Content is pretty interesting but there is a lot of reading for a first-year course. From my experience, the paper was relatively easy, though I don't think it was worth 35% when I took it.
Make sure you get a good prof or you'll be very lost on some of the concepts. I took the course with Roman--interesting guy but he didn't have any structure to his lectures... just talked about whatever he wanted. Definitely not a good first-year prof!
I had it with Stuart Poyntz this fall (for my first semester at sfu) and I found it to be okay. There was a fair bit of reading and it covered a vast amount of content but if it is the paper you were concerned about, that itself was easy. There weren't many requirements: had to be ten pages long and somewhat address something in the course. There was sample topics that you could build a thesis off given or you could make your own.
I dont think Poyntz is teaching the course in the Spring, or atleast at Burnaby, but if you want more info you can go to http://www.sfu.ca/~spoyntz/ and look through the 110 pages.
I also took it with Poyntz this fall. Poyntz is really a great lecturer, but I didn't find the content all that interesting. Probably because it was too broad (I liked random topics here and there, though). I didn't get a really great TA though, she didn't allow a lot of discussion in tutorials and she's a hard marker, so I lost points there, but I made up for it with my awesome marks on the midterm and final, haha.
Comments
Make sure you get a good prof or you'll be very lost on some of the concepts. I took the course with Roman--interesting guy but he didn't have any structure to his lectures... just talked about whatever he wanted. Definitely not a good first-year prof!
I find that once you get through 110 and 130 CMNS classes, it gets so much more interesting.
I dont think Poyntz is teaching the course in the Spring, or atleast at Burnaby, but if you want more info you can go to http://www.sfu.ca/~spoyntz/ and look through the 110 pages.