First-year history (1 Viewer)

[Triangulum]

Starting my BA this year and I'm planning to do history as part of it, so I'm trying to figure out my subjects. I realise that this is partially in the Subject Reviews thread, but one or two of the history subjects for this year haven't been reviewed at all and some of the reviews are fairly vague.

So can anyone give me their thoughts on the first-year history units as far as workload, topics covered and so on and so forth? Any help would be appreciated, because there's not really any unit that I've ruled out. I'm so goddamn indecisive.

For the record:

Semester 1

• HSTY1022 - Europe in the High Middle Ages
• HSTY1045 - Modern European History 1750-1914
• HSTY1076 - American History from Lincoln to Clinton

Semester 2

• HSTY1034 - Early Modern Europe 1500-1750
• HSTY1044 - Twentieth Century Politics and Culture
• HSTY1088 - Australian History: An introduction

 

[greeninsanity]

I took HSTY1076 and HSTY1044. I loved American History but found 20th Century Politics very boring. I think this was mainly because of the differences between the lecturers (I just tune out with a bad lecturer). If you've done modern history at school, you might be familiar with a lot of the HSTY1044 content.

The best way to judge is just to go to the lectures in first week and see which one you like most. For the purposes of enrolling, course outlines give you a good guide (if you get old ones, be aware that they might change the course slightly from year to year). Check what sort of assessments there are likely to be and what topics will be covered in lectures and tutorials.
The HSTY1076 course outline is on the web - http://teaching.arts.usyd.edu.au/history/hsty1076/ and I've attached one for HSTY1044.

 

[Triangulum]

Hey, thanks a lot. HSTY1044 sounds pretty interesting from that, although I'm not totally sure about HSTY1076. I'm tempted by the Middle Ages, but probably only because we barely studied them at school.

 

[company_sin]

The Middle Ages is a rather interesting course. Although, this is probably relative to the facts that I'd never studied history before and that I am somewhat of a philomath.

One of the upsides of this unit is that there is a lot of freedom in what you choose to study. Unless John's changed the format, there are two major essays and you have a whole plethora of questions and topics to choose from as well as optional dates on which to have your essay in (well, the first essay, at least)

The greatest downfall I found with this unit is that there is no reader; instead, there is a collection of John Pryor's horribly formatted medieval texts available for download. Think 120 pages of text which tends to wrap around and overlap itself - death and doom!

: :​

Now, I'm not too sure how to asses the Twentieth Century unit (can't recall the course code or name since I hit reply. The one you just looked at an outline of). Firstly, I'm an English Major and only undertook this unit as part of ties in with one of my areas of interest (German Expressionism/aesthetics and the cultural that brought forth modernism). But aside from my own interests, this unit does cover - doing so quite well, I think - pretty much everything important that happened in Europe between the two World Wars.

Obviously, this is merely a crash-course as a LOT happened in that period and there are only thirteen weeks of lectures. So, if you've covered similar areas in school (the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Nazis, and all that jazz) you ought to have a crack at something new which you might take more away from. But if you're interested, as I said before, this course covers a lot and does so reasonably well.

PS: I'm on the verge of falling asleep so forgive my typos/grammatical snafus/rambling. Hope I helped...

 

[Triangulum]

So, if you've covered similar areas in school (the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Nazis, and all that jazz) you ought to have a crack at something new which you might take more away from. But if you're interested, as I said before, this course covers a lot and does so reasonably well.

You might have a point there. I did the Russian revolution in Y11 and WW2 in Y12, so it could be partially going over old ground - which has positives and negatives, I guess.

Anyone done 1500-1750, 1750-1914 or Australian history?

 

[veridis]

The Middle Ages is a rather interesting course. Although, this is probably relative to the facts that I'd never studied history before and that I am somewhat of a philomath.

One of the upsides of this unit is that there is a lot of freedom in what you choose to study. Unless John's changed the format, there are two major essays and you have a whole plethora of questions and topics to choose from as well as optional dates on which to have your essay in (well, the first essay, at least)

The greatest downfall I found with this unit is that there is no reader; instead, there is a collection of John Pryor's horribly formatted medieval texts available for download. Think 120 pages of text which tends to wrap around and overlap itself - death and doom!

last year it wasnt john who took it but lyn olsen, a great, if somewhat eccentric, lecturer and tutor. she did put together a reader but there were a few weeks where you really had to get extra material. you cover a whole lot of really interesting stuff and because the assessments are flexable you can ignore any bits you dont like.
american history i didnt like as much. the lecture series was pretty interesting, though they may have tried to cram too many key points in and you end up at some points feeling like you havent learnt as much as you would have liked. assessments here are very much for those into social history. not too hard i just disliked the style and it kind of put me off the course.

i didnt do modern european or early modern europe but modern european was from what i hear the better one by far. the people i know who did australian aslo said it was good but from looking at the assessment it seemed pretty simple and very much social again(pretty much what you did in years 9/10. looking at women, migrants, aborigines, and so on) pretty easy to guess what tutors are looking for in your resposes but not the most interesting IMO.

