University pondering

[taimatsu]

Apologies to those who have seen this already in Another Place.
Assistance needed from people who have studied a modular degree course!

I'm starting university in just over a fortnight, doing English at Reading. I've been to university before, but that was an ill-fated attempt at doing theology at Oxford, and it didn't work out. Oxford does not have a modular system - you do the subject you signed up for, in essence, and that's about it. There was no real option to do papers in other areas.

At Reading, of course, things are very different. I have to do 120 credits in my first year. 60 of those come from three compulsory English modules, and then I've got to choose papers in other things to make up the numbers. There's a huge list of stuff I could do, and I don't know how to start choosing.

I have made a list of the areas which interest me. Some of those areas I have studied before - French, for example, which I have at A-level, or Japanese, or a metaphysics/philosophy module. But there are areas I've never studied, or not since GCSE, which I am interested in - sociology, history, typography...

What's worrying me is how I'm supposed to construct this. I mean, I could do a unit of Japanese, one of Philosophy and one of Sociology, and choose papers which complement my English studies, and I'd enjoy that. But I *could* choose to study all the compulsory modules for another subject (Typography, say) and have the chance to transfer to a joint degree in year 2.

Are you supposed to make sure your subsidiary modules 'add up' to something? Or is it all right to just study things you're interested in? I have done a lot of evening classes over the last five years, and I am worried I am treating this like those, not seriously enough. This is part of my degree, not some optional thing I can abandon if it doesn't work out. The only other subject I have ever seriously considered studying at degree level is theology, which is not offered at Reading, never mind that I didn't manage it so well last time I tried! It feels very strange to be selecting modules in subjects I have not seriously studied in years and did not apply for.

(The whole situation is made more complicated by the fact that I may be able to get credit for passing my first-year exams at Oxford, and also credit for doing two English modules through Reading's Continuing Education programme last year; I haven't decided whether I'm going to use this credit, and will wait to talk to a member of staff before I finalise it.)

How did you plan your studies? What modules did you take in your first year? How did they support your later studies? Any other tips or ideas? Thank you!

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Make sure that you have a clear path through to your chosen result. I know Brookes has a lot of courses that you have to take prerequisites for, and it can hold things up considerably if you don't take the necessary foundation modules first - I wound up having to take a 1st year module in my last two terms to qualify, having changed subjects in my 2nd year! Get those and any mandatory courses on the schedule first and trace through to desired final year subjects. Then identify some extras that you like the look of (French, Japanese, whatever). See if they might be useful for later modules too (e.g. might you study any modern French authors? Would you like to do some cross-subject work?). Then look at slots - it's really annoying to have a schedule that requires you to be there on Monday morning 9am and then not again until Thursday pm; quite satisfying to have all your modules scheduled for the same day each week (my first-year required me to attend on Tuesdays only! It was a long-ish day but I had a full week to do all my reading and writing, and could hold down a part-time office job too). That might make the difference between two choices of equal non-relevance.

A friend of imc's studied Typography at Reading a while back, if an insider's view of those courses might be useful.