How hard is this subject?

[miraj753]

Is international studies a really difficult subject?

compared to something like legal studies

[Peter123742]

It's not all that difficult - I did legal studies in year 10, the 1/2 that is. I have found international studies comparatively easier, I wouldn't suggest it though if you're not good at essays or extended responses.

[chrisjb]

I did legal 3 and 4 last year, and am doing inter studies this year and I'd say they're about the same level of difficulty... But this one is so much more interesting than legal! I thought that legal would be my favourite subject of all time last year (and I am going to do law when I go to uni) but seriously, international studies is the most interesting VCE subject that exists in my opinion... except maybe for the science subjects, I've always found those interesting but I've always been better at Social sciences rather than chemistry and physics and stuff... But it's definitely my most interesting subject.

[riceiscow]

International studies has a focus more so on 'understanding' concepts and applying knowledge, unlike classes like legal in which you can remember stuff and often just spew it out on the page.
it is very interesting and if you find it to be so, then you will enjoy it.

I have cruised through interpol doing very little work because i enjoy it so much and work would ruin it (not a good strategy...) but i wouldn't say it is hard, or easy. you can't just read the text book and ace the exam, you really have to be enveloped by the content to get 40+, which isn't too difficult as it is very interesting. most of it, anyway.

[chrisjb]

International studies has a focus more so on 'understanding' concepts and applying knowledge, unlike classes like legal in which you can remember stuff and often just spew it out on the page.
it is very interesting and if you find it to be so, then you will enjoy it.

I have cruised through interpol doing very little work because i enjoy it so much and work would ruin it (not a good strategy...) but i wouldn't say it is hard, or easy. you can't just read the text book and ace the exam, you really have to be enveloped by the content to get 40+, which isn't too difficult as it is very interesting. most of it, anyway.

This is quite a good comment. I spent the first 4 months of this subject using the text book, notes, news sites, books and other resources to study for this subject and I did alright... Then I probably opened my textbook 5 or 6 times for the last 6 months of the course, and just sort of enveloped my self in the writings of Hedley Bull, Alexander Wendt, Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, ABCNews24, The Age, The Australian, and a shit load of random news sites (nowadays 3 times out of 4 I search google news or google scholar rather than traditional google when studying interpol) and my marks went up... so I kinda stopped studying for the subject and started studying for myself and what I found interesting and delving into international relations philosophy and it's been so much better than just reading the textbook.

It almost seems like the less you care about the course material, and the more you just try and learn about interesting stuff, the better you do. Kinda counter intuitive.

[osgood]

International studies has a focus more so on 'understanding' concepts and applying knowledge, unlike classes like legal in which you can remember stuff and often just spew it out on the page.
it is very interesting and if you find it to be so, then you will enjoy it.

I have cruised through interpol doing very little work because i enjoy it so much and work would ruin it (not a good strategy...) but i wouldn't say it is hard, or easy. you can't just read the text book and ace the exam, you really have to be enveloped by the content to get 40+, which isn't too difficult as it is very interesting. most of it, anyway.

This is quite a good comment. I spent the first 4 months of this subject using the text book, notes, news sites, books and other resources to study for this subject and I did alright... Then I probably opened my textbook 5 or 6 times for the last 6 months of the course, and just sort of enveloped my self in the writings of Hedley Bull, Alexander Wendt, Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, ABCNews24, The Age, The Australian, and a shit load of random news sites (nowadays 3 times out of 4 I search google news or google scholar rather than traditional google when studying interpol) and my marks went up... so I kinda stopped studying for the subject and started studying for myself and what I found interesting and delving into international relations philosophy and it's been so much better than just reading the textbook.

It almost seems like the less you care about the course material, and the more you just try and learn about interesting stuff, the better you do. Kinda counter intuitive.

The IS forum seems pretty dead but I always like advice from people who are passionate about the subject..
Just wondering, how important is it to keep up to date with current affairs, and in particular, which subjects would be most crucial to follow? I have a OneNote document sectioned into countries and I just paste interesting articles on there when they pop up on my Google news feed. Unfortunately, news articles are not my favourite source of info because to me, they seem to require prior knowledge on issues, knowledge that you might not have if you haven't been keeping up with said news articles. Like the eurozone crisis..that stuff gets a hella lot of overage but half the time, I can't make head or tail of stats ect. because it's been such a long winding issue..when that problem crops up, how do you go about catching up on info?

[chrisjb]

International studies has a focus more so on 'understanding' concepts and applying knowledge, unlike classes like legal in which you can remember stuff and often just spew it out on the page.
it is very interesting and if you find it to be so, then you will enjoy it.

I have cruised through interpol doing very little work because i enjoy it so much and work would ruin it (not a good strategy...) but i wouldn't say it is hard, or easy. you can't just read the text book and ace the exam, you really have to be enveloped by the content to get 40+, which isn't too difficult as it is very interesting. most of it, anyway.

This is quite a good comment. I spent the first 4 months of this subject using the text book, notes, news sites, books and other resources to study for this subject and I did alright... Then I probably opened my textbook 5 or 6 times for the last 6 months of the course, and just sort of enveloped my self in the writings of Hedley Bull, Alexander Wendt, Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, ABCNews24, The Age, The Australian, and a shit load of random news sites (nowadays 3 times out of 4 I search google news or google scholar rather than traditional google when studying interpol) and my marks went up... so I kinda stopped studying for the subject and started studying for myself and what I found interesting and delving into international relations philosophy and it's been so much better than just reading the textbook.

It almost seems like the less you care about the course material, and the more you just try and learn about interesting stuff, the better you do. Kinda counter intuitive.

The IS forum seems pretty dead but I always like advice from people who are passionate about the subject..
Just wondering, how important is it to keep up to date with current affairs, and in particular, which subjects would be most crucial to follow? I have a OneNote document sectioned into countries and I just paste interesting articles on there when they pop up on my Google news feed. Unfortunately, news articles are not my favourite source of info because to me, they seem to require prior knowledge on issues, knowledge that you might not have if you haven't been keeping up with said news articles. Like the eurozone crisis..that stuff gets a hella lot of overage but half the time, I can't make head or tail of stats ect. because it's been such a long winding issue..when that problem crops up, how do you go about catching up on info?

Wow! This is almost exactly how I felt at the start of this year! Even for me, the eurozone debt crisis had been going on for about a year before it became relevant to what I was studying, but I found that you just have to jump into it. Start reading the paper and force yourself to read a few articles about issues that you don't understand and you'll figure out pretty quickly what is going on. Also, make sure that you're on the ball with up to date news and you will begin to see issues as they emerge and as they grow and you'll be an expert on them.

The case in point for me was the Arab Spring. I can imagine that if I picked up a newspaper for the first time today and read about it I wouldn't have a clue what was going on, but because I followed it from the start I understand what's happened. The same will happen for you with news event in 2012.

In any event, it's never as difficult as it first appears to make sense of an issue that's been going on for a long time. Just take the plunge and you'll figure out what's going on pretty quickly.