no, triple major isnt common, you only have to do one. but theyre really flexible so you can do like whatever, but you have to do enough units in at least one to qualify for honours (eg mine is political science, i have to do at least 8 units, though they waived the two-subject first year requirement cause i refused to do intro to pols like the brat i am) i just like overloading and then whingeing about it. cool story hansel.
what eriny said. its not hard to get hd average but most didnt get it - lots had trouble with individual subjects, like getting 50s for essays (out of 100- its not the content, its just that sometimes you need a year to work out what they want), but they honestly dont care as long as youre not doing it for every subject. i think if your average wasnt close to 80 then they put you on probation.
the other thing is that most of the introductory subjects (defs not all though) are really stupid and boring and basic and people who dont know where the uk is get hds whereas some of the most brilliant phb people got 50s and 60s. phb understands this also. intro pol science and philosophy and english courses are apaz like this. dont let them get you down though.
'evangelionzeta' is asking me all these questions on facey chat, thought i might put them up to help people who arent him.
- overloading: how does it work, how much does it suck, if I do it will I kill myself
you can take on an extra subject from second semester first year. it doesnt really suck you just have to be organised or youll probs die of stress during end of sem exam periods, and then your parents will have to clean your disgustingly filthy room and feed your malnutritioned body a la moi. you will not kill yourself. i find that 5 subjects plus social life is fine, but if i tried to do extracurricular shit on top of that i would die. everyone has their own balance though, im pretty disorganised.
- do they let you overload if it's simply for the sake of doing random shit?
yeah pretty much, you should be able to "justify" it and you usually needed an hd average the year before but not always. theres some freak kid in erinys year whos done 6 subjects every sem and aced them. he got his first distinction last sem. larry the phb coordinator was like "hurr hurr, serves him right for pushing his limits". but back to the point, usually, yes. as above though, lots of people find overloading is way too much work.
- with those gay like seminar courses in 1st year do they change into something more exciting in later years of PhB or do you still just use them as like bonding opps?
the joint seminar thing doesnt exist, then thats where you go off and do your own little project/reading course/piggyback thing which is like the whole point of phb. 7 of the first year phbs did the same advanced studies course (thats what theyre called) last sem though so w/e.
- if you have "spares" do they let you like do whatevs? like say you only needed so many units for major/honours and you had a couple leftover for some reason can you use those units and do like some random shit, like wine tasting if this was UoM?
yes. they encourage this to an extent. the phb is designed to be flexible so you can pursue your interests, and dropping the two-majors requirement is meant to further this. however, almost all majors for honours have first-year requirements and a certain amount of units you have to do - some majors, like ir, also have compulsory courses - so youre encouraged to be aware of these so that you dont exclude yourself from honours later. in first year theres definitely room to play around and figure out what you do/dont like, but as you get further in i imagine youd have to be more specific. maybe eriny could comment on this better because ive been the most major-focused by far out of my own cohort and didnt play around at all.
-how many contact hours is each subject a week?
this is probs heading into the realm of general uni stuff and im sure its on another thread. it varies. 12-15 hours a week maybe? i think i had 13 in sem 1 and 15 (technically, really 13, dont think i ever went to an ir lecture) in sem 2.
- how much work do you actually need to do to maintain an HD average?
varies from person to person, will probs need to work more in first year than in later years cause youre still figuring out what they need. also, some people are brilliant. eg with the two people who do the same phb major as me in erinys year, one works incredibly consistently and one does all their essays literally the night before, and the two of them usually get around the same mark (hds of course).
- what's the point of Majors, like what differentiates them from being Minors, other than the fact that you know more?
again this is probs more general uni stuff. anu doesnt do minors. the way our first year phb coord explained it to me was that major is just a label, consisting of a parcel of different courses, and all that matters is that parcel delivers you into corresponding honours major. eg the subjects that fall under an anthropology major might be really diverse, but it doesnt matter, as long as it ticks the prerequisite-boxes and all adds up and gets you into anthro honours. his point was that realistically, all this stuff about labelling majors is totally irrelevant, its just an administrative thing.
i guess this is most evident with really broad majors, like development studies. a ridiculous amount of subjects can be counted towards development studies, so in doing them you dont necessarily know more about development studies per se, but it gets you where you need to be (honours, so you can head off and write your brilliant thesis about whatever youre interested in...)
ridic long post over and out.
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