I transferred as an undergrad, and spent two years depressed and miserable because I was taking graduate classes as a college freshman/sophomore, and I was doing better than the grad students.
OUCH.
Now that I think of it, I remember other students in my MA cohort talking about having to take survey courses in undergrad. We...didn't do that. We had courses like "20th Century Irish Lit" and "The Con Man in American Fiction 1850-1900" and "British Nationalism in the 18th Century." (Uhhhh, basically if you'd just completed your diss this was a dream school to teach at.) And I remember that our requirements were broken up into nine areas (Old English, Medieval, Renaissance/17th Century, 18th Century Brit, 19th Century Brit, 20th Century Brit or non-American, Pre-1900 American, Post-1900 American, Theory), and you had to take a class in at least six areas, then some number of electives, I think four or six or something.
I always used to wonder what the hell the Norton anthologies and the like were used for, because we never had them--it was always novels or books of poetry related to the theme an time period of the course, which was, you know, fairly narrow. And then I started studying for my orals in a group with my classmates, and they were all, "Oh, we did this in my survey course. Let me just pull out my Norton..." And then the light dawned.
As is, I'm probably going to do a thesis contrasting Afro-Am lit with Latin American lit.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 04:19 pm (UTC)OUCH.
Now that I think of it, I remember other students in my MA cohort talking about having to take survey courses in undergrad. We...didn't do that. We had courses like "20th Century Irish Lit" and "The Con Man in American Fiction 1850-1900" and "British Nationalism in the 18th Century." (Uhhhh, basically if you'd just completed your diss this was a dream school to teach at.) And I remember that our requirements were broken up into nine areas (Old English, Medieval, Renaissance/17th Century, 18th Century Brit, 19th Century Brit, 20th Century Brit or non-American, Pre-1900 American, Post-1900 American, Theory), and you had to take a class in at least six areas, then some number of electives, I think four or six or something.
I always used to wonder what the hell the Norton anthologies and the like were used for, because we never had them--it was always novels or books of poetry related to the theme an time period of the course, which was, you know, fairly narrow. And then I started studying for my orals in a group with my classmates, and they were all, "Oh, we did this in my survey course. Let me just pull out my Norton..." And then the light dawned.
As is, I'm probably going to do a thesis contrasting Afro-Am lit with Latin American lit.
That sounds very nifty indeed.