I do media and information at the UvA in the Netherlands. During the first year of my study, the course was just general media (it was a combination of two courses actually – media and information and media and culture). Having our courses combined and doing ‘general’ media meant that some of the classes we had were more on the information part of media and others were more on the culture. Going into media, I applied and got accepted into media and information, so officially that was what I was enrolled in; however, because our courses were combined, towards the end of the first year we could either stick with the course we were enrolled into or switch over to the other one.
Anyways, with that background information established, I personally *loved* all of the culture classes, passing them seemed effortless for me because I really enjoyed learning the things being taught and doing the work. The media and information classes, on the other hand, were a lot more effort for me because I didn’t always fully grasp the things being taught and it was never just too interesting.
At the end of the first school year, I missed the deadline to switch courses, and have been doing media and information since. These past 2 years have been so much stress and hard work from my end, and the results I’m getting don’t satisfy me as much as I would have ever liked. So all in all, it was my mistake that I missed the switch deadline, and I guess I lived the consequences of my actions by completing a course I didn’t fully 100% enjoy.
On a side note, UvA did a fine job teaching the course, I don’t have anything against the university, the faculty, or any of it really. 🙂