recommendations for best uni for English

[wyrd]

could anyone recommend a good uni for english language or literature and do you look at league tables for guidance? thanks

University of kent has an excellent lit course.

I'm studying English at Goldsmiths College and I'd highly recommend it.

thanks. did the league tables affect your decision. the unis my DD likes are lowdown in the ranking particularly thr prospects column and we are unsure whether this should be a major part of the decision.

Most universities teach English in some sort of degree. What are the A Levels likely to be? What sort of campus do you want to study at? What mix of lit/lang? Do you really want to study literature properly -- that means reading at least one full-length novel a week?

or equivalent , obvs.

A levels are eng lang eng lit and classic.civ. dd isnt sure yet which way to go as no definite career in mind but she loves eng lang however thinks it may b a bit narrow so is looking at lit courses combined with creative writing or american lit.. one novel a week sounds tricky.

The equivalent of 1 novel a week tricky? She needs to think about whether she's up to a degree in English lit, then. I'd see it as a minimum. But then this is where we really are dumbing down (I don't usually like that narrative, but in this case, it's true).

What grades is she predicted at A levels? You can get into any old English degree with BBC or BCC, but a "good" degree will need ABB minimum.

that was me saying tricky! she is predicted A grades and got 13 A and A* GCSEs so r u saying the higher ranking unis are better?

Oxford, Cambridge, York, Bristol. I'm not biased at all, ohno.

Seriously ... what does she want to do? Is she looking only at combined lanuage and literature courses, or is she trying to decide which one to do? They are quite different from each other.

I would suggest, if she finds a novel a week tricky, she may want to steer away from the language. Some (many? Not sure) literature courses would require her to read rather a lot more than that - say, maybe, a couple of novels plus secondary reading. OTOH, people do adapt and what feels scary at A Level rapidly feels doable!

UEA is the name I've heard for Creative Writing and I know its Lit faculty is strong too.

What she really needs to do is go online and look at the course specifications in prospectuses. They will differ hugely. For example (and this is just lit because it's what I know), you could find you were studying a course with a considerable amount of literary theory or with many early texts (Homer, Beowulf, etc.) in translation. Or, you might find you were required to do lots of close reading - that's when you pick out all nuances of a short bit of text in a lot of detail - but relatively little theory. You might find there was lots of provision to work in languages other than English, or almost none. And so on.

I would look at rankings, but only in a fairly general way. She's clearly good enough to apply for the highly-ranked schools, but there's no sense in her applying to (say) Cambridge if she really wants a combined lang/lit course with an emphasis on creative writing and American Lit.

'she may want to steer away from the language' should read 'from the literature'. Though, now I type that, I realize I don't know if language students do so very much less reading.

I would also highly recommend avoiding places where she's liable to be taught be eedjits who can't type.

thank you it was purely a throw away comment by me abt a novel a week being tricky, she loves reading so not a prob! she is undecided which way to go and which offers more opportunities.
chimney- what constitutes a "good" degree?

Does she have any sense of what she might like to do? Or what does she like best about lit versus lang?

Bristol is highly rated for English and very competitive to get into. UEA has an excellent creative writing course. Manchester allows you to study Eng. Lit. with American Studies or Eng Lit with Creative Writing which might interest her.

She should only do an English degree if she is passionate about reading, though. In the first week of my degree, I had to read Hamlet and write an essay on it.

she s not sure about career choices. she would ideally love to write but realises that would b competitive. thanks for all the info. one of her eng teachers is pushing the russell. group.

Good luck to her!

Sorry if it's obvious (I know it gets discussed to death on here) - Russell Group is a loose term for universities who have pretty good reputations, but they're not always the 'best' in terms of providing the exact course she wants. I would have thought she could do some Russell Group choices with those grades, but she's got five choices, so it doesn't have to be just them.

What about Queen Mary? Part of the University of London and the Russell Group and has a very highly rated English dept. The entry tariff is AAB - ABB.

Does she have an idea of what she might want to do after her degree? It's worth having a look at where the alumni end up.

I agree that she needs to think about what she would enjoy. E.g. where I studied - at a good university - our course was very "traditional" in nature, and still is. That suited me, but if what you really enjoyed & were interested in was novels post 1940, you really wouldn't be in the right place for you.

If she is interested in English Language, then have a look at Aston. They have one of the best Forensic Linguistics Centres in the country and do lots of work for the Police on court cases.

One of my friends works there, and they use their expert witness material in teaching.

thanks for all the info. i will get her to look at those you have mentioned. .Does anyone have any experience of Reading?

To be honest, it doesn't matter wryd if any of us have any expereince of any uni you ask about because it should be about your criteria, not ours.

LRD has already listed what a lot of people would consider the 'top four' but that's purely from an academic point of view. And the courses are so very different - if you were to compare and contrast the Cambridge and York courses, for example - they are very different. You really have to get into the detail of the structure and emphasis of the periods of literature covered. I'd probably add Exeter to the list of great places, but this is all subjective. And agree with UEA as having the best reputation for creative writing.

I would just say you might want to check out if taking both language and literature at A level would count as being accpetable for entry to Oxbridge - you'd need to check specifically with admissions tutors before applying.

But getting back to your criteria - how much self study does your DD want, how much opportunity to cover other subjects ( eg you can study a language or history or computing or anything as a credit module at Bristol), would DD be happy to study literature in a foreign language ( compulsory at York), how much would she like medieval works ( heavy at Cambridge).

And then there's all the usual other stuff - what kind of city, campus or not etc etc

I'm afraid there's no substitute for spending hours on the websites.....

I did English Literature at Glasgow, which I think is still considered a decent course.

As it's the Scottish system, you have to study 3 subjects in 1st yr (so eng lit, eng lang and something else) then second yr continue 2 of those subjects and pick up another 1st yr subject then 3rd and 4th yr specialise in either 1or2 subjects.

It's great for something like English as you get to do lit, lang and other subjects which would inform your study - philosophy, classics, history, film, Scottish lit or comparative lit. If you find you change what you want to study it is easier than being committed to one subject from day one.

The downside is that it is a 4 year course, and you may not want to go up to Scotland.

Uni really is what you make of it though, and being somewhere with lots of cultural activities etc can produce a much more well rounded person than a high ranked university in the middle of the sticks.
UEA is great for creative writing, Glasgow has a lot of student media to get involved in, London would have access to a choice of intern opportunities and so on.
Also with English being a popular option, entry requirements are often quite high due to the numbers applying so aren't always indicative of the best course.

By the time I was in 3rd I was reading 2-3 (lengthy Victorian) novels a week and I was doing a joint honours with another subject so think it would be 4-5 books for single honours. That depends on the modules you take, modern lit had shorter books or a poetry module was less reading with more analysis. The required reading was less but you were expected to read other books to out in context.

UEA is particularly renowned for its creative writing course as others have said wondering if ballsballsballs sits next to ds in lectures

There is huge competition to get onto English courses and the best ones want AAA at least. Not sure how valuable English Language A level is when coupled with English Lit and only one other A level. Lots of top candidates would have History instead. You would need to check this out and creative writing is usually easier to get onto than academic literature courses. Creative writing jobs are like hens teeth, even for Oxbridge graduates!

I am surprised by that, to be honest.

History is a nice A Level to have, but I don't think it is better than anything else. And I certainly know candidates at very good universities who don't study history. I think it is always worth trying for something if you want it.

eatyourveg what year's he in? I've just finished my second year. Small world :)