Monash General Chat

[keltingmeith]

But more importantly, I beat Reus's trivia team and got a free bowl of wedgeachos.

The best things in life are free.

[Massive quote here]

As someone silly enough to go and get himself elected as a president of a lowly little club, can confirm this is how C&S works.

Although, I will add that their affliation to MSA is useful for various reasons, particularly for things such as getting grants, but also getting members with that juicy MSA card.

I don't know much about him but apparently he's fairly popular around here. Burkard (a professor from Monash) has a youtube channel, featuring illuminati - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfnBW6HvNwM

Yus, Burkard, he's quite big around Australia in terms of maths education and in the university for his communication skills. He ran a mini-stand at open day, and is actually the reason I chose maths at Monash.

[Reus]

So I won model united nations.

Or something like that. I won model un bar trivia, that's right. But more importantly, I beat Reus's trivia team and got a free bowl of wedgeachos.

Only because I don't watch Friends

[Kanon]

Yus, Burkard, he's quite big around Australia in terms of maths education and in the university for his communication skills. He ran a mini-stand at open day, and is actually the reason I chose maths at Monash.

This makes me happy.  He really is an amazing communicator and a pretty legendary guy.

[Hutchoo]

This makes me happy.  He really is an amazing communicator and a pretty legendary guy.

Definitely a passionate guy. Doing one of his subs this semester for the lols, it's relaxing and kind of interesting. I got to write an essay on Blockchain technology, and the maths and computer science behind it. It was really awesome to do something like that.

[ShortBlackChick]

As someone silly enough to go and get himself elected as a president of a lowly little club, can confirm this is how C&S works.

Although, I will add that their affliation to MSA is useful for various reasons, particularly for things such as getting grants, but also getting members with that juicy MSA card.

Ahahaha which club? 10/10 wil stalk

[achre]

Upset with the changes to IR at Monash in the 2016 handbook. Especially after hanging out with ANU students for the past few days and seeing how badass their IR and security studies courses are.

[Reus]

Upset with the changes to IR at Monash in the 2016 handbook. Especially after hanging out with ANU students for the past few days and seeing how badass their IR and security studies courses are.

What are some of the changes?

[achre]

What are some of the changes?

Building Blocs and Political Economy of European Integration have apparently both been scrapped and they've added a bunch of critical theory focused units. I was almost going to say that it seems like Remy isn't lecturing next year, but I realised he's doing Foreign Policy and Intro to IR. In any case I've done both those units which means no Remy for me next year . ATS3266 looks cool though.

It just generally looks like it's designed more for academia and less for practice now, because the overlap between international relations and international studies is getting bigger and bigger. I'm sure it's an interesting unit, but I don't think ASIS will care how I did in anthropology of international development. The faculty as a whole would benefit from having at least one unit that focuses on IR issues in the Asia-Pacific region. That was kinda building blocs, which looked at IPE applied to the BRICS, EU and Asia-Pacific. But there's no way to study, say, Australian security issues at Monash.

If I had the cash to afford moving to Canberra, I would transfer to ANU in a heartbeat now tbh

[anna.xo]

How successful is career gateway to landing a job ?

[slothpomba]

Building Blocs and Political Economy of European Integration have apparently both been scrapped and they've added a bunch of critical theory focused units. I was almost going to say that it seems like Remy isn't lecturing next year, but I realised he's doing Foreign Policy and Intro to IR. In any case I've done both those units which means no Remy for me next year . ATS3266 looks cool though.

It just generally looks like it's designed more for academia and less for practice now, because the overlap between international relations and international studies is getting bigger and bigger. I'm sure it's an interesting unit, but I don't think ASIS will care how I did in anthropology of international development. The faculty as a whole would benefit from having at least one unit that focuses on IR issues in the Asia-Pacific region. That was kinda building blocs, which looked at IPE applied to the BRICS, EU and Asia-Pacific. But there's no way to study, say, Australian security issues at Monash.

If I had the cash to afford moving to Canberra, I would transfer to ANU in a heartbeat now tbh

Every year (especially every 2-3 years) they have a massive cull of subjects/majors/degrees. Look out the list (somewhere?) on the way out. Monash has heaps of degrees, way more than it needs sometimes but i dont know if this is a good idea to cut this much down.  I've seen other degrees rolled into other things too, sometimes its ok but other times they've lost something you can't really get back either.

They expand degrees in some of the silliest areas as well. We now have a bachelor of health sciences or something similar. It has undergrad epidemiology which has traditionally never been an undergraduate discipline (but they'll market it anyway like all those "forensics" degrees).

[DisaFear]

How successful is career gateway to landing a job ?

Um, you still need qualifications/requirements, CV, cover letter, interview skills. Career Gateway only presents jobs to you. You determine whether you get it or not.

