Taken AY2014/2015 Semester 2
SC2202: Sociology of Work
I took this mod for the sake of my timetable, and wasn’t expecting anything much. So while I wasn’t exactly disappointed, this mod was so-so at best. The content wasn’t particularly interesting or eye opening. Main themes include capitalist production, gender and labour migration – plenty of dry general knowledge stuff/ stuff I encountered in other mods, with a few sociological theories inserted here and there.
That being said, lectures were well-structured and everything was straightforward and easy to understand (no difficult theories or concepts whatsoever). The lecturer did a fine job of dissolving the main ideas in readings. The amount of information disseminated was also comparatively little, so it made studying for finals easier.
Assessment
10%: tutorial participation
20%: 2 IVLE blog posts
20%: 2000 word memo
50%: finals
The blog component was easy enough – just produce two 250 word IVLE forum posts on any topic of your choice, and reply to posts made by others. I think the downside is that it’s hard to score well, unless you can think of a novel topic vastly different from the rest.
However, the lecturer’s requirements for the 2000 word memo were vague, and left me feeling very confused. Rather than a specific essay question, we were given a few broad topics to choose from (e.g. labour migration), and were expected to “organize the readings around a central argument”. I wasn’t sure what the lecturer was looking for – “organizing” seemed to imply summarizing and explaining, like what you would do in an exam. Furthermore, there didn’t seem to be much room for me to challenge or add on to the arguments presented in readings (since they were more factual, and not really contestable). I guess we were supposed to come up with an entirely original argument, but I ended up producing a part-rehash of the readings, and didn’t do so great. I wish the lecturer had given out more explicit requirements. It would have been better if there were actually real questions, so we can construct an argument for/ against something, instead of creating a random one based on a super-broad theme.
The finals consisted of three sections: quotation interpretations, short answer questions and an essay. Questions were direct and relatively simple; just regurgitate the material. Quite a few people even left the exam hall early – I guess that meant it really was easy (and maybe not so healthy for the bell curve?). Based on the lecturer’s answer guide, however, I had the impression that her marking style was quite rigid. Be careful to include only the relevant content, and cover all possible aspects of the questions.
Workload
This module is light- moderate. The content and assignments were perfectly manageable, and the teaching style was not bad, even though I didn’t feel like I learned loads of new or interesting stuff. My main gripe is with the marking style/method of assessment, especially the memo.
Source
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