Autumn 2007 @ UofT

So great news, everybody! I got my mark from my Introduction to the study of English literature and was able to uphold my passing average in the 80s! I'm going to the University of Toronto full time this fall!

I've spent a while going over the possible classes for the next semester, so I'll cover some of them here.

Introduction to Anthropology:
This course is pretty self explanatory in nature, but its purpose is a little more complex. While speaking to my professor, he suggested it over classes like Sociology or Psychology for the Social Sciences credit I require for a BA. There's only one class for it, so it's bound to be large, and it's an evening course at that, so it'll be interesting attending.

Introduction to East Asian Civilizations:
This is the requirement for an EAS Major or Minor, both of which are options I'm looking into, depending on my skill in the language course. It's another evening course, with multiple possible tutorials to apply for. I'll have to pick one based on my other courses.

Modern Standard Japanese I:
This is going to be the toughest course of all, from what I hear from students, because language courses are always difficult. I can luckily take this the same day I do Intro to East Asian Civilizations, but there are three tutorials a week taking place at varied hours, so it'll be important to pick from those. If I fail to learn Japanese, I'll switch my major in EAS to a minor and probably pick up a minor in Anthropology, so this is fairly important for further decisions.

Literature for Our Time:
Where my Intro to Lit covered plays, prose and poetry over the ages, this class concentrates mostly on 20th century writers. My professor originally suggested the course due to the professor in charge of it, but sadly that gentlemen isn't listed for the courses at all this semester. It's still the best class possible for what I'm looking to study, literature, so I'm taking it anyway.

The rest...:
Well, taking a Bachelor's Degree means that I need 1 Science Credit, 1 Humanities Credit and 1 Social Sciences credit. Since my area of study will be the Humanities, that's not a problem, and Anthropology will take care of my SS credit. The only thing left is a Science credit, but I know full well that I'm not a great science student. I wouldn't mind taking a course in Geology or Astronomy or whatever, but I doubt I could get into any of the courses due to my lack of high school credits in things like calculus, physics or really anything mathematical or scientific.

The answer is choosing a Science Seminar. They're like beginner's classes on a topic, so broad and simple that you'd be able to understand without being a student of that type. So there are courses for the Sciences like "Time", "Plants As We See Them", "Astronomy on the Frontier" and "Thinking About Planet Earth", to mention a few. All I can do really is pick one that doesn't sound awful, figure out where it goes on my schedule, and then pick up the credit. You see, you can only take one full credit in Seminars, and you're also only allowed to take them as a first-year student. So it's take it now or fight my way through a full course later.


There are two main problems with this schedule, you see. The first is that I'd have two classes on Monday, tutorials Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, a seminar on Tuesday (Likely), a class on Thursday, topped off with a final class on Friday. This would leave only my Wednesday evenings free, which will be tough to get used to. The second problem is that I'll be going from a single simple credit with 3 hours of class a week to 5 full credits with maybe 15 hours of class a week. When you count that I'll be taking a language course as well, that's a massive increase of workload. Add in that I'll be commuting to school 5 days a week now... It's a lot to take in. The Autumn is going to be a very tough time of year for me.

I really hope I'm up to it, because I want zero failures, no excuses. Well, that's it for now. I don't even sign up for classes for a couple of months and I'm not attending until September, so I've got a lot of free time I'm trying to fill in with work in the meantime.