Electives At Macquarie

Hey,

In this post Experience MQ will talk about some great electives to choose that can complement your degree, or give you different perspectives on a new topic.

Different degrees have different structures so the amount of electives a students can choose varies across faculties and degrees. All Macquarie undergraduate degrees mandate that a People and Planet unit is undertaken and passed. These are units that are either outside your faculty or outside your department of study, they vary from session to session so if you have one in mind check to see if it is offered in the coming session. These units focus on either people or the planet and allow MQ students to broaden their areas of study and look beyond what their degree offers. This program is exclusive to Macquarie and sets it apart from other universities.

Apart from People/Planet units, degrees let students pick general electives which can be chosen when the degree studied has core units that do not equal the minimum requirement for graduation, but this is normal because the vast majority of degrees allow for at least one elective outside the People/Planet requirement. These electives could be extra courses that are in your department or completely different from your area of study.

An elective that I like is MHIS (Modern History) 101, Screening the Past: History on Film and Television. This unit examines how historical film and historical television shows portray history and impact the way history is perceived in the public eye. Each week a historical film is shown to the class, there is a lecture and tutorial on the film focusing on how it portrayed the historical  events and affected the public perception. Another critical part to this unit is what people like reviewers and academics thought about the film. Some of the films studied in this session include: Gallipoli, Elizabeth, Amazing Grace and Mad Men.

Source: http://gregxb.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/elizabeth.html

MHIS 101 is an interesting unit and provides a great change if your area of study can get a bit dry sometimes. Now you can justify watching movies during study time, just say it is for MHIS 101!

A perfect Planet unit for anyone (expect E-Business degrees) is ISYS 100, IT and Society. This is the unit that all the Experience MQ bloggers met in. This unit examines how information and technology has changed the way people communicate and interact with each other. If you are wanting to learn more about IT and computing this unit is perfect. The current lecturer Matt is very funny and makes all the content interesting and engaging.

The transition to university can be tough, especially with the different requirements in essay writing and comprehension which is why Macquarie created Academic Communication (AC) subjects. AC is offered in the Business, Human Sciences and Science faculties and will help new students understand the academic practices and writings in their associated faculty. You can check them out here http://www.handbook.mq.edu.au/2014/Units/UGByDepartment/Department+of+Linguistics.

To get a list of units that Macquarie offers check out this link http://www.handbook.mq.edu.au/2014/Units/UGByCode.

There are so many different electives to choose from, but make sure you check the requirements of your degree and the unit yourself to make sure your eligible and check what level it is so that it fits in with your pattern of study.

We would love to hear your comments, leave them below or tweet us @mqmadness and email us at mqmadness1@gmail.com.

Diandra