Pre-registering for electives

fionav3

Hi all. I'm a first year psychology student and have to preregister for next term next week. Problem is, we have to pick two subjects from a list of electives and register for them and I just don't have 1) time to attend the lectures and 2) they clash with my timetable anyway. Some of the electives I can safely rule out as never in a million years and I have already picked my first subject as I'm studying it this semester and actually like it. Which leaves me with two choices for my final elective;

1. Language and Culture CU4112
2. Modern European Political Thought PO4022

Has anyone done or is doing these subjects? Can you please tell me what they are about, if they're interesting and what's the lecturer like (ie fair, interesting, organised)? Also, what's the workload like? I'm doing introduction to sociology as one of my electives this term and while it's interesting, the workload is insane!

Any help or advice would be much appreciated! Thank you!

ynwa_17

I did Modern European Political Thought. Pretty easy course, didn't go to many lectures, its just a case of going to tutorials and making sure you keep on top of the workload - Such as essays etc. Its an interesting module, i'd definitely recommend it.

fionav3

Thanks, Ynwa. How many essays did you have to do if you don't mind my asking? And roughly what was the required word count.

Anyone else able to tell me about language and culture? Really would like a rough idea before I register for these courses! Thanks.

Jamie Starr

I did Language and Culture CU4112 last semester. It deals with linguistic relations between language and thought, centring on a concept called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It also touches on aspects of communication, such as symbols and body language. The classes are, from my experience, culturally diverse, so chances are you'll be doing a group project with people from foreign countries, and discussing language and communication in relation to these cultures.

I found it pretty enjoyable, the group project allows for a bit of creativity and tutorials good. The lectures are a bit stuffy though, and there is a good deal of reading. After CU4121, my module in the 1st semester of last year, it was a huge improvement- even though tutorials were at 9am!

I'd recommend it, I thought it was interesting and not too difficult. If you'd like to know more, contact Weronika Gaisor, she's a tutor for the module and a post-grad, so she's pretty approachable.

/nerd

fionav3

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

I did Language and Culture CU4112 last semester. It deals with linguistic relations between language and thought, centring on a concept called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It also touches on aspects of communication, such as symbols and body language. The classes are, from my experience, culturally diverse, so chances are you'll be doing a group project with people from foreign countries, and discussing language and communication in relation to these cultures.

I found it pretty enjoyable, the group project allows for a bit of creativity and tutorials good. The lectures are a bit stuffy though, and there is a good deal of reading. After CU4121, my module in the 1st semester of last year, it was a huge improvement- even though tutorials were at 9am!

I'd recommend it, I thought it was interesting and not too difficult. If you'd like to know more, contact Weronika Gaisor, she's a tutor for the module and a post-grad, so she's pretty approachable.

/nerd

Thank you! That was hugely helpful, especially since they rmoved Modern European Political Thought from our options! :rolleyes: Appreciate that, thank you.

CiaranMT

fionav3 wrote: »

I'm doing introduction to sociology as one of my electives this term and while it's interesting, the workload is insane!

Really? An essay or two? That's not a heavy workload compared to other courses and subjects. I'm a 3rd Year Psych & Soc and the course has been very light in terms of work, much less than I thought it'd be.

fionav3

CiaranMT wrote: »

Really? An essay or two? That's not a heavy workload compared to other courses and subjects. I'm a 3rd Year Psych & Soc and the course has been very light in terms of work, much less than I thought it'd be.

It's not the essay (which is grand), it's the amount of reading! The readings by themselves would be fine except that she sets a massive reading with homework for the tutorials every week and it often ends up taking four hours to do! And that's not including the readings we're being set from the book every week. A few people have been complaining a little about it and one tutor actually admitted that she was setting very long readings. I'm doing the Bsc in psychology and we had to pick two electives and I picked the two sociology electives which have far more of a workload than the psychology modules and aren't even a third as interesting! I seem to spend all of my time just trying to keep up with the sociology workload leaving very little time left over for psychology and it's starting to irk me a bit. (and I'm actually a very hard worker who's not leaving everything to the last minute either). So I'm just being careful that the same thing doesn't happen next semester.