GRST 205 vs. 209

[Singel]

Anyone taken either of these, have an reviews/recommendations about what the courses are all about and if they're worth taking? Also which teachers are good/bad...

[random]

I took GRST 209 with Dr. Toohey. I'd recommend it... it was pretty interesting and really easy. Consisted of short readings, which Toohey expanded on/explained in the lectures. His lectures were interesting but the quizzes (written in tutorials) were really just based on the readings and tutorial discussions. We also wrote three papers (two marked by the TAs and one marked by Toohey). For each of the first two, we could choose between 4 or 5 topics (which also determined the week you handed in the paper), and the third was a research essay where we had 10-11 topics to choose from. No final. Really was not difficult at all.

[Vdub_girl]

205 used to be entirely online. I got an A in the class without doing any work, and I mean none. But I believe they changed in last yr so that the course is all online, but the final is real without open book at school. But as far as the course used to be, it was the easiest course i took at the U

[DEREK57]

I took 205 with Sigmund-Neilson...it pretty interesting, but its a heck of alot of stuff to learn a single semester, so you miss most parts about the wars and such. I've heard 209 is more interesting, but it wouldnt seem so to me. Its mostly personal taste I think, but Neilson is good, she even has movies for extra marks.

[Official Hoser]

I also took 205 with Sigimund-Nielson. Didn't find it too thrilling, but it was dead easy. I found the prof to be kind of a bad lecturer (i.e. not that good at speaking to large groups), and in the end I felt the course could have been much better than it was. This was about 4 years ago, mind you. She was a really nice lady, and I think if you wanted help from her she would be willing to help you.

I ended up getting an A pretty effortlessly. We had a midterm and final exam, both in-class, and both were essay questions for which we could prepare ahead of time (I don't think we were given the exact questions ahead of time, but she hinted strongly as to what they would be, and in each case you got to choose to write about one of several topics). You were allowed a "cheat sheet", and also you were given photocopies of various relevant book chapters during your exam. So, really, I had to put in maybe a couple of days of studying during the whole semester. Also, sometime after the midterm, we had the option of writing an essay about the movie "Gladiator", which would replace our midterm grade if we had done poorly.

One other thing: she made us purchase an additional book especially for the course (she had the bookstore special-order it) and then she provided photocopies to the people who never purchased the book! It made me kinda mad to have wasted about $40.

[Impreza]

209 with Toohey is absolutely awesome. His lectures consist of story-telling. He tells story's about Achilles and other greek or roman myths. Toohey is one of the best profs at UC, his lectures are fun, entertaining, and interesting. The lecture was always packed! I got a good mark in that class without doing anything. Just keep up on the readings because you have a SIMPLE weekly quiz during your tutorial.

[D'z Nutz]

I took 209 with Toohey as well. The guy may be old, but he's a hilarious lecturer. One time he was going on about how GRST used to be called GLAH (Greek and Latin Ancient History) and how he hated it cause in Australian where he's from that's the name of some hidious seagull! Hahaha

They do weekly quizzes now? I guess I took that class back when it was even easier! Hahaha!

I enrolled in 205. It's my last option, so hopefully it'll be fun.

[random]

Also, I'm not sure who the other 209 prof is but for the first few weeks of our course (with Toohey) they used the other prof's tests and they were a lot harder/more specific. They ended up not counting one or two of them and then started writing new (easier) tests... not sure if that was the other prof that's teaching it now, but it looked more difficult.