History choices

Mr.Nice Guy

I got a letter today from the history department asking me what courses I would like to study for the First Semester.

I'm torn between choosing "Political Violence in Ireland 1798-1923" by Dr Gillian O'Brien or "Germany, 1918-1973:from Revolution to Ostpolitik" by Dr Christophe Muller.

I'm just wondering if anybody on here who does history has any advice before I make my choice. Perhaps someone here does one of these courses and could tell me about it? I'd appreciate it.

Cheers.

Vainglory

I did Hugh Gough's course on France last year in the first semester..it was really interesting and he's a great lecturer but gave no hints and apparently he marks pretty hard...

Then in the second semester I did Jane Toomey's course on Britain and EU integration..it was alright and she told us what was coming up on the exam so can't really complain there..

Elva Johnston always tells you the exam questions so might be worth having a look at her course even if it sounds crap.

You also have to do a pre-1700 course at some stage in either second or third year so it's probably a good idea to get that boring old stuff out of the way in second year so you don't have to answer a whole paper on it in the third year final exams...I made the mistake of not doing one last year and I now feel stoopid.

Blut

Yeah I got the letter yesterday too. I didnt recoqnise any of the lecturers so have no idea if theyre good/bad so just went for the US History 1800-1877 course as I think itll interest me, its done by Maurice something. Id say the US Foreign Policy course will be massive, I can see loads of people going for it.

Id also appreciate any advice from people a year or two ahead about any courses that HAVE to be avoided or anything

edit: ^^ the French course by Hugh is in our 2nd term options now, France 1930-1995? Im torn between it and a course on US History 1877-1952 but no need to choose untill Decemberish I think.

Theres also no mention of having to do a pre 1700 course anywhere, are you sure our core courses dont count for that?

Vainglory

Nah, Core Courses didn't count for the pre-1700 course. It's definitely required for my year but maybe if you give the History Dept. a ring they'd tell you if it's the same for you folk..definitely worth checking out, you don't want to be stuck with it for finals.

And yeah, loads of people will do the US Foreign Policy one...but by all accounts it wasn't actually that great. Like I said, Gough's course was great, he's an amazing lecturer but don't expect much help for the exams. That said, if you do bother to go to the lectures and tutorials and do the two essays he gives (worth 25% of the final mark for that class) then you should be fine anyway.

arbeitsscheuer

Well, I haven't looked at the choices for this yr's 2nd yrs, but from what MNG said, I think they've changed the choices this year (again). I certainly don't remember Political Violence in Ireland being on the list last year.
But then again my memory is notoriously non-existant.

Anyway, I chose 20th Century Britain for 1st Semester, and Britain and European Integration 1945-1990 2nd Semester.

C20th Britain was f**king deadly, I loved the course, the lecturer was brilliant and also dead sound (a rarity in this college) and I enjoyed doing the work.
Britain and EU was not so good, but it overlapped a little with the first choice, so I found the exams/essays grand, but the lecturer was boring as f**k (altho the notes she gave out turned out to be great come the exams).

P.S. Out of my mates, the courses which they found the best were those taught by Elva Johnston and Hugh Gough. I can't remember what courses they were, but I'm just sayin it's worth a look.

Vainglory

From http://www.ucd.ie/history/ ...

All third year courses have 24 lectures, 4 tutorials and 2 tutorial essays.

In their combined second and third years, third year students are required to take at least one asterisked 'pre 1700' course.

arbeitsscheuer

Whoa whoa whoa...

Are you saying that, as someone who has completed 2nd yr History and the 2 core courses (which were the asterisked pre-1700 courses) I don't have to do the core or asterisked courses in 3rd year? I can choose any 4 courses I want?!

Hot damn.

Vainglory

Arrrgh, no.

Everyone in second year and third year has to do the core courses. Then, out of the 4 electives you pick in second and third year combined, at least one of them has to be a course which covers an area pre-1700.

Eh, as far as I know. But I'm pretty confident that's right.

beanyb

Yeah I put down the US foreign policy one, wasnt really drawn to any of the rest.

There is no course with Elva Johnston as far as I could see, but hopefully she'll be the course that's undecided in the 2nd semester. She was really good for the course we did last year.

I might go for Michael Staunton's course in the 2nd semester if we have to do a pre 1700 one, since he was a legend when we had him last year too! Although the Japan, Korea and China course could be cool too. If it's dated 1549-1959 do you think it could count as a pre 1700 course?

