Hello, I was hoping that some of you may be able to tell me whether my choices for courses next year is good or not. Because I couldn't find reviews for many of them, I have blindly registered them for now.

- Psych 2RB3
- Psych 2TT3
- Psych 2RA3
- Psych 2D03
- Psych 2C03
- Psych 2E03
- Psych 3BA3
- Psych 3BB3

I'm still thinking about my two electives. I'm considering French 1A06. ..Does anyone happen to know how the workload is for that? Any presentations (I've always felt strongly against memorizing/reciting lengthy presentations; not much learning seems to happen)?

Thank you!

Whoa whoa whoa!!
You're registered for 8 psychology courses?! If so, don't do that! I strongly advise against taking more than 5 courses in your program. I was a psychology major before I switched into Philosophy. You will CONSTANTLY have tests and they'll overlap. It's also multiple choice for pretty much all psych courses. Translation: You have to read every single word from your textbooks and chapters are not a couple of pages long. I've taken 2C03- it seems easy but it really isn't. A lot of people fail tests because they think it's common sense but it's actually the opposite of whatever you think it is. Multiple choice choices all look the same and specifics matter! Psychology 2D03 requires A LOT of prior knowledge. I ended up dropping the course although I still read the textbook for fun! The content of the textbook is amazing and I love the topic. the professor was not so nice and not willing to help those who lacked prior knowledge. But honestly, don't take too many courses in the same program because all of the information gets jumbled up and it's usually the same format for tests and assignments and due dates are relatively around the same time. Switch it up. Take random courses that seem interesting. Instead of psychology consider sociology, philosophy, anthropology, biology, languages, etc.

Thanks for the warning!
Do you know if Psych 2F03 is easier than 2D03 then? I'm taking a prereq for 2F03 right now, so perhaps I can get permission to register for it.

I actually do want to take a whole ton of other First Year courses, just to explore and find what I like most. But there's a limit of 48 credits from First Year maximum, and I'm already at 36.. I wasn't too smart last year and wasted all my First Year electives on completely pointless courses, which means I don't really have prereqs for stuff in other programs.

So for now, I'm back down to:

- Psych 2RB3
- Psych 2TT3
- Psych 2RA3
- Psych 2D03/2F03
- Psych 2C03
- Psych 2E03
- French 1A06

I'm also considering Linguistics 1A03, but that will mean I'll only have one First Year course left. :\

What do you really want to get into?

Originally Posted by Afrisa

Thanks for the warning!


So for now, I'm back down to:

- Psych 2RB3
- Psych 2TT3
- Psych 2RA3
- Psych 2D03/2F03
- Psych 2C03
- Psych 2E03
- French 1A06

I'm also considering Linguistics 1A03, but that will mean I'll only have one First Year course left. :\

i have taken all of those courses except for 2d03/2f03:

2ra3/2rb3 are required so you have to take those anyway. dr. shedden is really nice but i must admit that stats 2ra3 was my lowest mark in all of my university career!

2tt3 wasn't for me, but there's potential for you to do really well if you show up to class and do the readings. watch out for his "smiley face" slides!

2c03 was interesting with m/c midterms and exam. read the textbook and pay attention to the wording of the questions and you'll be fine.

2e03 is pretty good too...i actually found it easier than most psych courses i've taken.

french 1a06 is a great class if you've taken at least grade 12 core french...the grammar section is pretty much all review and there are a lot of marks allotted to participation and attendance.

linguistics 1a03 was also relatively easy, but i recommend that you be a native speaker of English since a large portion of the class is dedicated to phonetics and being able to pronounce English words helps a lot!

Originally Posted by ferreinm

What do you really want to get into?

I'm actually not quite sure. However, I know for certain that I do want to continue in Psychology, just not clinical Psych. I've considered perhaps Marketing Psychology, ergonomics of sort, and research.
I'm also currently considering a minor in French, however I don't really like the idea of studying literature. But I guess I should just suck it up and do it.

