European Studies at TCD

naasface

Well lads anyone do ES at Trinity?? Seriously considering it for next year and taking French and maybe Polish? It seems like a really broad and interesting course! And handier for jobs than an Arts Degree cos of the businessy side of it. And the points 495 so it's do-able (aiming for 510ish in LC-fingers crossed)
How many hours a week are there? it says 22 on qualifax but is that 22 a week of lectures and your own 'research' time r just 22 hours of pure lectures?
is it any good?!
cheers..;)

Ling

Hey there,

There was a thread on here not so long ago about European Studies -it will probably answer most of your questions about the course and its content:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055404067&highlight=european+studies

The course is a great Arts Degree, but if you're looking for something 'businessy' it probably isn't suitable. You do take an introductory course in Economics for 6 weeks or so in 1st year and after that you have the opportunity to take one Economics course a year until you graduate (other options are history, sociology, politics). The overall focus on the course however, is on languages and history of ideas/cultural history/politics of Europe.

22 hours is about accurate for 1st year, especially if you are taking a beginner language like Polish. The 22 hours is comprised of lectures and tutorials as well as language classes. On top of that you'd be expected to spend about another 20hours a week doing private study/reading/language exercises. Now, you wouldn't normally need to spend that much time on extra study every week, but near exam time you would and when essay deadlines are looming:)

If the other thread doesn't answer your questions, feel free to ask some more!

naasface

thanks for that. it looks like a super course. It'll be No.1 on my cao

t0mm

From my experiences in the arts block, the euro-studs are also the best looking course...




(Single-honours Hist. student here)

lilmizzme

I second that... JF History, bless them they're an unfortunate bunch!!

phalaris

the girl i lived with last year just graduated from ES. she ended up working in a call-center for a year, then went on to do masters in DIT.

i don't know how it compares to other ARTS courses, but it seems pretty crap to be honest. i saw the stuff she was studying for her finals and i helped her correct her thesis too. it seems like some sort of glorified history course.. really, from what i saw i wouldn't advise it..

naasface

phalaris wrote: »

the girl i lived with last year just graduated from ES. she ended up working in a call-center for a year, then went on to do masters in DIT.

i don't know how it compares to other ARTS courses, but it seems pretty crap to be honest. i saw the stuff she was studying for her finals and i helped her correct her thesis too. it seems like some sort of glorified history course.. really, from what i saw i wouldn't advise it..

oh really? this scares me! why wouldn't you advise it?? jobs-wise or it's boring or what?

Pugwash

If European studies takes your fancy because you like the business aspects, you should consider BESS.

if you take away the history and language courses in ES, the remainder are BESS courses- be they sociology, economics or politics.

You can take on a foreign language in BESS too, polish for beginners included.

It is a really open and diverse course, see the BESS thread for details/FAQs and a place to aim your own queries.

Ling

Just to clarify a few things,

Firstly, there is no real 'business aspect' to European Studies. Economics, sociology and politics may be BESS subjects, but they fall under the category of social sciences. If you are after a business-type course, you shouldn't really be considering ES in the first place.

Secondly, European Studies is most certainly not a 'glorified history course'. The main focus is on language study and ensuring that graduates are fluent in one European language and highly proficient/practically fluent in a second. The course has a lot of contact hours because of that. If you don't want to study history, then you don't have to.

I may be biased, but I can safely say that ES is not a 'crap' course because it teaches students many skills that can be applied in a wide range of job situations. Communication skills, report writing, critical and analytical skills, debating skills, research and independent study skills etc. You could of course argue that any Art's course would provide you with those skills and I won't disagree, but how many other Art's course graduates can say that they have a degree in two languages as well as a whole range of other subjects?