What electives should I take at TMU?

Now that I’m in my fourth year of Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) English program, I’ve taken quite a few electives across different faculties. These courses have helped me figure out what I’m passionate about and have also pushed me outside of my comfort zone. To give you a sneak peak of what course options might be available for you to explore at TMU, take a look at five of my favourite electives that I’ve taken throughout my degree!

MUS 520: Women in Popular Music

I took MUS 520 during this past summer for my upper level liberal elective requirement, and as a music enthusiast, I absolutely loved it. This course examines the role of women in popular music by exploring the connections between gender identity, gender performance and musical creation. I learned a lot about the lives and careers of some of today’s most influential female musicians, and our weekly lectures provided a unique perspective on the music industry. Instead of textbook chapters or research articles, a lot of our assigned “readings” were songs, which was a nice break from the work that I was used to (as an English major, I do a lot of reading).

For our final assignment, we were given the opportunity to design our own digital magazine on a female musician of our choice. I wrote about pop music artist Chappell Roan and designed my magazine in Canva. I had so much fun experimenting with different colours, fonts and images to help bring my research to life. While it was challenging at times, this course was a big help with strengthening my graphic design and academic writing skills.

CRM 515: Gendering Justice

I’ve always been interested in learning more about the Canadian criminal justice system, so I decided to enrol in CRM 515 to fulfill one of my other upper level liberal requirements. This course uses feminist theoretical frameworks to examine how law structures are shaped by race, class and sexuality. Through case studies and research articles, we covered a lot of issues related to the gendered nature of Canada’s criminal justice system. One of my favourite parts about this course is that we were able to choose our own topics for our final essay. This made the learning experience a lot more personal since we could base our research on our own interests.

ENG 222: Fairy Tales and Fantasies

I took ENG 222 as a core elective requirement for my major, and I think it was one of my favourite English courses that I’ve taken throughout my degree. With a focus on some of the most influential fairy, folk and fantasy tales, this course explores their evolution from oral stories for adults to literary texts for children. Each week, we read classic fairy tales and compared them to Disney films, modern television shows, games and other adaptations. For my final essay, I compared the music video for Taylor Swift’s song “Bejeweled” (external link, opens in new window)  to Charles Perrault’s Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper. This course taught me a lot about how fairy tales can shape our culture, and it was also pretty fun to revisit some of the stories that I loved when I was a child. I definitely felt the nostalgia!

SOC 202: Popular Culture

I love everything related to pop culture, so when I saw that SOC 202 was available for me to take as a lower level liberal elective, I knew that I had to enrol in it. This course examines a wide range of ideas about popular culture and discusses how they inform our politics, consumption practices and ideas about the world. Some of the key topics that we covered include advertising, music, the cult of celebrity and television.

It was really interesting to compare some of the most popular television shows, films and musicians to sociological concepts, and it taught me a lot about how we can think critically about the media we consume. One of my favourite lectures examined the topic of youth cultures and subcultures by unpacking classic teen films like The Breakfast Club. Overall, I would recommend this course to anyone who is interested in learning more about sociological concepts and theories!

NNS 101: Introduction to News Studies

Fun fact — before I accepted my offer for TMU’s English program, I was also considering joining the Journalism program. However, thanks to my program’s open elective requirement, I can still take Journalism courses for credit.

NNS 101 was one of the courses that I took in my first semester of my first year. By participating in small weekly writing assignments, this course introduces students to the core values of journalism, its community practices, the components of the basic news story and the key tools that today’s reporters, editors and producers use. A lot of our lectures were discussion based, so it was pretty cool to hear the opinions of other students and receive professional advice from our instructor. If you’re looking for a fun and interactive introduction to the world of journalism, this course is for you!

I hope at least one (or a couple) of the courses in this list have sparked your interest. Who knows, maybe one of my favourite courses will land a spot in your top five list some day too.

To see what courses might be available for you to take in your desired TMU program, check out the undergraduate calendar. At TMU, the options are endless!

Until next time,

Claire