Glow Bell Eyes Eh Shone.

Hey, what would be the best courses to take in first year if I am applying to International Relations, I don’t really want to take calculus because I am afraid it will lower my average. Also, what mark would I need to ensure acceptance into the program?

My advice will assume that you are interested in the International Relations Specialist Program, cause it covers all of the Major requirements too. So, what should you take? Let’s start by combing through Calendar (pg.498)…

1) ECO100Y or 105Y. Considering your distaste for Calculus, I’m guessing you would prefer 105: “Principles of Economics for Non-Specialists” (a.k.a. for NON-Commerce/Eco kids).

2) HIS103Y or some random Trin and Vic One courses. If you aren’t from either of these Colleges, then your decision is pretty easy. If you are… you have a little more option.

3) Calculus or an introductory modern language course

I can think of very few reasons why anyone would take Calculus on their own free will. I never took I.R., but I seriously cannot figure out how Calculus would be as beneficial as a language in the pursuit of International Relations. Doesn’t it seem arbitrary that they threw that one on the list? Perhaps they just wanted to inflate the apparent credibility of their program (…they ARE from Trin). Then again, I suppose math is a more universal than any spoken language. What about art? Isn’t that ‘the universal language’? Or is it just dance? What about love?!! Hmmm…

Maybe it’s a trap!! Those who are foolish enough to choose Calculus will get a GPA $h!t-kick and resultantly never make it into the I.R. program in the first place. Damn they’re good…

So, what was the question? Oh yeah. So, take a ‘modern’ language. I’ve ranked the hypothetical possibilities here, according to their global popularity:

Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, German, French, Korean, Tamil, Italian, Persian, Turkish, Swahili, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbian, Czech, Hebrew, Croatian, Finnish, Macedonian, Estonian, Welsh, Irish

a) You have no idea how long that just took me.

b) I didn’t even know that Irish was a distinct language. Isn’t it just a thick accent?

c) Estonian?! Come on U of T. It’s the 243^rd most popular language in the world. Priorities people, priorities.

d) I contacted the I.R. Program Officer (and they got back to me with great haste!). I was informed that IR traditionally considers a “modern language” as Western European, with languages such as Mandarin and Arabic becoming acceptable pre-requisites in more recent years.

This irritated me at first, but now I suppose “modern language” should be defined by its relevance to contemporary International Relations, e.g. Hindi over Polish, Spanish over Welsh. You get the idea. I am devilishly curious to hear if anyone has been refused on the basis of not having an acceptable “modern language.” Speak up people!!

4) The website recommends taking a Poli Sci course, and suggests POL103 or 108. I can attest that POL108Y: Global Networks is many kinds of awesome. The Profs, Stein & Deibert, are legends.

5) For your (potential) fifth credit – you can take… anything. Try to open up doors for potential subject POSts if I.R. doesn’t work out. Maybe you want to take a first-year seminar. Maybe you wanna get that nasty science distribution requirement out of the way. Whatever.

Finally, dear asker, if you make it out of first-year with a CGPA of 3.0, including at least a 67% in the required courses (1-3 above), then you will be considered for Phase 2: The Interview (!). And for that, you are on your own. Or… maybe watch this in preparation.