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anyone doing european studies

  • 10-05-2010 7:35pm
    #1
    waterbabe1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18 ✭


    I am looking at doing european studies in trinity in sept anyone finished first year and can tell me a bit about it especially the language side of it

    Thanks:)


Comments

  • #2
    Craguls
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,986 ✭✭✭Craguls


    A friend of mine does it. In a nut shell it's a mixture of sociology, economics, history and ideology(?) (going on what he tells me about a particular module). You also do two languages in a grammatical, literary and spoken sense. Course work is heavy but manageable and he seems to like it.


  • #3
    waterbabe1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18 ✭waterbabe1


    Do you know if the languages are mainly learning to speak the language or is it a lot of literature and poetry


  • #4
    Craguls
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,986 ✭✭✭Craguls


    waterbabe1 wrote: »
    Do you know if the languages are mainly learning to speak the language or is it a lot of literature and poetry

    It seems to be 50/50 and they try to combine both by having you do presentations on other aspects of the course. He'd a French one a few weeks ago on a sociology topic that he'd to talk about for 5 minutes then the group would discuss it for another 5. Hard but his french is much much better than it ever was in school now.


  • #5
    phlegms
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,882 ✭✭✭phlegms


    Had a friend who did it for a year hated it and switched course.
    His main issue with it seemed to be the language side of it. He's fluent in Spanish, French and English but said the languages were very heavy on the literature and grammar sides of things rather than speaking the languages which was his least favorite side of it and pretty much killed any interest he had in the course.


  • #6
    ohthebaby
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,808 ✭✭✭ohthebaby


    I'm not European Studies but I do TSM French and I have the same French grammar module as the European Studies students. It's a grammar course so it's pretty much self-explanatory. We do tenses, word classes, etc. I had two grammar exams at the end of the year and the ES students have them too. I think the ES people who take German share their grammar bits with TSM too but I'm not 100%.

    Other than that I don't have much other information on it. I must say though that one of my friends who is big into languages left the course after a month. He mainly wanted to study the two languages, as in improve his abilities to speak them as well as study their literature, but found that for him, there was too much European history and politics involved. He ended up switching to TSM French and Spanish which lets him focus purely on the languages.

    Although that's not to say you wouldn't enjoy those other bits, but maybe it's something to keep in mind if it's the languages you really want to focus on.


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  • #7
    jetaime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9 ✭jetaime


    I do European Studies and am in second year. It is a great course if you're up for the amount of work involved (a good bit more compared to a lot of arts courses).

    For the language side of things - it varies from department to department. For French it is mainly the language although you do pick up a lot of info about the history and culture of France from the weekly dossier class.
    Some languages (Russian, German) make you take a module about the history/culture of the country.

    The social science course in first year is vaguely interesting - even if you don't like all of it you can pass and pick what you enjoy for second year. Well worth it for the excellent degree you'll be coming out with. Personally I enjoyed the History of Ideas one a lot more, and there is another great history course available in second year if that is what you're into. International Relations would be a hard but rewarding second year course. Basically you have a lot of options about what you study after first year.

    Languages in college can be hard but help is there if you need it - peer tutoring is good. If you familiarise yourself with everything early on and be prepared to do weekly homework, put in the effort etc - you should be grand.

    Also don't forget that you are expected to go on Erasmus in third year - we get the pick of some of the best places such as Salamanca in Spain and Sciences-Po in Paris. Definitely a great experience.

    The best thing about ES is that you're in a proper class group and it is easy enough to make friends because the language classes are small and you will eventually know your whole year pretty well. So socially I think it is better than TSM. The Europa society is a laugh as well.

    If you have any more specific questions PM me and I hope you go for it :)


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