[huzaifa47]

Calling All First Year Students - FYC Survey

BY HUZAIFA SAEED, FIRST YEAR COUNCIL EDUCATION & COMMUNITY COMMISSIONER

As the new First Year Council Education & Community Commissioner (elected via a by-Election a week ago), my focus is the creation of a FYC assessment and input survey. There is more than one step I have planned for it and so this informal communication questionnaire is the beginning.

It’s pretty basic; all you guys have to do for me is answer these two questions:

Q1) What were your three favourite courses (In no particular order) for your first academic year at McMaster? Preferrably list the reasons why!

Q2) What course/s have been a "disappointment" for you this year, and if so please provide a reason why. Some factors you can touch on in your answer could include the quality of teaching by the professor, the course load, how interesting or dry was the course content, how material was presented, the location of the classrooms, effectiveness of the tutorials in helping you better understand the course, usefulness of the course books, teaching methods, or, something I feel personally is important, whether the course was facilitated to help you transition from the high school educational context to a University.

These are just some of the many many factors that I think you can attribute and comment on.

You can either respond here preferably to create discussion or email me at [email protected] if you don't feel comfortable. I will honour your confidentiality for the email response. Furthermore, it is not neccesary that you stick to the format of my questions, you are more then welcome to contact me regarding any other educational issues you might have.

The plan is to gather all the direct and indirect information and then present it to the current or incoming MSU Vice President Education in the form of a summary of how we can improve the first year educational experience. It may not improve your experience, unless you do plan on coming back to take first year bird courses like some second years. But, it will give a great helping hand for the incoming first year class! Find the utilitarian in you, Apathy is far too overrated!

[notredame]

Huzzie, if I may call you that... I think I may, great idea! This is such a great post. I can't wait to see how everyone else found their courses.

3 Favorite Courses:
1. KIN 1Y03/1YY3 - Made me want to switch faculties to Kinesiology it's so awesome. Labs have cadavers, profs are funny, whole atmosphere even though its a huge class (400ish), is great! (Dr. Parise, Dr. MacDonald)
2. HISP 1A03/1AA3 - Small classes, very personal with everyone. Good profs (Dr. Velasquez, Dr.Ponterelli)
3. those are the only good ones that stuck out ^^

Least Favorite Courses:
1. PSYCH 1X03 - online lectures... hated them. They're long and boring (Dr. Kim; even though we never really truly saw him)
2. POL SCI 1G06 - this was my major! but this course is so general and boring it had me questioning my major and faculty... I suppose second year courses would be better... but this one was boring. (Dr. Leone - nice guy, cool prof, but boring course)


So that's all I got.

[Alvand]

Q1) Three first-year courses I enjoyed this year were:

1) CSCT 1BB3- Consumer Culture
The prof for this class, Dr. Marc Ouellette, is great and really transforms you from a passive high school thinker to a critical, university-minded thinker. I was not surprised when I heard he won the recent Teachers Award for Humanities. The textbook and reserve-readings were excellent and intriguiging.

2) CMST 1A03- Communication Studies
Another great class, with lots of great readings. A lot of students might say this class is boring and dry, but those are the ones that do not read the weekly readings. This course offers a great intro to the field of communication studies as it covers a little bit of everything, and includes discussion about the great thinkers like McLuhan, Innis, LeBon, etc.

3) MATH 1M03 (with Dr. Lozinski)
I had Dr. Lozinski, and he is great at explaining the material. The pace of the class is good, and if you do your homework and go to lecture there is no reason to do poorly in this class. Some might say this class is not good but they are the ones who probably had Dr. Moore, whom they say is very slow at explaining concepts.

Q2) I haven't been dissapointed with any of my classes, but some issues did bother me:

1) Commerce 1E03

As the only business-specific class in first year, this class offers a brief introduction to every field (except accounting) in one course. This class's material should be divided into two, with the first half of the material being taught in the 1st semester, and the 2nd in the second semester. Some of my friends in commerce feel the same way. Other than that, however, the organization of the class is great and there weren't too many problems.

2) Psych 1X03

The material was very interesting, but like notredame said, the online lectures are long and boring. Coming into this class, I was expecting a live lecture, so I was disspointed when I found out it's all online. However, there are something like 3000 students taking this class so I think this is one of the best ways to run this class.