Blut, Maurice Bric that's doing the course you chose is the guy who did the American Revolution with us, just thought I'd let you know!

Mr.Nice Guy

When do they send out the form for us to fill in for our choices for the second semester? Christmas or something?

beanyb

Yeah I'd say it's Christmas. I wished they'd written that in the letter. I was pretty sure that they hadnt meant to send it aswell, but still had a niggling doubt that they'd just forgotten to put it in my envelope! And it says incomplete forms wouldnt be accepted!

Mr.Nice Guy

beanyb wrote:

Yeah I'd say it's Christmas. I wished they'd written that in the letter. I was pretty sure that they hadnt meant to send it aswell, but still had a niggling doubt that they'd just forgotten to put it in my envelope! And it says incomplete forms wouldnt be accepted!

Yeah I know what you mean! I was scared they had forgotten it as well.

I think I might go for the 'Political Violence' option but since I'm planning on doing politics I don't know if it would be a good idea or not. Then again, it could prove useful!

Blut

Oh dear I cant seem to recall going to many American Revolution lectures, was he an awful bore?

I really liked Edward James, Hugh Gough and Michael Staunton (but hated his course so skipped the lectures). It doesnt bode well if I didnt recall Maurice as being memorable enough to remember / go to his lectures

beanyb

Blut wrote:

Oh dear I cant seem to recall going to many American Revolution lectures, was he an awful bore?

I really liked Edward James, Hugh Gough and Michael Staunton (but hated his course so skipped the lectures). It doesnt bode well if I didnt recall Maurice as being memorable enough to remember / go to his lectures

Yeah he was kinda boring, really monotonous voice, and didnt use any overheads or anything like that. So it was quite hard to pay attention.

#15

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

I got a letter today from the history department asking me what courses I would like to study for the First Semester.

Is this for second or third year? Im going into second year history and i didn't get a letter! :mad:

beanyb

Yeah it is for 2nd year. I'm sure you'll get it in the next couple of days, they do have lots of people to send it to!

m1ke

Most of the advice seems good. The only second year course i'd definitely avoid is: The United States, 1877-1952. The rest is really up to your own personal interest.

To the original poster: whatever you think you'd enjoy more - Irish or German history should be your choice there. Oh yeah and if you're doing US foreign policy apply early because it's always oversubscribed. Also, as other people have said get your pre-1700 course out of the way.

#15

beanyb wrote:

Yeah it is for 2nd year. I'm sure you'll get it in the next couple of days, they do have lots of people to send it to!

But i'm mode1, i'm more important!
Just joking!

arbeitsscheuer

Vainglory wrote:

Arrrgh, no.

Everyone in second year and third year has to do the core courses. Then, out of the 4 electives you pick in second and third year combined, at least one of them has to be a course which covers an area pre-1700.

Eh, as far as I know. But I'm pretty confident that's right.

Ah cr*p. I didn't know this last year, and picked two post-1900 courses.

So, in a nutshell, one of the two electives I pick this year has to be pre-1700?

Great. Simply educating us isn't enough; the have to f**k around with our heads as well.

I f**king H A T E this college.

Vainglory

I'm in the same boat...have to do a pre 1700 course in final year...

They really should make this **** clearer to us at the beginning of second year. Maybe then I wouldn't have ended up just picking the courses that weren't on at 9am and actually put thought into it instead...

But then again, maybe not.

Blut

I think they might have learnt their lesson about the 9am classes being avoided Vainglory - every single choice this year had one 9am start, one 3pm/4pm start. I know damn well I would have avoided it if I could as Im pretty sure ill miss 80% of the morning classes, oh well

Just curious, but how small are the lectures(classes?) for the peripheral subjects in 2nd year? Is it back to secondary school level (30ish)? Like is it a situation when you cant walk in 15 minutes late no problem and or not show up regularly without getting abuse from the lecturer? I imagine the core subjects have full lecture halls like first year anyway so I guess thats something..

Vainglory

Blut wrote:

I think they might have learnt their lesson about the 9am classes being avoided Vainglory - every single choice this year had one 9am start, one 3pm/4pm start. I know damn well I would have avoided it if I could as Im pretty sure ill miss 80% of the morning classes, oh well

Just curious, but how small are the lectures(classes?) for the peripheral subjects in 2nd year? Is it back to secondary school level (30ish)? Like is it a situation when you cant walk in 15 minutes late no problem and or not show up regularly without getting abuse from the lecturer? I imagine the core subjects have full lecture halls like first year anyway so I guess thats something..

