[Pazzo]

ECON 2K03 is best described as a history course combined with economic elements. You will go through the period before Confederation in 1867 all the way to the Present, covering WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII in between.

PROFESSOR

The professor teaching the course is Hannah Holmes. Since ECON 1B03 is a prereq for this course, many of you are already familiar with her, so I don't need to say much. She really cares for her students and loves to see them succeed.

LECTURES

I took this course in the summer, and there were only 2 lectures/week. During the year however, there are 3 lectures a week. There are no tutorials to worry about.

Regarding teaching style, Holmes uses the LCD projector ONLY when showing pictures, and nothing else. Her full lecture notes that she uses in class will NOT be posted on Avenue, nor shown in class to you. However, there are PowerPoint teaser notes available on Avenue which help you decipher what important points you need to know for a particular chapter. If you want to do well on the tests and the final exam though, you should avoid studying off these alone...try to build on them as much as possible in class. Whether using a laptop to take notes or not, I should note that professor Holmes does tend to speak quite quickly when covering the course material, so be prepared to type or write down a lot of information as quickly as you can. If you see yourself constantly missing important points, let her know...she's always willing to slow down the pace if need be.

BREAKDOWN OF MARKS

The course (based on taking it in the summer) had 2 midterms (1 hour each, with both worth 33%) and a final exam (also just an hour, worth 34%). If you're taking it during the year though, there is an additional video assignment (formerly given two options of either writing an essay or doing a video presentation) that you must complete where you go over the economic history of your Canadian hometown (if you are not from Canada, then you are given a choice of Canadian cities/towns to choose from). See the course outline from the Winter 2011 term, which provides more details: http://www.economics.mcmaste r.ca/documents/Econ%202K03%20Holmes. pdf.

The tests were fairly straightforward and not difficult at all, as long as you have good notes and memorize the key events and points. You will be expected to know key dates (e.g. Confederation in 1867), so be prepared for that. The test format was 6-7 short answer questions, with one of them testing your ability to match key events with key dates. There is no multiple choice. As for the exam, it followed the same format as the tests, and was also pretty much the same in terms of difficulty. Professor Holmes is very generous regarding marks, and gave us easy bonus questions for both midterms and the final exam. Also, one of our TAs in the summer did a review that proved to be extremely helpful before each midterm, and posted them on YouTube. Here's the link to his channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/radek3900#p/u.

All in all, it is not hard at all to obtain at least a 10 in the course if you pay close attention in class, listen carefully, take good notes, and understand the most important events relevant to each chapter.

I should also add that if you think you missed anything from the lectures, you can always listen to the podcasts (29 of them in total, with the last one being an exam review).

As for the textbook (History of the Canadian Economy by Norrie), it says in the course outline that it's recommended, but I don't think it's that necessary to do well in the course. However, in some of the early podcasts, you can barely make out what Holmes is saying due to audio problems, so having the textbook to refer to helped in that sense.

I took this course in winter 2013 with Wayne Lewchuk, who I think is one of the most interesting and knowledgable profs in the econ department. This is one of the most relevant courses you'll ever take as an econ student (or poli sci student) in Canada. The material is extremely interesting for anybody with an interest in Canadian history or politics and focuses on everything from the first industry in Canada (fisheries, fur, timber, agriculture) to modern stuff (oil, NAFTA, trade relations with the United States) and is discussed in the context of various economic principles like the staple thesis, market failure, different kinds of tariffs, etc.

The breakdown of marks was as follows:

Family History Assignment - 5%

Two pages on your family's economic history in Canada. Very straightforward, and he provides a lot of guidance on what kind of things to include. This was marked very easily; my friend in the class and I both got 100% easily.

Midterm - 30%

It was a pretty long and involved, most of us were still writing at the end. I don't think the class did too well because we were curved up substantially.

Term Paper - 20%

Here, we took an event or trend in our family history assignments and expanded on it. I wrote on the development of Hamilton's industrial sector in the early 20th century, and I actually found it a pretty interesting paper to write, probably because it was so relevant to my family. We got a ton of direction from Lewchuk on this one; he gave us a lot of guidelines and made it very clear what he wanted from us, and if you followed the rules and put in an effort, you did well.

Final Exam - 45%

There was a ton of material to learn for this, and it was challenging but the most important thing to understand were trends in Canadian economic history, and events that support those trends. I found the exam tough, but fair and I haven't received my grade yet but I'm confident it went well.

Tips: go to class. Lewchuk does post notes on Avenue, but they're very barebones and he expands on them greatly in class. He also talks very quickly. The textbook... I did the readings, I know others who didn't, and I don't think there was much difference in our grades. I liked the textbook because it gave me context and because I did find it a challenge to keep up with Lewchuk some days, but the readings were not entirely necessary.

Overall, good class. I enjoyed it, I learned from it, and it is entirely possible to come out with a 12.