I’m thinking of taking Psych 1A03 and maybe 1AA3, can anyone tell me if these courses are hard? What are some of the topics covered?

Hey Mac12,

I took both Psych courses this past year. They are changing the courses for Sept. '08 though (http://www.science.mcmaster. ca/psy...s/courses.html). But, I can't comment on HOW much its changing. However, I can say that the courses this year were significantly different than what I had heard about them in past years. Basically, we didn't have the traditional "go-to-class" lectures; rather, we had weekly web modules (commonly known as online lectures). These lectures would be released on a certain day and we would have unlimited access to them for a limited amount of time (about a week if I am not mistaken), after which they would be taken down off for viewing. Also, the online lectures would last anywhere from 15 minutes to 40 minutes. But a lot of students, including me, found that these lectures were very time-consuming, in that we had to constantly pause/play the lectures to take notes into the Psych handbook (our midterms and exam were open-book, so it definitely helped having notes in the handbook... the amount of information you write down is up to you ... some students barely took notes, while others absolutely FILLED every inch of the handbook with writing).

Okay, so basically what happened this year was students would watch the lectures and attend tutorials in which a TA would discuss the information covered in the lectures, and would give additional information not covered in the lectures.

Also, in terms of grades and assessment, the two courses were slightly different:

Psych 1A03 had two midterms, an exam, tutorial participation, tutorial quizzes, and a big group project.

In Psych 1AA3, everything was the same, except instead of the big group project, we had 4 mini-assignments (out of which only the 3 best counted for our final marks). A lot of students disliked the assignments, primarily because of how they were marked (reasons: TAs were subjective, picky, etc.).

So, that was a brief background to the courses. Now, to answer you question... Both courses were certainly interesting and topics that were covered included (I may be missing some):

Psych 1A03:

- Evolution
- Development
- Brain
- Vision
- Colour Perception
- Form Perception
- Depth, Distance, & Motion
- Audition
- Music
- Chemical, Senses, & Touch
- Motivation (Hunger)

Psych 1AA3:

- Learning
- Memory
- Language
- Attention
- Categories & Concepts
- Forming Impressions
- Influence of Others
- Altruism
- Personality
- Psychopathalogy (my personal favourite!)

Overall, I liked Psych 1A03 better because it covered psychology from a science perspective, which I personally enjoyed. In terms of level of difficulty, I think it seemed as if Psych 1A03 covered a lot more content than the 1AA3. But, I guess it was because there was a lot of science involved, and the amount of content would be really deep. Psych 1AA3 was an easier courses (in terms of studying for the midterms and exams), but what made it "hard" was the marking of the mini-assignments. I think if you put in the effort though, you should be able to do well in both courses (atleast a 10 or A-).

Good luck!

I hope I didn't ramble on too much!

I took both of these courses (as I'm majoring in Psych next year), and, personally, I didn't find them too difficult. Since they're online, they do require a lot of willpower to stay on track. I'll give you a bit of a rundown on each course.

PSYCH 1A03:
This course is definitely not what you think a psych course would be. Most other university students I know from different schools took "psych 101", and they were all the same basic course except for Mac's. If you're looking for basic intro psych, that's 1AA3. This course is very science-y. It started with an introduction to the history of psychology and research methods, which, if you took data management in high school, is very easy. The course then goes into an introduction to sensory processes, which is basically the science behind your senses. For example, you learn the pathway of light, how it hits your retinal cells and travels into your brain, where it goes and how it makes you see. Most of the course is made up of things like this. There are two online lectures and two tutorials per week. GO TO THEM. I watched all the lectures but skipped like 75% of the tutorials in first term. Because intropsych uses participation marks, I lost nearly 10% just because I slept in a lot. There was also one big group assignment, which wasn't too bad.

PSYCH 1AA3:
This is your standard IntroPsych course. It covers material on inter-personal behaviour, as well as abnormal psychology/psychpathology (ie. mental disorders). I found this one more interesting and easier than 1A03. Dr. Kim decided to change the group project for this course, and split it into 4 smaller written papers, which were very very toughly marked. Beware of these! I went to class for this term, and my grades were so much better . yay!

____

Also, you should know, that the IntroPsych midterms/finals tend to be pretty tricky. The questions were multiple choice, and the tests were open book. Make sure you study as if they weren't open book, because I found that the book didn't help me that much. You need to actually UNDERSTAND the concepts, because the questions are application-style. I know a lot of people who weren't prepared for these tests and their grades suffered.

I really enjoyed these courses -- If you're interested in psychology, I recommend taking them

dj_money. if you don't mind, would you be able to just copy/paste kinda what you wrote and put it in the course review section? that would be great! i originally wanted to write about these two psych courses, but i took it in 06/07 so its all changed, not really relevant info anymore.

http://www.macinsiders.com/forumdisplay.php?f=81
if you look other courses, you can kinda see what the format is, but its kinda similar to yours. thanks that would be so awesome.

Hey Eva C,

Not a problem!

So i heard that they switched psych 1a03 and 1aa3 around (and thus renaming them). I was just wondering, if it would be a good a good idea to take psych 1xx3, instead of geography in my second term. (I want to get into biochem). What is the workload like?/
Thanks in advance