English with film ?

jmclee

This is a relatively new course as far as I'm aware, which might be why I seem to be finding such little info on it.. I've only been to one UCD open day, at a point where I didn't think I would be going there so I didn't make full use of it, but now that Im seriously considering applying for this course I really wanted to hear more about it outside the UCD prospectus book ! I'd be so grateful for a few personal responses to the course- how you're getting on, if it's worthwhile, what you might hope to get into after it etc. Would it not be a very well regarded degree with it being so new? Is it divided 50-50 between English and film? What are your favourite parts of the course and how're the lecturers

A reply or two would be of an enormous help

Fluorescence

I'd highly recommend going to a lecture or two from that course some day when you're free. You can find a list here. Choose one you like the sound of and pop along to see if you actually like the lecture and the subject.

Best of luck with your decision

jmclee

fluorescence wrote: »

I'd highly recommend going to a lecture or two from that course some day when you're free. You can find a list here. Choose one you like the sound of and pop along to see if you actually like the lecture and the subject.

Best of luck with your decision

Ooh wow didn't know you could even do that, do I just pop in without saying anything ? That's a great idea, cheers

Fluorescence

jmclee wrote: »

Ooh wow didn't know you could even do that, do I just pop in without saying anything ? That's a great idea, cheers

Yeah, just make sure it's a lecture, not a tutorial (which are usually marked SMG on the timetables). The lectures will be in someplace like "Th M" (Theatre M) or something. If it's in A, B, C or D you'll have to go to the Science building. Pretty much any other theatre an English or Film class will be is in the Arts building.

The classes are fairly big so no-one will notice or care that you're there. The lectures themselves are free, it's the tutorials, exams, assignments etc that you pay money for. So go ahead

WoollyRedHat

jmclee wrote: »

Ooh wow didn't know you could even do that, do I just pop in without saying anything ? That's a great idea, cheers

I'm doing Perspective on Film II and really enjoying it, lecturers are great... will be doing more film modules next year... english can be taxing sometimes, but if you love it, go for it.


Other modules to consider- Psychology, really interesting and lectures are quite good, Psychology of Perception is really interesting.

jmclee

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

jmclee wrote: »

Ooh wow didn't know you could even do that, do I just pop in without saying anything ? That's a great idea, cheers

I'm doing Perspective on Film II and really enjoying it, lecturers are great... will be doing more film modules next year... english can be taxing sometimes, but if you love it, go for it.


Other modules to consider- Psychology, really interesting and lectures are quite good, Psychology of Perception is really interesting.

See cos I had ruled out UCD early on, can't tell you why really, this is all new to me- you're able to do modules of certain courses, like psychology, while doing a completely different course? I dont understand, like why are you doing less film modules this year? Sorry i know so little, yeah i imagine english will be daunting at first but I am quite enthusiastic about doing it, altho it's mostly cos I might wanna go down the publishing and journalism road afterwards and I feel english would be a smart choice for that? It is my favourite subject in school though I do do well in it

Fluorescence

In UCD you take 12 classes a year (6 per semester). 10 of these classes (called Modules) must be from your degree subject. You have an option of having 2 modules that are not part of your degree each year - for these you can take any class offered in any course in UCD. Or you can take more classes within your own degree subject. It's up to you.

I used mine to do a bit of Psychology, Italian, Greek tragic drama etc. It was fun to do something totally different.

Have you looked at a Media Studies or Journalism type degree? You don't need either to go into journalism, but if that's where your interest is they might be worth looking at. You can go into journalism from any background though, so if you like English and Film, go for it!

The only thing I would say though is that English at university is quite different to school. English was one of my strongest subjects in secondary and I loved it (got an A2 in the leaving) but I didn't enjoy it in college at all.

jmclee

fluorescence wrote: »

In UCD you take 12 classes a year (6 per semester). 10 of these classes (called Modules) must be from your degree subject. You have an option of having 2 modules that are not part of your degree each year - for these you can take any class offered in any course in UCD. Or you can take more classes within your own degree subject. It's up to you.

I used mine to do a bit of Psychology, Italian, Greek tragic drama etc. It was fun to do something totally different.

Have you looked at a Media Studies or Journalism type degree? You don't need either to go into journalism, but if that's where your interest is they might be worth looking at. You can go into journalism from any background though, so if you like English and Film, go for it!

