever have Komito? What's he like? Got him next semester

Waltons

Yeah, I had Komito, Zane. I enjoyed the topics he was teaching, and he's a fairly good lecturer; engages with the class a good bit.

Jonny Arson

Nice one Waltons!

JimmNeutron

Is it possible to take second year subjects as electives in first year? So far every first year elective ive tried is either full/clashing with my timetable.
If it is, would it be a very bad idea?

Scraggs

JimmNeutron wrote:

Is it possible to take second year subjects as electives in first year? So far every first year elective ive tried is either full/clashing with my timetable.
If it is, would it be a very bad idea?

Yes you can as long as there are no prerequisites. It may be more work though depending on what you choose and it might be more difficult if you haven't done the subject in first year. I'd go for it if you can't find any firsty modules you're interested in.

JimmNeutron

Cool so say im in first year physics and i take a second year physics core module, does that mean that i wont have to do it again next year once i pass it???

griffdaddy

pretty*monster wrote:

Yeah but it's easily the best 1st year philosophy going.
Brendan Purcell's lectures are an experience to say the least but since he's retiring soom one should consider themselves lucky for the chance to be taught by him. The material he covers (it's still the Last Days of Socrates and Notes from the Underground, isn't it) is simple enough if you read it. Yeah he makes a lot of references to other people in his lectures, this is a good thing, it means you can follow it up if you so chose. You don't have to.

The other lecturer on the course is Eliot, yeah? I love that man, simple as.

It I had to pick one 1st year course to do it would be that by a long shot. There's no way anyone could seriously describe it a 'impossible'. No first arts course is impossible.

oh yeah, i really liked it, just thought it was a lot of work, i'd have preferred if it was 2 seperate modules, one for eliot, one for purcell, as there was still a lot of reading between the two of them. i think it had a 60% fail rate in my year though. Incidently, have you heard anything about Eliot's course this year? i'm doing it at the moment, and i swear, it's like he's making most of it up as he goes along! It's aesthetics and modernism, but it's not the same as last year's, i.e. there's no actual philosophers on it. It's still brilliant though, on the first day he knew we'd all be hung over from first day of term, so he just brought in a cd with philip glass and some nice radiohead songs on it, and talked about how it was modernist, legend!

Umaro

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

P.S. Waltons and Umaro - Did you ever have Komito? What's he like? Got him next semester

I don't think so. I'm gona assume from his name that he's Asian.. so definitely no.

pretty*monster

griffdaddy wrote:

oh yeah, i really liked it, just thought it was a lot of work, i'd have preferred if it was 2 seperate modules, one for eliot, one for purcell, as there was still a lot of reading between the two of them.

Hmm, I suppose. It was two seperate courses in my day, but the courses were also half as long and we did twise as many of them... I it ammounted to the same thing

griffdaddy wrote:

Incidently, have you heard anything about Eliot's course this year? i'm doing it at the moment, and i swear, it's like he's making most of it up as he goes along! It's aesthetics and modernism, but it's not the same as last year's, i.e. there's no actual philosophers on it. It's still brilliant though, on the first day he knew we'd all be hung over from first day of term, so he just brought in a cd with philip glass and some nice radiohead songs on it, and talked about how it was modernist, legend!

Lucky!
Yeah last year Eliot's aesthetics course only covered Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche. Actually at the end of the year I wrote in the course evalution that it would be better if the scope was broader. Maybe he took that on board.

Villaricos

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

Urrgh had that Michael Casey guy for a few 2nd year lectures last month and about 10 people out of about 90 showed up, I know why now...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

he's my neighbour!:D is he really that boring?? poor Michael, hes nice in real life!!

JimmNeutron

Hey has anyone done this module before:
HIS10010 The Making of Europe: The High Middle Ages, 1000 - 1500
or
HIS10040 Ireland: Union and Disunion, 1800 - 1920

I think its the first one that i can take but what would this be like from a science student who never done history's point of view:D ???

Its either one of those or GEOL10030 Earth materials, and i never done geography or the first semester geology modules either.

Chakar

Well I found High Middle Ages easy enough but Union and Disunion was boring the lecturer was had no Powerpoint or transparent sheets he gave his lecture without any visual aids.

So High Middle Ages is what I would go for if I had a choice in first year, Elva Johnston is alright and she has Powerpoint anyway.