Broad curriculum course

Running Bing · 25-04-2005 8:29am #1

Hey all thinking of taking the broad curriculum course "Working with film:History, context and detail" offered by the school of drama and just wondering has anyone ever done this before and what is it like/ what did you think of it. Cheers.

Agent Smith · 25-04-2005 9:05am

try www.tcdsu.org. to be honest..... i dont think anyone here's doing that course

doonothing · 25-04-2005 10:11pm

what is the broad curriclum?
the site was pretty vague..
is it just some trinity style non cao courses?

25-04-2005 10:30pm

doonothing wrote:

what is the broad curriclum?
the site was pretty vague..
is it just some trinity style non cao courses?

http://www.tcd.ie/Broad_Curriculum/

It is a program which allows you to study something different (but from a limited list) from what you're doing in your main degree.

Like for example, I could have done Broad Curriculum this year by substituting Management for Engineers for one of the subjects listed on the site above. Have a look at the site for more info - it varies per course/faculty/whatever.

Hitchhiker's Guide to... · 25-04-2005 11:41pm

a very rich irish american philantropist gave the college a whole lot of money in order to fund students to do one non-core subject in their second year (i think)

ApeXaviour · 25-04-2005 11:44pm

Third year maybe?

Kevin_rc_ie · 25-04-2005 11:46pm

2nd for "arts" third for "science" is a rule of thumb.

ApeXaviour · 25-04-2005 11:46pm

aaah.. feicim anois

Crash · 26-04-2005 12:05am

2nd year for me...

Hitchhiker's Guide to... · 26-04-2005 12:28am

thought there was way more than the 11 broad curriculum courses that there are. there doesn't seem to be any science or health sciences courses for arts people to do. would be cool to learn some introductory surgery! or post-mortems for beginners (it would make it much easier to follow Quincy on the telly!)

Pet · 26-04-2005 12:40am

I think UCD's approach is much better..look up the Horizons programme. It's not just confined to 2nd/3rd year, and there's a much better selection.

DrIndy · 26-04-2005 2:18pm

Roundtower2 wrote:

thought there was way more than the 11 broad curriculum courses that there are. there doesn't seem to be any science or health sciences courses for arts people to do. would be cool to learn some introductory surgery! or post-mortems for beginners (it would make it much easier to follow Quincy on the telly!)

There were two courses, health living and an introduction to primary care - but those were dropped.

BTW - for the record, only professionals and students in health sciences are permitted by law to be in the presence of cadavers..... so no forensics for beginners!

They are good ideas though - many people have a voyeuristic interest in medicine - but that is up to the next education officer liasing with Health Sciences to enhance this course range.....

26-04-2005 5:53pm

DrIndy wrote:

but that is up to the next education officer liasing with Health Sciences to enhance this course range.....

Curse that handsome devil.

DrIndy · 26-04-2005 6:16pm

Myth wrote:

Curse that handsome devil.

yes, very handsome.....

ISAW · 28-04-2005 8:15am

Roundtower2 wrote:

thought there was way more than the 11 broad curriculum courses that there are. there doesn't seem to be any science or health sciences courses for arts people to do. would be cool to learn some introductory surgery! or post-mortems for beginners (it would make it much easier to follow Quincy on the telly!)

I think that it would be preferable for Arts AND Science students to do philosophy of science. Maybe a research project into that might be worth looking into. What do you think?

Andrew 83 · 28-04-2005 9:16am

Two years ago I did 'Film, History, and Cultural Memory' which sounds like it's the precursor of the course you're talking about.

I enjoyed it a lot. Generally there were two lectures a week then a film screening on the Monday night. films ranged from Battleship Potemkin to JFK to Michael Collins to Apocalypse Now to Spirit of the Beehive to one filming firefighters on September 11th I've forgotten the name of to various others. One of the lectures would be on the film techniques used in the film, the other lecture would be on the historical background.

The course was marked on two essays - the first at the end of Michaelmas Term worth 40% and a second at the end of Hillary term worth 60%. The course was then over at the Easter holidays.

evilbert · 28-04-2005 9:30am

i did a Philosophy course: the foundation of human values there last year...it was great! went to about 4 lectures & came out with a 2:1

Hitchhiker's Guide to... · 28-04-2005 11:04am

ISAW wrote:

I think that it would be preferable for Arts AND Science students to do philosophy of science. Maybe a research project into that might be worth looking into. What do you think?

philosophy of science would be cool - we end up doing it for the phd anyway - even in bess/arts...

