History and French Joint Honours

[OrgyofSausages]

Hi all,
My dd is looking to study History and French at university from Oct 2020; I wondered if MNers had any words of wisdom / advice/ suggestions/ experience to share please? where did you/ your dc go?

She would like campus based if poss. Her school is encouraging Oxbridge application but she could do without the pressure tbh. So far she likes the look of Manchester, Lancaster and Nottingham.

TIA x

Yes, you can't select more general MFL. Which I find odd.

You can't do joint history and French at Oxbridge anyway so that rules them out. Warwick is excellent as are Exeter, Bristol, York and Durham. Lancaster is good for medieval history but only if they don't get the grades for somewhere decent.

Lancaster is most emphatically decent!

Sorry - I meant it's not Oxbridge or Russell Group so good as a backup if applying to one of those as a first choice. No offence intended.

You can do History and French at Oxford. And History and German, History and Russian, History and Spanish etc. You can't at Cambridge.

I stand corrected. I went to Cambridge .

I am not sure how much RG matters for MFL and history. But , anyway, although League Tables are not my bag, Lancaster is 7th overall in the 2019 league tables. More than decent, I'd say.

If school thinks she has the talent and aptitude for Oxbridge then don’t consider selling her short at Lancaster.

I went to Cambridge too, but my son has applied to the other place.

Sorry, slightly off topic anyway. I think History and French is a really interesting combination and lots of excellent universities offer it so it will come down to what her predictions are and what she likes the look of - both in terms of course and location.

You can now do History and Modern languages at Cambridge: www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/history-and-modern-languages

That's useful to know!

My friends’ DD is applying for the same this year... she found that there was quite distinct differences in the MFL courses on offer at different universities so look at the detail... some of them are more literature driven for example, so your DD needs to think about that as well as the setting of the university. For what it’s worth Exeter was a very attractive course which she really liked the look of. But she didn’t want ‘campus’ so discounted it.... likewise Durham I believe.

History and French is best studied at the top universities for these subjects. Nearly every university does History so in the jobs market there are thousands of History grads competing with MFL grads, English grads, Anthropology, Law, Sociology, Philosophy, English and Politics grads etc etc etc who are all wanting jobs. You need the best university you can get to for History. It’s not remotely vocational so grads will not just walk into a grad job unless the boxes are ticked. For some firms and the public sector it will be A levels, university attended, degree class plus work or internship and soft skills. Most employers won’t care if you are an expert on Native American history or the Crimean war. What they will value are trensfersble skills, demonstrable ability and work ethic. The best universities push this and employers know it. So with good grades it doesn’t make sense to aim below the top 15 and the best departments.

Durham isn’t campus. It’s small and suits many because the city feels like a campus!

Yes, MFL courses vary but the ones high up in the league tables all include literature as an important element of the degree. That’s why Oxbridge is still the best. These types of university also train people to speak, write and translate but literature and culture forms the basis of the course. This is because they offer academic courses and not really vocational ones.