A Week in the Life: Warwick edition (see first post)

3) (this is off topic) do I have to go to parties often in order to make friends and avoid being a social outcast?

Wow, I'm late to this party, but I'll give you my course timetable and say a bit about each item and essays. To say that it reflects 'a week in the life' would be, you know, lying.

Monday 11am-12 - literature seminar. Term 1 was North American lit in which we studied Walt Whitman's poetry, Rabbit Run by Updike and All the Pretty Horses by McCarthy. Term 2 was Latin American lit with a different tutor but at the same time and in the same group. We did One Hundred Years of Solitude and The House of the Spirits.

This seminar and the work you do it for it makes up half your grade for the Comparative Literature and Hist module (which always baffles me because there's nothing comparative about it). You do two two thousand word essays for Lat Lit and two for North Lit, with only the best of each counting - yes, that does mean you can just hand in a two thousand words of drivel if you get a good mark in the first one. The essays are extreeeeeeeeeeemely easy to do well on - you can bag yourself a first just by writing confidently and making some interesting assertions about a text.

The seminars themselves were always kind of awkward. Seminar tutors do most of the talking. The idea of them is just to nick other people's ideas for your essay - which is one reason why I never really said anything. Another is that I was invariably behind on the reading.

Monday 1pmish (I think) - Comparative lecture. These are occasional lectures (one every three weeks, maybe) comparing various themes across the Americas. So, they might compare how slavery worked in the USA to Brazil, or something like that. The purpose is to feed you ideas for your end of year Comparative project (which makes up the other half of your Comparative Hist and Lit mark). I went to one of these and it was crap, so I can't offer much of an opinion on them.

Monday 5-6 - Spanish. You learn Spanish at a level which suits your past experience. It's INCREDIBLY boring, but probs worth going to since it's the hardest bit of the degree.

Tuesday 2-3 - Latin America lecture. It's kind of embarrassing but I rarely made it up for 2pm on a Tuesday (Monday nights - drinking! YAY!), and if I did, I didn't go to this. But it probably would have made my life easier if I had. They feed you enough that you can blag the seminar on the Thursday. This won't help much with the essays, I don't think. But it may have made the exam easier if I'd had notes - still the exam was MEGA easy and you're allowed to just rewrite your short essays in it. So meh.

Wednesday 12-1 - North America lecture. Pretty much ditto, except the exam is slightly harder (the questions are more specific), so if you're gonna go to one or the other, probably this one. But they do almost always put the podcast on the Internet, so whenever the textbook let me down in revision, I'd just listen to the lecture.

Wednesday 1-3 - Spanish. DOUBLE FECKING SPANISH. This was definitely the worst two hours of my week. I wanted to die.

Thursday (every other week) 10.30-12 - Latin America seminar. This is the worst seminar of the three by a long shot. It's early in the morning. I was usually hungover. The tutor sets individuals a specific area to talk about. And they cared a lot if you didn't turn up. Do what I never did: read for this seminar - save yourself the anxiety of reading a chapter of Penguin Hist outside the room by doing some reading.

On the other hand, the essays are nice and easy again. My tutor had a policy of giving me 68s for every single one, and the exam incidentally. (There's a weird first year marking system whereby they don't give you your actual mark but an arbitrary point on the marking system closest to what you should get. It's weird and hard to explain but basically you can't get exactly a 70 or a 69 or a 71.) I'll talk more about essays below.

The seminar was again awkward. But the tutor was reaaalllly nice. Like, kinda demanding

Thursday 2-3 - North America seminar. Okay, so this one in general was a lot better. It doesn't help in any way with exams or the essays, mind, but it was just more lively. Quizzes and sweets and stuff. The other seminar groups were apparently AWESOME, though: we were the only CAS group to have our tutor, and so we kind of feel like we missed out. Essays are basically the same as Lat, except most people seemed to find they were marked slightly more harshly (not a lot, mind, but still).

Essays:

I did all mine in one night per essay. It's the best way. Try and get a group who you write your essays with and just stay up all night with them. There are so many CASers in the Learning Grid the night before every deadline - it's wicked. You can spur each other on, order lots of food and then when you're all done go hand them in on the way home. Also: if you do the same question, you can share books. This is important.

Don't worry too much about them. They don't take up much time. You basically need to read something basic about the topic, decide arbitrarily what you're going to argue, and then use quotes and facts from other books to make it seem researched. If you just write a strong intro which says "I am going to argue this. The main reasons for this are 1, 2, 3, 4", and then follow that through, you will probably get a high 2:1.

