Okay, so for you first years out there who are currently looking at electives to choose, here are three important sites to look at for your entire career at Queen’s. The first is the Queen’s Arts & Science calendar which is here: http://www.queensu.ca/calendars/artsci/index.htm and the second is the Commerce calendar, which is here: http://www.queensu.ca/calendars/business/, and last but not least the Commerce portal: https://commerce.queensu.ca/commerce/2006/commerce.nsf/homepage?OpenForm&section=National which will be your lifeline that connects you to the Commerce office and everything else. You will likely be checking the Commerce portal at least 3 times a day when you start in September, so might as well bookmark it now.

Now as for which electives to choose from, I strongly suggest that you keep certain considerations in mind:

1. Writing Credit: You need 1.0 credits of eligible “writing” courses over your 4 years at Queen’s. These courses are the ones that have essays or writing assignments that count for over 50% of your final grade.
2. Queen’s Option: You need 2.0 credits of courses that have the same prefix, for example taking 4 semesters of ECON or POLS. 1.0 credits need to come from upper year courses, so 2nd year or above; these courses are the 200 level courses or up.
3. Certificate for Corporate Social Responsibility (Certificate of CSR)*: I’ve mentioned this a few times in my previous entries, so look back at them if you don’t know what this is. Basically you need 2.0 credits of approved CSR courses over 4 years, 1.0 of them must come from Arts & Science courses, the other 1.0 credit must come from Commerce courses.
4. International Business courses: You need to take at least one course (0.5 credits) in an approved International Business course. Many people elect to do this during exchange, but Queen’s offers some amazing International Business courses right at home, so I would suggest looking at those as well.

*The good thing is, if you do decide to do CSR, your CSR credits can be “doubled up” with your Queen’s Option or Writing credits. So for example if you decide to take something like GPHY 101, that course is approved for both the writing credit as well as the CSR credit, so by taking that one course you hit two birds with one stone. Unfortunately you cannot double up on your writing and Queen’s Option, so you must do those two separately.

Some tips from me:

• Get these required electives done early! I finished my option in Politics in 2nd year because I did all Politics courses as electives in my first and second year. Your option is probably the hardest requirement to finish because you basically need to do 4 semesters, but if you get it done early and keep your courses focused, you should be able to get it done quickly.
• Plan ahead. You might not know what you want to concentrate in yet, but I strongly suggest you at least plan out your Arts/Science electives early. Those are more flexible and may or may not correlate with your Commerce classes. By planning early you can get all of your requirements in and graduate on time.
• If there is a course that you might be interested in, and from speaking to the program coordinator in that department or the professor of that class, you believe it can count towards one of your requirements, then speak to the respective Commerce coordinators of those requirements. If you provide them with a class syllabus (semester schedule) of that class as well as a course description, they will be able to see if that course can count.
• MATH 121 and 126 are very popular courses for first year students because they open the door to many good electives that you can take later on. But if you have no interest in math, or if you have no interest in the courses that you can take with those as prerequisites, then there is really no point in taking them is there? This is why I suggest planning early, because you can take a look at the courses that you would be interested in taking in your upper years and then looking at the prerequisites for those before deciding which lower year electives to take. Don’t take something just because its popular, take it because you will find it useful.
• Talk to upper years who have taken the electives that you are interested in. That is probably the best use of your time because you can get a sense of what electives are really useful and what aren’t. Just for reference in case you want to contact me about any of my electives, I took POLS 110 in first year, POLS 261 and 262, as well as ECON 240 in second year. In third year I took WMNS 360 and GPHY 101.
• When time comes for preregistration, always do it early! Some hot courses fill up really quickly so you need to do it right away to ensure a spot, especially if you need it as a prerequisite for other courses you plan on taking later on.
• If you’re not 100% sure about certain courses, you can always look for its schedule on QCARD and when the time comes for classes to start, you can drop in to those lectures to get a feel of what its like. If you decide you want to switch, then there is an add/drop period for all classes that is in September. You get two weeks to get a feel before you need to finalize everything.

I hope you at least learned something from all of my rambling, and again please do not hesitate to contact me via Twitter or email. If you happen to see me in the hallways at Goodes, don’t be shy and please say hi! I always love to hear from you =)

Following Kat’s post, with elective selection coming up, it seems like a good idea to give some advice on the matter. Most of it is just Q&A with other incoming frosh =P.

As mentioned in the rankings post, there is sometimes of trade-off between picking an interesting course and picking a course that can return high marks (and I know you all care about your marks). This is often because interesting courses tend to be subjective, and the approach to marking is different between subjective and objective courses. In a subjective course, 85 is an outstanding mark: it is not uncommon to hear professors defend the marking by saying “85+ on a politics paper is publishable” and “90+ is what Nietzsche would get if he wrote the paper.” Objective courses on the other hand (like math and physical sciences) are a lot more black and white in terms of right and wrong answers and 90+s are more common.

Also remember that the Queen’s Option requires that 1.0 credits are upper year courses, and to take an upper year course, you need the 100 level course, which can only be taken as one of your electives. This means if you decide to pursue an Option that wasn’t your first year elective, you have to take another 100 level elective in your upper years.

I’m still confused as to which courses can be taken in which years. Let’s say that I take Math121 this year, but decide to pursue my “Option” in French in second year. Am I allowed to begin my university French studies with the most basic courses offered (0XX), even in second year?
As long as you have the prerequisites, you can take any course at any time (that it’s offered). So yes, in 2^nd year, you can take 0-level or 100-level courses. Just make sure that you’re satisfying whatever prerequisite you need to take the necessary 200-level courses to complete the Option.

