English at Russell Group Universities

[GinWorksForMe]

DD (Year 12) is thinking of applying for English Literature (or possibly Lit & Lang) for 2021 entry. She has a strong set of GCSE results and is loving English Literature A level, but suffers from anxiety and is worried about interviews.

Has anyone recently applied for English Lit and have any insight into which universities will definitely interview (do any offer without interview for English?) and how best to prepare for interviews? So far she has shortlisted Exeter, York, Nottingham but hasn't visited anywhere yet and is open to all ideas.

Thanks in advance for any help/guidance.

[Piggywaspushed]

Obviously I would direct very able students towards a certain set of unis and the league tables, the slightly less able towards a different set and the least able to another group. I don't go around recommending those with predictions of AAA to look at - say- Cumbria, much as some might think otherwise. But given every uni offers English , I would then advise the AAA/ AAB types to look really closely at what the different course offer. That makes perfect sense.

OP some unis as well as the sensible tutorial point above, assess a couple of modules orally. That is not always obvious from prospectuses so ask about assessment methods at Open Days.

[arionater]

Oxford, Cambridge and UCL still do formal interviews for English OP. All three still have a significant element of tutorial teaching as well which may or may not be her thing. English courses vary a lot so definitely do some research especially if she might be interested in anything not completely mainstream or has particular pre-19th century interests.

[SarahAndQuack]

They shouldn’t necessarily be choosy about the course. This is the point. They should be choosy about the university. Film studies will not be much use for some careers. It depends on the career of course. So it should not just be about the course for the majority.

This isn't true.

Courses in English vary really widely, and the difference between choosing a course (and mode of assessment) that suits you and one that doesn't often means the difference between success and failure.

Yes, of course - as we've acknowledged - people to attach prestige to some universities more than others. However, if you fail to get a degree at all (or if you get an ordinary or a third, or even a 2:2), you will severely limit your chances of all sorts of employment.

This is far, far more significant than the 'risk' attached to going to Coventry instead of Cambridge.

It is really naive to imagine students should just go for the highest-ranked university and presume it will suit them and they'll get on well.

I suspect you only see graduates who've been relatively successful at university, or you would be more aware of the importance of this issue.

[BubblesBuddy]

It’s also s subject with lots of female undergrads. Poor choices can exclude them from decent careers. So girls fall behind the boys in terms of salary - again.

[BubblesBuddy]

They shouldn’t necessarily be choosy about the course. This is the point. They should be choosy about the university. Film studies will not be much use for some careers. It depends on the career of course. So it should not just be about the course for the majority.

[Piggywaspushed]

I always advise students well and appropriately. I also want hem to inspired by their years of study. In my long experience, history, English and film students have a greater variety of options open to them and are always very well informed and really quite choosy in terms of the course given how many different variables there are.

[BubblesBuddy]

A lot of students these days do have to think about careers though. It can be seen as a luxury not to have to. Most employers outside academia won’t really care what niche of English lit you studied. They do know that the courses are rigorous and perhaps more challenging at some well known universities. Therefore university chosen is important if you are not intending to stay in academia.

You are not advising students appropriately if all they are told to think about is the course. Research shows English grads are way down the pecking order in grad salaries. Why make it even worse by poor choice of degree and university?

I accept, fully, that great teachers and lecturers are needed but I don’t believe they are always in the best position to advise on how a student should position themselves for a career beyond English. A minority of English grads will end up in teaching. Others won’t want to do that. They need appropriate advice and it isn’t how niche topics are the best ever and what a great time you had doing your degree. The best course must be allied to the best university a DC can get into for such careers and university advice be worth listening to.

[SarahAndQuack]

You have not gone into grad recruitment schemes against grads of all subjects.

Not that it matters, but I have, actually. I did the civil service fast track selection process, and got through that, but I also got a postgraduate place and decided to do that instead. A lot of academics have previous careers outside academia, FWIW.

Also, I'm not particularly immersed in English - my research covers several disciplines and my students go into a wide range of careers. However, we are discussing English because that is what the OP asked us to discuss. You and Xenia seem to want the thread to be about careers, but I don't really see that the OP was asking about that?