Apart from Spanish, this is a low-work degree in first year. If you want to read lots of articles and books, you can impress seminar tutors and maybe bag a few extra marks. But if you want to do other things, pursue other interests, you definitely have time.

Could anybody write something about English and Italian Literature? Starting the course in October, looking forward to it, but a little anxious too... Pretty please?

Which modules are on that course? I do Italian so might be able to tell you a bit about that side.

(Core) Italian for Beginners or Modern Italian Language I

(Core) either Representations of Modern Italy or Forms and Fashions in Italian Intellectual Culture or Cross Cultural Approaches to Italy. (Do I get to chose or do they tell me which one I should do?)

(Core) The Epic Tradition

(Option) either Medieval to Renaissance English Literature or Literature in the Modern World.

Hey guys, I'm going to warwick for MORSE this year and I was just wondering how the workload actually is? Cuz I hear I actually have quite a few morning classes, and by that I mean lectures that start at 9am. And how bad is the sausage fest?

was thinking about doing this course, are you enoying it though because you don't sound too positive about what you've done on the course so far???

Wouldn't let me quote you or e-mail you, so:

Dude, thank you so much for all of that (: It really helped! I feel really nerdy now having read three of the course books already, haha. I'm already fluent in Spanish, anyway, so would you know how I would be taught? I don't mean A2 fluent, I'm a native speaker. Also, how is everyone allocated to their American Uni's, 'cause I'm thinking about applying to Columbia

Thanks again, man

Oh cool I didn't see this before asking you in a PM!

What level of Italian language do you have? Are you beginners or advanced?

You do indeed get to choose out of Reps and Forms and Fashions - Reps focuses on 20th C (Calvino, Ammaniti, Ungaretti, Fo, Benni, and a few films) whereas Forms and Fashions is Renaissance (I know they cover Calvino too though, and think Dante is in there). Reps is 50/50 essay/exam and F&F is 100 exam.

I don't know about Epic although I know plenty of people who do English who did it. It covers Homer and stuff, haha. Again, I know people who did Lit in the Modern World and they found it quite mixed I think. Some liked the books some found them boring.

Italiaaan, hahaha!

For Reps, you get millions of handouts in the lectures (mainly historical and political stuff), but the exam is actually just based on the literature/film side of things - which is only ever covered in the seminars... so get good notes!

Forms was a bit of a mixed bag, to be honest - Simon Gilson and Dante is amaaazing, whereas David Lines/Maud van Haelen and Renaissance was a bit hit and miss. Plus, they're the last sections you do (the course is broadly split into four units) and feel a bit rushed, to be honest. Although I'm doing both Dante and Renaissance in September (went abroad last year), so neither can have been that bad!

Oooh you do Italian tooooo! Where did you go last year? I start at Urbino on the 12th and CANNOT WAIT SO EXCITED (so much so that it did indeed deserve those caps!).

I loved Simon Gilson when he did the open day stuff I ended up at ages ago, I really hope I can get on a module of his in 3rd/4th year. David Lines though.....massive dislike for the man. He ****** up my year abroad stuff and totally screwed a bunch of us over which was so not cool.

Um, I'm probably switching degree, so... erm. There are good things about it: notably the fact that you get a year in America and the small course-size, which makes it really easy to make some great friends. But I didn't really enjoy the first year of the course. It was essentially the first year of a History degree, except with more slightly more essays, three exams rather than one, and absolutely no choice about what modules you take. Ultimately, in first year, you take two American history modules that are open to History students in first and second year, your forced to take Spanish rather than choosing your language, and you do a fairly mediocre CAS-only literature module, which basically involves reading 4 novels and writing about them.

Now, they tell you that, hey, it's first year - you're just getting a grounding in the Americas, and then next year you specialise in the areas you want. Except that's a lie. You have to pick four modules in second year. One has to be Spanish or Spanish and this bizarre research thingy, which sounds like even less fun that Spanish. As for the other three, CAS theoretically offers eleven modules in its own right. Of those, this year SIX aren't running for one reason or another. SIX. Moreover, you have to take one Latin America module and one North America module.

Soooo, that means that for Latin America I had to do either: "Modern Mexico", "Caribbean Literature" or "The Cultural History of Food in Latin America". For North America, I had a choice between "Reform, Revolt and Reaction" (which is basically 20th century history with a focus on Civil Rights, I think) or "American Historical Cinema". Now, given that I don't want to do Lit and I don't want to study food or cinema, that left me with only two choices that were even remotely viable.

Then for the last module, we're allowed to escape to either the Politics department to do intro to US Pol, the English department to do one of three modules on US lit, or the film department to do intro to film studies or something (or you can do another CAS module - as if anyone isn't going to have exhausted their list of interesting stuff CAS offers).

