Exeter or York for english lit?

[muzzymenomum]

Any experience of either for eng lit please. DD has offers from both but unsure as she likes both courses. Thanks

York is lovely. Really good people there, and (IME) good feminist ethos if that's something that matters to her.

I have had DSs at both, different subjects. Both lovely, York cosier and friendlier, Exeter uber-cool and better weather.

This might be relevant, and it does translate into interesting teaching and varied interesting modules

www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?o=research&s=English

I'm biased, having had an ex in Exeter and a sister in York...but York is lovely and a little bit smaller/friendlier IMHO. My sister spoke v highly of the English course there.

Did she get a sensible offer from Exeter? DS was a bit put off by AAA.

Has she visited each university and where would she like to live? Dont forget that you do not necessarily get the choice of modules currently in the prospectus. Lecturers leave, go on maternity leave, etc. Sometimes modules are over-subscribed and you have to take your second choice. University choice is not always just about the advertsied course. Where would lead to greatest employability? English not so in demand from employers - according to research I read. Would this influence her? Many of DDs friends went to Exeter, none to York. Exeter seemed an extension of school - they found it cosy!

York has a good careers department, FWIW.

I'm surprised you think English isn't in demand from employers, milly. What's your research?

This suggests quite a hopeful picture, in my view. www.prospects.ac.uk/options_english.htm

I think they are very different departments. English at York takes the form of English and Related Literature with an emphasis on learning another language. From their website:

'We are unusual in asking students to get to grips with literatures in other languages, which may include Latin, Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon, French, Italian, German and Spanish.'

This does make them different but should also make the choice easier. She needs to enjoy languages as well as the English.

Both excellent. It boils down to where she'd be happier living rather than the course. Has she visited both, any gut preference?

Higher Education Statistics Agency.

I'm really sorry - could you help me out with the specific link?

All I can find on there are general stats for English/related subjects across the board, which obviously won't mean much - I can't find the specific ones for the OP's context?

English, being a subject that's mandatory through GCSE, attracts a lot of students, so it can't be compared to something like medicine, where students self-select, and have to be very good even at less demanding universities.

Thanks for the replies. She has offers from both AAA from York and AAB from Exeter. Exeter have offered her £1000 grant to go there if she gets AAA (predicted). She has visited Exeter and loved it and was due to go to York last week for the offer day but had to go into hospital urgently and may not get the chance to go up before the deadline to choose her firm choice so it's tricky not having seen York.

I read English at York (albeit a long time ago!), and the course and academics were fantastic. I'd highly recommend it. I would say, though, that York and Exeter have a slightly different vibe (and student population). I think there was a recent thread on this board comparing the two - might be worth a read?

Re. the language requirement at York - yes, that is a distinctive element of the course. A lot of us did French literature (though, to be honest, I'm not sure how many of us were really reading Proust in the original, rather than in translation!). Those that didn't come with a language background mainly did Anglo-Saxon (though you could also start Italian from scratch), which I got the impression they found interesting - and they had a field trip to Lindisfarne. But the language element is only really about 10% of the course (perhaps less), and the range of modules offered overall was excellent.

I do think that you need to be a bit careful of employment statistics, and using them to compare one kind of course with another. Careers in the arts, or that directly use a humanities degree, can take a longer to get established than, eg. careers in medicine or finance. That is certainly the experience that I, and others on my course had. But those that I have kept in touch with are all doing well now - we are mostly on good (or at least, higher-rate tax) salaries and really enjoy our jobs. None of us wish that we had done Economics and become investment bankers!

York has a campus a little way out of the city - you can walk in, or there are regular (cheap) buses. There's also accommodation further out again from that. The main campus is around a big lake, and there are always masses of geese and moorhens and their chicks around in the spring - so it's quite pretty, though the buildings are your standard grey modern things. There's a couple of bars and coffee shops on campus (and a little shop for your milk/groceries), and the library is right there. It's recently been redone and is quite well stocked for English Lit.

York city is beautiful, quite small, and quite touristy on account of the Minster and the history. I think students tend to go to Leeds (which is about 20-30 minutes on the train) if they want big nights out, but York is good for pubs - there are masses.

That might help her get a sense?

Btw, ganes' post (which I cross posted with) reminds me - York has a phenomenal medieval department. If she's at all interested in that, it's worth knowing.

York.

Yes, there are certainly lots of pubs in York, I can attest to that! When I was there we were told that there were precisely 365 of them - one for each day of the year.

I'd say York has the better reputation for English, but its course is rather quirky. It certainly challenges.

Both universities lovely. Nice places to live.

JTRF sounds like a lovely place to study and the medieval department would certainly be of interest.
ganes -thanks. I will try and find that thread as well.

I think Jeanne, that English students have to be pretty good too evenif there are more of them. I cannot help you with a link as it was a newspaper article and it said the information was released by the HESA. It was last March so new information is likely soon I expect and will probably be inthe press. However, it measured which courses, overall, had the lowest number of students in graduate level employment after 6 months. Not surprisingly it was all arts related subjects.

Ah, ok, I don't think that's telling you anything terribly valid, then.

There's just very little point looking at a subject like English across the board, let alone all arts-related subjects.

A degree in English from a university like York is pretty good, I think. I really wouldn't worry about employability with it.

And, btw, my point wasn't about there being 'more' English students. My point was that English requires less self-selection than (say) Medicine.

Everyone does English GCSE. You will inevitably find people who are neither especially motivated nor especially good at English, who apply to do it at university because it's the best of a bad bunch of subjects, or because it's always been there. That will affect both degree outcomes, and employability.

By contrast, if you look at subjects where people have to make more active choices about studying, you are liable to get people who are 1) properly keen on the subject and 2) the sort of people who don't float through life doing whatever comes most obviously, and who therefore will tend to be better at getting jobs.

I know both Departments reasonably well. They're both excellent, with different pros and cons.

The thing is, in terms of an English degree (which is pretty highly thought of in terms of future employment actually) a degree from either University will be a good thing.

So it might come down to your DD thinking about where she wants to live for 3 years. Unfortunate that she's not been to York, but there's a bit of time yet to go & visit.

The thing is, in this sort of situation, choosing either will be the right thing & absolutely OK.

None of us wish that we had done Economics and become investment bankers

One of my degrees as an undergrad was largely EngLit and I did get offered a job in banking! They just wanted high flyers from a high flying institution (I was at one of the universities in the country), and I could talk to them about Adam Smith. I didn't take it, thank goodness. It was about 30 years ago, and later, as a starving PhD student, I was being taxied (on expenses) to do a public lecture. The taxi driver was a banker who'd lost his job in one of the crashes of the 80s.

He still went on about how studying the Arts was a waste of money. Clearly, he'd never studied rhetoric, and thought irony was something to do with uncreasing clothes.

Up- Ha Ha good one!