the freedom of first year

Hello, there!

I’m going into the Life Sciences major with psychology, in which PSY100H1 is the only prerequisite for first year. It seems odd that the entire course would be compressed into one half course. Are both the fall and winter PSY100H1 half courses meant to be taken to receive the full credit? Or, are they exactly the same course, and I only need one of them? This question is quite silly, but I’ve been over thinking it!

Also, I know it is based upon ones major (prerequisites), and personal interests, but I have to add more courses to my timetable in order to be a full time student. There’s so many choices! Do you have any suggestions of first year courses that are generally good to take?

Thank you very much!

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Hey hey

For psych, you just have to take PSY100H1 once. So you can take it in the fall or you want take it in the winter. Your choice!

As for what else to take… well everyone’s going to have an opinion on that one, so I fully expect an array of comments telling me my rather generalized picks are flawed.

But what do I think you should take?

Well…

1) INI103H Writing Essays or INI104H Writing Reports

In university, being able to write is an essential skill. University is for research, but your research is pretty damn unbearable if you can’t convey it coherently. This course might not contribute to any future POSt, but it’ll benefit your general skill set, that much is for sure!

2) A first-year seminar!

Seminars are great and the 199 ones can only be taken by incoming students.

They can be such a relief against the massive lectures you’re going to eventually attend. Likewise, they have the coolest topics, making them a super fun way to get that unwanted breadth requirement out of the way. 😉

So for example, as someone who dreads science, I took a first-year seminar on Biology in Film to get my science credit out of the way — granted this was back in the day of distribution requirements. Don’t worry about those. Totes irrelevant to you.

Anyhow, if you know one of those five breadth requirement groups is going to come back to haunt you in fourth year because you avoided it like the plague, take care of it now in a less than agonizing way.

3) Some language course.

Because you can. There’s Spanish, Korean, Arabic, Polish, Japanese, French, German, etc. Soooo many. Try one for fun if you’re up to it@ Naturally, they WILL require a lot of dedication from you, but they’ll definitely benefit you in the long run.

But take a gander at the calendar and pick and choose.

Cheers!

aska