The only thing I would say though is that English at university is quite different to school. English was one of my strongest subjects in secondary and I loved it (got an A2 in the leaving) but I didn't enjoy it in college at all.

Oh right cool that's brilliant they do that, does trinity do anything similar do you know? I'd love to do a bitta psychology on the side!
Yeah I've done all my research, until recently I was almost sure I'd do a journalism degree in DIT because id get more experience and practice cos it's such a hands on course in comparison to a one year masters but then the more I thought about it I concluded I wasn't completely set on the idea if journalism so just wanted to keep my options open, plus I'm always hearing it's best to specialise in an area and then to go into it but yeah like you say there isnt one set way to go about it! Pros and cons to each

Ive heard that about english, it does worry me a little bit if I'm honest, I'm more sure about the film aspect, but in TCD for example there's no other combination I'd like to do other than film studies with English.. I would've done history with it but that combo doesn't exist
Did you stick with the English then?

Thanks so much for the help you're too good !

WoollyRedHat

fluorescence wrote: »

In UCD you take 12 classes a year (6 per semester). 10 of these classes (called Modules) must be from your degree subject. You have an option of having 2 modules that are not part of your degree each year - for these you can take any class offered in any course in UCD. Or you can take more classes within your own degree subject. It's up to you.

I used mine to do a bit of Psychology, Italian, Greek tragic drama etc. It was fun to do something totally different.

Have you looked at a Media Studies or Journalism type degree? You don't need either to go into journalism, but if that's where your interest is they might be worth looking at. You can go into journalism from any background though, so if you like English and Film, go for it!

The only thing I would say though is that English at university is quite different to school. English was one of my strongest subjects in secondary and I loved it (got an A2 in the leaving) but I didn't enjoy it in college at all.

English is making me weep at the moment I HATE LEARNING JOURNALS!:mad:

jmclee wrote: »

See cos I had ruled out UCD early on, can't tell you why really, this is all new to me- you're able to do modules of certain courses, like psychology, while doing a completely different course? I dont understand, like why are you doing less film modules this year? Sorry i know so little, yeah i imagine english will be daunting at first but I am quite enthusiastic about doing it, altho it's mostly cos I might wanna go down the publishing and journalism road afterwards and I feel english would be a smart choice for that? It is my favourite subject in school though I do do well in it

You should talk to someone in UCD to give you some advice, they'll be glad to help. I picked English for the same reasons, interested in doing Publishing/ Journalism... although I've gone off the Journalism bit in the past while.. but that's the good thing, within three years, you have room to maneouvre and still have your options wide open. You can do your three year degree with English ( and film or history too... through Arts Omnibus programme) and then after that, you can go on to do a masters in Journalism in DIT/ DCU if you so wish. But e-mail UCD to get a bit more info... you can e-mail the various subject departments with any enquiries, you can find it on ucd website.

jmclee

jmclee wrote: »

See cos I had ruled out UCD early on, can't tell you why really, this is all new to me- you're able to do modules of certain courses, like psychology, while doing a completely different course? I dont understand, like why are you doing less film modules this year? Sorry i know so little, yeah i imagine english will be daunting at first but I am quite enthusiastic about doing it, altho it's mostly cos I might wanna go down the publishing and journalism road afterwards and I feel english would be a smart choice for that? It is my favourite subject in school though I do do well in it

You should talk to someone in UCD to give you some advice, they'll be glad to help. I picked English for the same reasons, interested in doing Publishing/ Journalism... although I've gone off the Journalism bit in the past while.. but that's the good thing, within three years, you have room to maneouvre and still have your options wide open. You can do your three year degree with English ( and film or history too... through Arts Omnibus programme) and then after that, you can go on to do a masters in Journalism in DIT/ DCU if you so wish. But e-mail UCD to get a bit more info... you can e-mail the various subject departments with any enquiries, you can find it on ucd website.[/Quote]

Yeah I might email em alright, I just get scared they'll be like "it's called a prospectus, read it"

Wait I'm confused again, English with film is just a pure degree course right, not an arts degree? Unless I wanted it to be and took up other subjects with it? I think I've had this wrong all along I thought an arts degree wasnt one if it was just one subject you were taking like say I did just history on it's own? I thought an arts degree always consisted of a few subjects, some of which you'd drop later Gah I don't get it

Mardy Bum

jmclee wrote: »

Yeah I might email em alright, I just get scared they'll be like "it's called a prospectus, read it"

Wait I'm confused again, English with film is just a pure degree course right, not an arts degree? Unless I wanted it to be and took up other subjects with it? I think I've had this wrong all along I thought an arts degree wasnt one if it was just one subject you were taking like say I did just history on it's own? I thought an arts degree always consisted of a few subjects, some of which you'd drop later Gah I don't get it

English and film are arts subjects. When you graduate you will have a bachelor of arts degree. You will get this degree no matter if its part of the omnibus or a single major.

