Broad Curriculum Choices!

DB55

Hey I'm going into 2nd yr CS in Sept and am required to choose a course in broad curriculum to do for next year. I'm not totally sure on what to do as the timetable of some of the courses worry me and I keep hearing that 2nd year is twice as hard as 1st year so I'd prefer something that requires little effort tbh!! If some of you have opinions on courses you did, please do share them whether good, bad or indifferent!:)
Eh I suppose I should say that my top choices atm are between "Ireland's Changing Landscapes" and "Film and Film Theory", the former being good because of the timetable and the latter being bad because of the err timetable!!:P Oh and both require relatively little effort:P

Replies appreciated,
Thanks

shay_562

I did BC Psychology and quite liked it. Assuming it hasn't changed in the last two years, it's 20% on attendance and 40% each on two essays in Michelmas and Hilary term, both about 2,000 words from what I remember. The attendance part is easy; just get one other person in the class to alternate with you and do the signing in/collecting handouts thing and you can each cut lecture time to one hour a week. The essays themselves are relatively straightforward; the lecturer will give you handouts to read from relevant books/articles and if you cite most or all of them and maybe 1-2 personally sourced pieces of work while writing a vaguely coherent essay a 2.1 is the minimum you'll get and a 1st is more likely. Plus, the course material is actually pretty interesting to read about (our year covered memory/learning techniques and group dynamics, and from what I hear those are pretty much the two standard topics for it) without being overly technical, so it's not a chore to do the work. Definitely a thumbs up for BC Psych. from me.

Attractive Nun

I did Understanding Literature and I really enjoyed it. There were two lectures a week, but as far as I could tell you didn't really have to attend them. There was a sign-in sheet, but it was just a case of ticking a box beside your name so you could easily get someone else to do it. In any case, I'd say there was a max of 50% attendance at the lectures and I didn't hear of anyone getting called up on not showing up, so that's not a problem at all.

As for coursework, there were 2 essays - 3,000 words I think, but it was basically just a case of waffling on for as long as you could, because you didn't have to bother with referencing or anything like that really. Quite easy, I think most people I know got firsts or II.1s. Then there were 2 class tests, which were piss easy. For the second one I could barely see I was so hungover and I still got a II.1. The thing I liked about the course was that if you were at all interested in whatever book/poet/whatever they were lecturing on, you could go and read up and attend lectures (some of which were really good) and get something out of the course. But if you weren't arsed, you just had to be sure to know enough about 2 books to write 2 essays on - the class tests were unseen stuff. I'd recommend it anyway.

Oh, and I wouldn't want to comment too much since I didn't do it, but I heard pretty bad reports from the film one - apparently the films you watch are a load of balls.

Epic Tissue

Anyone do Business Enterprise?

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

I enjoyed the film selection in Film.

Anyway, there's absolutely no point in doing any work for any BC course. If you do really really great and put in loads of effort in your essays you'll get 58%. If you do crap and write a 500 word "3000 word essay" you'll get 51%. There's probably a 2% standard deviation in BC.

shay_562

Zwei Vier Zwei wrote:

Anyway, there's absolutely no point in doing any work for any BC course. If you do really really great and put in loads of effort in your essays you'll get 58%. If you do crap and write a 500 word "3000 word essay" you'll get 51%. There's probably a 2% standard deviation in BC.

Um...

Attractive Nun wrote:

there were 2 essays - 3,000 words I think, but it was basically just a case of waffling on for as long as you could, because you didn't have to bother with referencing or anything like that really. Quite easy, I think most people I know got firsts or II.1s.

And from Psych., of the three of us in the class whose results I actually knew we managed two firsts and a high 2.1 between us, and from looking at the results board 2.1 seemed to be the average.

Potentially, what you say is true for film, but it's certainly not true in relation to BC as a whole.

Vebor

In general, are BC courses difficult in schols?

shay_562

Vebor wrote:

In general, are BC courses difficult in schols?

In what sense? If you mean how hard is a BC schol exam, to the best of my knowledge you don't actually sit a schol in any of them; they count as an excess to your course requirements and so they don't count towards Schols (note: this may have changed now that they're bringing in ECTS properly). If you mean how hard is it to juggle the two, depends on the deadlines - most of the course outlines on the BC site will give you a rough idea of when you're handing things in, so if you've got an essay deadline at the very end of Hilary term, you know that's going to have an impact on your schols study.

Awayindahils

Vebor wrote: »

In general, are BC courses difficult in schols?

You'll need to talk to your department. AFAIK you can't take a BC for schols. Certainly in BESS if you take BC as part of your 6 you can't take those subjects for schols. They are not considered to be the same as normal courses, and there are no exams in them (well formal end of year exams) If you are taking them as part of 60ECTs and not as an additional course then you may have to take an additional subject from your current year or your first year for schols.

claire h

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI wrote: »

I enjoyed the film selection in Film.

Anyway, there's absolutely no point in doing any work for any BC course. If you do really really great and put in loads of effort in your essays you'll get 58%. If you do crap and write a 500 word "3000 word essay" you'll get 51%. There's probably a 2% standard deviation in BC.

Ah, not true. There are people who fail, presumably because they've given up on going to their course or whatever and don't necessarily need to pass it in order to pass the year, and there are a couple of courses - Botany, History (weirdly enough), and I think maybe the Business one if there is one - where it seems to be very possible to get marks in the 80s or 90s. Which is probably handy enough for bumping up your marks if you're in a we-don't-believe-in-giving-anything-beyond-70-bwahahaha kind of course.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

shay_562 wrote: »

they count as an excess to your course requirements and so they don't count towards Schols (note: this may have changed now that they're bringing in ECTS properly).

Let's ****ing hope this hasn't changed, or the college really will have gone to the dogs.

karlr42

OP, I was in 1st year CS last year, going into 2nd year now- are you coming in from somewhere else or do I know you(there's only 27 of us in the class!)?
[EDIT: hmm, DB55, are you

Daragh

?

For the record, I've picked Film because 2nd year will be hard enough as it is, not that I'm going to treat BC as a "doss" subject, but it has the lowest number of assesment methods(some BC courses have in-class tests and group projects). Plus the content looks quite interesting, to my mind.

@ZWEI, it hasn't changed, AFAIK.

Epic Tissue

karlr42 wrote: »

OP, I was in 1st year CS last year, going into 2nd year now- are you coming in from somewhere else or do I know you(there's only 27 of us in the class!)?
[EDIT: hmm, DB55, are you

Daragh

?

Correct:D

Running Bing

The film course was one of the best things I have ever done. I actually really looked forward to doing it every week.




The selection of films is excellent.....its very well done and as an added bonus it requires very little work. I'd say dont take the piss though, go to the lectures as they are very worthwhile.



Ill also make a confession(This really shows how much of a geek I am) I actually snuck into a few of the lectures last year when I wasnt even doing the course:o

Mslug

If you have a laptop or don't mind leaving a crowd mid class go for BC Psychology