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European Studies in TCD?

djcervi

Could anybody tell me what European Studies is like in TCD as I have a few queries.

I'm currently in my leaving cert year. I know that language learning is a big part of it which i'm mostly interested in. I'm doing French and Spanish both at HL and am aiming for A1 in both subjects. How are French and Spanish taught in European Studies and are the faculties good for French and Spanish?
Plus I'd like to know what the other modules are? I got a C in JC HL History (My teacher didn't cover everything) and I heard that History is part of the course. Would I have difficulty with this? Plus Politics I wouldn't exactly consider myself a great politics enthusiast Would this be problematic?

Sorry if questions are kinda stupid but I just want to know what I would be getting myself into? Plus my Guidance Councillor has not been much help in explaining the course to me.

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Ling

Hi,

Im in final year European Studies, so I can safely say that it's a really great course:) It's multi-disciplinary, so you get a chance to study a whole range of subjects but the main focus is definitely on languages. As you probably know everyone studies two languages to the same level for the first 2 years, then you choose which one you would like to major in and you spend a year in that country (3rd yr) studying. In 4th year you have a major language and a minor language (of which you only study translation).

There are plenty of threads about the French Department...its reputation tends to precede it! I wouldn't pay a whole lot of attention to that though as I've found the dept to be fairly ok. As a European Studies student in Junior Freshman French you will attend 2 lectures a week- one on grammar and the other on contemporary France. On top of that there are 3 tutorials, 2 are dedicated to reading and writing and the other to oral work. Having studied french (it's now my minor language), I would say it's not as bad as it's often made out to be, and that the staff, for the most part, are not so bad at all. I can't speak for Spanish but I've never really heard any complaints. You'd have similar type classes in grammar, writing skills, area studies etc. One thing I'd say about languages is that you should be prepared to put a lot of time into them. You will get regular homework that can often be quite time consuming but once you're enthusiastic and have a love of languages, you'll really enjoy it!

On top of that you'll be studying a history course. These tend to be very interesting. I wouldn't worry too much about having gotten a C in your JC. It's a very different approach to how it is taught in schools. Typically you would have 2 lectures a week plus a tutorial (where you discuss the lecture topics in more detail). Most of what you will learn will be from your own reading outside of class time and the discussions in the tutorials. After first year you can choose not to study history, though I have to say it crops up everywhere and is quite hard to avoid in this course!

Half of the year you will have an Introduction to Social Sciences: sociology, politics and economics.(3-4weeks of each) This will give you a flavour of the subjects and help you decide if you would like to study one of them in more detail in 2nd year.
The other half of the year you will study History of Ideas, which is an introduction to different schools of thought, philosophers, ideas etc. Again it's quite history based, but very interesting and can really be approached from any angle: political, philosophical etc.

I hope I haven't bogged you down with all this info...feel free to ask any questions about the course.

Best of luck!

stary eyed

hey, I'm a jf tsm French and Spanish student so quite a few of my classes are mixed in with European studies. I would back up what Ling said about the French dept, they do have quite the reputation, but it all is a little over the top. The only thing i would say is if you are taking Spanish/another language in European Studies you won't attend the full set of lectures that TSM students take and this could make it a little harder for you to pick up vocab..? As far as I know ES don't take literature classes at all, so if you are interested in this in any way, it is something to bear in mind.
Other than that most people I know in ES are having a great laugh and seem to make friends really well together! Best of luck!

Ravelleman

I'm a second year European Studies student doing French and Spanish. Ling and Stary Eyed have more or less summed it up but a few things have actually changed since Ling was in first year.

I for one, think the French department is disappointing.

For French in first year, you will only have one lecture - grammar. If you're going for an A1 in the leaving cert you will no doubt find this lecture series rather tedious, certainly for the first half of the year anyway. There is no real Contemporary France course for European Studies students. You will also have three tutorials. One is for oral/aural French, where you are expected to watch videos and listen to tapes on a number of different themes and then discuss them in class. The tapes are hopelessly outdated and badly organised. Many don't even have the pieces you're meant to listen to on them. The other tutorials are a mix of textual analysis, essay writing and Introduction to Contemporary France all rolled into one cumbersome package. Basically you read texts on French society and analyse the grammar within them. I'm not going to lie - it's not very engaging. This year I only have three hours of French, with one less tutorial. I think this is inadequate.

The Spanish department on the other hand have been excellent. I started as a beginner last year and found the experience of learning a new language with them to be very pleasant. With an A1 or anything near that in leaving cert Spanish you should have no problems during first year. Because I was a beginner last year I had a slightly different timetable to the non beginners with two hours more than them. You should have more or less one oral class, one Introduction to Modern Spain lecture, two textual analysis tutorials and two grammar tutorials. From my experience, I found this set up much better than that of the French department.

Stary Eyed is right, you won't be doing any literature in French or Spanish as a European Studies student. To be honest, this doesn't really bother me that much. You still get to work on a lot of the stuff that makes learning a language enjoyable without this.

I found the history section of the course to be one of the easier and more interesting modules in European Studies. You'll have two lectures and one tutorial per week. In the tuturials you read and analyse documents relating to the course. You'll also have to research and write an essay during the year. It sounds quite intimidating but you do get a lot of direction from the department. In second year, everyone takes a compulsory history course and you also have the choice to take a second one instead of a social science if you want. I went for the second history course myself. It's great.