Fluorescence

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

English is making me weep at the moment I HATE LEARNING JOURNALS!:mad:

Tell me about it, they were complete arse. I hated learning journals so much :pac:. I remember once in first year, sitting in the Arts cafe on a rainy friday morning hurriedly scribbling down my entire semester's worth of learning journal entries before the tutorial at 9 when we had to hand them in. It was the worst piece of academia I have ever submitted in my life :pac:

jmclee wrote: »

Oh right cool that's brilliant they do that, does trinity do anything similar do you know? I'd love to do a bitta psychology on the side!

As far as I know, Trinity doesn't allow for this right now (all their classes are applied for in paper months in advance :rolleyes:. They really need an online system!) but they're thinking of bringing it in sometime in the future. Probably not in time for you though.

jmclee wrote: »

Yeah I've done all my research, until recently I was almost sure I'd do a journalism degree in DIT because id get more experience and practice cos it's such a hands on course in comparison to a one year masters but then the more I thought about it I concluded I wasn't completely set on the idea if journalism so just wanted to keep my options open, plus I'm always hearing it's best to specialise in an area and then to go into it but yeah like you say there isnt one set way to go about it! Pros and cons to each

Fair enough. Like I said, you can go into journalism from any background so no need to necessarily box yourself in this early if you're not entirely certain. A close friend of mine has always known she wanted to be a primary school teacher, but chose to do Arts first anyway because she really wanted to study German and Music in college too. She'll be doing her post-grad in St Pats in September

jmclee wrote: »

Ive heard that about english, it does worry me a little bit if I'm honest, I'm more sure about the film aspect, but in TCD for example there's no other combination I'd like to do other than film studies with English.. I would've done history with it but that combo doesn't exist
Did you stick with the English then?

That's a problem with TSM in Trinity alright - not all combinations are available .

No, I didn't. I did two years of English and Music, before dropping out and switching to Computer Science :P In the end, it wasn't for me. It's still a great course though, just very different to secondary school English (ie, don't go in expecting it to be the same because it's a very different feel to it).

jmclee wrote: »

Yeah I might email em alright, I just get scared they'll be like "it's called a prospectus, read it"

Wait I'm confused again, English with film is just a pure degree course right, not an arts degree? Unless I wanted it to be and took up other subjects with it? I think I've had this wrong all along I thought an arts degree wasnt one if it was just one subject you were taking like say I did just history on it's own? I thought an arts degree always consisted of a few subjects, some of which you'd drop later Gah I don't get it

Don't worry, they'll be happy to answer all your questions.

You can pick English and Film together as a set degree, or do them through omnibus (where you'll do 1 other subject too in first year). In Arts, you can have a Single Major degree, or a Double Major degree, or a Major-Minor degree, They're all Arts degrees though, doesn't matter how many subjects you take. It's because the subjects are part of the Arts and Social Sciences that they're called Bachelor of Arts (BA) in X. Other degrees outside the Arts/Humanities are called things like Bachelor of Science (Bsc) in X, Bachelor of Engineering in X, Bachelor of Law in X etc.

Hope that makes sense.

jmclee

fluorescence wrote: »

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

English is making me weep at the moment I HATE LEARNING JOURNALS!:mad:

Tell me about it, they were complete arse. I hated learning journals so much :pac:. I remember once in first year, sitting in the Arts cafe on a rainy friday morning hurriedly scribbling down my entire semester's worth of learning journal entries before the tutorial at 9 when we had to hand them in. It was the worst piece of academia I have ever submitted in my life :pac:

jmclee wrote: »

Oh right cool that's brilliant they do that, does trinity do anything similar do you know? I'd love to do a bitta psychology on the side!

