First, I'd like to thank lorend, chad, and anyone else that helped me this year, you have all been amazing, drinks on me. You are good people. Second, I'd like to know where I could get my hands on the communications course outlines, very few are available on the website for glancing over. I am seeking to fidn those most suitable to what I want, Im more of a performace organizer, mass communications guy. Any info about the 2-4 year courses, especially those related to politics and business would be great. Im really in a bind for picking between philosophy and communications to compliment my political science. Lui Temelkovski (MP, Liberal Party) suggested I do philosophy, and I like the outline for 2nd,3rd,4th year, as well as the professors. However, I am very interested in communications but the stability/clarity of the situation (professors, markign schemes, marking styles,etc) leads me to question a field I fell in love with. I ask for any assistance and will be extatic should I recieve what I ask.

Hey Goce!

Thanks for the kind words. Be sure to come meet us in September at our booth during Clubsfest 2008 as well as come to our first General Meeting which will be sometime that month. Also, be sure to spread the word about MI to all your friends

You can read all about the courses and requirements for CMST (Communication Studies) and any other courses on the Registrars website under the Course Calendar.

Undergraduate Calendar: http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /calen...2008/index.htm

You click "Humanities" > "Programs Offered..." > "Dept. of CMST" > "Combined Honours"

Ya, it's a long trail of things to click on, I know! That's probably why you didn't know about it ;-)

You should end up here.

There you will find all the requirements for taking a combined honours in CMST and another subject. It shows you what classes you HAVE to take, what you have to pick from, etc. You can also click on the course codes to read about each class.

Note: You won't be taking third year courses in 3rd year, and fourth year courses in 4th year... you mix and match... mainly between the 2nd/3rd year classes. So there is an abundance of 2nd and 3rd yr courses to take as main required classes as well as electives in any year (after your 1st year).

chad i'm kind of confused about the courses you HAVE to take second year for the combined honours-- for example when it says you need 9 units from CMST2A03, CMST2B03 and 2C03 does that mean you just need to finish all of those by the end of your fourth year? so if all of those three don't fit into your schedule with the other courses you want to take you can wait until next year?

how many of the required courses/which ones do you recommend actually taking second year?

thanks so much!

Any faculty that states you need to take x courses out of a list of y means you need to finish them by your final year. However, you should be wary of certain prerequisites completing said courses allows you, if applicable.

Originally Posted by tamzmullett

chad i'm kind of confused about the courses you HAVE to take second year for the combined honours-- for example when it says you need 9 units from CMST2A03, CMST2B03 and 2C03 does that mean you just need to finish all of those by the end of your fourth year? so if all of those three don't fit into your schedule with the other courses you want to take you can wait until next year?

how many of the required courses/which ones do you recommend actually taking second year?

thanks so much!

Yes, you have to take all three of those Communication courses.

Also you are correct, you just have to have them finished by the end of your 4th year. You don't have to take all 3 in 2nd year if you don't want to or can't.

I also have a personal recommendation. Don't take 2A03 and 2B03 in the same term. There is some similiar material (they are Qualitative and Quantitative research courses) and it can get tiresome and annoying to have them doing on simultaneously. Also the assignments are all due at the same times so you'll be doing similiar assignments at the exact time time. For example at the end of term this year we had a 12 page paper due for both courses at the same time. I didn't take them in the same term but I know many people who did who hated it and would recommend against it. If you don't want to take all 3 in the same year I would recommend putting off 2A03 or 2B03 to another year.

Originally Posted by tamzmullett

chad i'm kind of confused about the courses you HAVE to take second year for the combined honours-- for example when it says you need 9 units from CMST2A03, CMST2B03 and 2C03 does that mean you just need to finish all of those by the end of your fourth year? so if all of those three don't fit into your schedule with the other courses you want to take you can wait until next year?

how many of the required courses/which ones do you recommend actually taking second year?

thanks so much!

Im in CMST too, obviously lol, so I can help you out here also. You have to take CMST 1A03, 2A03, 2B03, 2C03, AND 2CC3. Everything else is list based, meaning you get to pick out of a variety of courses. Personally, I suggest you take a look at the old undergrad calendar, which used to have CMST streams, and pick your list courses based on your interested stream (Mass Media, Linguistics, Performance, Culture).

I suggest you take 2A03 and 2B03 in different terms of the same year, there is a lot of overlap. The rest is really all up to personal preference. Though keep in mind that you need 2A03, 2B03, AND 2C03 if you want to TA eventually (year after, or year after that).

If you want to chat about this some more feel free to pm me or post here, or we can even talk on msn.

Wow thanks soo much! What is your email? I may just add you to msn because I have a few simple questions that I don't really want to go see a humanities advisor for and take time out of work in the day.

Originally Posted by tamzmullett

Wow thanks soo much! What is your email? I may just add you to msn because I have a few simple questions that I don't really want to go see a humanities advisor for and take time out of work in the day.

I just PM'd you with my e-mail.

Yay poli sci!

As for your question about philosophy versus cmst... it depends on what your future goals are. Philosophy can be very very challenging but it will push you to develop your critical thinking abilities. It can also be extremely time consuming and frustrating if you're not absolutely in love with the texts your reading. I found myself reading the same paragraph a few times at least and then wanting to burn my book on several occasions lol. Philosophy isn't great for self confidence lmao.

The biggest reason I'm switching out of philosophy is because of its lack of application to the real world. The only fields of philosophy that I found interesting were bioethics, philosophy of law, and those types of subjects. I found epistemology and metaphysics and the rest just pointlessly frustrating... I learned that I like practical and philosophy is FAR from that the vast majority of the time. The professors are fantastic though.

Do a minor in philosophy if you're interested in it... that's what I'm doing That way you can focus on the areas of philosophy that you find interesting without having to suffer through too many requireds.

I don't have a lot of knowledge about CMST but a friend of mine transferred from Kin into the program and absolutely loves it. Shes an entrepreneur at heart and gifted at marketing herself and working with people so that probably works best with her. From what she tells me CMST has a lot of real world application... which would be better than philosophy (I'm slightly jaded lol).

Some philo classes that I took and loved were PHILOS 2D03 (moral issues) and PHILOS 2E03 (Chinese Classical Philosophy) PHILOS 2C06 (Descartes to Hume) is one of the requireds which I suffered through. I found a full year of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, among others just too much and too painful. However it is a required even if you do a minor... I'm rambling now but basically... if you can handle huge amounts of difficult reading and sincerely enjoy that type of philosophy.. go for it!

I'm more pumped for third year poli sci than anything! What are you taking?

(sorry for the novel!)

hey i was just wondering if there's a limit to how many communications classes we can take in 2nd year?

Originally Posted by newsha

hey i was just wondering if there's a limit to how many communications classes we can take in 2nd year?

There is no such limit outside of the actual restrictions in your degree.
However, some degrees have a restriction on the amount of courses
being taken overall in a given program, e.g. Poli Sci has a 54 unit maximum,
but this is not the case with CMST.