What's your favourite module?

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I did! Loved him and the programme. He actually reminds me of this lecturer actually...

When you get the combination of interesting subject matter and a fantastic lecturer it's like the best feeling and reminds you why you chose that subject to study at HE.

Reply 21

Kevin De Bruyne

It'd have to be Statistics 2A (second year, first semester). The lecturer was the most lovable person ever and the content was interesting (included a fair bit of S3/S4 stuff from A-level which I'd studied already, so great fun really).

Reply 22

Puddles the Monkey

Original post by EtherealNymph22

I've heard quite a lot about this kind of thing from friends studying this.... it's really interesting! Lots of controversial theories attempting to explain all kinds of human behaviours. When you look at biological organisms as replication machines that only care about making sure their genes get passed on, the world takes a different flavour.

Reply 23

ChaoticButterfly

Original post by EtherealNymph22

The evolutionary theories behind the typical male and female roles. I might have to be careful because feminism. But basically in most species including humans, the evolutionary stable condition is for anisogamy to evolve from isogamy. So it's advantageous for many species (inc. humans) for one sex to develop a much smaller gamete size than the other. Hence why sperm are tiny and eggs are big.

The consequence of this is that males invest very little in each gamete, whereas females invest heavily- only have one a month and put a lot of energy and resource into each one even if it's not fertilised. A male can also increase their 'fitness' in crude terms by having sex with multiple partners because their sperm is unlimited whereas there is a clear cap to how many children a woman can have in a given time period. This leads to men tending to 'care less' and women caring more. There is always uncertainty in paternity in men as well which can lead to less caring behaviour whereas with woman there is absolutely no uncertainty in maternity.

But in nature the situations can vary and there are lots of interesting phenomena. Lions and harems for example and sex role reversal, where the male does all the caring and the female buggers off for more sex!!male Flies also inject a toxin into female flies to ensure that any pre-existing sperm from a previous shag is killed to ensure she can only be pregnant by him.

At the core of it, males and females have different reproductive interests and this creates a conflict.

Humans are a very unique example because of cultural and societal influences but can still be studied and are a very interesting case.

Spoiler

Don;t let the right wing cucksquad here about that :tongue:

It always makes me feel fed up that I'm kind of hardwired to want to be a knob when it comes to sex :frown:

Like society is generally geared is such a away that is more friendly to to the "natural" female tendency that you described. So women want to be with someone forever that where as the man knows that he should want to be with someone forever but has this internal battle deep down of having to suppress the desire to have sex with different women often younger as he gets older) women.

You should compare bonobos and chimpanzees :beard:

I'm interested in this stuff form a anthropology perspective, also because it brings science into the gender and feminism debate.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 24

Ethereal World

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

What a cuck.

It quite often happens when the adult sex ratio is skewed heavily towards males and this drives the different behaviour. Wrote a whole essay on it if you want to know more 😂😂😂

Reply 25

Ethereal World

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

Don;t let the right wing cucksquad here about that :tongue:

It always makes me feel fed up that I'm kind of hardwired to want to be a knob when it comes to sex :frown:

I'm interested in this stuff form a anthropology perspective, also because it brings science into the gender and feminism debate.

Did you read my spoiler?

Reply 26

Ethereal World

Original post by Puddles the Monkey

Yah I wrote an journal article for the topic of sex role reversal (in the style of a journal article anyway). Would be happy to send it if you're interested 😉

Reply 27

Puddles the Monkey

Original post by Tank Girl

Hahaha! Sounds like between the three of us we've got the knowledge to write some hella sexy research! :colone:

Bahaha... sexy and er.... ulcerous. And the paper would get gradually more crazy an unhinged towards the end.

Reply 28

Puddles the Monkey

Original post by EtherealNymph22

Yah I wrote an journal article for the topic of sex role reversal (in the style of a journal article anyway). Would be happy to send it if you're interested 😉

Please do, I'd love to read it :biggrin:

Reply 29

Ethereal World

Original post by Puddles the Monkey

Bahaha... sexy and er.... ulcerous. And the paper would get gradually more crazy an unhinged towards the end.