Originally Posted by christinedj

linguistics 1a03 was also relatively easy, but i recommend that you be a native speaker of English since a large portion of the class is dedicated to phonetics and being able to pronounce English words helps a lot!

Excellent; I am. It sounds fun. : ]

Took 2RA3, 2TT3, and 2F03
2RA3 - Depends if you've taken stats before, if so, its really easy, if not, it in theory could be quite a bit harder. Material is terribly boring, extreme amounts of detail about things that aren't going to get tested on. Labs are EASY, midterms have a lot of stupid questions.

2TT3 - When taught by Beston, assignments are numbingly easy, as are first two tests, exam though, is a kicker, a lot of the stuff feels like it came out of nowhere. The emphasis when he teaches is on the Experiments he explains, the concepts themselves are fairly intuitive, but its the evidence that seems to be important.

2F03 - Had this taught by Dr Goldreich, who is extremely knowledgeable, and seemingly a nice guy. His assignmens were relatively tough. His lecfturing style was somewhat scatterbrained, as it made sense, but sometimes he got off focus. His in class Brain Teasers, though I did well on them, seemed a little unfair, as some of them were based on physics concepts etc that we in theory didn't need to know. His tests got harder and harder though, and this is one o those courses where he never references the textbook, but he tests out of it. The material is SO INTERESTING though.

If you didn't taken French past grade 9 or 10 in high school you'll probably want to do French 1K06 - I didn't take French after grade 9 and I'm taking that one right now, the first bit is a lot of review mixed with new stuff. If you took up to grade 11 or 12, 1A06 is probably for you. There's also a course for people who are complete beginners at French (I believe it's 1Z06?). If you're not sure of which to take you can do a placement test.

Linguistics 1A03 is a great course as long as you have the time to learn/study the material. The prof (Dr. Moro) is really nice, but a lot of people really didn't do well in the course because they took it as a bird course and didn't keep up with the work. It's not a lot of reading by any means, but it does take practice. Good Luck!

...Just a note for everyone to submit/check out the course reviews section of the website. Click the reviews button on the top to get there. =)

Adding reviews makes me smile !

@Afrisa: What did you end up taking? I'm going into my second year, in the psych program as well. I'm required to take 6 psychology classes and then electives. There are way more second year psych courses that I'm not required to take, but really spike my interest. Is it a really bad a idea to choose psych courses as my electives? Because I looked into third year courses and some of the ones I want to take require extra psych courses as pre-reqs.

If you need to take more 2nd year psych courses to take upper ones that peak your interest then you probably should.

Careful with taken too many courses that are alike though. Some people can deal with studying the same or similar material all day and they can even perform better that way. However I know that if I had to study the same material all day I would get pretty irrated and bored. I find diverse course load to be nice. That way if I ever get tired of studying bio I can study math instead which is totally different.

It's also worth pointing out (to everybody) that it's rarely a good idea to base how much a course spikes your interest on the course description(s) in the undergraduate calendar. I've fallen victim to how "interesting" a course sounds simply by the name of the course and the little blurb they give you.

As a rule of thumb, you should always have at least 2 sources of "evidence" of how a course is run or what the content is like whether it be from an upper year or from Course Reviews on Macinsiders :o), so that you're always well-informed. I realize that this is probably time-consuming, but the extra effort is worth saving you the pain half way through the term when you start questioning why the heck you took the course in the first place.

Here's a tip:
If you Google the course code (ie. Psych 2H03) (maybe include the name of the course) and/or the prof's name (ie. Watter), more often than not, you can actually find the course's syllabus/outline. This is a HUGE help, especially if you want to know what you're getting into and it helps to know the expectations of a specific prof. This won't work if the professor or course is new, but it doesn't hurt to look.


It never hurts to be resourceful, and remember there are thousands of upper years who have sat through the exact same courses and professors who wish they would've had some sort of warning before they signed up for the course!

Wow that was long-winded, but I hope that had some sense to it.

I also searched McMaster's website for course outlines that the departments post up themselves. Check it out here: Course Outlines

omg jhan I didn't even catch that! haha definitely puts my post to shame, but that is some awesomely thorough work.