Languages at St Andrews

[Tenpastseven]

Does anyone have any experience of a languages degree (likely French and Spanish post A level) at St Andrews?

We had a look online and the information offered on the course looks far more sparse than on other Uni sites. Unless I’m just not looking properly.

Surprised to hear that, Rasko. I had the impression that the modern languages courses at Cambridge were much wider than that. And they're supposed to have the highest grade for student satisfaction? Useful to get some inside information.

OP, quite a few courses allow a study of 3 languages. I looked this up once but have forgotten but it is certainly not as short a list as DS presented to you.

I think the courses that call themselves Modern Foreign Languages tend to be the ones which do.

@RaskolnikovsGarret Really? But Cambridge make a big deal of their breadth! DS keen to take a couple of linguistics options for example. This worries me. I think Cambridge study is probably hard enough to adjust to without it not being the course you thought you'd signed up for. Has DD1 ever regretted her choice?

@RaskolnikovsGarret

DD2 is applying for languages at Cambridge, but actually prefers the language and politics courses at other universities, so I don’t know why she is applying to Cambridge.

Actually I do know why - DD1 is about to start her second year there in languages, and loves the university and city and all her friends there.

But she doesn’t love the course. It’s nearly exclusively literature-based, and she says that her language skills are worse than they were at A level. And that they are expected to learn their languages during their year abroad.

This surprised me really. And her - she thought it would be less literature focused than Oxford, but no. She has warned DD2 that she won’t really be able to focus on the language or politics aspects that DD2 loves. I think DD2 will end up at UCL or Warwick, as those have courses that she is really interested in. Her other choices are Bristol and King’s London.

She thinks she is ‘expected’ to apply to Cambridge. Not by us she’s not. And I’m sure the interviewers will be
able to tell where her passions really lie.

We will see. I hope she goes to UCL. Hope your son makes choices he is happy with.

@RaskolnikovsGarret I wholeheartedly agree with you. I have dds studying modern languages at both Oxbridge and Bristol and while both universities have a strong focus on literature ( and is to be expected), Oxbridge have way more content. My dd studying at Bristol is way ahead in terms of fluency.

For information dds are triplets and the two are identical, with similar ability.

Does anyone know of a good university which offers modern languages (2 or 3) with a good breadth of other stuff - politics, literature, media, history, etc?
Modern languages with an emphasis on becoming a translator and/or interpreter would be of interest too.
DC wants to do something with at least 2 languages, but it would be good if it could be wider than that, maybe even leading in the direction of a career! Any suggestions are very welcome.

Is anyone's DC considering studying abroad?

It’s very strange, as on their website, Cambridge say you reach native fluency by the end of the second year. Not the case.

DD1 has considered (seriously) moving to linguistics or law, but has decided to stay with MFL given the hassle, and her friends.

For Y2, she has chosen non literature options such as linguistics and history. Not languages though. She did choose an ab initio language module, but has now ditched it, as they were expected to teach themselves the language over the summer, with a view to starting literature straightaway when term starts. Seems extraordinary to me.

I’ll continue to encourage DD2 to give Cambridge a miss. Such a shame she couldn’t visit Bristol and Warwick during open days. I think we need to visit the cities by ourselves.

I can give you a list of unis that do translation pathways rainy as I just searcher this on Unifrog!

So, you have :

Newcastle
Nottingham
Essex
Leicester
Cardiff
Swansea
Heriot Watt
Royal Holloway
UEA

plus , other unis such as Birmingham, Lancaster (their MlNag is going to be phenomenally popular), Liverpool, York and Bangor offer modules in similar things.(or he could do a Linguistics joint degree with languages). I am sure others do this , too (leeds, Sheffield, Southampton...). Some unis do 'applied langauges' which have pathways such as business or education. DS1 briefly flirted with these before going for IR . The applied languages degrees I know of are Hull, Portsmouth and Oxford Brookes. Portsmouth may not be RG etc but it has a really good reputation for languages.