Hope this iinfo is useful to you.




and a side note: This post can be very useful to all the incoming first-year students who are browsing this website.

[jamescw1234]

I shall participate:
Question 1:
1. Sociology 1A06
This course is definitely the best course I've taken. Dr. Behkne-Cook is a great lecturer, the material was interesting and she provided us with excellent examples.
2. Health Studies 1A03
The material during the first half is interesting, and I enjoyed the tutorials. The tests are tricky though, but the second half isn't as interesting, however that prof's tests are easier.
3. Inquiry 1SS3
Not necessarily a fun/exciting course, but it is extremely useful. We learned how to navigate through the library, do debates, give presentations, and how to write research papers.

Question 2:
1. Psych 1X03
I didn't enjoy the material and I strongly disliked the online lectures. The tests were brutal, I came out of the midterm shaking pretty much. The tutorials are really fun and interesting though, however the online lectures/assignments/tests are what I disliked about the course.
2. Political Science 1G06
I found the material to be dry, and the lectures very hard to understand. I think the majority felt the same way too, by the first month of semester 2, maybe 1/5 of the class was actually showing up to the lectures. I found the essays to be dry also, I wanted to major in Poli Sci, but not anymore.

[notredame]

yup, we're in the same boat james...
POL SCI 1G06 and PSYCH were pretty bad.

[feonateresa]

Nice idea. :] I took social science and humanities courses this year, so I'll give you the lowdown on that bit. ;]

Favourite Courses:

Linguistics 1A03: Wow, what a great class. The material is interesting, the assignments can actually be fun, and the prof (Dr. Moro) is a great lecturer. We had to hand in small assignments every week, and sometimes we had small quizzes. We had a midterm, and a final. This actually made me switch my potential major to humanities. This class is basically the scientific study of language, and there's a follow up course called Linguistics 1AA3 which is interesting as well.

Anthropology 1Z03: I was skeptical before going into this class because I absolutely hated 1A03 (which is Culture and Society). 1Z03 deals with physical anthropology, human origins, evolution, and all that nice jazz. I actually wanted to do the readings most of the time since the content was interesting. However, if you're not hot on the idea of evolution, this course might not be for you. There was a quiz, a midterm, a final, two assignments and that's it -- no essays = yay!

French 1K06: Really, it's just intermediate french, and it was a breeze for me so that's why I liked it. Honestly, I think if you just keep up with the homework, you're golden for this class. There's three tutorials per week, that's right, three. (I had them at 8:30 in the morning all year, so you can imagine my dissatisfaction at times). It's fun though, you know the people in your tutorial better. We had a midterm, final, two short compositions and something like 8 small quizzes.

Least Favourite Courses: Oh God, okay.

Political Science 1G06: Wow, if you took grade 12 law, and thought well, I really liked that course, I'll take Poli Sci in university. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. The most boring course EVER. I don't mean to coerce anybody or influence anybody, but my god, I never want to see the words political science ever again. If you think taking this course will help you with getting into law school, it won't, take whatever you like (to boost your grades especially). I liked the professor, (Dr. Alway) but I didn't like his lecturing style. He went really fast most of the time, and whatever I did, typing or handwriting, I couldn't keep up. The readings were terrible, the driest textbooks ever. We had to buy two textbooks by the way, about 200 dollars in total, so not worth it. We had two essays in first term plus a midterm, and an essay in second term worth 50% basically (since the paper itself was 45 and the proposal was 5). And a final worth 40%. Pressure much? I guess that's good though because it'll be more like that in upper years (or so I hear).

Okay. Uhmm, what else.

Oh yes.

Anthropology 1A03: Haha.. so, just a terrible class. Everyone pretty much failed or did really badly on the first midterm. Either because the professor went off on tangents all the time, or because the material wasn't interesting. Well, the material was interesting in some respects, but for some reason the class wasn't interesting. I'm not really sure what happened there. We had to do two midterms, a final, a paper and a tutorial assignment. I just don't even want to talk about this class anymore haha.

Annnd, yeah, hope that's helpful. =)

[lorend]

Originally Posted by feonateresa

Anthropology 1A03

Was Arratia the prof?

[jordanrogers]

Best:
1) sociology 1A06 - i also had Dr. Behnke-cook - it was just really interesting and straight-forward. she was really nice and informative prof.

