This is a second year Arts subject taken by the reviewer in first semester 2011.
Subject Outline. This subject consists of three lecture/tutorials. They are quite cosy and personal compared to other lectures but not quite a tutorial. Andrew Turner is very experienced in Latin. All were morning classes two at 10 and one at 9
Materials. There was one textbook that was in a very prose format. Few charts or tables and no exercises but very densely informative.
Assessment. There was one piece of translation (from English to Latin) that was handed out on Wednesdays to be completed by Friday 5.00pm every week while on Monday we got the opportunity to go over the homework in great detail. I found having only three days to do the homework very stressful though as I had a full Wednesday and thursday while the homework was taking me 12 hours to do. Combined with other homework it was too short a span to do it in and it also was relentless with 12 assignments for 12 weeks. You only have to do 8 of them as only your 8 best count, but each assignment consolidates the weeks lesson and it is better not to miss one out.
The biggest problem for me was that I had only done the seven week Summer Beginners intensive before coming to the class. Beware, you will be up against a class of people who have done six years of Latin at the secondary level. They found this class a breeze (in fact some said it was too easy!). But I had studied only one week and one day of Latin for every year that they had studied it and I found I was totally drowning. I persevered as I really want to do Latin and I now have little other choice but to persevere. Those coming from the full one year course of first year Latin at melb uni also found the course hard, so six years counts! Of course there were always the wiz kids and those who came into the uni with other experiences of Latin but beware if that is not you that this is really hard. Thankfully, Andrew added an extra class for we laggards and without it I have no idea how I would have got any score for my homework for at least the first half of the course so make sure you attend this class if you are struggling. But if you really want Latin just persevere you will improve even if the class remains extremely difficult to the end. It was really intensely hard for me all the way to the end and I got the worst score of my uni experience (although I haven’t done the exam yet). The standard is so far above my other language (German) that I learnt in the Beginners seven weeks more than I have learned in the whole year and a half of German—although I should say I was taught, because I have had a lot of trouble absorbing all the information. And that was beginners, intermediate takes Latin to a whole new level. Also be warned that this course was originally for a year. This has been squashed into six months. So unless you have prior Latin experience before coming to Melbourne Uni, expect an intense time. If you are smart, live close to uni, have someone to cook your meals and wash your clothes and pay your bills and can afford to study all your evenings and weekends you will probably cope well too—unfortunately that is not me.
Lectures. The lectures were not recorded. There were powerpoint notes available on the LMS for each week but they only covered a small fraction of the content of the classes. You cannot afford to miss a day unless you are already an expert in Latin.
Tutorials/Practicals. The format was like a lecture and tutorial combined in the one class. I didn’t pay attention to the hurdle requirement as I attended all classes. The assessment is on the 8 best of 12 assignments plus a midsemester exam and a final exam at 30%, 30% and 40%. You are allowed your dictionary in the exams but they are the time allocation for the amount of work was harrowingly short for me (refer above for the context).
The reviewer rated this subject 5/10.
Words of Wisdom. I would have done the one year Latin instead of the intensive but I don’t know how much that would have improved things as other first year Latin learners were finding it all intense too. If I could go back further I would have done six years of Latin before coming to Uni. I found out that Distance Education of Victoria (DEV) offer really cheap distance education in Latin from Class 1-6 and I could have done that! All a bit late if you are already at uni. Please note that it is recommended that you do latin (and Greek) if you want to study the mythology stream of Ancient World Studies and it is probably really important if you are doing anything medieval too (although i haven’t yet asked about that).
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Posted Wednesday 31 August, 2011. Updated Wednesday 31 August, 2011.