So yeah. I'm trying to switch to a different degree. But lots of people really enjoy our course, so you shouldn't just go on one view!



I got this in the form of an unsigned rep comment, but I'm assuming this is you...?

You're a native speaker. Woah. I dunno what they're going to do with you, no. I'd email someone and ask. I guess there wouldn't be much point in putting you in the most advanced language centre class.

As for American unis: you get asked where you want to go, and then assuming there's enough space, you get to go there. Apparently, for every uni except Columbia, there's usually enough room for everyone, although a little bit of prodding and poking goes on to get people to change theire minds (they seem, for instance, to have a thing about getting people to go to Latin American unis, which is a tad unpopular). As for Columbia, there's only ever two spaces and always loads of applicants: the decision's made on the basis of, 1. Exam/essay performance in first year, 2. Reports from tutors, and 3. Interviews. I may be imagining that third criterion but I don't think so.

And no worries, my pleasure.

heyy thanks so much for doing one for CAS... i've been having doubts about the course ever since I applied...and your review basically confirmed my fears...i really wish I'd applied for philosophy rather than just going for this course because of the year abroad ...do you think they'd let me change?? what course are you changing to? did you have to wait til the end of the year and then reapply?? cuz i have such a strong feeling that doing this course for four years will be a huge waste of time and money for me

I'm currently in a complicated nightmare of a situation: I dunno what I'm doing next year, or if I'm even going back to Warwick, which sucks very muchly since it is a fantastic place. But yes, you almost always have to complete your first year before you can change. After that it's a case of negotiating with the department you want to change into - whether or not they ask for a specific set of marks in your first year (many ask for a 2:1), ask you to start in the first or second year, or even consider taking you at all is completely at their discretion. Most do seem to be open to it, though.

I did it for the year abroad and it was such a mistake. You can take a gap year or go abroad after your degree - and many departments offer study in America anyway (my flatmate last year does history and she's studying in the U.S. right now). It's such a monumentally stupid reason to torture yourself with Spanish and a poor choice of modules for three years.

Um, I'm probably switching degree, so... erm. There are good things about it: notably the fact that you get a year in America and the small course-size, which makes it really easy to make some great friends. But I didn't really enjoy the first year of the course. It was essentially the first year of a History degree, except with more slightly more essays, three exams rather than one, and absolutely no choice about what modules you take. Ultimately, in first year, you take two American history modules that are open to History students in first and second year, your forced to take Spanish rather than choosing your language, and you do a fairly mediocre CAS-only literature module, which basically involves reading 4 novels and writing about them.

Now, they tell you that, hey, it's first year - you're just getting a grounding in the Americas, and then next year you specialise in the areas you want. Except that's a lie. You have to pick four modules in second year. One has to be Spanish or Spanish and this bizarre research thingy, which sounds like even less fun that Spanish. As for the other three, CAS theoretically offers eleven modules in its own right. Of those, this year SIX aren't running for one reason or another. SIX. Moreover, you have to take one Latin America module and one North America module.

Soooo, that means that for Latin America I had to do either: "Modern Mexico", "Caribbean Literature" or "The Cultural History of Food in Latin America". For North America, I had a choice between "Reform, Revolt and Reaction" (which is basically 20th century history with a focus on Civil Rights, I think) or "American Historical Cinema". Now, given that I don't want to do Lit and I don't want to study food or cinema, that left me with only two choices that were even remotely viable.

Then for the last module, we're allowed to escape to either the Politics department to do intro to US Pol, the English department to do one of three modules on US lit, or the film department to do intro to film studies or something (or you can do another CAS module - as if anyone isn't going to have exhausted their list of interesting stuff CAS offers).

So yeah. I'm trying to switch to a different degree. But lots of people really enjoy our course, so you shouldn't just go on one view!



I got this in the form of an unsigned rep comment, but I'm assuming this is you...?

You're a native speaker. Woah. I dunno what they're going to do with you, no. I'd email someone and ask. I guess there wouldn't be much point in putting you in the most advanced language centre class.

As for American unis: you get asked where you want to go, and then assuming there's enough space, you get to go there. Apparently, for every uni except Columbia, there's usually enough room for everyone, although a little bit of prodding and poking goes on to get people to change theire minds (they seem, for instance, to have a thing about getting people to go to Latin American unis, which is a tad unpopular). As for Columbia, there's only ever two spaces and always loads of applicants: the decision's made on the basis of, 1. Exam/essay performance in first year, 2. Reports from tutors, and 3. Interviews. I may be imagining that third criterion but I don't think so.

And no worries, my pleasure.