Or: HOW TO GET A H1 IN MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY ARTS.
Now I don’t pretend that I know very much, but I did graduate from Melbourne University with >75% average in arts – political science, to be exact – and nothing below a H2A in my last 8 Arts subjects.
My experience in the Arts department is largely involved taking political science/international politics subjects, with a sprinkling of criminology and sociology involved. I would have obtained a >80% average but for the fact that I took a bit of time to find my feet (also because of that one subject for which I only obtained a Pass because I was ‘too polemic’. Grumblemumble). My first few years were a deluge of H3s and H2Bs – I say years because mine was a 5-year double degree (do they still have those anymore?).
But I shall attempt to cut short your finding-your-feet period and first year woes of What the Hell is Going On and Why Must I Attend This Lecture for Naptiemz (helpful hint: you don’t) by telling you exactly what you have to do and don’t have to do to get a great mark in Arts.
Lectures & Tutorials
Lectures: Plz To Be Having Naptiemz Instead
This is the most important thing I learnt about Political Science subjects: the teachers aren’t always interested in teaching you stuff.
There are two lectures I would strongly encourage any student to attend:
- The first lecture, where the syllabus and graded assignments are lined out (and you get to go off early), and
- The last lecture: i.e. the revision lecture before the written exam.
Melbourne University has a penchant for near-exclusively hiring Australian academics. I don’t believe I ever encountered a non-Australian professor in all my years there. This has resulted in them having a stable of the Same Old Dudes teaching the Same Old Syllabus every year.
The professors generally seem to be more interested in their own very important researchy things than imparting knowledge to young upstarts busy playing Solitaire on their laptops. Which is understandable, but if you came in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and eager to learn, as most freshmen do, be warned that it is only a matter of time until the dulcet dronings of your lecturer will beat you into becoming a jaded Solitaire-player.
(And if you’re a bright-eyed bushy-tailed professor all eager to teach, well, I wish I had the chance to take your class. But more importantly, your students in slumber will beat you into become a dulcet droner. Sry2say.)
The syllabus is updated semesterly to keep up with the times, but lectures are usually a monotonous mumble featuring powerpoint slides slightly modified from the previous year.
The professors would rather be doing their Important Research Work and the students would rather be catching up on Naptiemz. Essentially, no one wants to be there.
I stopped going for lectures by my middle of my second year (i.e. 6 Arts subjects in). My free time was more productively employed travelling home, surfing the internet between classes, napiemz, or occasionally doing assignments. To be honest, I learnt more doing the readings by myself and researching for my essays/exams than I ever did in a lecture.
Tutorials: Sit Cho’Ass In Dat Classroom
You must go for your tutorials.
First, because you need about a 75% attendance rate to pass your subject. D’oh!
Secondly because your tutorial teachers are the ones marking your assignments.
You can afford to skip a tute or two and that will not mean much. But because the Arts department is not as fanatical about preserving student anonymity when you submit assigments – your name’s on the cover sheet, for goodness sake – it will not hurt to make a good impression on your tutorial teacher.
You don’t have to be the model student who rocks up and asks loads of questions. And of course it doesn’t help if you ask lots of inane questions for the saking of getting your tutorial teacher’s attention. But it doesn’t hurt to skim through a reading or two every other week and pipe up with a relevant contribution to the tutorial occasionally.
Tutorial teachers are usually final year undergrads helping out the relevant professor, or PhD students, teaching for either for credit or cash. They don’t know much about teaching and some – especially the PhD candidates – can be adorkably nervous when faced with a classroom of students. My tutorial teacher from International Relations & its Others was precisely this, and to this day I still feel like tousling his curly hair, placing warm milk and cookies in front of him and reassuring him that everything will be okay, kiddo. Bless your nervy little heart, Robin Cameron. Although I still don’t know what a ‘trope of metissage’ is.