2)English 1AA3 -the novels were realluy abscure and interesting, the prof - Dr. King - was really really cool and soo ineresting to listen to - his interpretations were also really cool to hear because they were nothing like i thought

3) Inquiry 1ss3 - the course is really boring, but it helped a lot in terms of getting the hang of research paprs. plus its easy and doesn't take a lot of effort

Worst:
1) Anthro 1A03 - i despised this class - the information ws interesting but the professor was terrible. she never explained anytrhing, her midterms were so hard, the essay was wayy to long for what hse wanted, and she was extermely rude to everyone.

2) Consumer Culture 1BB3 - i just didnt find it interesting at all.

3) Comp lit - it was just really borin got listen to the prof speack - i couldnt stand what she said, and i just wasnt interesting in any of the works we did.

[jamescw1234]

All the talk of Anthro 1A03 made me realize I forgot to add that to my list of courses I did not enjoy. It had potential to be interesting, and I did enjoy the tutorials, but the lectures were very hard to sit through. I sometimes felt that the prof talked down to the students a lot, especially on the discussion board.

[huzaifa47]

Originally Posted by jordanrogers

3) Inquiry 1ss3 - the course is really boring, but it helped a lot in terms of getting the hang of research paprs. plus its easy and doesn't take a lot of effort

.

So would you recommend taking inquiry for incoming first year students? From your observations did people in your class share the same viewpoint?

Thanks!

[jordanrogers]

yeah my class had a consensus on that i think lol. its only once a week, no exam, easy straightforward assignments (one of which being a simple annotated bibliography)

but it just taught me to be more organized and each week had a different theme like oral presentations, or making a thesis statement. just things that would help for further courses

so yes it is a good and very easy course to take as a first year

[huzaifa47]

Hey Thanks alot everyone Keep doing it on me and tell your friends to participate as well! It would really help out alot of people

Just and addition to the above here are a few faculty based questions that I would really appreciate a response for!



Faculty of Social Sciences

Question #1: Why did you choose to study Social Sciences at McMaster?

Question #2: Please rank your satisfaction with the quality of education in Social Sciences,
10 being exceptional and 1 being unsatisfactory

Question #3: Is there enough diversity in courses in Social Sciences

Faculty of Humanities:

Question #1: Are you aware that sessional lecturers teach many humanities courses? .

Question #2: Do you feel that sessional lecturers have had a positive or negative effect on
your education?

Question #3: In your one year at Mac do you as a humanities student feel undervalued by the administration? The resources, Lecture halls and so on: Are they satisfactory enough compared to other faculties?

Faculty of Science

Question #1: Do you feel that Quality of Teaching is a large factor in your understanding of
the material taught?

Question #2: Are professors and teaching assistants satisfactory in their knowledge and
ability to teach?

Faculty of Artsci

Question #1: Is there adequate academic/career/future counselling available to you? Do
you know how to get it?

Question #2: Can you get into the NonArtSci courses you want to? Which ones do you have a problem with?

Question #4: Did your high school classes adequately prepare you for Calculus and Physics?

Question #5: Are there any subjects missing from the Arts & Science curriculum?


Faculty of Engineering

Question #1: Do you feel that quality of teaching is a large factor in your understanding of
the material taught?

Question #2: Are your professors and teaching assistants satisfactory in their knowledge
and ability to teach? (Please rate, 5 being excellent, 1 being unsatisfactory)

Question #3: Do you feel that your degree will prepare you for future endeavours?
(Education/Employment)

Faculty of Commerce

Question #1: How well prepared were you entering commerce level II from Business level I?
(Please Rate, 1 = completely unprepared, 10= completely prepared)

Question #2: Do you want to be taking more Commerce courses in Business Level I?

Question #3: How satisfied are you with the level of engagement you have with the
DeGroote School of Business in Business Level I? (1 = extremely unsatisfied, 10 = extremely
satisfied) Please explain.

Faculty of Nursing

Question #1: Do you find you are learning enough in the science classes, PBL and clinical to
practice safely and competently in clinical? Please explain.

Question #2: Are you being taught in ways that best facilitate your own learning? What
could the faculty of Nursing be doing to teach you better?