As far as I know, Trinity doesn't allow for this right now (all their classes are applied for in paper months in advance :rolleyes:. They really need an online system!) but they're thinking of bringing it in sometime in the future. Probably not in time for you though.

jmclee wrote: »

Yeah I've done all my research, until recently I was almost sure I'd do a journalism degree in DIT because id get more experience and practice cos it's such a hands on course in comparison to a one year masters but then the more I thought about it I concluded I wasn't completely set on the idea if journalism so just wanted to keep my options open, plus I'm always hearing it's best to specialise in an area and then to go into it but yeah like you say there isnt one set way to go about it! Pros and cons to each

Fair enough. Like I said, you can go into journalism from any background so no need to necessarily box yourself in this early if you're not entirely certain. A close friend of mine has always known she wanted to be a primary school teacher, but chose to do Arts first anyway because she really wanted to study German and Music in college too. She'll be doing her post-grad in St Pats in September

jmclee wrote: »

Ive heard that about english, it does worry me a little bit if I'm honest, I'm more sure about the film aspect, but in TCD for example there's no other combination I'd like to do other than film studies with English.. I would've done history with it but that combo doesn't exist
Did you stick with the English then?

That's a problem with TSM in Trinity alright - not all combinations are available .

No, I didn't. I did two years of English and Music, before dropping out and switching to Computer Science :P In the end, it wasn't for me. It's still a great course though, just very different to secondary school English (ie, don't go in expecting it to be the same because it's a very different feel to it).

jmclee wrote: »

Yeah I might email em alright, I just get scared they'll be like "it's called a prospectus, read it"

Wait I'm confused again, English with film is just a pure degree course right, not an arts degree? Unless I wanted it to be and took up other subjects with it? I think I've had this wrong all along I thought an arts degree wasnt one if it was just one subject you were taking like say I did just history on it's own? I thought an arts degree always consisted of a few subjects, some of which you'd drop later Gah I don't get it

Don't worry, they'll be happy to answer all your questions.

You can pick English and Film together as a set degree, or do them through omnibus (where you'll do 1 other subject too in first year). In Arts, you can have a Single Major degree, or a Double Major degree, or a Major-Minor degree, They're all Arts degrees though, doesn't matter how many subjects you take. It's because the subjects are part of the Arts and Social Sciences that they're called Bachelor of Arts (BA) in X. Other degrees outside the Arts/Humanities are called things like Bachelor of Science (Bsc) in X, Bachelor of Engineering in X, Bachelor of Law in X etc.

Hope that makes sense.

But it's not that I'm picking English and film together, the course is "English with film" Is that the same
Would that not mean it's more specialised and focused than a regular arts degree? Cos it's one subject rather than 3 in the omnibus programme ? Cos it's around 450 points or so, ohh is it the omnibus programme that's in the 300s? Why are the arts subjects in trinity better regarded? They're for 4 years for a start I suppose

Listen I'm sorry these are the things I should be asking my career guidance teacher or emailing UCD about, shouldn't be annoying yous with my silly naive questions! I do understand what you're saying though, sound lads !! Thanks again

PS- apolpogies,I dont know how to erase some of the quotes but keep others I'm a newbie

Fluorescence

jmclee wrote: »

But it's not that I'm picking English and film together, the course is "English with film" Is that the same
Would that not mean it's more specialised and focused than a regular arts degree? Cos it's one subject rather than 3 in the omnibus programme ? Cos it's around 450 points or so, ohh is it the omnibus programme that's in the 300s? Why are the arts subjects in trinity better regarded? They're for 4 years for a start I suppose

While I'm not familiar with the "English With Film" course, I imagine you will share the bulk of your modules with the students taking these courses through Omnibus (which is around 300 points, yeah) - there are probably only 1 or 2 modules that are exclusive to English With Film (if even). Points are no indication of course difficulty though, only popularity.

I wouldn't necessarily say that Trinity Arts courses are better regarded. For one thing, they have no option to take a Joint-Major - ALL of the Two-Subject-Moderatorship degrees are Major-Minor only (ie, you drop one subject for your final year). The only reason the points are so much higher is because there are significantly less places available.

jmclee wrote: »

Listen I'm sorry these are the things I should be asking my career guidance teacher or emailing UCD about, shouldn't be annoying yous with my silly naive questions! I do understand what you're saying though, sound lads !! Thanks again

PS- apolpogies,I dont know how to erase some of the quotes but keep others I'm a newbie

No worries, that's what the forums are for.