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Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 23rd, 2007 7:28 pm
by netcom
Hi.

I'm looking for bird half credit courses at U of T, St George campus, in the faculty of Arts & Science.

Thanks.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 23rd, 2007 8:03 pm
by jhan
I was going to post this as well..
I heard Astronomy 101 is very easy.
Anyone else have anything?

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 23rd, 2007 9:24 pm
by jhan
How was Astro 201? Was it easy? That's what I heard..

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 23rd, 2007 10:32 pm
by jhan
Oh yeah, I just remembered this..

Ant253 taught by Prof. Danesi is an easy course.. he doesn't care about maintaining a particular class average, despite taking flack from the university.

Check if it's available during the spring term.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 24th, 2007 10:11 pm
by Homer88
jhan wrote: Oh yeah, I just remembered this..

Ant253 taught by Prof. Danesi is an easy course.. he doesn't care about maintaining a particular class average, despite taking flack from the university.

Check if it's available during the spring term.
Not anymore. I took it last semester and the TAs were the one who made the tests. Both of them were 20% TF and 80% MC as opposed to the 100% TF before. I don't know what the average is yet though... will probably know in a few weeks.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 24th, 2007 10:50 pm
by HBP
Homer88 wrote: Not anymore. I took it last semester and the TAs were the one who made the tests. Both of them were 20% TF and 80% MC as opposed to the 100% TF before. I don't know what the average is yet though... will probably know in a few weeks.
Are you kidding me... the course is still a bird (I took it this semester too and didn't go to classes!). Just read the book before tests, got 31/35 on the first one and I think I got perfect on our final.

Now I hope I did well on the essay... don't know about that yet.

It isn't offered in the S term though.

I've heard good things about EEB216 (Marine mammal biology or something like that), FCS290 (History of French music). Check them out. You should remember that most bird courses lose that reputation because profs don't like it.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 25th, 2007 12:18 am
by SamInfinity
ZOO304H1 Field Ornithology. Of all the courses at UofT, this is the most "bird" you can get. Otherwise, I'd say PHL245 Modern Symbolic Logic if you like that kind of thinking.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 25th, 2007 2:24 am
by grapz
FCS195
FCS290
HPS211
GLG130
CLA201
ANT 250 something lol

these are all the ones i can think of

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 25th, 2007 4:27 pm
by SamInfinity
HBP wrote: I'm planning on taking PHL245 next year, love logical thinking.

How is the marking scheme for ZOO304/what do you do?
It was a joke. Ornithology = Study of birds, hence, "bird" course. I hope you didn't take that seriously.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 25th, 2007 7:20 pm
by questrader
[QUOTE]Hi.

I'm looking for bird half credit courses at U of T, St George campus, in the faculty of Arts & Science.

Thanks.[/QUOTE]

Sniff sniff, I smell a guy trying to find an easy way into med school! :twisted:

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 25th, 2007 10:40 pm
by netcom
Thank you for your suggestions so far. Much appreciated.

Any input on CSC 104 or 108?

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 25th, 2007 11:56 pm
by jhan
netcom wrote: Thank you for your suggestions so far. Much appreciated.

Any input on CSC 104 or 108?
From what I hear, CSC104 is a bird.
I just took CSC108 this past term, and I'm warning you, this is NOT a bird, two buddies of mine failed miserably..

We had to make a mini photoshop from scratch using Python language for the final project, and that was one of the easier assignments. I did manage to get a B but the course eats up LOTS of time.

MAT137's fall term materials are MUCH easier than CSC108..

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 26th, 2007 9:06 pm
by BigBob
CSC108 is a breeze if you get how to program. If you don't, then it is gonna be pure hell.

I had perfectly smart friends from other faculties who took that course and failed because they couldn't wrap their head around programming. I also have friends who breezed through it without even taking a CS course in high school.

In general, I'd say it is not very birdy unless you know programming concepts and/or python already. If you don't, then you are going to invest time into learning and possibly a lot more doing the assignments. This makes it non-birdy for the non-cs inclined student.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Dec 26th, 2007 9:27 pm
by jhan
BigBob wrote: CSC108 is a breeze if you get how to program. If you don't, then it is gonna be pure hell.

I had perfectly smart friends from other faculties who took that course and failed because they couldn't wrap their head around programming. I also have friends who breezed through it without even taking a CS course in high school.

In general, I'd say it is not very birdy unless you know programming concepts and/or python already. If you don't, then you are going to invest time into learning and possibly a lot more doing the assignments. This makes it non-birdy for the non-cs inclined student.
Yeah, CSC108 is supposed to be an "Intro" to programming for students with no programming background.. but the thing is there are lots of good programmers taking this course to "boost" their GPA, and it makes it tougher for non-programmer students hang with the class average.

I learned a lot from CSC108 but I probably spent around 30+ hours per assignment since I was a programming newbie.. imagine if you can't understand programming, you waste your time watching your partner do all the work and fail the course in the end, because your simply won't pass the final exam without knowing the "stuff". 25 minutes midterms were dumb as well, why introduce such a TIGHT time constraints for a CS exam? It made zero sense to me, CS should be all about taking your time and thinking about algorithms, but trying to write some buggy code fast.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Jan 4th, 2008 10:02 am
by Tereno
I feel that Java should not have been replaced by Python as the introductory language. Java's API is solid and there are many decent books on Java. There are decent books on Python but I just think the syntax in Java is easier to begin with than Python.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Jan 4th, 2008 3:30 pm
by jhan
Is AST201H a bird?
My friend says that you can take this course without taking AST101H, and still ace it.. I'm assuming this course is all about memorizing stuff?

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Jan 4th, 2008 10:18 pm
by pacman99
netcom wrote: Thank you for your suggestions so far. Much appreciated.

Any input on CSC 104 or 108?
CSC104 is definitely a bird...at least it was 2 years ago during the summer when I took it and last year during the regular school year when my friends took it. No programming knowledge required, although the more you know about computers, the easier the course will be for you. People who have almost zero knowledge about computers took this course with me in order to satisfy their science distribution requirement so it shouldn't be hard to get a 4.0.
jhan wrote:Is AST201H a bird?
My friend says that you can take this course without taking AST101H, and still ace it.. I'm assuming this course is all about memorizing stuff?
Just wanted to add, you should also look into AST210. AST210 has no requirement and is quite easy as well. I took it this semester. The class avg is around 81%...I sure hope they won't bell it down more than 10%...

Although there are exceptions (like AST210 etc), taking courses you already know something about can also translate into getting an easy 4.0. It's also possible a very easy course could turn out to be your lowest mark.
i.e. A friend of mine, an anthro major, who knows nothing about compsci took CSC104 with me. She got a 3.3 i believe (after I helped her like mad on the assignments). On the other hand, I aced the course.
Some people find physics extremely easy :confused: whereas I'd fail that without putting in some serious effort.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Jan 7th, 2008 4:21 pm
by netcom
Any input on MAT223?

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Jan 7th, 2008 8:03 pm
by flygo
netcom wrote: Any input on MAT223?
I found it hard initially, since the math (matrices) are unfamiliar...but as long as you do the practice problems and go to office hours if you have any problems, it should be fine. I'd say the difficulty is around phy140 or chm138 level if you've taken either of those.

the midterms and the final are all pretty much the same for the past few years.

Re: Bird courses at U of T: St George?

Posted: Jan 9th, 2008 9:46 pm
by jhan
MAT223 is definitely not a bird.. I found it to be harder than CSC108. It might be different for other people, but it's definitely not a bird.