Originally Posted by Kathy2

I agree. I hate when profs/TAs say "As long as you talk about something in tutorial, you'll get marks." Why?? What is the point of this. I learn nothing from hearing other students' opinions, or by stating my own.

This stuff only really works in certain courses ,where the material can be discussed in depth and would benefit from different opinions. Ex: Culture Studies.

lol, my friends are like in love with this course. And they like cell bio, except for the midterm. XD.

I hate participation crap too...and its in like every history course. I'd rather write a page outlining my views, or interpreting multiple views, and hand it in.

Originally Posted by britb

lol, my friends are like in love with this course. And they like cell bio, except for the midterm. XD.

I hate participation crap too...and its in like every history course. I'd rather write a page outlining my views, or interpreting multiple views, and hand it in.

Sounds like your friends need to get out of the keener corner and into the cool kids rings.

But seriously... how can ANYONE like this class?

Originally Posted by Kendoon

I'd rather do more actual physics than sit through this quasi-memorization drivel.

OH GOOD, THE NIGHT SKY SPARKLES!

What did you expect when you took a course called 'big questions' with no significant physics / math requirement? Something beyond a browsing-wikipedia-while-stoned treatment of the material?

I know how you feel man. I took this course last year expecting it to be super awesome - it totally sucked ass.

The worst part was when I first walked into tutorial and realized my TA was the same douchebag I had for Physics 1E03 (one of those TAs that take their job seriously for no reason).

I got owned on the group presentation because apparently it wasn't 'creative' enough and got owned on class participation because other dumbasses liked to talk over everyone else. I tried really hard on the final poster with my partner and only got 79% (ya, my TA wouldn't give 80%) because it didn't have enough sparkles or a Z-axis of motorized dioramas and light-up things. I did alright on the journals, but lost lots of marks cause the dates showed they were slightly piled towards the end (seriously, I'm in engineering - I don't have time to reflect on what I learned about planets and shit every friggin' Monday - lemme finish it on my own time).

The plus side is though, the midterm and exam were super nub (like you had to be borderline retarded to fail either).

I came out with a 10, but I wanted a goddamn 12 >:U.

Pretty terrible course... I expected by the title "Big Questions" we'd be discussing crazy things like what it would be like if robots and unicorns took over the world or something.

The amount of material I learned in that course I could have gotten off of wikipedia in about 30 minutes.

Pretty terrible overall - definitely not a bird course like everyone says.

Originally Posted by Mahratta

What did you expect when you took a course called 'big questions' with no significant physics / math requirement? Something beyond a browsing-wikipedia-while-stoned treatment of the material?

I do physics/astrophysics/math as well as biology/psych, so I was hoping it would be similar to my astronomy/physics courses without all the 'heavy lifting', and it certainly was, and it made me realize just how much the subjects really truly do blow when you remove the math/physics aspects (at least in practice) from them :/

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

I know how you feel man. I took this course last year expecting it to be super awesome - it totally sucked ass.

The worst part was when I first walked into tutorial and realized my TA was the same douchebag I had for Physics 1E03 (one of those TAs that take their job seriously for no reason).

I got owned on the group presentation because apparently it wasn't 'creative' enough and got owned on class participation because other dumbasses liked to talk over everyone else. I tried really hard on the final poster with my partner and only got 79% (ya, my TA wouldn't give 80%) because it didn't have enough sparkles or a Z-axis of motorized dioramas and light-up things. I did alright on the journals, but lost lots of marks cause the dates showed they were slightly piled towards the end (seriously, I'm in engineering - I don't have time to reflect on what I learned about planets and shit every friggin' Monday - lemme finish it on my own time).

The plus side is though, the midterm and exam were super nub (like you had to be borderline retarded to fail either).

I came out with a 10, but I wanted a goddamn 12 >:U.

Pretty terrible course... I expected by the title "Big Questions" we'd be discussing crazy things like what it would be like if robots and unicorns took over the world or something.

The amount of material I learned in that course I could have gotten off of wikipedia in about 30 minutes.

Pretty terrible overall - definitely not a bird course like everyone says.

Exactly.

(extrawordsgohere)

last year, when i took it, she curved the marks at the end of the term. I ended up getting a 70 on both the presentation and the poster thing (the TA told me that they were told by the prof to rape us).

I figured she curved the marks because i needed to get more than a 100 on the exam to 12 the course. And i still got a 12

And the picture removing thing, yea i know, sucks.

Exams not too hard, common sense pretty much.

I don't know how the course is now, but I took it last year and found it pretty interesting! The T.A's at that time were really nice and approachable. I guess staffing changes aren't that great this year. Its super easy... so whats there to complain about? Would you want it any harder? The presentations did kind of suck but I know my group aced it, we put a lot effort into it and the T.A. rewarded us whereas the other presentations in our class really sucked and it they got the grades they deserved.

The whole idea of a "bird course" is somewhat of a mystery to me. Sure you can decide to pick a course that seems to be less intensive (few assignments, tests, memorization, etc.) but in the end, if you don't enjoy the content that the course provides it will wear on you and it will be just as hard as any course.

Quite frankly i'm a little embarrassed that University students feel the need to take "bird courses" when they are supposed to be coming here to actually educate themselves. That's just my two cents though.

That's just ridiculous, have you taken every 'bird course' ever?

Originally Posted by mattatmac

The whole idea of a "bird course" is somewhat of a mystery to me. Sure you can decide to pick a course that seems to be less intensive (few assignments, tests, memorization, etc.) but in the end, if you don't enjoy the content that the course provides it will wear on you and it will be just as hard as any course.

Quite frankly i'm a little embarrassed that University students feel the need to take "bird courses" when they are supposed to be coming here to actually educate themselves. That's just my two cents though.

You try taking 4 chemistry courses in a semester, deciding on your 5th course, and thinking "OH, I'm here for an education, let's take another extremely difficult course just to ensure I only manage 4 hours of sleep a night the entire semester in order to pass"

This looks like an astronomy course for special people, or am I mistaken?
(going based on the course outline)

Originally Posted by mattatmac

The whole idea of a "bird course" is somewhat of a mystery to me. Sure you can decide to pick a course that seems to be less intensive (few assignments, tests, memorization, etc.) but in the end, if you don't enjoy the content that the course provides it will wear on you and it will be just as hard as any course.

Quite frankly i'm a little embarrassed that University students feel the need to take "bird courses" when they are supposed to be coming here to actually educate themselves. That's just my two cents though.

I used to think like you. Then I realized that essentially every program makes you take a bunch of garbage electives that are totally irrelevant to your program of study and the university never offers enough seats for courses that appear semi-interesting to you.

So yes, when you're FORCED to take garbage courses that are completely and utterly irrelevant and uninteresting to you and that cost anywhere from 500-700 dollars, then it might as well be an easy one.

I have a few friends in this course and all they do is complain about it. It sounds horrible.