English language degree - worth doing?

[CarolinaMooncup]

dp's younger brother is thinking of studying English language at university. I was a bit suprised to find you can actually do it tbh - has anyone done it or know whether it's interesting and/or a good degree to have?

Dp's bro is bright and will prob get As and Bs at A level (inc english lang. He isn't doing eng lit btw).

TIA

Think it would be really interesting. Presumably includes linguistics. I did a similar module with the OU. It's a very fascinating subject. Loved it but couldn't devote as much time to it as I would have liked. Much prefer it to Eng Lit. In terms of "usefulness" would imagine considered as equally as any other humanities/arts subject?

I would've thought most employers wouldn't distinguish between a language and lit degree, the fact it's an English degree and a good honours would be more important I reckon.

I did an English degree which included both Language and Lit elements but emphasis was on the latter. The language side was quite interesting but quite technical - Semantics, Old English and influences of German, Latin, French etc in the development of Modern English language, Phonetics, how Language is used in different media such as Advertising and Journalism and so on. tbh without examples from literature (and particularly without a backrground of it even at A level) it may be hard to understand and sustain his interest for the length of a degree. Could he look at combining it with another language or subject such as History.

As to its usefulness, I haven't used my degree specifically and he may find it hard to find an obvious career path which does or that isn't very competitive to enter.

hth

Would be ver interesting.
Ideal if planninga career in lingustics,teaching English as a foreign lang or becoming a speech and lang therapists,a proffession that is desperately understaffed and crying out for more blokes.

I much preferred the 'language' side of my English degree to (most of) the lit side. Am with Tinker - I found the theory of linguistics fascinating - and I wouldn't imagine an employer would differentiate between the two at all.

Er,need to point out that the two f's in 'profession' was a typo,if only for my own peace of mind...

Good if you want to become a speech therapist, or teach English as a Foreign Language!

Hmm, have just re-read mine to see how badly expressed it all is. My English A level was 50/50 lang/lit which, I think, is quite unusual. Yes, would combine it with another language if possible.

It's an arts degree, it'll be no more or less useful than any other

I did a combined lang/lit A Level and a combined Degree also. Didn't like the language bit but thought it would be useful if wanted to go into journalism etc. If he is already doing a language A Level and likes it, I'm sure he'll like the degree.

wow, thanks for all the responses! Lots of ideas there to pass on to him...

He is thinking about journalism as a career. He isn't doing any other languages at A level, but is doing History which is his other main idea for university, so maybe joint Eng and History would be worth looking at.

My best friend did an English Language degree and then went on to do a 2 year top up to be a Speech Therapist.

As a (part time) journalist I do have to warn that the competition is really really fierce.
I could describe how fierce, but am self censoring here...
I was actually head hunted into writing, not because I'm any good at it (if you doubt this go look at www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/06/os_vista_coding/)

But instead because I had something to say.
If he's serious about journalism, then my advice is to parallel the degree with becoming expert in something he loves.
At Uni there will be a club for pretty much anything, and at most you are able to do occasional courses in things far outside your own core subject. My other half at Uni was mainline CompSci, but did modules in Spanish and Law.
It's worth optimising his choice of university to one that has the more flexible system.
Even if journalism stops being a goal, it would hurt to know about other stuff. One thing I noted about arts types at Uni was their staggering ignorance about things outside their core topics.

Yes but DC the British ed system is v different to American/Canadian. Usually a degree is one subject or two (doesn't usually consist of modules from a variety of fields). Correct me if I'm wrong - in my mid 30's and dementia could be setting in. Also, jaded as we Brits are, I think most A Level students have a fairly good idea exactly how difficult journalism is to access. The ones who succeed do so because they are very keen and tenacious (or because of who they know)and apart from the latter example, that's how it should be.

Some places do have very modular systems, most allow you to cross borders if you ask. I don't think there's anywhere where you do x,y,z then graduate. Though who knows about Media Studies ?

I don't know if poeple know how hard it is to get into journalism when they are 18. If so I can't exaplain why so many try for it.

As for being very keen and tenacious, hmmmm.
Even if it were true, I think journalism is possibly the best example of the situation where the ability to get a job is not at all like the ability to do it well.

Have you ever read New Scientist ?

And re. your latter point....doesn't that also apply to those who get a job based on who they know rather than what they know. New Scientist - what's your point? I can't explain why so many 18 yr olds in this country try for journalism either - all I can say is that it is a well known phenomenon that it is a hard career to crack.

Eng Lang/Linguistics isn't a route into speech therapy any more - there is now an entire 3-yr degree in Speech Therapy which you have to do, regardless of what you did before - not even a 1-yr post-grad diploma any more (according to my informant, DD1, who just did a BA in Linguistics).

re SALT for janH: there IS a 2yr post-grad course offered for people with appropriate 1st degrees. Not everywhere that offers SALT undergrad offers the post-grad option, but it is in some places. I've just been looking up some local unis online and at least one offers a PG SALT course.

I did Eng Lang. I loved it - and I did have a foray into EFL teaching where it was exceptionally useful. It is also quite easy. A good book to read through is David Crystal's Encyclopaedia of the Eng Lang, it contains really a lot of what was on my course.

(I cannot recommend EFL as a career, the pay is horrendous, there is virtually no career path, and tbh a lot of the people in it are deeply weird in a pathetic, droopy-shouldered sort of way. OTOH it's fairly fun and stress-free, relatively.)

Quite honestly, I'd say that my degree was a luxury, and I always wish I'd done something much more useful in terms of getting a job. Since I had no idea what I wanted to do at the time, though, it was a very pleasant way of muddling along.

my degree (probably now defunct) was called Modern English Studies, part Lit, part Lang. Actually mostly lit, especially towards the end. Am now radio producer. I strongly advise anyone wanting to go into journalism to do something they love/are good at other than media-related/writing stuff eg science, languages, sport and getting in that way as the competition is much more fierce than when i started (it was pretty bad then, getting in).

I think that a politics-related degree, plus some languages, would be a better bet for journalism than English.

My brother did a politics-and-somethingorother degree at Cambridge then spent a year in each of Germany, France and Italy learning the language. He now works for Associated Press in Berlin.

hello dino is it true you know/knew margaret from the apprenctice?

I imagine a lot of english lang would be linguistics, which is fascinating if you like that kind of thing. I studied it at university. I do not work in a field directly relayed to it but have no regrets about taking it whatsoever. dunno about its usefulness for journalism, but the (few) jounalists I know have degrees in all kinds of things. I am a great believer in doing what you are genuinely interested in at university. you will learn stuff that is useful for a job, although anti-arts snobs like dominiconnor may not notice.

linguistics is a science by the way.

actually, having re-read bundle's advice, maybe that's a point: why doesn't he take linguistics and a language or another cognitive science? then you get the interesting stuff about language plus something different for the cv!

we did lots of linguistics and tbh the only bit that ever comes in handy is writing down names etc phonetically. i work in a science environment so other bits psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics are useful-ish but tbh they're the kind of things you'd read in a sunday newspaper, you don't need to be an expert on them.