Outside subject(s) in 1st and 2nd year *post here with questions*

Thats the second time you've insulted politics and now im worried because im doing the MA International Relations.

Whats wrong with politics at Edinburgh?

Nothing really, it's a good department. I'm sure lukeyboy has simply had a negative experience in the politics department. He seems to espouse anthropology, which in my experience is the dullest subject available at the university.

ok, it says to post questions here, sorry for my irrelevant posts all over the forum.
using timetab, i ran into another problem: i want to take an outside non-biology subject, [they're not in KB] so when i have a 9 o'clock lecture in KB, i guess i'm not gonna make it for the 10 o'clock lecture on the square, am i
this makes it really difficult, i wanted my outside subjects to be different from the biology ones, i wanted literature, or philosophy, or mathematics, or latin... but finding a course, which starts an hour after the morning lectures in KB and finishes an hour before the afternoon lectures in KB seems merely impossible

Is taking a language a bad idea?

no, why would it be? Learning a new language/improving your skills in one you already know can only ever be a useful thing in life.

I took Spanish as my outside course and really enjoyed it, it was amazing how much my Spanish improved over the year. However, it was more work than my other 2 subjects put together which is something to think about - languages are on going work and you generally have some sort of class every day, in other subjects you may only have 2 lectures a week and you can manage to cram all of the work in around essay and exam time.

Thanks, i do like the idea of learning a new language. Not sure about the large workload. Ive never been good with languages - do you HAVE to pass your 3rd subject inorder to well, pass overall?

Thanks.

You only need to get 40% though for each subject in first year which is fairly easy - languages tend to have various components, and you submit coursework and on going assessments during the year so it's perfectly doable as long as you work during the year.

this thread is amazing oxymoronic! kudos to you lol

i was reading the student reviews on the subjects which is really helpful and i've decided i want to learn a new language, do you think i'd be killing myself if alongside my french i took italian 1? is it possible to succeed without being super smart or 100% focused throughout the year?

Hi

I'm hopefully applying for History for 2010 entry. If I were to take outside courses in Philosophy would it possible to continue both subjects in third and fourth year?

Wait, so how many subjects do you take in 3rd and 4th year?

I was thinking of doing a human geography or art history course along with physical geography and geology - would this be a problem since in a different facility?

You take 120 credits each year. In your 3rd and 4th years you are enrolled on a single or joint honours programme (therefore one or two subjects). You take the compulsory modules from each honours subject (usually 40 credits or so per subject) and then pick modules from a course list to bring you up to 120 credits. The course list will probably be mostly modules taught by your department but could also contain modules that other subject areas teach that are deemed suitably related to your overall degree. Thus it is possible to take modules from 5 different departments in some cases. Each module obviously covers different subject matter from within the general subject area.

You can take any courses so long as there isn't a timetable class and providing you have all the necessary pre-requirements (mostly necessary for sciences and second year/honours courses). Human Geography is taught by the same department as Physical Geography and Geology - the School of GeoSciences. This illustrates that you can take anything you like in your free 60 credits, although I imagine there will be preferred areas that you'll be told about when you arrive.

3rd and 4th year - Business studies & accountancy, and..... taxation(example)

If you take Business and accountancy as your example, you can see here how the years are laid out.

You can see in first year you have to take Business Studies 1, Accountancy 1 and then your options are either Economics 1 or Economic Principles (so no choice of Spanish, but you are taking 3 separate subjects).

In your second year you have to take Accountancy 2 and Business Research methods. You then have an option of picking 2 or 3 Business courses from a list. If you only take 2 business courses you can pick any 1 20 credit course from the Schools listed here as schedules A-J or N-P, which covers any humanities school or GeoSciences/Informatics/Mathematics. (At this point you are picking from 2 or 3 subjects).

Your 3rd year has 100 credits worth of compulsory modules which all come from the Business or Accounting departments. You then have the option to pick either a further module from Business (see here, the subjects labelled level 10, modules available with change year to year) or the Ec&Social History module "British Business History Since 1930". Thus you could take modules solely from Business and Accountancy or you could take a module in a different subject but related subject material from a different department.

And your fourth year only has the compulsory dissertation (which you will choose the subject matter for) and then 80 credits of modules from the same selection as above.

Overall you are studying Business and Accountancy subject matter but you occasionally are allowed to venture into other subjects and departments (and with other degrees where you aren't aiming for an accreditation at the end there is more leeway in outside courses and subjects taught across different departments).