[Piggywaspushed]

We were just chewing the fat ; The OP asked about best places to study English. Insularity rather helps re that question. It's up to OP and her daughter to consider future career paths and bear that in mind after looking online, in prospectuses, arranging careers advice and visiting Open Days.

I do think , however, that quack and I are very well placed to answer the initial question.

How do you know I have no experience of graduate recruitment schemes, anyway? And I certainly know about employability. As you are always telling me, English is not a degree you do in particular if high earnings are your motivator.

[BubblesBuddy]

No employer will give much attention to any of this debate! You both teach. You have not gone into grad recruitment schemes against grads of all subjects. You’ve just carried on being immersed in English. It’s all a bit insular!

[Piggywaspushed]

Ah well, we may all think undergrads can't measure good teaching but ,according to a recent Harvard study, they have us all summed up in 2secs!

Here is the link if anyone wants some neurobollocks

www.teachwire.net/news/students-have-teachers-figured-out-in-just-2-seconds?utm_source=TS-weekly&utm_medium=20191213&utm_campaign=weekly

[SarahAndQuack]

Oh, I agree one can tell bad teaching, @marchingfrogs!

But I know that some students who think I am a terrible teacher have actually learned masses from me (and occasionally they come to realise this, especially if their exam results come back unexpectedly high). And I certainly have in mind people who taught me, who I thought were antagonistcally picky, or really unhelpful, or whatever, and who actually did me a lot of favours.

@piggy - oh, yes, Clariss! I just couldn't. Pamela was enough for me. I will admit to quite enjoying Shamela, but ... the joke is laboured, isn't it!? There's nothing that happened in the 18th century that wasn't thought to be made much better by an extra 400 pages before and after each plot point.

[sendsummer]

big name university with the famous name professors bringing in the kudos and research money, the undergraduate teaching somewhat sub-par
Research money will be fairly insignificant for humanity departments.
TBH ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it’ with the negative funding balance in UK HE. There is insufficient academic time for academics to deliver kudos and lots of handholding at undergraduate level.
Also teaching won’t be uniformly subpar, it will be variable though. Not all research intensive academics are good inspiring teachers for undergraduates

[MarchingFrogs]

I'm also not sure I was qualified to know what good teaching was as an undergrad.

Two things stick in my mind:

• the computer studies module, where practically every week we discovered that the reason that there had been at least one programming exercise that no-one at all could figure out was explained by the addendum handed out at the beginning of the lecture.
• the teaching by foreign postgraduate students a particular course in lieu of the big name Economics bod (this was LSE and even some of us lowly undergrads were aware that some of the academics were better known by the outside world than they were by their students). They may have known their stuff, but their ability to communicate in English was somewhat lacking. It was bad enough for native English speakers, but for the disparate body of foreigners, not of the same nationality as the lecturer, it was essentially learning through a rather weird third language.

Admittedly, the 'computer studies' was pretty much in its infancy at that time, but it was a bit draining. And I never did manage to draw a 50 pence piece.

[Piggywaspushed]

I still have Clarissa on my bookshelf quack! First thing we had to read... it was obviously some sort of sadistic test. I was the only one who read it...

[SarahAndQuack]

Cross post.

I don't think I knew what were 'big name' academics when I was an undergrad. And in retrospect, one of the ones I was taught by didn't look at all 'big name' back then, but is now pretty well known outside academia.

I'm also not sure I was qualified to know what good teaching was as an undergrad.

[SarahAndQuack]

Oh, students are (IME) almost invariably put off by older lit.

But a lot of them are converted quite quickly!

Personally I found the 18th century the hardest. I just couldn't begin to find anything interesting to say about ... anything. And the sheer volume of reading put me off. I'm inherently lazy. Give me a period where a 'long' text is maybe only 2000-6000 lines, rather than one where you could lift weights with everything you have to read.

[Piggywaspushed]

I was actually taught by two Big name Academics at uni. and supervised by another. They were by far and away the best lecturers and also excellent tutors. I was very very lucky there.