In terms of your other question, that sounds like a joint honours might be a good idea , or something like a Liberal Arts degree

Not MlNag! MLang!

Thanks Piggy - I'll have a look at the one Scottish uni (much cheaper for us!).
Wish DC had a better idea of what they want to do.

Oh, overlooked the Scottish bit in the name! I only looked st HW but you could look at Stirling, too, iirc

Both Strathclyde and Glasgow have good reps for MFL .

The problem with interpreting and translating is that both are very badly paid, as far as I can find out.

And self employed zero hour contract work.

Lancaster and Newcastle are two of the top ones for interpreting and translating. DS, in idle moments and before the reality of uni life has dawned (gap year, 4 year course, will he really want to then do an MA??), has speculated about doing the MA Translating course at Newcastle. Birmingham has a translating module so he'll do that and see whether the actuality floats his boat.

He did an excellent day at the German embassy back before Covid that they ran to show kids what can be done with German and the German banks certainly attracted his interest and might, I suspect, be better paid!!

Yes, it's what my DS (only just finished year 11 so early days) says he wants to do, partly because he thinks he'll end up interpreting for football managers . agents and teams!

It's sad but I think by year 13 he'll be following a different path as I suspect the Spanish teaching at his sixth form will be a bit wanting. MFL teaching is dead in the water in many sate schools and it is so frustrating.

Any careers suggestions are happily received! I can't help thinking that just studying languages won't really lead to anything. In other countries, they're seen as an add-on.

All that said the appeals of freelance and WFH type opportunities have apparently surged for young people not just because of Covid) who expect flexible, lifestyle friendly jobs.

But , yes, German v useful business language!

I think languages grads are highly employable (classics, Literature , and history graduates could be seen to have even less 'useful' degrees but often top employability tables).

As you said , interpreting is not a very steady job and often dominated by native speakers but there is also law, teaching, journalism, civil and diplomatic service, charities and international development, banking and international business, publishing?

Ah we haven't looked into the translating career side of things. DS has agonised over whether to do a degree in something he loves (languages) or to do law (the career he wants to go into). We've encouraged the languages route and to add on law later.

DS also at a state school where they haven't been able to afford any language assistants or language support. I think there are 5 people in his French class and 8 tops in his Spanish class in a large 6th form. It doesn't seem that it will be economically viable to continue teaching languages for long which is such a bloody shame.

@Piggywaspushed LOVE THAT ambition. Who knows. DS might end up doing just that.

@rainyinscotland

Any careers suggestions are happily received! I can't help thinking that just studying languages won't really lead to anything. In other countries, they're seen as an add-on.

The employment rates for language grads are pretty high because they are becoming so rare in the UK, especially if you are prepared to go and live abroad - I think ds will hotfoot it to the country of one of his two languages when he can. All the unis we visited last year had very high employment rates for their language graduates (and long may it continue - or at least for the next 5 years for our lot).

As well as the banks, lots of businesses want languages - with German, ds was interested to see management schemes with places like Aldi and Lidl - the German embassy event was an eyeopener. Bloomberg was there too wanting journalists, analysts etc.
Journalism really loves a language - Katya Adler is a Bristol ML grad for example - and think of all the correspondents who are country based because they speak the language, people like Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and Steve Rosenberg.

The more schools cut down on it, the more they will come in to their own.

Yes, Natasha Kaplinsky is language grad, too. And I think quite a few others.

Oh - and ds is a state educated linguist too. Just two of them in his German class, one is going to Oxford to do German and him off to Birmingham so the languages department are THRILLED this year. They've never had even one person heading off to do a degree in languages before so to have two is causing major overexcitement.

They ran a subject with TWO students?? Wow... Lucky!

Started with 4 in ds's year, two dropped out as they went along, but yes, they run the classes with those small numbers and they do it by blending with the Y12s, for both German and French so there were actually more altogether but some are from the year below, if that makes sense.

Obviously, this year, a class of two massively worked in their favour as they took the CAGS from day one as it was less than 5.