It would be a work of art. How sexual behaviour is displayed in porn, and how the carelessness of behaviour in the quest for exhibitionism can lead to higher incidence of syphilis. 😂

Reply 30

ChaoticButterfly

Original post by EtherealNymph22

It quite often happens when the adult sex ratio is skewed heavily towards males and this drives the different behaviour. Wrote a whole essay on it if you want to know more 😂😂😂

gimme the essay.

Also since women are the bottleneck when it comes to reproduction that means men are much more dispensable. :frown:

One of the reasons I liked physics is that most of it is so abstract and far removed from human stuff it's kind of liberating. I don't have to worry about this troubling stuff when I am spending all day with wave functions. Electrons don't care about gender poltics.

To answer the OP my favorite modules were when maths was combined with physics in such a way
that I could go from first principles to equations that explain physics phenomenon. Feels like you have a reall understanding then. That happened in Maxwell's Equations (putting all that sexy vector calculus to use :tongue:

), Special relativity and some quantum mechanics/particle physics.

Also my dissertation on the searching evidence supporting the existence of a theoretical phase boundary in the supercritical region of methane was really rewarding. Got to mess with lasers and pressures equivalent to that found deep down in gas giants planets like Jupiter was cool. Plus messing about with liquid nitrogen is always exciting.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 31

super_kawaii

I study Chinese with Japanese and I absolutely love my Chinese Language modules. Being in 4th year and having spent a year in China, I can say I've definitely reached a decent level and can comfortably converse with native speakers at a normal speed, which is incredibly satisfying and is what I came here to do.

If I had to choose a non language related module, I'd definitely say "Contemporary Chinese Society" which I did last semester. We covered topics such as ethnic struggles in China, the Hunan AIDs epidemic and the effects of the One Child Policy on Chinese society. All in all, a very interesting module.

Reply 32

clonedmemories

Anthropology and Sociology:

In first year, my favourite was Health, Illness and Society.
In second year, my favourite was Self, Identity and Society (or Biology, Culture and Society).
In third year, my favourites are History of the Body and the Sociology of Gender and Sexuality. Though I'm also really enjoying my dissertation research.

Reply 33

GemmaConlin

I'm studying Politics and International Relations, my favourite module is Political Psychology. It's so interesting and it combines, politics, psychology, some neurobiology and maths, I love learning new things.

Reply 34

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Music student here :biggrin:

My fave undergrad module was called 'Musical Thought and Scholarship'. It was a historiography of music course and it was epic beyond words :smug:

My favourite Masters module was called 'Popular Music: Listening, Interpretation and Analysis'. We had a whole lecture-seminar on Michael Jackson and a whole separate one on ABBA! :nutcase:

Those were the days (no modules at PhD level) :moon:

Reply 35

Ethereal World

Original post by Puddles the Monkey

Please do, I'd love to read it :biggrin:

Only trouble is its PDF format so would have to be via email! If you want to PM me an email address but if not I could maybe look at putting it on Dropbox or other?

Reply 36

Ethereal World

Original post by The_Lonely_Goatherd

Music student here :biggrin:

My fave undergrad module was called 'Musical Thought and Scholarship'. It was a historiography of music course and it was epic beyond words :smug:

My favourite Masters module was called 'Popular Music: Listening, Interpretation and Analysis'. We had a whole lecture-seminar on Michael Jackson and a whole separate one on ABBA! :nutcase:

Those were the days (no modules at PhD level) :moon:

Did you do any extra credits in 'learning how to recognise a troll- signs, symptoms and schema' :rofl:

Love how you actually had a thread made for you on that!!

Anyway proper question- what is your PhD in?

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 37

Noodlzzz

Original post by EtherealNymph22

Did you do any extra credits in 'learning how to recognise a troll- signs, symptoms and schema' :rofl:

Love how you actually had a thread made for you on that!!

Any proper question- what is your PhD in?

I'm pretty sure she's not trolling...

Reply 38

Ethereal World

Original post by Noodlzzz

I'm pretty sure she's not trolling...

Lol I know. Basically the other day some actual troll made a thread entitled 'the lonely goatherd called me a troll'.

It was just quite hilarious.

My reply was - the lonely goatherd was right. 😂😂😂