I checked my course registration page at NTNU (ooh!) about an hour ago, and much to my delight I discovered that I’ve been registered for not two but three courses this spring, and that these three combined fill my required term quota of 30 study points.
English Linguistics gives me 7,5 points if I pass it; English Literature: Prose Fiction also gives me 7,5 points; and Knowledge of English Culture (or Civilization, as the fancy buggers are calling it) gives me 15 points. Nice.
However, I discovered this fall that taking a few courses more than required wasn’t beyond me, but rather benfitted me by giving me more work, more stress and thus more incentive to study. So I’ve decided to take the history course Warriors, Monasteries and Catapults (a fun little course about knowledge spread in the Middle Ages) as well. But this is just a 7,5 points course, and I’m looking to add another 7,5 points to this year’s burden. So I’ve skimmed the list of exams this spring, and come up with a couple of likely courses. A couple of introductionary course in religion sounded like fun, specifically Religions of the Past and Middle Eastern Religions, but they weren’t compatible with the lecture schedules of my other courses. Then I took a gander at the history courses, but no. Warriors, Monasteries and Catapults was the only one that was going to work, as the others were either too large (52,5 points is a little too much for me, and I really want to take W, M and C), too awkwardly scheduled, or simply too yawn.
I’d originally planned to take the methodology course in history this spring, as it’s required if you want to take a Master’s Degree, but the lousy cunts (now there’s an image I want to forget as soon as possible) at the Departement of History have moved that course to the fall terms. Starting this term, it would seem, so no love for Terje there.
Next, I thought of perhaps trying the Introduction to Archaeological Theory and Methodology seeing as I’m currently planning to take archaeology as the second subject of this my second Bachelor, but damn it if that wasn’t scheduled to have lectures at the same time as fucking English Civilization.
The same is the case of Basic Old Norse, only it collided with Prose Fiction. Additionally, it’s a 15 points course, but I think I could have handled it. I’ll make a note of this one (too), though, as I imagine it to be potentially valuable if I decide to go for history or archaeology for my Master. I’ll try to take it next year, or something.
Bah, fuck this. I think I’m going to have to settle with only 37,5 points this term (and man, how annoying it is that I didn’t think of taking more courses before last term!), and postpone some of the more interesting and potentially useful courses until later. After all, I’ve still got four terms to spend on Bechelor level courses after this one.
Not to mention that unless NTNU make drastic changes to the schedules of these four courses, I’ll only have lectures on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. In other words, go me! ![]()

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I considered taking some art history or geography courses too, as well as some in literature and stuff like that, but in the end I decided their potential value for me would be marginal.
The fun thing, though, is that I considered neither political science courses nor sociology ones. Which just adds to the list of indications of how much I’ve come to resent the social sciences, I guess…
21. December 2007 @ 01:10 ( Permalink )
And all of this are you going to use for?
21. December 2007 @ 10:52 ( Permalink )
Use for? You’re clearly clueless when it comes to University education. If it had a use it’d be taught in high school. University education is for elitist intellectualism and pointless academia serving no purpose beyond self-perpetuative reimburstments of adherents.
I’m sorry to hear about your course-crashes. At least you get to take more of them and more specialized ones than I get in Bergen where all the coursers on HF are 15 points each. And yeah, you totally should’ve taken more sooner. That medieval-course looks NICE.
21. December 2007 @ 13:18 ( Permalink )
“And all of this are you going to use for?”
What Loki said. Also, I’m gonna try and use it to become an archaeologist, as I don’t much fancy teaching; I loathe high school kids, you see. And children of lower education institutions even more.
“At least you get to take more of them and more specialized ones than I get in Bergen where all the coursers on HF are 15 points each.”
Yeah. at least that’s something.
“And yeah, you totally should’ve taken more sooner.”
A huge “I know”. Especially as NTNU recently started limiting the number of students allowed to take their courses in every field of study, as well as setting enrollment in a relevant study program as a prerequisite for taking a lot of courses. (Or so it seems, anyway. Not really a big problem for me, though, as I’m mostly interested in history, and would get access to those courses through my social studies programme, anyway.)
“That medieval-course looks NICE.”
Indeed it does; I’ve been wanting to take it since I got an e-mail from the guy who started the course, back when he first started it, where he talked rather enthusiastically of it. I’ve heard people claim it’s boring, but people are usually morons, so I’ve ignored this.
By the way, I found a couple alternatives more today. One was a course focusing on the role of technology in world politics and development since the 15th century ( http://www.ntnu.no/portal/page/portal/ntnuen/subject_area_courses?selectedItemId=31012&rootItemId=29569&emnekode=HIST2515 ), which unfortunately crached with the Linguistics course, I think. Another course revolved around the dynamics between music and politics in the Middle Ages ( http://www.ntnu.no/portal/page/portal/ntnuen/subject_area_courses?selectedItemId=31012&rootItemId=29569&emnekode=HIST2155 ). I’m not yet sure if I’ll bother to take the latter one, as I’m a bit unsure of how much this is of interest to me, but I think I need some more Medievel History, and this is the only one remaining to me… :\
24. December 2007 @ 01:59 ( Permalink )
Sigh. I WANT TO GO TO YOUR UNIVERSITY.
