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School of Oriental and African Studies
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A Week in the Life: SOAS edition

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Reply 80
You can do any floater as long as you meet the requirements, but if you're starting a language ab initio, they warn you off doing a language floater. So basically, you're doing it at your own risk.
School of Oriental and African Studies
London
Reply 81
Does anyone here do Vietnamese? I'm thinking of picking it up as a floater, and possibly trying to change to Vietnamese and linguistics, so would like to know how people find the Vietnamese language modules?

Cheers,

J
Hikari
You can do any floater as long as you meet the requirements, but if you're starting a language ab initio, they warn you off doing a language floater. So basically, you're doing it at your own risk.

Ahh ok, thank you ^^
Gwilym
Here is the list of what you can/can't do as a floater.
Check with your course on enrolment day whether you can take a floater option.

AVAILABLE LANGUAGE FLOATERS:
http://www.soas.ac.uk/languagecultures/reg/langfloater/

AVAILABLE NON-LANGUAGE FLOATERS:
http://www.soas.ac.uk/languagecultures/reg/floater/

(I personally recommend General Linguistics)



and when/how do we sign up for these? - I couldn't find anything in the orientation handbook
Reply 84
good question, how do we sign up for floaters??
Reply 85
Gwilym
It's all a big blur until Registration Week ... and it's pretty hazy then as well.
You'll be directed from pillar to post to sign up for everything, and at some point, you'll wind up in your home Faculty Office to register your course choices (most of which you won't have any choice about). This is the time to say, "Hey! Floaters!" and you'll be presented with yet more paperwork ... but it's definitely worth it.


You don't have a choice about what you can choose for your course?!!!! Please tell me that's an exaggeration.
Reply 86
Gwilym
Look at your course description.
Core modules = modules you have to take.
In the first year, there are generally lots of them.


I only have one core module!!
Reply 87
I'm going to do one, since nobody has done one yet :smile: I study BSc International Management. There are three tutorial groups for each lecture.

Monday

Tutorial - Principles & Management of Marketing, 3-4: It's a bit awkwardly timed imo, since the other two are on a different day, and it feels a bit of an effort to go in just for an hour, but it's easily my favourite tutorial. We're given case studies each week, and have to answer questions on it. the teacher really expects a lot from you, but it feels quite informal. the case study questions usually focus on the stuff we learned in the previous lecture. whilst not difficult per say, it really makes you think, and I find this the most rewarding of all my classes.

I usually use my spare time in this day to do some work for the Tuesday and go to the gym. possibly an evening out.

Tuesday

My busisest day :frown:

Tutorial - Management in China, 1-2: The reading for this is slightly dry, but we usually split the class into two groups and focus on different points from the reading, then the teacher relates it to the work we'll do in our lecture on Friday.

Lecture - Introduction to Accounting, 3-5: Quite literally the dullest thing ever to occur, and whilst not overly difficult, the lecturer covers so much in the two hours you just can't take it all in. my attention usually drifts off after about 40/50 minutes. I find this the hardest of my modules

Tutorial - Introduction to Accounting, 5-6: I've only had two of these so far, but they've been far less interactive than all my others. Other people on this course and I find we have very little energy to bother with this due to the lecture right before it.

I don't normally do anything in this evening, maybe an extended play on farmville :p:

Wednesday

Lecture - Principles & Management of Marketing, 9-11: the lecturer doesn't like you taking notes, but it's useful to take note of anything important that isn't on the lecture slides (btw, all the courses upload lecture slides on the BLE, so i reccomend that for all lectures). Marketing, i've found, is mostly common sense, and this gives you a really good foundation for the compulsory marketing modules in later years.

I normally use the rest of Wednesday as my "day off" aka - go to the gym, come home, achieve nothing, probably go out for a session in the evening.

Thursday

Lecture - History & Culture of China, 11-1: SO SO BORING. my god. it really pisses me off that this is a compulsory module, and most management students rarely ever attend, or leave halfway through. I find history is my strong point though, so it's not too heavy on the brain. I usually eat lunch halfway through the lecture, which makes some noise, but c'est la vie :p:

afterwards I prepare for the tutorial tommorrow, and if i'm in the mood (which I rarely am), I do some accounting work for the following week.

Friday

Lecture - Management in China, 9-11: this is the lecture I enjoy the most, since it covers all sorts of things, from management/business practices in the pre-reform era, to the transition period, and modern challenges and growth. I wish it wasn't so damn early so I would pay more attention.

