As a student, I have had my fair share of taking “bird courses”—especially in my first two years at U of T. Some courses are said to be “bird” because they are “easy” and the course average is usually quite high. These courses are often very popular amongst students, so this week, I wanted to share what I've learned from taking bird courses.
Courses change
Courses are not static! Professors can change and sometimes, even the actual course content/syllabus can change! This means that the feedback for a particular course may no longer be applicable and what once was an “easy” course might not be so easy anymore. This is especially true now that most courses have changed their mode of delivery to online learning!
Everyone is different
This is a given. What’s easy for someone else is not necessarily easy for me. Because of this, it’s important for me to get a wide variety of feedback on the course from people who have taken the course recently. It’s also really important to know what my strengths and weaknesses are in order to choose a course that I will actually do well in—this might involve trial and error!
Discovering new interests
The bird courses I’ve chosen to take in the past were not required for my degree and have been outside of my usual science scope. Because of this, I was able to broaden my interests and I learned new knowledge that I wouldn’t normally be exposed to.
Follow your passion!
I’ve taken courses where I wasn’t exactly interested in, but still took it because I wanted to get an easy credit. Turns out, it was hard for me to find the motivation to study the material which consequently resulted in a grade that I wasn’t too happy about. It’s much easier to study for a course that I’m actually passionate about!
As you may make last minute changes as the new semester nears, I hope everyone does well in their classes (bird or not!) 🙂
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