Question #3: Are you satisfied with the size of your PBL and Clinical classes? Are there
classes that are currently small group that you think should be big lecture, or vice versa?

Question # 4: I heard recently from the Nursing SRA members that Nurses Do NOT have the time to participate in ANY extra curricular. Do you find that to be true? Do you think it affects your overall satisfaction and involvement within the McMaster Community?

Faculty of Kinesiology

Question #1: Do you feel that the range of classes offered by the Kinesiology department
adequately cover the range of topics under the study of the human body and movement?
Please explain.

Question #2: Are the professors in the Department of Kinesiology effective teachers? Do you
feel that some professors are not teaching their field of expertise?

Bachelor of Health Sciences

Question # 1: Do you feel "privileged" by the Administration in any regards compared to students from other faculties in all honesty?

Question #2: Do you feel this program has broadened your horizons for future job
possibilities? Please explain
Question # 5: Do you feel the expectations of professors who teach BHSc courses are too high?

Source: Mostly the SRA survey with a few question's of mine.

[davey]

Favourite Courses:

HTH SCI 1AA3 - Human Biochemistry I
-Very straight forward course
-Wonderful review of high school biochemistry concepts as well as several new concepts
-Powerpoint lectures were informative enough to not have live lectures or online lectures
-Tutorials helped reinforce concepts

-PSYCH 1X03 - Intro Psych
-Very straight forward course
-Interesting concepts - learning, social psych, language, pathopsychology, etc.
-Web modules were time-consuming but informative and preferred over live lectures
-Tutorials were fun and interactive

HTH SCI 1H06 - Human Anatomy and Physiology (for Nurses -also crosslisted for Midwifery, BHSc, and Eng)
-First half was mediocre in terms of interest - skin, brain, CNS, PNS, muscoskeletal system, endocrine
-Second half was fascinating! - cardiac system, lungs, gastrointestinal, urogential, lymphatic/immune system
-Lectures were taught by several different profs focusing on their area of interest - brought a diverse range of perspectives
-Learned ALOT from the course

Courses I Hate:

-PSYCH 1XX3 - Foundations of Psych, Neuroscience, and Behaviour
-VERY science-oriented
-Lectures were very technical and sometimes I found that there was way too much information packed into one lecture
-Concepts weren't as interesting as 1X03
-Tutorials were still interesting though




Question #1: Do you find you are learning enough in the science classes, PBL and clinical to
practice safely and competently in clinical? Please explain.

-Yes, when considering the skills that we should be able to perform by the end of first year - handwashing, communication/health histories, vital signs, musculoskeletal/heart/lung/abdomen assessments.

Question #2: Are you being taught in ways that best facilitate your own learning? What
could the faculty of Nursing be doing to teach you better?

-Tutors could assist further in the mastery of clinical skills... there was very little tutor guidance (but this depends on tutor and group).

Question #3: Are you satisfied with the size of your PBL and Clinical classes? Are there
classes that are currently small group that you think should be big lecture, or vice versa?

-Very satisfied. I enjoy the amount of small group learning that is available.

Question # 4: I heard recently from the Nursing SRA members that Nurses Do NOT have the time to participate in ANY extra curricular. Do you find that to be true? Do you think it affects your overall satisfaction and involvement within the McMaster Community?

-I felt that at times, it was overwhelming having a billion things due at the same time, especially due to the nature of the program (we don't just do science stuff, we have to write alot of papers too..). However, I'm going to have to disagree to this statement in regards to first year. I felt that I had enough time to do extracurricular activities/volunteer/hang out with friends/go to the gym etc. I'd say that nursing is a very busy and demanding program (try researching/memorizing 23 anatomy essay questions for a drawn-out-of-the-hat in-class essay), but if you managed your time well, I felt that the workload was fair. However, I could see this being problematic in upper years as they have 9-24 hours of clinical per week depending on year.

[feonateresa]

Originally Posted by lorend

Was Arratia the prof?

Yeah, she's a lovely lady but I wasn't in love with her lectures. :/

[lorend]

She was my 3L03 prof (THE mandatory third year anthro course) a few years ago. I know how you feel...a whole bunch of us walked into the exam with B/B+. We walked out of the (multiple choice exam) not knowing the answers to the any of the questions.

The "best" final grades were B-.