Tutorial - History & Culture of China, 12-1: specifically for management students as none turned up to the tutorials for the first week LOL. I find it MUCH more useful than the lectures, even though the lecturer can be a bit bitchy at times.

afterwards I gym it and then sod all until Sunday/Monday apart from drinking, clubbing, hangovers and the usual :p:

I find the readings very manageable, I just wish the timetable was slightly better structured.
Reply 88
I was just thinking that if any of the now second years have time, it might be interesting to post their new 'week in the life' to give prospective students a better insight!
Leanne Antonia
I was just thinking that if any of the now second years have time, it might be interesting to post their new 'week in the life' to give prospective students a better insight!


lol
Since I've JUST finished my essay (it was 7 days late ) and because I have nothing else to do (except catch up to 11 weeks of notes / maths / reading, etc) ... A Week in the 'Life' : BA Economics and Development Studies

Okay so since I'm doing a joint honors, all four of my modules are cores / compulsories so I didn't get to choose any modules, they were all automatically allocated. I have 2 hour lectures and 1 hour tutorial each week for each module so thats like 12 hours of lessons a week.


Monday

Sleep ins!

3 - 4: 1 Hour Tutorial for Introduction to Economic Analysis at Russell Square, we usually end up just going through the assignment (a bunch of questions) .. not too bad for Monday!

Afterward I make way for my graveyard lecture ..

5 - 7: 2 Hours of Quantitative Methods for Economists lecture at Vernon Square. Don't find them helpful, Satoshi is the nicest man but he talks too much and confuses me. Don't usually go in / stay the whole two hours. Am usually too knackered to do anything academic today, sometimes hang out with people at Dinwiddy / Nido.

Tuesday

Early (ish) start .. this is a challenging / hectic (ish) day for me so I try and stuff myself on the tube with cofee / tea / food :yep:

11 - 1: Lecture for Comparative Growth in Asia and Africa at Vernon Square, this is usually a compulsory module for Development Studies and Economics (if you are doing straight Economics so a BSc, not a BA). I love Dr Matthew, his lectures are very well structured and mostly interesting, except he doesn't do presentations or put anything online on the BLE so the entire lecture is spent writing everything down (he speaks fast) and later listening to the lecture recording! This lecture is always full, because no one can really afford to miss them.

Might pop out for lunch outside Vernon / go to Brunswick Square at Russel!

3 - 5: Lecture for Introduction to Economic Analysis. We had Dic Lo for the first term for microeconomics. Worst lecturer ever. No one understood him and it wasn't engaging. Around the end, only about 20 people turned up, 10 of whom left at the halfway break. Second term is going a bit better, we have a new professor for macro so looking forward to actually learning!

Try and squeeze in some library time .. usually fail and end up at Nido / Dinwiddy.

Wednesday

Free day but usually try and come in unless I'm being extremely lazy to get some work done at the library .. mostly use the Senate House library!

Quite a few people have Wednesdays off though so most of the time is spent maybe shopping at Brunswick / Oxford / Westfield or munching / shisha at Edgware Road!

Thursday

1 - 2: Tutorial for Comparative Growth in Asia and Africa. Best tutorial out of them all in terms of how much work we get done. Some people usually do a presentation for around 20 minutes, we go through the presentation and than do some work / past exam papers for the next half hour. Time flies!

Almost free day, have to come in for a 1 hour tutorial at Russel Square. Try to be productive but usually fails.

Friday

12 - 1: Tutorial for Development Conditions and Experience in Vernon, a core course for Development Studies. Many BSc Economics students take this as a floater .. I'll just say, DON'T. I personally don't find this unit at all interesting, its slow paced, the lectures have not been punctual and most of the topics have already been covered somewhat (and better) in Comp Growth. If you do BA Development Studies, you are stuck with this I'm afraid :sadnod: someone does a presentation for 5 - 10 minutes, we ask questions and talk about what we got from the readings each week. Only unit worth buying the study pack for since you are kind of expected to read your readings every week.

1 - 2: Tutorial for QME (Maths) at Russel .. most boring and worthless tutorials ever. The tutor just goes through the questions on the board and if someone has a problem, we go through that. Basically I don't bother doing the work and just go and copy it off the board. I have to 'dash' from Vernon so usually don't get in till 1:30 anyway.

3 - 5: Lecture for Development Conditions and Experience at Vernon. Really don't have anything to say for this except we've had one lecture that was canceled (we got emailed about it before hand), one where we sat for around 45 minutes - 1 hour before the lecturer turned up, one where the lecturer forgot about the lecture so it didn't happen (we had a 'retake' lecture the following week Wednesday) and one lecturer where the lecturer taught us something we already learnt weeks ago for Comp Growth .. and what she taught us did not match up to what we were supposed to / scheduled to learn from the handbook. Rest of the lectures were ****.

HECTIC DAY. Dashing around like a dasher. I usually get lazy and end up not going to the lecture and end up spending some time at the library or the SU / JCR instead :frown: try to work, sometimes it works!

______________________________


Hope that somehow helps .. really, no social life, most of my time is spent at the library
ssdf
Reply 92
Thought I'd stick my second year 'Week in the Life' still for BA Economics and Politics.

This year I had no choice in my Economics modules but had to do one theoretical and one regional course for politics, of which you get a pretty big choice.

Monday

My busiest day, thankfully it gets a lot out of the way early on in the week.