[slothpomba]

Man, the deeper i get into this mysticism subject, the more interesting and intense it becomes.

Originally, i found it really hard to grasp (a lot of the texts were poetry or really superfluous "beautiful" language). I tend to prefer the Anglo/Analytical style of philosophy which is almost scientific in its being straight to the point. I dont really dig the prose you find in the rest of Europe.

That said, actually making through it is way more rewarding because of its challenging nature and prose. A lot of the ideas blow my mind as well. I just wrote a whole essay on apophatic theology, the idea you can only describe God by saying what he isn't. If you say what God is, once you name or catergorise something, you begin to limit it (and God has no limits). God existed before the creation of the universe and categories and differentiation only came about within and after the creation of the universe, these categories or differentiation didn't exist alongside God.

So, all you can really say is "God **is not** short" because that would be to limit him and apply human ideas to him. The only way you can really come to know God according to these guys is to "unknow" everything, erase all ideas of concepts and differentiation of God and accept him as the as a single and unitary substance of no/one quality. That's weird (unknow everything to know things) but it gets even weirder still. 

All this shit is really blowing my mind. The religion of the philosophers and mystics is so, so much deeper than the religion in churches or the average person on the street. It's orders of magnitude more interesting and dare i say sensible.

[slothpomba]

[This lecture on astrobiology/life on other planets is tomorrow at Monash, looks pretty good - http://moca.monash.edu/outreach/price3.html ]

Also, people give arts shit and i gotta say, in general it is more breezy than science.

However, when its crunch time, its really fucking crunch time. This is my first semester of 100% arts even though it's my last semester of uni. It was pretty cruisy for ages but week 10-11 you suddenly have 4 x 40-50% essays due. Each about ~2000-3000 words requiring extensive writing, re-writing and sourcing that's arguably a lot harder than a science essay.

Also, it feels kinda weird that this is almost certainly my last undergrad semester ever. This has been my mode and way of life for the past 5 years, that's double VCE and then some, it's really weird to think its not for ever and will be over soon. That is if you count honours as not undergrad. From my reading its fairly substantially different (in that its 9-5, probably have no time for clubs, etc).

This subject also has the longest essay choice i've ever seen... 21 topics!! and they're all super-interesting too... Got no idea which one i'm going to choose.

Spoiler

1. Discuss the ways in which modernisation is understood as a force of secularisation and conversely as a force that strengthens religion.

2. Is it accurate to describe the contemporary world as a global environment where religious actors are of little consequence?

3. Discuss the reasons behind USA’s emphasised concern with religious freedom.

4. Discuss some of the problems caused by the American model of state-church relationship. 

5. Discuss the reasons behind France’s emphasised control of religion.

6. Discuss some of the problems caused by the French model of state-church relationship.

7. Why is it often claimed that Europe is secular while America is religious?

8. What are the contemporary challenges to ‘godless’ Europe?

9. What are the theological premises of Israeli religious parties and how do they influence the politics of Israeli government towards the Palestinians?

10. Does the involvement of religion in Israel’s foreign policy make compromise more difficult?

11. Iran is declaratively a theocracy. Does that necessarily mean that its foreign policy is driven mainly by religious reasons?

12. Discuss the tensions between Iranian ‘messianic’ pan-Islamic role and national insularity. 

13. Discuss the Chinese treatment of religion and international tensions it produces.

14. Examine and assess the political impact of the religious Right on US politics under the presidencies of George W. Bush.

15. What is an ‘evangelized foreign policy’ and does it relate to the involvement of religious organisations in US foreign policy?

16. Do religious actors encourage governments to adopt policies they prefer in USA? If so, what tactics do they use?

17. Do religious norms and values affect how the US government has fought the ‘War on Terror’?

18. What is the basis of evangelical support for Israel?

19. Discuss the expression ‘belonging without believing’ using one of the North European countries as an example.

20. Discuss the impact of immigration from Muslim countries on North European countries and the current social tensions it produces. 

21. Discuss the religious rhetoric employed by George W. Bush’s administration in constructing the case for the war on terror. 

[ShortBlackChick]

Sacred and Profane right? I was going to say I did question 15, but then I cant remember if I did 15, 16 or 17, because they're pretty much asking the same/similar thing. Bush is funny af. I loved this unit!!! I beasted the essay but fucked up the exam/class test ahaha

I shouldnt have effed it up considering the lecturer wanted to pop out to get a coffee and was like 'im going to get coffee, i'm going to allow you to pull out your notes but when I get back they should be out of sight'

[pi]

Looks like the med faculty decided to chuck me an offer for an Honours year next year! Long and nervous wait over

Now just need to work hard for the next month or so to somehow pass exams