MacInsiders Logo

Similar Threads
Review Review Starter Category Comments Last Post
Classics 1A03, Classics 1B03 ??? Guest253 Academics 5 06-10-2010 10:03 AM
Classics 1B03 thisisje First-Year / Prospective Student Questions 5 06-09-2010 06:55 PM
Classics 1B03 Typheous Academics 0 01-14-2010 02:56 AM
Classics 1B03 or Anthrop 1B03? reeves First-Year / Prospective Student Questions 5 09-10-2009 09:37 PM

Classics 1B03

 
Classics 1B03
Myth: Trojan War
Published by citfat
12-31-2009
Published by
Member
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 11

Author review
Overall Rating
100%100%100%
10
Professor Rating
100%100%100%
10
Interest
100%100%100%
10
Easiness
80%80%80%
8
Average 95%
Classics 1B03

Classics 1B03 aka Myths: Trojan War is an introductory first year course taught by Dr. Daniel McLean and is usually offered in the first semester. The course consisted in 2008 of three one-hour lectures and a one-hour tutorial, although apparently this year it has been changed to only two hours of lectures, tutorials being the same.

I do not have the course outline, but the following materials were required for purchase and consist of what we basically covered:
  • Theogeny, Works and Days, by Hesiod (covers origins of the Greek gods and goddesses from the very beginning)
  • The Iliad, by Homer (covers a part of the Trojan War, mainly focusses on Achilles)
  • Oresteia, by Aeschylus (covers the story of Electra and Orestes after the Trojan War)
  • The Aeneid, by Virgi (covers the story of Aeneas after the Trojan War)
He also provided some readings about Helen of Troy, from what I can remember. The readings were not extensive (he picks chapters/pages to read). The books are inexpensive and worth keeping.

Dr. McLean is an excellent lecturer and a good speaker. He makes the class enjoyable through his enthusiasm (he is VERY enthusiastic) and jokes, and he is pretty approachable. If you have got an interest in the material itself, this class is one of the more enjoyable classes at Mac. He makes an admirable effort to ensure that the class does well, and he actually used WebCT (or ELM) to post extra resources, unlike some other classics professors. One thing he does not post, however, are class slides. You must attend each class for that and take your own notes. This is also one of the rare classics classes which actually has tutorials, and these tutorials are VERY useful. If you take this course, your mark pretty much depends on your TA, and I was lucky to get an excellent TA who was as passionate about the material as Dr McLean.

The marking scheme consisted of a midterm worth 25% (MCQ and some short answers, very fair and marked very fairly), an essay worth about 25%, a 10% component based on tutorial participation (free marks as long as you say something once in a while), and a final, consisting of MCQ, short answers, and one or two long answer questions. It is not difficult to do well (A- to A+) if you study hard and begin your essay in advance (getting input from your TA helps). If you hate writing essays/do badly at them, then you may want to think twice about taking 1B03 as a bird course, but anyone who has even a mild interest in roman/greek mythology should consider taking it!

Overall, I would highly recommend this course.
Deleted Post
Edit/Delete Message
Click here to add your own review for Classics 1B03!

Old 07-02-2010 at 12:14 AM   #2
thisisje
Member
Posts: 32

Thanked: 1 Time
Liked: 0 Times
I want to get in for this class but it's full already. :(
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-01-2010 at 06:23 PM   #3
sinnersdrown
Senior Member
Posts: 272

Thanked: 30 Times
Liked: 89 Times
I took this class this term, it's amazing. He is hilarious and actually makes an effort to talk to his students.
__________________
Honours Classics and Philosophy
We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-01-2010 at 09:02 PM   #4
cygnusX1
Member
Posts: 56

Thanked: 7 Times
Liked: 46 Times
I took it last year and it was excellent. McLean was great and made the material even more interesting. I think a lot of the class bombed the midterm, though, probably because many people couldn't finish.

The exam and the essay were also really easy. McLean pretty much told us what to study and that was the exam. For the essay, my TA gave us essay format guidelines and I think McLean might have posted something on ELM.
  Reply With Quote


Old 07-05-2011 at 07:13 PM   #5
j9.plantilla
Member
Posts: 8

Thanked: 0 Times
Liked: Liked 2 Times
Best class ever! Not gonna lie, I didn't read the books. All I did was pay attention in class (which wasn't hard to do because it's so much fun). Easy A right there. Loved it!
  Reply With Quote
Old 09-02-2012 at 10:08 AM   #6
a.mousavi
Member
Posts: 50

Thanked: 0 Times
Liked: 0 Times
I definitely suggest taking this course! I had a lot of fun in lectures (prof is extremely funny) and the stuff you learn is pretty interesting. Being in sciences myself, I did not find the information useful to other courses but its a fun elective for sure!

