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Mhis121 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter jayq94
- Start date
Good News everybody! As I understand it the 2013 Convener is not taking the unit for 2014. Instead, you get a new convener!This is perhaps the best bit of news as the 2013 guy made the subject awfully annoying. Here's why:
1. Lecture style. The 2013 guy would walk up and down the the stairs along the side of the room meaning that you had to have your head on a a near constant swivel. They doesn't seem bad but when you're frantically trying to the notes it gets annoying and has produced many a headaches. The guy spoke as if he was giving a conference paper, that is, he used words which you have no idea of their meaning and was overly academic. His pace was astoninglying fast.
2. You may say to yourself, ah, but that's no problem, I can just go back later and look at the power point slides. Wrong, this guy didn't have slides, he had one unhelpful page on the projector which have a rough overview of the lecture in less then 100 words. The echo recording system also (on purpose) recorded the lecture as an audio file and not a stream, it meant that if he did put pictures on the projector you'd have to pause, fiddle around with echo and etc etc - it's bad.
3. The tutorial readings. OMG. The amount of rage and confusion this got from my tutor group was hysterically funny if wasn't so bad. The 2013 guy set the most annoying, complicated, long reads (for a first year subject). Your second reading is Dante's Inferno. And you're expected to know basically everything about it. The readings bared little over all relation to the broader picture of the content. They didn't help you understand and they are ALL primary source documents, so you;re not engaging with the much more illuminating historiography. The tutes themselves were hell. No one spoke because he would snap at you for producing a failed guess or answer, and we would sometimes go hard on people who gave poor answers. Our last tute was devoted to him having an angry rant. (on top of that you have to read around 40 pages from the textbook - the textbook is better than the lecture content. No joke).
4. The assessment content. IS. VERY. HARD. The first task is a 1500 essay on a primary source document. Sounds easy, right? WRONG. The questions he gave us were very obscure, the source it's self bared almost no relation to the overall subject matter of the course. The major assignment - a 2500 word essay in one week during the exam period with 3 questions to chose from... Words fail me on this one. There was universal anger at this last assignment.
The overall problem of MHIS121 is that it's wayy too demanding for a first year subject. Instead of easing you in, as every unit I've had this year has done, it moves at a break neck speed and the content it covers vast amounts of time with VERY LITTLE ATTENTION to detail. However, that was this year. A new convener may shake things up etc.
Two final things. PLEASE do http://www.handbook.mq.edu.au/2013/Units/UGUnit/MHIS114. It was a bloody great unit. It is NOT focused solely around Australia (indeed, it's a world history unit). The lecturer is great, funny and incredibly smart. The assignments are fun, easy and hassle free (the major assignment is actually fun and easy to do). Do this unit. You will not regret it. Also, the Big History unit - DO NOT FALL INTO THE TRAP OF DOING THIS. This is not a 'history unit' per se, it is VERY science-based. They started with around 150 people in the course and I think it went down to 40 within the first few weeks.
Lastly, MHIS gets good in the second year up, so hang in there. Their AHIS program at MQ is GREAT. If you have even the slightest interest in Roman history I cannot not plead you enough to take AHIS110 (http://www.handbook.mq.edu.au/2013/Units/UGUnit/AHIS110). To date, it's been the best unit I've taken (and trust me everyone agrees, it is amazing).
Good luck with it all. I'll be on the forums to help people with their first year MHIS, AHIS and EDUC selections (I'd like to think I'm 'Helping'...).
1. Lecture style. The 2013 guy would walk up and down the the stairs along the side of the room meaning that you had to have your head on a a near constant swivel. They doesn't seem bad but when you're frantically trying to the notes it gets annoying and has produced many a headaches. The guy spoke as if he was giving a conference paper, that is, he used words which you have no idea of their meaning and was overly academic. His pace was astoninglying fast.
2. You may say to yourself, ah, but that's no problem, I can just go back later and look at the power point slides. Wrong, this guy didn't have slides, he had one unhelpful page on the projector which have a rough overview of the lecture in less then 100 words. The echo recording system also (on purpose) recorded the lecture as an audio file and not a stream, it meant that if he did put pictures on the projector you'd have to pause, fiddle around with echo and etc etc - it's bad.