Now, Math126 was a very common first year elective (Jason and I both wrote about it), but it is no longer available to commerce students. You have to take Math121 now. So with respect to the difference in difficult, a summary of my reply was:
Math121 has to cover an extra bit of material, so it goes at a faster pace than Math126, which is probably the main contributor to the perceived difference in difficulty. At the end of the day, I think anyone who can handle 126 can handle 121. The course average for 121 was higher than 126 this year.

If take Math121 as my elective in first year, how feasible is it to pursue my “Option” in economics afterwards? Wouldn’t it be more logical to simply take an Econ elective in first year if this is my goal?
To pursue an Option in economics, you need to take 121 as your elective (or transfer an IB/AP credit). All upper year economics courses have Econ 110/111+112 AND Math121/126 as prerequisites. You’ll take Econ110 in first year, but since it’s a mandatory course for all commerce students, the credit is not allowed to count towards an economics option.

You may still be unsure about what elective to take even after hours of research. And even after you finally decide on one, you might not be sure if it’s the right one.
Can electives be changed after school starts?
There is an add/drop period so you can change courses during that period. If you’re really unsure between, say, three courses, sign up for one, go to the first few lectures of all three to get a feel, and then finalize in the one you liked the most.

Kat mentioned talking to upper year students and this is KEY. It’s one thing to read about a course on paper, but it’s another to hear from students who actually took the course.

Good luck!

I received this question in an email from a prospective student a few months ago. I’m just putting this up now… I have no idea why; I think it might be a little late for you froshies for the upcoming fall but I hope future prospective students can find some use out of it!

Question: Do you recommend living in residence in first year, and why?

Answer: Yes I do recommend living in residence. First year university is a very difficult adjusting time for students and living off-campus with bills and housemates and all that is just going to make it more difficult. By living in residence, you get everything taken care of for you, plus a variety of food options so you don’t have to really worry about what to eat. Queen’s also has a variety of scholarships and bursaries, so I recommend you apply to anything open to you. You never know when you’ll be getting bit of extra aid!

Do you have any additional questions about first year or any other undergrad year (I can probably answer everything except for fourth year, since I’m just starting this fall…)? Follow me at @pinkrose398 on Twitter and ask away! or e-mail me at 7xp1[at]queensu[dot]ca. Hope to hear from you!

As I was reading over course selections at my exchange university in Norway, I realized that many of the incoming Commerce frosh this year are picking their elective courses right about now. I know with the amount of elective choices you have in the Arts and Science program, it can seem a little overwhelming. Below are the steps I follow to make picking my electives every year a little less daunting:

1) Read over all the courses that are offered and highlight the courses that interest you
2) Go back and read over the presented course syllabus and eliminate those that don’t seem well-prepared or don’t seem to be a good fit for you in terms of learning style, course material covered, pace of learning, etc.
3) Check the timetable for when the courses are being offered and make sure they won’t clash with your set of mandatory course subjects
4) Talk to upper years that have taken the course before and get their thoughts (and maybe even their lecture notes too!)

Those steps should hopefully allow you to whittle it down to a more manageable list. Happy course selection!

On an unrelated note, you can now follow me on Twitter @kwongtooyen. Send me a direct message or a tweet and you can expect a fairly quick response!

Katherine Wong Too Yen, BCom’12

Sorry its been so long since my last update! There’s been a lot of stuff going on in my life with the flying around and moving from place to place. This is just going to be a really short update =)

1. After my last post, I took another week-long trip with some fellow Commies! We went to Prague, Vienna, Zurich and Interlaken (another city in Switzerland). It was a lot of fun especially when its with your usual classmates because you usually don’t get an experience like this.
2. I left the UK mid-April after my semester ended at the Bader International Study Centre at Herstmonceux Castle
3. Instead of going back home to Vancouver… I actually flew to China! I’m originally from here and I haven’t been back since grade 11 so I made it a priority this year before I graduate next May.
4. I’m currently still in China! I’m here for a total of 4 months before I go back to Canada in August. I was in Fuzhou (a city in the south-east) because that is where I was born, but now I’m in Beijing.
5. I’m taking the LSATs this June. Its actually tomorrow. That’s why I’m in Beijing now, because the LSATs are at Peking University.
6. Course selection for 4th years is next week! (Can you imagine I’m in 4th year already? I’m the oldest person on this blog and I’ve also been doing it the longest!) I’ll give you a better idea of what I’m taking next year once I finalize my selection on QCARD.
7. I’m travelling to Shenzhen and Hong Kong next week because my Chinese Visa is expiring, so I need to leave the country and come back.
8. I’m going to be in Beijing for a few more days until my idol, Jay Chou holds a concert here. I’m going to go watch it (of course), and then I’m heading north-east to Shenyang.
9. I’m starting an internship in Shenyang in July for about a month. I’ll be working as a marketing intern at a real estate/contracting firm. This is perfect to add experience to my concentrations in international business and marketing.
10. I’ll be back in Vancouver in August where I’ll be spending some time with the family and then back in Kingston likely on the first week of September for Career Launch (more on Career Launch at another time).

So… are there any froshies actually reading this? I can’t wait to meet some of you in September. Some of you have actually found my personal blog and messaged me through there. I’m really happy to hear the excitement in your emails to me. I’ve also been able to answer most of your questions (I hope). If not, please continue to send them to me. I’m always happy to hear from you!