In pursuit of Politics at university?

Forget the stress of providing definitions in a few short minutes, and welcome to the world of exploring and developing the world of Politics in depth

Pursuit of short term goals at this stage of the year may involve long hours of hard slog, with the principal aim of committing lots of bite sized information to memory –much of which will have been “packaged” by your teachers. But you may be asking why you are doing this. If you are intent on studying at degree level, then the reward will hopefully be a place on a course at the university of your choice. For reasons unrelated to the production of this blog article, I was browsing the offerings of a Politics Department at a well known research intensive university.

What I found made me slightly jealous that I personally didn’t have three years of undergraduate study to look forward to: lots of independent study, with the possibility of becoming completely immersed in trying to develop personal interpretations or solutions. At university, the focus is very much on you as the student taking responsibility for learning – a big change from school life!

To illustrate what I’m talking about I include here a sample of the teaching arrangements and unit requirements outlined in a document aimed at those taking a unit on the US presidency.

In particular I would highlight the following section.

“Learning how to Learn

According to the University of Bristol guidelines, you are required to spend at least 13 hours per week on this unit. During this time you should:
1. prepare for the weekly seminars. This includes reading and taking notes on the essential readings;
2. research your presidential case study in relation to the seminar topic;
3. prepare for your presentation;
4. you should also keep up to date with current events in American politics through the WWW;
5. conducting initial research for the assessed project;
6. formulating your research question for the assessed project;
7. formulating a bibliography that will inform the research project;
8. drafting, proof reading, re-drafting your 1000 word excerpt;
9. responding to written feedback on your 1000 word excerpt;
10. a final edit of the full research project.”

Exciting stuff!

Hopefully this might make you pause and consider why you are putting the work in, and remind you of the bigger picture. With the last A2 exams scheduled for mid June, there is only about 8 weeks until it’s all over and you can take a well earned summer break. If you are in the AS year, then keep in mind that you are just 12 months behind!