Only problem is that its nearly impossible to take notes in class and there are barely notes on avenue, just make sure you listen
  Reply With Quote
Old 09-08-2012 at 09:06 PM   #7
gillgs5
Member
Posts: 32

Thanked: 0 Times
Liked: 1 Time
Very interesting material, prof was funny and easy to follow. The tests were fairly simple as long as you went to lecture and had some clue as to what the books were about. I would highly recommend this course to everyone.
  Reply With Quote
Old 10-15-2012 at 06:10 PM   #8
SweetyTweety
Elite Member
Posts: 379

Thanked: 37 Times
Liked: 164 Times
No way is the "easiness" for this course an 8.
This is actually the only course this semester I'm having a hard time keeping up with...
...and there's no midterm for the course this semester, so the exam is worth either 45% or 50% of our final mark.
__________________
...And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)
  Reply With Quote
Old 10-15-2012 at 06:15 PM   #9
sinnersdrown
Senior Member
Posts: 272

Thanked: 30 Times
Liked: 89 Times
Quote:
Originally Posted by SweetyTweety View Post
No way is the "easiness" for this course an 8.
This is actually the only course this semester I'm having a hard time keeping up with...
...and there's no midterm for the course this semester, so the exam is worth either 45% or 50% of our final mark.
When this was made, McLean was teaching this course for many years and this was based on that. Take these reviews with a grain of salt when dealing with different professors.
__________________
Honours Classics and Philosophy
We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-07-2012 at 11:05 AM   #10
arestang
Member
Posts: 5

Thanked: 0 Times
Liked: 0 Times
Classics 1B03 - Dr. Murgatroyd
Classics 1B03

I have to say Classics 1B03 was one of the most interesting courses I did in my first term. I had Dr. Murgatroyd for Fall 2012 term. We covered 3 main works and a poem in the CourseWare:

Homers Iliad
Homers Odyssey
Virgils Aeneid
Catallus 64

To begin with, this course is not want I though it was. The description of the course in the colander insinuates a course dealing specifically to myths. Although the course does focus around myths it also focuses on the literary techniques of the poems such as similes, metaphors, characterization and all that fun stuff

Dr. Murgatroyd is an excellent professor, one of the best in the faculty; he is a great speaker and most of the time is easy to understand (sometimes his english accent muffles some of the words). He likes to crack a lot of jokes so make sure to laugh and he even tells you when and when not to take notes which is a nice added bonus. The material covered in lecture is very interesting and the myths contained in the set works are bad ass.

Probably the worst part of the course was the exam (well pretty much the course mark break down in general). Tutorial attendance and participation is worth 25% (10 of which is off of one assignment). This is quite a lot for a tutorial grade which is assessed by your TA as most are around 10-15 %. 25% of your mark is then evaluated by one essay which is pretty straight forward. That then leaves you with a 50% exam. Now, there is nothing wrong with this however it is what the prof is asking of you on the exam. Throughout the semester, you have the 3 main set works to go through. Each book takes roughly 2 weeks and 2 of the are 400+ pages and the other is 250-300+ pages. What he expects is for you to memorize the books in every detail and be able to regurgitate it all on the exam. For the written responses each question he asks 1-2 single space pages of writing which is around 7-10 pages in 2 HOURS plus your multiple choice. The written responses are questions on specific passages form the books. They can be any passage that relates to important themes in the poem. There is no formal exam review which sucks because basically your guessing as to what will be on the final and your spending hours trying to find passages and study them and end up not being on the final It is extremely difficult to answer specifics when most stories overlap mentioning similar myths with very fine details that are different. Because of this I did pretty bad which dropped by mark around 20-25%.

I best advice if you are absolutely wanting to take this course is to kill your essay and get a high enough mark before entering the exam or be prepared to study your face off or you will more than likely fail the course...which isn't a good time.

I am not bashing the course nor the prof as i gave them good ratings just the break down of Murgatroyd's taking of Classics 1B03 is an issue. He does not teach all the sections or every year. From other reviews the other prof is just as good so it doesn't matter however the course breakdown in terms of marks may be different
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-21-2012 at 02:34 AM   #11
akitae
Member
Posts: 17

Thanked: 0 Times
Liked: 0 Times
Classics 1B03
Dr. Murgatroyd

The professor for this course is excellent as they mentioned before, he's great at lecturing and often pulls puns and jokes which makes it more interesting. He highlights key notes that you should take down which is really good and talks in great depth on what you should pay attention to etc. I personally found him to be one of the best professors from the many courses I took!

My personal issue with his way of presenting was the use of the over head, often times I had to squint on trying to read the overhead while writing down my notes. It would probably have been better if he used like a bigger screen from the LCD projector or a slide show! But to each their own I suppose.

The books are interesting enough to keep you going, but I personally found the Iliad to be the most 'dry' in content wise, it had a lot of 'filler' points of just cataloging the deaths and ships etc. that I couldn't stand. The Odyssey was definitely more interesting! My suggestion would be to read each chapter and then go to SparkNotes and look at the summary/analysis, or vise versa. SparkNotes is really helpful when you're reviewing for the exam as he tells you that it would be best to re-read each book before the exam (Not everyone is able to read three books for one course as well as study for their other exams). SparkNotes has important characters and minor characters lists as well!

I found the exam to be pretty straight forward, you had a multiple choice section, I think like 50? As well as 7 short-ish answer questions that you had to pick 5 to answer. I also agree with the person above on that 2 hours was not enough time to write all of your answers down. But he does tell you everything will be on the exam from the novels and short epic poems so I thought that was pretty fair game. Just read the books and use SparkNotes!
  Reply With Quote



Review Tools Search this Review
Search this Review:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new reviews
You may not post comments
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



McMaster University News and Information, Student-run Community, with topics ranging from Student Life, Advice, News, Events, and General Help.
Notice: The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the student(s) who authored the content. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by McMaster University or the MSU (McMaster Students Union). Being a student-run community, all articles and discussion posts on MacInsiders are unofficial and it is therefore always recommended that you visit the official McMaster website for the most accurate up-to-date information.

Copyright © MacInsiders.com All Rights Reserved. No content can be re-used or re-published without permission. MacInsiders is a service of Fullerton Media Inc. | Created by Chad
Originally Powered by vBulletin®, Copyright © 2019 MH Sub I, LLC dba vBulletin. All rights reserved. | Privacy | Terms