This relates more to the Humanities faculty for me, since a lot of the cool history courses don't run every, or even every-other year.

Is there anyway of predicting what will be offered the next year, short of bothering the department? Like do they have a list somewhere?

I just really don't want to take 4 history courses in fourth year, but I also want to know when to hold out for a bit.

In many ways, it's entirely up to the registrar. For my program, there are a few 4th yr courses that are supposed to be offered every other year, and last year we were told multiple times that one of them would be offered 2nd term of this year, so that us & the 4th yrs could take it, and the next one would be offered 2nd term of next year, so us and the year below us could take it (since the prereq runs in first term) etc etc. We were told this several times by several different people.

What actually happened, was that one of them was offered 1st term of this year, but since it might not be offered next year they had to waive the prereq for my entire year so that we could take it with the 4th years, and the other course is being offered next year but it conflicts with one of the 3rd year required courses. They're working on getting that changed

You can try bothering the department, but even the info they give you and what they have planned might not be the same as whatever the registrar has decided.

I think it might also depend on whether there's a prof who wants to teach that course, how high the demand is, etc which are variable factors that won't be easy to predict until closer to the actual year.

I don't know about humanities but for my program there is a list that goes out every year of the available technical electives for us, which are offered every other year, and it says which semester and which year they're going to be offered. Sometimes the courses change from one year to the next (like on the list I mean) but they are accurate for the upcoming year. You might be able to ask the coordinator of your program, it shouldn't be considered bothering them since it's information that should be available to you.

Originally Posted by britb

This relates more to the Humanities faculty for me, since a lot of the cool history courses don't run every, or even every-other year.

Is there anyway of predicting what will be offered the next year, short of bothering the department? Like do they have a list somewhere?

I just really don't want to take 4 history courses in fourth year, but I also want to know when to hold out for a bit.

Its a bloody complicated process.

It depends on:

• who is on sabattical
• what tenured profs are available to teach and when
• if tenured profs are willing to teach more than 4 or 5 classes a year
• what sessionals they can hire
• what the research interests of said sessionals are

Because of all of those factors, what courses are offered can vary. It also may depend on when they decide who will be teaching what, and who would take over, say for maternity leave or illness etc.

I think because French is a much smaller program than history it may be easier to determine their courses. Also, for example, a grammar course could be taught by any of the profs, while a history course on nineteenth century American slavery couldn't be taught by someone with a research interest in Classics.

English, which is similar in size to history, doesn't seem to follow a pattern. There are something like thirty 4th year seminars for English/CSCT. Sometimes they offer courses every other year, or every year...and some courses they didn't offer in the four years span lasting from the third year of my first degree to my final year of my second degree. Why? No idea. Part of the reason has to do with some of the determining factors listed above, but I'm sure there could be tons of other factors.