3. The tutorial readings. OMG. The amount of rage and confusion this got from my tutor group was hysterically funny if wasn't so bad. The 2013 guy set the most annoying, complicated, long reads (for a first year subject). Your second reading is Dante's Inferno. And you're expected to know basically everything about it. The readings bared little over all relation to the broader picture of the content. They didn't help you understand and they are ALL primary source documents, so you;re not engaging with the much more illuminating historiography. The tutes themselves were hell. No one spoke because he would snap at you for producing a failed guess or answer, and we would sometimes go hard on people who gave poor answers. Our last tute was devoted to him having an angry rant. (on top of that you have to read around 40 pages from the textbook - the textbook is better than the lecture content. No joke).
4. The assessment content. IS. VERY. HARD. The first task is a 1500 essay on a primary source document. Sounds easy, right? WRONG. The questions he gave us were very obscure, the source it's self bared almost no relation to the overall subject matter of the course. The major assignment - a 2500 word essay in one week during the exam period with 3 questions to chose from... Words fail me on this one. There was universal anger at this last assignment.
The overall problem of MHIS121 is that it's wayy too demanding for a first year subject. Instead of easing you in, as every unit I've had this year has done, it moves at a break neck speed and the content it covers vast amounts of time with VERY LITTLE ATTENTION to detail. However, that was this year. A new convener may shake things up etc.
Two final things. PLEASE do http://www.handbook.mq.edu.au/2013/Units/UGUnit/MHIS114. It was a bloody great unit. It is NOT focused solely around Australia (indeed, it's a world history unit). The lecturer is great, funny and incredibly smart. The assignments are fun, easy and hassle free (the major assignment is actually fun and easy to do). Do this unit. You will not regret it. Also, the Big History unit - DO NOT FALL INTO THE TRAP OF DOING THIS. This is not a 'history unit' per se, it is VERY science-based. They started with around 150 people in the course and I think it went down to 40 within the first few weeks.
Lastly, MHIS gets good in the second year up, so hang in there. Their AHIS program at MQ is GREAT. If you have even the slightest interest in Roman history I cannot not plead you enough to take AHIS110 (http://www.handbook.mq.edu.au/2013/Units/UGUnit/AHIS110). To date, it's been the best unit I've taken (and trust me everyone agrees, it is amazing).
Good luck with it all. I'll be on the forums to help people with their first year MHIS, AHIS and EDUC selections (I'd like to think I'm 'Helping'...).
-may-cat-
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imo 100 lvl AHIS/MHIS units at MQ baby first years far too much. What you describe above seems like a perfectly reasonable workload to me. Good marks are not supposed to be easy to attain at uni, you really have to work for them.
OP, i wouldn't avoid a unit just because it is challenging, it's an opportunity to test yourself. What history units lack in assessment they make up volume of reading, yes there's a lot of it and yes, some of it can be some really obscure shit. But you just do your best with it and by the end you are quite well read and adept in source criticism. Just remember, again, it's not supposed to be easy.
EDIT: That came off as overly harsh. I'm not saying that the unit is perfect and you should just shut up and take it (obviously improvement in lecture style would be useful to students. Though i have to say, i'm surprised you didn't like Nick Baker - most modern students i speak to can't praise him highly enough). But complaining about the amount you have to read? In a history unit? Really??
OP, i wouldn't avoid a unit just because it is challenging, it's an opportunity to test yourself. What history units lack in assessment they make up volume of reading, yes there's a lot of it and yes, some of it can be some really obscure shit. But you just do your best with it and by the end you are quite well read and adept in source criticism. Just remember, again, it's not supposed to be easy.
EDIT: That came off as overly harsh. I'm not saying that the unit is perfect and you should just shut up and take it (obviously improvement in lecture style would be useful to students. Though i have to say, i'm surprised you didn't like Nick Baker - most modern students i speak to can't praise him highly enough). But complaining about the amount you have to read? In a history unit? Really??
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To my mind, primary sources should be read to support historiography. We didn't engage in any historiography. Relative to my other HIS units, MHIS121 was by far more work (NOT that its bad) but the annoying fact was that was no 'pay off' in the assesment where we applied all that reading. Baker seemingly hated our tute. Nick Irving is my fav, he actually gets you to think and debate. We had a lot of a fun with him.
Do take the unit OP, because it's the gateway into a lot of other units around World History and Euro history.
Do take the unit OP, because it's the gateway into a lot of other units around World History and Euro history.