...on a geeky note, think one of the most famous philosophers of science in the world lives in Bray (or lived in Bray). Can't remember who it is, and its now wrecking my head - does anyone know? don't think it's Kuhn, Lakatos, or Popper...

Running Bing · 28-04-2005 12:23pm

Yes that sounds almost identical to the course im looking at. Sounds great. think ill go for it. cheers Andrew 83.

John · 30-04-2005 11:11pm

I did Understanding Literature, who'd have thunk there'd be so much reading?

Pet · 12-05-2007 4:06pm

John wrote:

I did Understanding Literature, who'd have thunk there'd be so much reading?

Can you expand on your experiences with that a little? I'm gonna apply for that, but before I do, I'd like to hear people's thoughts on it. I was also considering Critical Thinking or Art & Society, has anyone (poster or lurker) done either of these?

shay_562 · 12-05-2007 5:00pm

Pet wrote:

I think UCD's approach is much better..look up the Horizons programme. It's not just confined to 2nd/3rd year, and there's a much better selection.

Yeah, but UCDD people by and large tend to hate it. I like the fact that the BC stuff is optional - if I were doing a degree in Veterinary studies but had to take some artsy waffle like Spanish or Celtic Studies in order to pass, I'd be pretty pissed off.

Pet wrote:

I was also considering Critical Thinking

It's retarded, but I liked it. Two 2000-word essays in MT and HT worth 40% each and 20% on attendence, so it's a doddle to pass. It's very basic psychology, but some of it is quite interesting - the first half of the year was spent on the basics, memory and cognition and whatnot, and the second half focused a lot on group dynamics and heuristics (a fancy way of saying mental shortcuts) that interfere with our thinking and reasoning abilities. I doubt you'll learn anything earth-shattering, but it's relatively simple and there's the occasional really interesting bit that makes it bearable.

John · 13-05-2007 12:51pm

Pet wrote:

Can you expand on your experiences with that a little?

I really enjoyed it. Marc did it too. Good mix of different literature styles (i.e. theatre, prose, poetry covering the early novel, modernism, gothic horror, romanticism, etc.) and the lecturers were quite good. Granted I didn't like everything we did (curse you Jane Austin!) but you have complete freedom in what two works you do your essay in so you don't even have to read the stuff you don't like. The only real drawback is if you don't do much reading, you need to read 1-2 books a week (although sometimes it's just a poem to read or a short story). I had no problem with it and it forced me to read books that I normally wouldn't. This was a great thing because I discovered how great James Joyce was through it.

I was also considering Critical Thinking or Art & Society, has anyone (poster or lurker) done either of these?

A friend of mine did CT and thought it was terrible. She was in my class so she was already doing some psychology and felt CT was just a load of rubbish, all the interesting bits were covered in neuroscience and the rest was meh.

14-05-2007 1:02pm

I did it this past year (my second year) and I found it really fascinating. I wish I were studying it full time.

edit; hey, this thread's two years old!

Sawa · 14-05-2007 1:20pm

<Jonny> wrote:

I did it this past year (my second year) and I found it really fascinating. I wish I were studying it full time.

edit; hey, this thread's two years old!

Which course did you do that was fascinating?

I applied on my subject choice form within my department but I just chose to do Broad curriculum for half the year (there were no choices just the general Broad curriculum option) so do I now, apply online for the particular BC course I wish to do or do I apply through my department. I wish to do Film Studies but I'd say this is popular, how many places would be on this course?
Thanks!

14-05-2007 1:52pm

It was BC Film.

The course is popular yeah. I'd say there's room for 80 - 100 students The lectures are held in the bigger theatres of the arts block.

Although, maybe it's worth mentioning that by the end of the year, only about 10 people were still diligently showing up to lectures. I can only imagine this is because the no-shows only signed up for the course thinking it is just an "easy" option, and not because they were especially interested in film. I mean, everybody likes films.

Possibly also because they had already decided which essay (on a particular film) they were going to write, and weren't interested in attending the other lectures - which is of course a stupid attitude to take.

That's the only downside, really: You have to put up with students who only chose the course to see some films and do something different, and not because they are deeply (or even vaguely) interested in the subject. Granted, some of those people probably learnt a lot from the course and were glad they chose it in the end, but I was annoyed when people didn't engage with the films properly - laughing at the naivity of old films instead of trying to watch them in the right context (the context which has just been discussed for an hour).

But yeah I highly recommend it. The lecturer is humorous and easy going, and explains things very well. It certainly enables you to appreciate a whole new range of films that you might have otherwise never even seen.

Broad curriculum course

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