I was talking to a friend today who told me that it is not possible to get an A in Social Sciences. Is this true? He said that Prof.'s of social sciences would never give an A. He said his Prof. told him that.

Anything is possible, but that being said, it is very difficult to get an A in social sciences, you need to go that extra mile on your papers and assignments to really really wow the prof/TA marking your work.

It's like that with many humanities courses with many essays as well.

Clearly that's not the case at all.

Hard? Yeah, probably.

Impossible? Nah.

I got an 11 in philosophy first year. I was in Engineering and put very little effort into the course. Maybe I just had a lenient TA, but it didn't seem too difficult.

Yeah, I definitely know people who have finished with 12s in Soc Sci courses, its not impossible.

Keep in mind that an A is anything above an 11, (anything above a 10 if you count A-). A large chunk of students get marks like that.

If you're friend said that, they're probably making excuses for why they didn't get any A's

PS- Psssh, Jean-Marc, philosophy is a humanities course I did the same thing in mine as well though. Yay us!

PPS- Congratz on the transfer!

I wouldn't think any social science course is harder than any other type of course.

Originally Posted by jamescw1234

Anything is possible, but that being said, it is very difficult to get an A in social sciences, you need to go that extra mile on your papers and assignments to really really wow the prof/TA marking your work.

It is difficult to get an A in any course (whether it is social science, humanities, science, health sci etc.).

I have taken 4 humanities courses so far (3 philosophies and 1 English), and I have received >10 in all of them. I am not sure if psychology counts as a science course or social science course, but I have also received A’s in psych. If psych is a social science course, I can tell you first-hand that it is definitely possible to get a 12!

well it isnt Health Sci

Originally Posted by andrew22

well it isnt Health Sci

If it was, this thread would be called:

"Not possible to get below an A in Health Science courses"

Originally Posted by rrtt

It is difficult to get an A in any course (whether it is social science, humanities, science, health sci etc.).

I have taken 4 humanities courses so far (3 philosophies and 1 English), and I have received >10 in all of them. I am not sure if psychology counts as a science course or social science course, but I have also received A’s in psych. If psych is a social science course, I can tell you first-hand that it is definitely possible to get a 12!

I can't agree with the first thing you wrote.

There's a lot of courses where it's not hard AT ALL to get a 12...e.g., Linguistics, Biology 1M03, and I'm sure a few first year courses from every faculty. Sure, on average one faculty may not be too much easier than any other, but individual courses may vary significantly

It's not impossible, but it can be very hard. Social Sciences and Humanities courses can be very frustrating because there is so much subjective marking. There is no "right" and "wrong" like in Science, Engineering, Math, Health Sci, etc.
Most classes, until fourth year, are large and that means TAs do the marking and not the profs. TAs generally are harder markers than professors. It sucks even more because every TA marks differently. You might end up getting the hardest marker in the course and only managing to get C-, while some others are doing the same quality work and getting B+.

People who aren't in Soc Sci/Humanities never seem to believe me on this, but it's true. I guarantee you that if I took a paper written for a third year class, marked by a TA, and received a grade of B-, and I gave it to one of my fourth year profs, I would get an A. It's ridiculous.

Originally Posted by PTGregD

If it was, this thread would be called:

"Not possible to get below an A in Health Science courses"

i was all about to start a parody thread but then thot it would be a bit much,


I was talking to a friend today who told me that it is not possible to get below an A in Health Sciences. Is this true? He said that Prof.'s of health sciences would never give below an A. He said his Prof. told him that.

It is one big difficulty people dont recognize with more "art" oriented classes. Essays introduce a huge chance factor. Will the professor mark the first essay down to scare students into working? Does the professor hold the incorrect belief that giving perfect means there is no fault in it? Some professors just want to "teach the student a lesson" when the student already knows how to work hard, they just need good marks.

Science/math courses are harder, but there IS A CORRECT ANSWER. It is possible to not make a mistake. With essays it is up to interpretation. For an even farther contrast, imagine being a student taking a Music Composition class where the professor is marking an original piece of music you wrote. It can be so subjective and most professors are very biased.

Side note: I had a TA in third year tell us that it was impossible to get perfect for the tutorial participation/attendance section of the grade. What the hell does that even mean? Someone could be completely deserving of getting 100% for their tutorial participation but the TA would refuse to give them 100% for no reason? So stupid..