It's "Ask The Internet" time!

[Guest Arcados]

I'm going to McMaster this september, and am torn between taking an intro philosophy class (3 credits) or an intro Latin class. I am interested in both, but have no knowledge of what classes will be like.

 

I know these are pretty obscure classes to be asking a pre-med board about, but has anyone taken either, or talked to people who have taken either?

 

Thanks

[Guest Avi44]

Sorry, I dont know about those courses, but I was wondering if anybody knows some easy elective courses at McMaster. I heard Psychology and Economics are easy, but I'm not sure. Also what program are you in @ McMaster next year?

[Guest cutieyellow]

I took two years of latin in highschool. It was probably the worst thing that was imposed upon us poor students. Latin is a dead language - learning it is completely useless. Learning to speak, write and ughhh...conjugate a language that no one speaks is in my opinion an enormous waste of time. Intro to philosophy would be much more interesting i would say. I also took a few philosophy classes - I can't say that i really liked them, but at least i find you get more out of them than you do out of latin. Oh well, my two cents.

 

CY

[Guest satsumargirl]

Didn't go to MAC so this isn't of direct help to you.

 

Philosophy may require more time/thinking. May involve more essays for example, but could be more interesting depending on the kind of philosophy. I took Philosophy of Medicine/science in undergrad and it was interesting...watched and discussed some Star Treck episodes etc.. Not sure if I would have really liked a general into to philosophy class though.

 

As for Latin. I was always interested but it never fit my schedule. If you are good at second languages it could be useful in the sciences I think since root words typically come from Greek or Latin. As for the language being dead, that only means that the language isn't changing. May be more straight forward memorizing stuff compared to Philosophy.

 

However, know yourself. I took Russian once and it was the hardest thing I ever did, my brain hurt SO much. The 3 languages I learnt as a kid (English, French, Dutch) I learned from people just talking to me...and then I learned about all the rules. But never did I have to learn about verb conjugation etc.. before knowing how to speak. It was the worst experience and I think it's a really bad way to teach second languages. But if you've had experience with this and it suits your learning style, then great. Unfortunately, I dont' think I will ever take a language class like that again.

 

In my experience it is hard to tell others what courses are easy or hard because it depends on that person. When my sister started undergrad I told her to take psych cause for me it was SO easy. But she almost flunked it and actually went to class and read stuff (which I didn't do).

[Guest 007]

I don't go to Mac, nor have I taken a University Latin course. However, I did take it for 3 years in high school and I really enjoyed it. That being said, I think you'll find the philosophy more interesting and it is probably more likely to give you critical thinking skills that can be applied to other courses.

[Guest Arcados]

AVi44 - I'll be in Social Sciences I next year... you?

 

I will be taking a "Problems of Philosophy" course in second semester, because I did well/was interested in it in my grade 12 philo class. I'm just wondering if I should preface that class with the intro to philo course in first-semester...

I think I would enjoy Latin, as I've always had a pet interest in learning other languages, even a dead one like Latin.

 

At this point the question for me is: which one is more work? I don't expect to find a definitive answer because obviously it depends on the type of person, but as neither pertain to my degree I'd rather take something with a lesser workload.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Depending on the prof, first year philosophy can be an extremely challenging course. It can also be very rewarding. But once again - that depends very much on the prof. And the student!!

 

Why not take an intro classics course other than latin? I don't know how Mac runs their classics department, but any classics courses on Plato, Aristotle, the Presocratics, etc will cover some excellent concepts in philosophy.

[Guest Arcados]

Not a bad idea, UWO - thanks.

[Guest ploughboy]

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Late to the thread, but oh well...

 

I've never taken Phil, but I took Latin 100 at Waterloo last year, and really enjoyed it. However, I was definitely in the minority. In September, there were about a hundred people in the first half of the course (100A). I think about 20 people wrote the 100B final exam in April. The rest had either dropped out or had declined to sign up for the second half of the course. There are currently nine people enrolled in the follow-on second-year Latin course.

 

I actually found it very straight-forward. The grammar is very logical (well until you learn the subjunctive mood at the end of first year, at which point your head will explode), many of the words are recognizable as the roots of English/French words, and I found it really neat to be able to read passages written by some guy who's been dead for over 2000 years.

 

Since nobody actually speaks Latin anymore (except the pope), our evaluation was based entirely on written tests. Not having to worry about having my accent 'just so' when the prof called on me in class was also a real bonus (flashback to traumatic memories of grade-school French...)

 

I think it helped that I had a really enthusiastic prof who would regularly cover three or four blackboards with examples, hair and chalk-dust flying everywhere, while explaining some obscure point about the passive periphrastic or whatnot.

 

You do need to devote a bit of time to learning vocabulary. I tried to spend half-an-hour to an hour each day with my home-made flash cards, just to keep things nice and fresh in my brain. However, I'm an old guy and the language centres of my brain are probably more calcified than yours.

 

At Waterloo, the add/drop deadline is a couple of weeks after classes start. I imagine the same situation exists at Mac. Why not "comparison shop", and sit in on a couple of Latin lectures and a couple of Phil lectures before making your final decision?

 

Cheers,

 

pb

 

 

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[Guest wjc83]

I was wondering if anybody knows some easy elective courses at McMaster. I heard Psychology and Economics are easy,

 

I just graduate from Mac this year. Are you looking for 1st year electives?

I really enjoyed first year Psych. It's actually the course with the largest enrollment. It's a little unconventional because you don't actually see the prof in person (the classes are on Video tape). But if you miss a class don't worry 'cuz a transcript of every lecture is posted on the website. It was a fairly easy course (one midterm, one final) and you could earn extra marks by participating in studies (I got 8% extra for choosing people who I thought were attractive from a set of pictures!).

I haven't taken an economics course so I can't comment, but I've also heard that there are some fairly easy Geo courses.

For 2nd year electives I would highly recomment Music for Film and TV (GREAT course!)

[Guest MDHopefully2005]

I was a TA for first year Psych at Mac for the last 2 years and I just wanted to clear up a few little things. Though Psych definitley does have the highest enrollment, it's not the easiest course to take. I have found that either people do really well in the class or really poorly. They have also added in 2 group papers/projects along with the midterm and final now, in the hopes that the students that don't do as well on multiple choice exams would be able to obtain marks in another fashion. Of course this has wreaked havoc for those students that don't work well in groups...but that's a whole other story!

Though it's quite possible to do well in first year Psych at Mac, just remember to learn all of the material in the courseware REALLY well, and make sure that if you don't understand something talk to your TA or the prof. as it's easy in that course to fall behind and not realize it until it's too late. THat being said there's also a lot of help given to the first year students via old midterms, review nights, extra marks for participating in other's research, and online quizzes.

Hope this helps somewhat!

[Guest wjc83]

They have also added in 2 group papers/projects along with the midterm and final now,

 

Hey MDH05

Do they still have the system where you can earn extra marks by participating in studies? I remember a big debate about that in my year. I thought it was a lot of fun and gave me a bit of exposure to the different types of psych research.

[Guest MDHopefully2005]

Hey wjc83,

Yeah they are still doing the extra credits with participation in experiments, but it's now only 5% not 8%...but I think that's just because marks are allotted elsewhere now with the group papers. I also think it's a great way to get first year students involved in research. They can at least get a sneak peek into how labs are run and what kind of research is done at Mac. It's nice for the 4th year thesis students too to have a candid population to work with!