[Piggywaspushed]

bubbles I don't think you did an English degree? I may well be wrong so feel free to correct me. The hardest unit I did by far was nineteenth century American Literature; the easiest was Anglo Saxon (although I freely admit I love languages); I got my best results in 18th and 19th c British literature and 20th century German and my lowest in some godforsaken badly taught unit about Shakespeare and in 20th century American lit even though I fancied the tutor. I think it is sadly true these days, though, that some students may well be put off by older literature. They're in for a shock if they think the 20th c stuff is the easy bit.

[SarahAndQuack]

I stand by my comment that interpreting texts in a version of English from previous centuries is harder than interpreting modern texts in that it’s almost like needing a second language.

This is just categorically not true (and Old English isn't like needing a second language, it is a second language. Old English is sufficiently different from Modern English that you need to learn it. You can't wing it the way you can with Shakespeare.).

I would love to know how you'd get on writing on Finnegans Wake, as compared to discussing the riddles in the Exeter Book. Yes, sure, the riddles are in a 'different language' and they're very old ... but they are also mostly jokes on a level your average 12 year old will enjoy.

[MarchingFrogs]

Whilst I agree that any (perhaps especially humanities) degree involves a goodly amount of self-directed study, I don't really think that one has to be lacking in confidence and in need of hand holding to feel a little short-changed at finding that at the big name university with the famous name professors bringing in the kudos and research money, the undergraduate teaching somewhat sub-par?

[BubblesBuddy]

Quite often the “big name” academics are barely seen by undergrads.

I stand by my comment that interpreting texts in a version of English from previous centuries is harder than interpreting modern texts in that it’s almost like needing a second language. Less able students often run a mile from this.

What you study might not matter to employers though but often they do have preferred universities. English is offered at so many, if seems sensible to choose one where grads get the best grad employment. Unless that’s unimportant of course. Some people are not that bothered what they do after graduating. My DSis with an English degree for example. After years of unemployment she changed tack completely and retrained in something health related.

[sendsummer]

MarchingFrog interesting question. Generally a university department that is highly regarded internationally for research means access to lots of very good, stimulating seminars and lectures for the academically inclined, although these are not undergraduate specific. Fellow students generally have a better work ethic.
On the flip side for the degree can be variable teaching, responsiveness and assessment quality. That is fine for somebody robust and independent but perhaps less so for somebody who lacks confidence or has to work very hard and would benefit from a course with more ‘hand holding’ despite being a lower ranking university than they are academically capable of.

For a student who was likely to need more help with professional skills such as confidence in interviews and presentations, I would also consider in university selection criteria a good reputation for career guidance and workshops. Also as much small group teaching as possible.

So course content matters but so do lots of other factors for personal development and future employment.

[Xenia]

I think all of us have given others enough to chew over on the issue even if we cannot reach agreement. I am with sendsummer on the - be careful what institution you choose. Perhaps always go for the one hardest for you to get into ( depending on your career and life aims).

Although it remains risky for most careers with high pay to pick a low ranking institution some employers are trying to recruit institution blind eg in law Clifford Chance i s doing final interviews now without the CV being seen by those interviewing -" In its first year of operation, the scheme has seen its annual intake of 100 graduate trainees come from 41 different education institutions – a rise of nearly 30 per cent on the number represented in the previous year under the old recruitment system. Successful applicants came from universities including Cardiff, Essex, Lancaster, Liverpool and Ulster." www.independent.co.uk/student/news/exclusive-law-firm-clifford-chance-adopts-cv-blind-policy-to-break-oxbridge-recruitment-bias-9050227.html


I think you should still need at least AAB in A levels, a 2/1 and to have passed the firm's initial stages of assessment too. "Selection process: Online application form, Watson Glaser test, assessment day, including a case study and two one-hour long interviews"

[MarchingFrogs]

they may be more impressed by the resilience and stamina of a student who did well in a competitive degree despite not having access to the best lecturers and tutors.

Someone who got a First from , because it's not RG or St Andrews and therefore must have substandard teaching (if Gold TEF, just proves that TEF is rubbish)?

Or someone who did well at a presigious univetsity, the actual teaching at which really isn't all that, because the big name academics doing the stuff that makes it prestigious spend most of their time off doing that and the undergraduate experience is acknowledged to be a bit of a lottery, but hey, it's still (if Bronze TEF, just proves that TEF is rubbish)?