Out of the four classes I took this semester, I would recommend two, strongly discourage one, and am indifferent to the other.
UNIB 20016: Same-Sex Desire: From God to Genes
I highly recommend this class to anyone! It is a fairly easy class as far as what it asks of you for graded work (although I did not really enjoy writing 3 essays, 1,000 words each for the final. I thought one would have sufficed.) The class is really fascinating and is structured in a way I have never seen before. It is called a University Breadth subject and what this means is that one topic is taught from across multiple disciplines. In this case, we learned about homosexuality from Health, Law, Genetics, Religion and History Departments. Every week we had a different lecturer come in from their respective departments, each an expert in their fields. It was really fascinating and very engaging. The readings are all collected from recent news and are usually short and interesting read.
Grades consisted of:
- 20% online quiz
- 20% 1,000 word mid-semester assessment
- 60% 3 different 1,000 word assessments
UNIB10002 Logic: Language and Information
Stay far far FAR away from this class unless you are a Philosophy/Maths major (and even then I would not really recommend it) or sickly masochistic. I took this class for the sole reason that I needed one final math requirement and my friend had taken it at my home university, enjoyed it and remarked upon how easy the class was. What I learned in the first three weeks of the class is what my friend learned in one semester of logic at home. This did not bode well for me at all. Within a month I was confused and after two months hopelessly lost in the class. I am not sure why this class is labeled as a Year 1 course, my classmates and I agree it was an unfair trick to play on unassuming new students. This class in unbelievably hard and overly complicated. They were too overly ambitious in trying to cram so much information into one semester: linguistics, philosophy, computer science and I couldn’t even tell you what else. Towards the middle of the semester I got so frustrated and fed up with the class that I didn’t go to lecture for a week. This of course was a bad idea because then I only fell more behind. Thing is, I was not the only one. The classroom on the first day was at capacity, and it was a big lecture hall, slowly through the semester fewer and fewer students showed up. On the final day of class there were only 13 students in the entire lecture hall. No one was happy with the class or its instructors by the end of the semester. I will just be happy if I pass this class.
Grades consisted of:
- 50% mid semester exam
- 50% final exam
POLS20011: Sexual Politics
Because I am a gender studies minor I found this class thoroughly fascinating but I can understand how this class might not be for everyone. Our lecturer was very well-informed and has actually written many books on the topic but, in my opinion, she comes across too strong sometimes. She once made an offhand comment about how she chose to be a lesbian and that people have a choice in their sexuality. This caused an absolute uproar in class. She was also extremely unapproachable which I found thoroughly confusing and frustrating. As I am minoring in the subject, the area interests me a lot and I would have loved to have one-on-one chats with the professor. There were a few times where I wanted to speak to her after class and realized how hard it was to talk to her. First of all, unlike most professors who wait until the entire class has filed out to make sure no one has any questions for them, this lecturer packed up her stuff and zoomed out of class while the front rows of students were still slowly filing out. There were many times when she was so quick I didn’t even have a chance to stop her. Other times when I actually did manage to catch her she continued on her pace, I was expecting she would stop so we could have a conversation, and made it distinctly clear each time I tried that she did not really have time for a chat. I was pretty shocked at her lack of one-on-one communication skills (she seemed almost awkward) because she is a brilliant public speaker. She is thoroughly engaging although her absolute lack of knowledge of power point can make classes a bit frustrating at times. For the most part though she can keep the class laughing and she allows for and facilitates questions and a little discussion during the lectures, which I enjoy and missed in my other classes.
Grades consisted of:
- 50% Mid-semester assessment
- 50% Final Assessment
ANTH20001: Keeping the Body in Mind
This class I was more or less impartial to. The assessments were easy and the topics were fairly interesting. I was not a huge fan of the way the class was run though. We had one lecture once a week for two hours and then a one hour tutorial. I think the topic material was unique but the delivery kind of fell flat with me. If you need to fill in your schedule with an easy class and this one would be fine to take.
Grades consisted of:
- 40% mid-semester assessment
- 10% oral presentation about mid semester assessment
- 50% final assessment