 

[scarybunny]

Ick I didn't like medieval at all. Veridis will testify to the many many times I snoozed through the lectures. BOOOORRRINGGG. The assessment was good, though, and the exam was pretty easy as well (you can focus on one aspect that you're interested in, which makes study and research a lot more interesting than the weekly tutes and lectures). I did well in it, but the lectures and reading sent me to sleep, quite literally.


I actually really liked Australian history: an introduction. Penny Russell was my favourite history lecturer and tutor. But for some reason or another I didn't do as well in it as I thought I would. Might have gotten a little bit lazy. The readings are relatively short and interesting (most can be knocked over on my 45 minute train ride to uni), and since they're not written in ye olde english it's much easier to discuss them.

Those are my 2 cents.

 

[Triangulum]

What sort of things did you study in medieval, scarybunny?

 

[Triangulum]

High Middle Ages has listed as 'Teacher/Coordinator' one Assoc Prof John Pryor, and Early Modern Europe is Dr Nicholas Eckstein and Dr Andrew Fitzmaurice.

From the description, High Middle Ages sounds fairly similar to what you outline for Medieval - church, feudalism, universities, wealth, new economies, Islam, etc. Sounds pretty interesting.

Early Modern Europe sounds from the description like it covers primarily cultural stuff - courtly culture, rural cultures, witchcraft and magic, peasant revolt, role of violence, gender, blah blah. It foregrounds cinema as well as text, apparently. Don't know how similar that is to Renaissance and Reformation.

 

[Triangulum]

I think I'm leaning towards High Middle Ages for Sem 1 and either 1500-1750 or Australian history for Sem 2. I'm getting a clearer idea of what I want to do, so thanks guys! (But keep coming with the pearls of wisdom if you feel you've got it in you.)

 

[Triangulum]

I've got too much stuff I want to do as it is, so I'm trying to keep every subject fairly small. Good point on doing both in one semester - it'll depend on what I want to do in my other subjects, I suppose.

 

[veridis]

if johns taking it then it'll be a very good course. probably more crusades, rise of islam and the church from all the books in his office but he might have a bit more on the internal conflicts in western europe given its a first year course. are any other lecturers listed for it?

 

[Triangulum]

if johns taking it then it'll be a very good course. probably more crusades, rise of islam and the church from all the books in his office but he might have a bit more on the internal conflicts in western europe given its a first year course. are any other lecturers listed for it?

Nope, just him.

 

[scarybunny]

They're actually two different courses, aren't they?

The Middle Ages 500-1500 was HSTY1025, which I took in 2006.

EDIT: We studied Charlemagne, the rise of Islam, the formation of feudalism, the Magna Carta, medieval towns, the formation of universities, the Crusades, some church history and I think some medieval literature.

That's the one I did last year as well. It sounds interesting (which is why I took it), but I couldn't stand the reader or the lectures. They were just so dry, and even though the topics were interesting enough, I just couldn't take the format they were in. I found Australian much easier to stomach.
Plus Footbridge is a comfy theatre, so it's not hard to fall asleep in the dim light. Not like Wallace, where the tables self-destruct if you put weight on the wrong place.

Just a warning about the History dept in general, they're a bit lame with the jokes.

 

[KarmaKitten]

I also picked American history in first semester and 20th century politics in second

im really excited about american history, cause thats always been one of my favourite topics

 

[chockie]

The first year history subjects are all really broad...more overviews of time periods etc. than specific and indepth towards a certain event. That can be good or bad.

I hated the Middle Ages course, probably because I knew nothing about the Middle Ages when I started it, and so going through such a huge time period left me completely lost. I guess it would be better if you had time to do a LOT of background reading.

20th Century Politics and Culture was my favourite subject last year. Having done modern history at school I knew a lot about WW1 and Nazi Germany, but it was nice to look at other aspects of the era such as the Russian revolution, Spanish civil war, decolonisation and so on. The knowledge I already had meant I didn't have to waste time trying to read up on what actually happened...instead I could get further into critical literature and transform my understanding of the events. Background knowledge helped put everything in place, if that makes sense - especially come exam and essay time. I thought the lecturer, Chris Hilliard was excellent...lots of interesting anecdotes and it was never dry. But from what i've heard he's not teaching it this year...don't know who is.