1pm - 3pm Intermediate Economic Analysis Lecture - taught by Paulo Dos Santos (Micro) and Jan Toporoski (Macro in the second term). It's a very technical course, a big step up from first year as it introduces all the maths from Quantitative Methods. I usually come out of the lecture with most of it gone over my head. Joe makes this all better though...more on him later. There are two essays for this course worth 20% overall.
3pm - 4pm International Politics Lecture - taught by Mark Laffey. This is a pretty good continuation from C&IP in 1st year, with the course covering very similar topics but in much greater detail. Mark is a really good lecturer and is really funny. There are three essays for this course (groan) totalling 30% of your final mark.
5pm - 7pm Quantitative Methods for Economists - taught by Satoshi. RI find it very hard to motivate myself to do maths up until 7pm on a Monday but force myself to go most weeks. Satoshi is really sweet bless him, has really good notes all of which are posted on blackboard, plus you get a handout in the lecture. This course is 100% exam.

Tuesday

9am - 10am Intermediate Economic Analysis Tutorial - This is where Joe comes in. He is the most amazing tutor ever who somehow translates the garble that Paulo tells us into Economic Analysis. You have to do a short exercise which you should prepare before the tutorial, as we to over it in the tutorial.

The rest of the day I tend to prepare for my International Politics tutorial by doing the readings for that.

Wednesday

10am - 11am International Politics Tutorial - There are two tutors for this course, and you'll either have Polly or Sutha. Both are really nice. Thankfully you'll never have to prepare a presentation if you're with Polly, we tend to discuss the readings in a pretty relaxed way and get sidetracked. Its actually (almost) fun.

After that I try to do the readings for Government and Politics of South Asia if I haven't done it on the previous Friday.

Thursday

11am - 1pm Government and Politics of South Asia Lecture and Seminar - taught by Lawrence Saez and Maha Aziz in term 2. I have only encountered Lawrence so far but this is probably my favourite course. To be honest I didn't have much interest in politics of anywhere in Asia and Africa, so I decided on South Asia as my grandmother was born there. So glad I chose it though, as Lawrence is one of the top authorities on South Asian political economy and really knows his stuff. He teaches in the first year C&IP course and I wasn't that impressed with him, but this year he's much better. I think its because he's talking about his area of research. He covers India in the first term and Maha covers Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the second term. There are two essays for this course totally 30% (i think). The lecture is follwed by a seminar with eveyone from the lecture, and two people will be nominated to give a presentation on each of the readings for that week.
1pm - 2pm Quantitative Methods for Economists Tutorial - Not very impressed by my tutor to be honest and I've become a bit disollusioned by him. But essentially we'll get an exercise sheet given to us in the lecture which we need to complete by the tutorial as we go through the answers!

Friday

Day off! I attempt to get as much work as possible done this day so I can do less after my Tuesday and Wednesday tutorials. This occasionally works as I'm by myself in the house most of the day...but if my flatmates are in for whatever reason it CAN be distracting :p:
Reply 93
Can someone post a timetable for Development Studies or Swahili? Because that's the combined degree I want to do.
lilymae
Can someone post a timetable for Development Studies or Swahili? Because that's the combined degree I want to do.


http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=22942216&postcount=106
Reply 95

Thankyou :smile: Is Development Studies good then? It sounds amazing!!
lilymae
Thankyou :smile: Is Development Studies good then? It sounds amazing!!


DCE in itself I personally don't like or find interesting, but Comparative Growth is VERY VERY interesting, even if its challenging / hard. But I'm glad I don't do straight Economics and wish they let us do Development Studies on its own, cos I'm loving it WAYYY more than Economics :yep:
eMJaaay&#9829
DCE in itself I personally don't like or find interesting, but Comparative Growth is VERY VERY interesting, even if its challenging / hard. But I'm glad I don't do straight Economics and wish they let us do Development Studies on its own, cos I'm loving it WAYYY more than Economics :yep:


Hey eMjaay, are you applying for development studies taught or research at SOAS? or have you already secured a division?

I am applying for the same course and its going to be close to 5 weeks since i submitted the application, no email of offer/rejection/waiting in my mail box. Impatience!

How long do they generally take to inform you?
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Hey eMjaay, are you applying for development studies taught or research at SOAS? or have you already secured a division?

I am applying for the same course and its going to be close to 5 weeks since i submitted the application, no email of offer/rejection/waiting in my mail box. Impatience!

How long do they generally take to inform you?


Hey I'm currently at SOAS doing my undergraduation in BA Development Studies. They took around 5 weeks to 6 weeks to get back to me but it might be different for postgraduates?

Admin wise, SOAS is .. legendarily bad so I won't worry too much :smile:
Reply 99
Hi!
Is anyone doing South East Asian Studies& History? No one mentioned SEA studies, is it so unpopular? It's very important for me to find the part time job so the lecture times are crucial for me (EU student so no finacial help) :frown: sucks haha

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