Social Science has also changed. The course lasts the whole year and is divided into three parts - sociology, politics and economics. In sociology you do a module called European Societies or some such. It's a nice introduction into sociology as a subject and to Europe in general. In politics the module focussed totally on the European Union and the way it works. In economics you are just introduced to some of the very basic concepts involved. You'll have to write an essay for each of the three modules during the year. You can chose to do one of a number of different social science modules in second year if you want - International Relations, European Sociology, Comparative Politics and Intermediate Economics. I decided no to. I went with history instead. But that's just my personal taste.

I don't know if I've made the course sound particularly attractive but I really do enjoy it. The course is quite small so you get to know people really well too. We have a pretty tight group. You do mix with the TSM language students in some classes as well, which is another plus.

Don't worry about asking questions. I had similar problems finding out about the course back in the day. Ask anything you want here now or send me a PM later on in the year if you're wondering about anything.

djcervi

Hi thanks for the replies as regards the minor language does this actually mean that your competence in it would be less in terms of the major language you are studying?

Plus in your third year Where are the options for France and Spain and what was it like going away for the year?. Do you have to pass your year of study in the foreign university in order to get into the final year of the course?

Ling

As regards the minor language, I suppose it's fair to say that by the end of your fourth year you will be more competent in the major one, if not for any reason other than the fact that you lived in that country for a year. In SS minor French for example we just translate from French to English and answer comprehension questions and write resumés of texts all in English. I for one am happy to still be doing some French but also glad that I can focus more on my major language and really put time into it.

The options of where to go may change by the time you get to that stage but last year they were as follows:
France: Paris, Strasbourg, Grenobles, Bourdeaux
Spain: Seville, Salamanca (I'm very sure there are more places in Spain now seeing as it can be studied from beginner's level, which wasn't the case for my class)

Ravelleman

Ling wrote: »

Spain: Seville, Salamanca (I'm very sure there are more places in Spain now seeing as it can be studied from beginner's level, which wasn't the case for my class)

This remains something of a grey area. About half of my year are studying Spanish so it looks almost certain that they will have to offer another choice of university in Spain. I've heard talk of Grenada or León (both of which are already options for TSM students I believe) being added to the list but this hasn't been confirmed yet. We'll see.

damienricefan

and can i butt in and ask are history modules completely compulsory for the whole 4 years?

Ling

damienricefan wrote: »

and can i butt in and ask are history modules completely compulsory for the whole 4 years?

In short, yes. The compulsory, core courses in European Studies do not always have to be approached from a historical point of view. In first year, the core course is History of Ideas, which as the name suggests does involve quite a bit of history, as well as philosophy, politics, psychology etc. In second year the Culture and Politics course is quite history based, but you can focus on cultural history, or political history should you so wish. In fourth year you have a lot more free reign when it comes to the core course Modernism and Mass Society and can interpret the texts however you like: from a sociological, political, philosophical, cultural etc point of view.

If you don't like history or aren't all that interested in studying it, you may not enjoy the course. One of the main objectives is to teach students about Europe past and present, and they do put a lot of emphasis on major past events which shaped European countries/ ideas. Even in the language classes you will study some aspects of the history of the country in question.

damienricefan

Ling wrote: »

In short, yes. The compulsory, core courses in European Studies do not always have to be approached from a historical point of view. In first year, the core course is History of Ideas, which as the name suggests does involve quite a bit of history, as well as philosophy, politics, psychology etc. In second year the Culture and Politics course is quite history based, but you can focus on cultural history, or political history should you so wish. In fourth year you have a lot more free reign when it comes to the core course Modernism and Mass Society and can interpret the texts however you like: from a sociological, political, philosophical, cultural etc point of view.

If you don't like history or aren't all that interested in studying it, you may not enjoy the course. One of the main objectives is to teach students about Europe past and present, and they do put a lot of emphasis on major past events which shaped European countries/ ideas. Even in the language classes you will study some aspects of the history of the country in question.

ooh thanks a bunch , you informative person, that's put the nail on the coffin for me doing European Studies!!! History = Writing & Wasting Time

IMO lol

djcervi

Thanks very much for your comments. I definitely want to do European Studies and am putting it as no 1 on my CAO form. I was just wondering how many points did ye get in the LC? My guidance counsellor told me to aim for 600 points which is a hard task and the course now is 495 and am hoping to aim for 500/510 but i'm afraid it might rise up again. I got 520 in my summer exams which I don't know whether it can be comparable to a LC grade. Any opinions on what I should aim for?

Ling

All I can say is do your best. It's hard to predict what will happen with the points for the course. However, the general pattern over the past 3-4 years is that they have been dropping. Now I'm no expert, but I can't see them dropping lower than 495 but who knows?! Just aim as high as you can, work ask hard as you can to the best of your ability and if you're meant to be a Eurostud next year, you will!

I wish you the best of luck!

Ravelleman

When I was doing the leaving cert (two years ago) the points requirement of the previous year was 540*. This went down to 540 when I got my offers.

The reason there was such a dramatic fall in the points requirement this year is because they increased the course size from roughly 35 students to 60 or so due to a reasonably high number of drop outs from the course, which were for various reasons.

As Ling said, just work as hard as you can and you should be rewarded. A lot of people will find that they can improve their points total over the course of 6th year. 600 points, I feel would be excessive though. I never aimed for that and got in comfortably.

Beware though, the course is, at times, quite demanding and you really should be certain that you want to study two languages as well as the other disciplines. It's definitely not a course for everyone but, that being said, many find it very rewarding.