Gender and Women's Studies

Seren_

Hey guys.

I'm really interested in doing the M.Phil in Gender & Women's Studies next year, and I was just wondering if anyone on here has done or is doing the course

Also, what's TCD like for postgrads? Does the college have a good vibe in general? I'm doing my BA in Maynooth atm, so it'll be a bit of a change! Well apart from the campus environment, because they look eerily similar :P

Denerick

Demand for MPhil graduates pursuing courses such as 'Gender and Women's Studies' is high at the moment so you should be looking at at least 69k per annum once you graduate.

PurpleFistMixer

TCD forum regulars as helpful as ever...

Sir Ophiuchus

TCD Forum Rules wrote:

- A troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or deliberately off-topic messages looking for reaction. Repeat offenders will be warned, then banned.

Maybe we should just add "Don't be an asshole." to the forum rules explicitly?

Or start classes in reading comprehension.

El Siglo

Sir Ophiuchus wrote: »

Maybe we should just add "Don't be an asshole." to the forum rules explicitly?

Or start classes in reading comprehension.

Denerick does have a point, albeit mordant in tone.

Op, I'm guessing you're finishing a degree in something like Sociology and Geography in NUIM, am I right? To be honest, spending ca. €6,000 on a course along with living in Dublin isn't great. I'd seriously reconsider it. It is a good course from what I've heard before (I know two people that did it in UCD), however the employability afterwards isn't great. The two people that I've known to do this course, did it after they were made permanent teachers (it boosted the pay packet). Without completely dashing your hopes, I would consider the cost etc... of this and really what do you intend to do... Because spending the guts of 12-15 grand on this course and living in Dublin requires some careful consideration and you'd want to be getting a lot out of it. If you intend on going into a PhD after it, I'd talk to PhD students about it.

Denerick

I'll be less cruel. Unless the OP has a job lined up after this then I would strongly advise against. I plan on eventually doing a postgraduate course in history, but only after I have secured a decent career and can afford to take a mini break to pursue further studying.

These courses are fascinating and interesting, but see them as a hobby or personal interest, not part of a long term future.

JonJoeDali

This is a university, not a technical training college.

Liquorice

Denerick wrote: »

These courses are fascinating and interesting, but see them as a hobby or personal interest, not part of a long term future.

Unless the plan for that long term future involves an academic post, lobbying for feminist organisations or other equality groups, working for rape crisis centres and I'm sure plenty else. Sure, it might be helpful to have a job lined up in one of those places beforehand but if they're competitive positions having a masters might give an applicant a leg up. And sometimes, people just want to study something they think they will enjoy or benefit from in a manner other than financially. I'm sure a final year undergraduate with a plan for next year is aware of the implications, financial and otherwise, of pursuing a masters.

For the OP, I think user claire_h was planning on pursuing that masters, she hasn't been active for a while but if you search for her posts she might have made a comment on it.

claire h

Heh, speak of the devil....

OP, I'm doing a different masters in TCD at the moment but I did consider the Gender & Women's Studies quite seriously. I decided not to do it for two reasons -

1) the size of the department - there's no undergrad programme in Gender & Women's Studies so it's basically just the course director and lots of part-time types or people who are from different departments

2) the number of courses you had to take - other courses I was looking at had fewer courses per term but focusing on certain topics in more detail, which suited me more

The postgrad vibe is fine - most of the people on my course seem to love it. I was here for undergrad so am totally jaded.

Mountain_Surfer

It appears that TCD has a course in Women Studies, but not Men Studies. That's pretty sexist, but then I realised we do have Men Studies.

It's called History.




Couldn't resist:D

fishtastico

I always found it hilarious that the door to the Centre for Women's Studies was so much smaller than all of the other doors

amacachi

fishtastico wrote: »

I always found it hilarious that the door to the Centre for Women's Studies was so much smaller than all of the other doors

I meant to take a picture of it the first day I was down here when I saw it.

Seren_

Weeellll, kinda forgot about this thread! :pac:

El Siglo wrote: »

Denerick does have a point, albeit mordant in tone.

Op, I'm guessing you're finishing a degree in something like Sociology and Geography in NUIM, am I right? To be honest, spending ca. €6,000 on a course along with living in Dublin isn't great. I'd seriously reconsider it. It is a good course from what I've heard before (I know two people that did it in UCD), however the employability afterwards isn't great. The two people that I've known to do this course, did it after they were made permanent teachers (it boosted the pay packet). Without completely dashing your hopes, I would consider the cost etc... of this and really what do you intend to do... Because spending the guts of 12-15 grand on this course and living in Dublin requires some careful consideration and you'd want to be getting a lot out of it. If you intend on going into a PhD after it, I'd talk to PhD students about it.

Thanks El Siglo, a lot of food for thought in that post. My degree subjects are English & Sociology, so you're half right :P Obviously, I'm not planning on doing this course for the employability prospects, more so because it's a topic I'm really interested in, and I doubt I'll go on to do a PhD. Well I don't think so anyway. With regards the cost of the course, I get the grant, so that covers the course fees (most of them anyway). Probably will just live in Maynooth as well, so that cuts down on rent costs too.

claire h wrote: »

Heh, speak of the devil....

OP, I'm doing a different masters in TCD at the moment but I did consider the Gender & Women's Studies quite seriously. I decided not to do it for two reasons -

1) the size of the department - there's no undergrad programme in Gender & Women's Studies so it's basically just the course director and lots of part-time types or people who are from different departments

2) the number of courses you had to take - other courses I was looking at had fewer courses per term but focusing on certain topics in more detail, which suited me more

The postgrad vibe is fine - most of the people on my course seem to love it. I was here for undergrad so am totally jaded.

Thanks for the info Claire! The number of courses is one of the things I actually like about this M.Phil I get what you mean about the size of the department though - could be hard to get in touch with people if they're only part-time etc.