As such, tutorials are usually a deadzone with the teacher desperately trying to force discussion out of a stubbornly disinterested class. Their lifeline is usually those one or two gungho students who bother to talk. So if you can put in an opinion when they’re floundering desperately in a sea of silence, they’ll usually be grateful enough to remember you. Because it’s only your name and not your photo they will see when marking your assignment, make sure they remember your name, not just your face.
Any teacher, especially one not far removed from student life, always appreciates a student who is willing to learn from them. And if you can turn up physically the required 75% of the time, and mentally at least 50%, they will appreciate it. That appreciation can translate into an inclination to give you those extra few marks during grading season.
Bonus: What Subjects To Take and Not to Take
Again, this is based on personal experience. Things may or may not have changed since the time I was there. Suffice to say, take these with a pinch of salt and do your own research by shopping around lectures in the first fortnight of every semester.
If you are a law student whose completed criminal law, you must of course take Critical Criminal Law/Criminal Law and Political Justice for an easy distinction. This course is basically Criminal Law Lite.
Indigenous People and Social Control is great subject to take. The lecturer (Sara something?) is friendly, interested, and not too strict with marks. Class discussions are usually casual and friendly. There is not a great deal of academic material in this field, which may seem daunting, but I found advantageous because it does allow more room for original thought. It also means that the bar for a good grade is lower than other subjects over-saturated with research material. You may instead have a chance to make a contribution to the area! Key thing to remember: Indigenous people = v.oppressed. Likely even by you, however indirectly, if you’re a white Australian. Y’all did plant yourselves in their hood, after all.
Conversely, International Gender Politics, or in fact, anything involving the words sexuality or gender in relation to PolSci: DO NOT TAKE. If you’re genuinely interested, go for it by all means. I am a big fan of women’s rights and feminism. As a woman, this stuff is pretty integral to my life. That being said, this module made me genuinely uncomfortable. The lecturer/subject head – Prof Jefferies – is deeply passionate about this issue. But she is consequently VERY, VERY OPINIONATED and rather extreme in her views. She taught in such a way that if you were a male, you would likely feel that you were not welcome there. It was rather discomfiting. I think most, if not all, of the guys who took the subject quickly dropped out. I thought it was a pity, because I’d welcome the chance to educate any male or female interested in the issue of women’s rights.
It was also the only module where I felt, whether rightly or wrongly, that I could not be objective in my graded essay (I took it in my 2nd year; got a H2B, and a ‘well-written!’ from my tutorial teacher). I felt like to get a decent grade I had to use take a stance that was highly critical of , i.e. blaming, men.
I suppose you should take this subject for an easy grade if you’re willing to play the male blame game. Which isn’t that hard really, to be fair. But sheer volume of it assigned to men and the strong language used against them was really pretty freaking excessive.
American Politics is usually a fun subject, not because the lectures are particular interesting but because America is constantly in the fore of the news. Especially during presidential election year, since that’s a great dog and pony show, and it’s a such a contemporary and immediate subject that most people will be bound to have some familiarity in. Of course, this means that you’ll get the smug asshole who thinks he knows-it-all taking this module; just hope that he’s not in your tutorial class. And hey, it means reading the international section of your newspaper or the New York Times constitutes research for class/your essay! As is watching the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. I’m not kidding.
Languages – DO NOT TAKE THEM IN YOUR FIRST SEMESTER. Unless you have some background in a language or are only taking 2 other subjects as opposed to 3, DON’T. Just DON’T. There is a reason why languages are considered 1 1/2 modules – the workload is heavier, obvs, and it may not be a great idea overload if you haven’t the slightest idea how you’ll cope with university. If you do not know what a past participle is, or what the hell is past perfect tense, DO NOT TAKE UP A LANGUAGE.
Any subject with Hernan Cuervo. He teacher sociology subjects focusing on young people in Australia. He is a decent chap who isn’t particularly stingy with marks. 
Next post: Essays and Exams. Because sucking up to your teacher isn’t worth shit if your graded work sucks.