24. December 2007 @ 16:36 ( Permalink )
And I want to attend yours. Or the one in, you know, the city of which I don’t like to speak. I’ve understood that that one has an even crazier selection of courses (naturally; it’s larger), but it’s so inconveniently situated… :\
31. December 2007 @ 20:37 ( Permalink )
Why would you want to attend mine? Do you like broad, massive courses like the one they should’ve called “Monotheistic religions”, the one where they toss in every extinct religion they have a professor for and call it a course, or the always abhorrently unmanagably huge “History before 1750″ - for 15 points each… If you do, then yup, Bergen is the place for you!
1. January 2008 @ 00:23 ( Permalink )
Really? I thought Bergen had one of Norway’s best history departements? Or is that solely in terms of research?
Anyhoo, they used to have that “Before 1750″ thing here, too, along with one from 1750 up ’till today, and it’s these that I have. They’ve split them up now, though, into three 15 poiners, one up ’till 1550, one from 1550 to 1850, and one from 1850 to today. I feel I want that second in the row, there, as it covers a period that’s really too eventful for me to have much control over…
1. January 2008 @ 00:50 ( Permalink )
Indeed, and that sounds like a far better way of doing it. I talked with a friend of mine who did his grunn- and mellomfag in History at the College of Kristiansand, and it sounds so much better than what they do in Bergen.
In Bergen, this is the (ideal) system for mellomfag in History:
First term:
* 15 points “Oversyn over historie etter 1750″ (very heavy focus on the European bit though. Even the US is frigtheningly overlooked)
* 15 points specializing in any of between cirka three and six different topics of Recent (i.e. after 1750) History. Examples from recent years are “Nationalisme”, “Arbeidslivshistorie”, “Maritim historie”, “Oversyn over USAs historie” (that one’s starting this year, curses upon them, I’d have love to take that instead of Nationalism), “Samfunnets utskudd - fengsel og straffearbeid i England og Skandinavia dei siste to hundre aar” and “Oversyn over moderne Midtaustenshistorie”. Etc, etc. In my mind, very boring options - they’d never offer a course on the French Revolution, Napoleon, the Crimean War or the American Civil Wars, for instance.
Second term:
* 15 points “Oversyn historie foer 1750″. A third of the course is about Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, the rest is 90% the European Middle-Ages. A tiny little bit on each of ancient Egypt/Sumeria, China, Byzantium and the Monguls is about all we got of non-Eurocentric stuff.
* 15 points specializing in any of between cirka three and six different topics of Ancient(i.e. before 1750) History. Examples from recent years are
“Religion and politics in the Ancient world”, “The Roman Republic”, “Global history 1350-17500″, “Urbanization in the Middle-Ages”, “Globalization in the Ancient world”, etc, etc. A lot of very interesting stuff here, but the limit to only choosing one of them due to the massive 15 points size of them all is saddening.
Third term:
* 15 points specialization (chosen from any one of the two specialization-groups mentioned above as long as it’s not a topic you took in the first or second term) where you write a bachelor’s thesis and are allowed to exchange some of the curriculum
* 15 points specialization (chosen from one or two offers they give every term - varying from very boring stuff to very interesting stuff, but always rather narrow topics. Last fall it was Danish and Norwegian involvement in the Slave Trade, for instance) with a written exam.
Now, this means, you have all the overview stuffed into TWO courses, and then you have FOUR gargantuan specialization-courses forced onto you. As I gather, in Kristiansand, they had 60 points worth of overview-courses, and then 30 points of (four, I think) smaller courses for specialization. Which seems so much smarter to me.
1. January 2008 @ 19:52 ( Permalink )
Uh huh.
Here, they threw introduction to pre-modern history (i.e. before 1750) at new students, then made them take the post-1750 course — both of which were worth 15 points. That’s be the first one and an half terms. Addtionally, I believe Methodology of History (7,5), Economic History after 1800 (15) and Great Power Politics after 1900 (15) were mandatory — at least those two last ones were for me, but I wasn’t enrolled on the ordinary history programme.
I guess that what they’ve done now is to split this up, giving pre-1550 the first term… ah, screw that, I went over to NTNU’s pages to find out, and:
“Studieretning historie har fire obligatoriske emner, Antikkens og middelalderens historie til ca. 1550 (15 sp), Oversikt over tidlig nytids historie ca. 1550-1850 (15 sp), Moderne historie etter ca. 1850 (15 sp) og Innføring i historisk teori og metode (7,5 sp). De resterende 30 studiepoengene velger du blant emner tilbudt på fordypningsnivå.”
http://www.ntnu.no/studier/historie/historie/oppbygning
Doesn’t sound like much to me, but we do have some 7,5 courses, and not only 15′ers…
2. January 2008 @ 02:34 ( Permalink )
Resterende 30? Wouldn’t there be 37,5? Also, how can two 15-points-courses make up one and a half term? O.o You’re confusin’ me.
Confusion aside, though, you system seems so much better. And I think having one course on Ec.His. and one on GP Politics that are each as big as the recent history course is way more sensible than shoving all three into one 15-point course.
2. January 2008 @ 13:56 ( Permalink )
“Resterende 30? Wouldn’t there be 37,5?”
Well, there’s a mandatory ex.fac. course worth 7,5. I guess they counted that one without mentioning it… :\
“Also, how can two 15-points-courses make up one and a half term? O.o”
Ex.phil.+Ex.fac.+15 points of history = 30 points, or one term. And 15 points makes another half term.
5. January 2008 @ 01:34 ( Permalink )