Uninteresting. Unpractical. Unnecessary. This subject will be one of the worst classes you have to take in your years of formal education. The content rigid, primarily based off a thesis authored by the head tutor of the subject (a pretentious paper which flaunts big words to cover the fact that nothing of academic value is being said, and will be read only by students who are forced into the subject), and invites no critical engagement. Furthermore, the number of tasks which students must complete is tedious, the sort of mundane, cliche and uninteresting assessments which AI would be perfect for completing (given how no creative insight is needed). The 2 hour “workshop” is far too long considering the substanceless nature of the subject, and often times, students are clocked out by the hour mark. Worst yet, the mark you receive for your final assessment (exam equivalent) is entirely contingent on whether your group members are willing to put in the effort. It is not enough to do your part well, as it is ultimately up to a roll of the dice whether you get member who are willing to do what is required of them. Worst yet, the subject is extraordinarily expensive. You will be paying $2000 to sit in a room where a tutors tell you how racism and sexism is bad, and try to derive progressive insights off lightbulbs and kelp (lightbulbs apparently reveal the gratuitous reality of vehement racism on public transport!), with the only value you will reap being the lesson that bad things come to an end. This course epitomises what science students think of when they hear of “arts student” - it affirms the caricature of arts being a bunch of unemployed know it alls who yap on how about bad society is. If I could give this subject negative stars, I would.

A steaming pile of horseshit so noxious that students are known to chew off their own limbs to escape. Jacqueline Dutton's writing style and interests are so devoid of meaning and so infested with vocabulary that she would be insulted if you told her she would 'roast in pretentious hell' and would instead correct you that she will 'be flambéed, sauteed, roasted, and charred inside the earth's tartarean pit'. The subject represents everything wrong with Arts as a discipline. Tutors were alright tho! Give em a break. They would also chew their limbs off to get out, but they've got kids to feed, and lives to live which need money.

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Waste of a subject. The feedback on the work was helpful sometimes and the varied experiences and interests of the tutors was interesting yet it all falls flat on the boring readings. Hope the head of the subject felt good that people finally read her paper, hope she got all the feedback she needs. :)

Useless. Boring. Expensive. Classes are too large for any meaningful engagement. Not to mention the main “paper” we “studied” was written by the head of Arts Discovery, because clearly, if it wasn’t for this class nobody would read it because it was irrelevant and pretentious.

This subject was definitely not the best, and to be honest is a waste of money considering it is compulsory for all Arts students. The content and readings were bland, the only part I enjoyed about sitting through it for 2 hours each week was the bond I formed with my group members. If you hate group projects though, this is an unfortunate introduction to your course. There's a lot of BS around the "new futures" concept, which I still can't even define after having finished the subject. The modules that you have to do each week literally don't relate to anything during the seminars and are just basic common sense and respect. My best advice: you can probably put in your bare minimum and just blab your way through the assignments, it's a pretty easy H1.

waste of time

Arts Discovery was absolutely the worst part of my first semester here at Unimelb. It's compulsory for all Arts students, so complaining won't do much good, but I'm going to anyway. The content was completely vague and uninteresting, and I don't really feel there was any learning happening. They kept relating everything back to their central theme of 'nEw fUtUrEs', whatever the hell that is, but didn't even bother to explain it clearly anywhere on Canvas or in class. All of the modules they forced us to do were uninteresting and basic (don't do a racism, guys!!!). Then the major assessment was a group project, which makes you entirely dependant on the group you get for like 50% of your mark. If you get a good group, the subject is an easy H1, however it's just as likely that you'll get people who are lazy, don't respond, or don't even know English. On top of all of that, they charged the highest possible amount for this shitshow. WTF are we paying almost $2000 for? There's nothing of value to be gained from this subject. They even had the audacity to send out a little feedback report, saying that they are ignoring all of our valid criticisms (basically a giant F* you). The subject was a slap in the face to the entire Arts cohort. So glad this shitshow is over with. Good luck, Arts students, you'll need it.

Sadly, this subject is a compulsory subject for all first year arts year students. The content is disorganised, with referencing and writing techniques being taught in week 10/11 as opposed to earlier when it would have been more useful. Group work is a main component of thus subject as you have to create an arts project/dissertation, therefore getting stuck with a bad group can make things difficult. The modules were really cut and dry in my opinion, extremely boring and is too general to be useful to the degree with themes like respect, diversity and inclusion. Overall, the subject was an easy H1 if you get a decent group.

Biggest waste of time and money. I haven't met a single person who has enjoyed arts discovery. Praying for next years arts students they don't have to do this. They really should have made this subject free or just not forced us to do it. I have learned nothing, it feels unorganised and disjointed, the modules are useless, our group tutor hasn't given us any feedback on our project since week 3, and I had to miss a subject I really wanted to do because this was compulsory.