I did the 3pm/4pm start elective in the second semester...and STILL didn't go to most of them :P

Your chosen classes next year will have about 30-35 people in them and they're upstairs in the arts block in the bigger tutorial rooms. I can't speak for all of them but in my classes people regularly came in late anyway, and the lecturers (Hugh Gough and Jane Toomey) didn't say anything to them.

One cool thing about the electives is that your tutorial on it (every two weeks usually) is with the lecturer themselves..15 people crammed into Hugh Gough's office in the Arts block was always good craic

arbeitsscheuer

Vainglory wrote:

I did the 3pm/4pm start elective in the second semester...and STILL didn't go to most of them :P

Your chosen classes next year will have about 30-35 people in them and they're upstairs in the arts block in the bigger tutorial rooms. I can't speak for all of them but in my classes people regularly came in late anyway, and the lecturers (Hugh Gough and Jane Toomey) didn't say anything to them.

Yeah, I did Toomey's course as well. In fact, I was one of the ones regularly showing up late. I never went to the tutorials, I went to the first one and she just repeated all the cr*p we did in the lectures.

Btw, didn't it seem really odd to you that, even though she spoke sooooo slooooowly and repeated herself constantly, not to mention asking questions which she then proceeded to answer herself, our lectures never lasted longer than 35-40 minutes? We were always finished ages before other classes.

Weird.

But hey, I passed, so whatever she was doing, it obviously worked.

*Shrugs*

Vainglory

Yeah, they were always finished really early... Suited me though, as a waster extraordinaire..

I pretty much learned the three essays she said were going to come up and banked on them...was a bit screwed because only Heath came up when I was expecting a Heath/Wilson combined question but apart from that not a bother...

We still have that pre 1700 course hanging over our heads for final year though :mad:

arbeitsscheuer

Vainglory wrote:

We still have that pre 1700 course hanging over our heads for final year though :mad:

...Provided that I pass my repeat Politics exams mate!
I don't see too much chance of that.

Hell, if I repeat second year then I'll have the chance to do a pre-1700 course instead of the Toomey one (altho, as you say, it was p*ss easy to learn off 3 essays and just rattle them off during the exam) thus leaving me free to do whatever the hell I want in my degree year.

Hmmm.

*Scratches goatee-beard-thingy thoughtfully*

Vainglory

If you fail Politics and have to repeat the year I don't think you have to repeat the other subject as well...just the one you failed in summer and autumn.

Unless you really wanted to, I suppose.

Chinafoot

Actually, been meaning to ask......

My two electives last year were pre 1700 (Legacy of the Roman World and Age of the Vikings)...I much prefer the older history courses so even though I've done two already can I still do another pre-1700 next year......assuming I pass my repeats.

I have been told that I can't by another student but she didn't seem too sure.

Anyone know?

m1ke

You can do as many pre-1700 courses as you want. The reason it is compulsory to do at least one pre-1700 is that most people wouldn't if you gave them a choice and certain courses would disappear from lack of popularity.

arbeitsscheuer

Vainglory wrote:

If you fail Politics and have to repeat the year I don't think you have to repeat the other subject as well...just the one you failed in summer and autumn.

Unless you really wanted to, I suppose.

Really???

Sh*t, I thought I had to do em both!
I should really do a bit of groundwork before I assume things about college, shouldn't I? My laziness is almost more trouble than it's worth.

Almost. :cool:

So, to recap: My pass for 2nd year History is permanent? I only need to pass Politics, either now or next summer to get into 3rd yr? Hmmm.

I already knew that I didn't technically have to repeat the year completely - registering fees etc - if I decided not to benefit from tutorials, lectures, the library. Then I'd only be paying to sit the exam, which would a HELLUVA lot less than payin to repeat the whole year.

But I'd assumed I'd be payin to repeat History as well if I fail Politics now.

hmmm... I am dumb.

moynihan

pre 1700 courses arent a requirement for us any more because both of our required courses last year were pre1700. That requirement went out last year.

Vainglory

Yep, got confirmation about this from the history department today....we are released from the torture of pre-1700.

moynihan

Am i the only one who did a pre 1700 course and actually enjoyed it? I'm starting to think so.

Blush_01

You're probably better off choosing courses that have decent lecturers. It'll matter more that you understand the subject matter than whether you love it or not... in theory anyway.

moynihan

Yea I did a Crusades course with Eddie Coleman last year and he was great. Thats the reason I'm mad to to his Charlamagne course this year.