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.

Oh , good point. Just as well.

At my school they do sometimes make exceptions for MFL, but at DS's if a subject doesn't make about 8-10 students it doesn't run.

I think the head of languages at ds's old school keeps them going against possible opposition by sheer weight of personality. School went through so many heads in ds's time there, it surely can't be because he has the negatives on all of them...!!

Hi. I have a MFL grad DC.

From what we learnt over the 4 years at Bristol, there are advantages in sticking to 2 languages. The year abroad (which I think Bristol has now negotiated with partner universities) is a better experience with 2 languages. Adding a further one means language acquisition can be spread very thinly. The MFL courses do have literature at the core but there are many options to broaden out the course. The year abroad gives students an opportunity to research into cultural and social sciences that interest the student.

Honestly, don’t do translation. A friend ran a translation company and it really is “piece” work. You are often paid per translation. My brother in law has a brother who translates text books into German. He works alone at home and for many, this would feel very limiting. Translation into lots of languages is done by computer now. A friend of DDs who tried translation found it ultra boring. He’s now a teacher as is BIL.

Other language grads we know have gone into law and a whole range of business roles. Any company with a presence abroad (in the MFL languages spoken) is a good bet. Also journalism. Law conversion is certainly a good idea but make sure the university is a top one - as recognised by Law firms! The language course for them is important regarding content and they like top traditional universities. Bristol, Durham, Oxbridge, etc. The recruiters probably won’t care too much what your options were but lawyers like traditional courses snd evidence of reading and research. Translation doesn’t really facilitate this.

I think year abroad in third year is best. The students are more mature, have a better grasp of the requirements of the course and they really do gain a lot from it. Ab initio for a third language can dilute the experience.

Learning languages does expand the brain and it’s good to have ambition. However having ambition for a well paid job might be better for the longer term.

DS chose MFL at Lancaster over both St A and Durham, because he preferred a course that was not heavily literature based and he wanted to keep 3 languages going for the whole course. He's about to start the 2nd year and so far, it has not disappointed.

I ought to add that DS2 loved St Andrews so much when he was trailing round the open days after DS1, that he is about to apply to do Classics there. Friends who have studied languages at St A have loved it.

If a student does 3 languages, going to all 3 in the year abroad and getting language and cultural immersion to a good level is tough. I’m not so sure employers are bothered about three languages but it depends what you actually want to do afterwards. Literature heavy courses are good for careers in law but some students naturally see careers in using multiple languages. In practice, I’m not sure how many actually do this though.

Literature heavy courses are also more suited to students with an A level in an essay subject. This is why Oxford actually like students to have studied English Lit. Not studying an essay subject at A level can make essays at university more challenging so choice of course is important.

This is a really interesting and informative thread. According to the Good University Guide, career prospects for languages graduates are considerably better than for those in subjects like English, history and psychology and starting salaries are higher too. Employers like the year abroad I think. So many careers are open to language graduates, as others have said - teaching/lecturing, journalism, law, civil/diplomatic service, finance etc. I did a joint honours degree with English and a modern language and used the language frequently when I worked in educational publishing.

I agree with those who’ve said that studying three languages is likely to be too much of a stretch in terms of achieving reasonably equal fluency in all three. Plenty of courses allow combining two languages with another subject like politics or international relations in the first or second year.

DD is at a comprehensive which specialises in maths & science, and there are only 3 others in her German class. We’re lucky the school are able to run the class with such low numbers, but she gets less than half the contact time for German than for any other A level subject offered at the school, and the school have plenty of experience of helping students apply for science subjects at university, but very little for languages.

Exeter offers a really excellent MFL course with lots of variety and flexibility. V strong on Linguistics especially in French, but also good on Visual Culture and Film.
3 languages degrees often entail staying just in one country or, at most, two. If you divide the year between three you don’t achiev3 great flu3ncy in any of them.

Really interesting points here, especially about the 3 language means spreading thinly issue. I'll talk to DS about that.

The more I think about it all, the keener I am to take him to some Uni cities/towns to have a look. He's making all these judgements blind based on heresay and preconceptions.

There are many great universities for languages. I think I’m correct in saying Oxford want AAA for MFL and they allow a whopping 33% of applicants into the courses. That’s much higher than most Oxford courses.

I would look at choosing a course based on possible future career. But do bear in mind, a lot of linguists don’t use their languages. DDs friends mostly don’t. The courses are a vehicle to get a grad job. Some students are keen to work abroad and apply to companies with a presence in their country of choice but if you choose law, your language skills might be irrelevant. Your trained brain, however, is relevant! So visual and film culture might not be as relevant as literature for that career. There is a whole world out there for MFL grads.

Getting to know two languages and cultures in depth is a good strategy. (Joint honours shows greater academic ability I think) More languages are not better - although I can see why someone young might think it is. Keep to academic courses and let’s hope the year abroad remains an irreplaceable part of the experience. It’s certainly valuable to employers. It demonstrates that a student can problem solve, be independent, take control of their own learning and be resilient. They haven’t lived at home for 3 years - they have gone out and explored the world beyond their university and immediate circle of friends. It’s invaluable for the cv and so is work experience or an internship.

DS's course has 2 major languages (post A Level) and 1 ab initio in which they get to about A Level standard by the time they graduate. He already had a working knowledge of the ab initio, as he'd learned it in his spare time.

He liked Exeter, but their course taught all 3 languages to the same level throughout, and a student he spoke to on open day said it was very difficult and stressful to keep all 3 to the same standard.

He also looked carefully at the employability reviews and stats for the universities he was seriously considering.

Being interested in languages doesn't necessarily mean that you want to spend 3 years studying literature. It's important to enjoy the degree course, not just to do it to get a top university on your CV.

One of the things that almost tempted ds about Newcastle was the fact he could have added Dutch to German (likewise you can add Catalan if you are doing Spanish). He thought that 3 languages, when two had a working similarity, was possible, but not otherwise.

The thing that always weighed against Warwick, even though he put it as his Insurance, was the fact his degree would have been With not And so German with Japanese rather than AND Japanese. Basically meant they wouldn't get to as high a standard in Japanese and less time was spent in the ab initio country so they reckon A level standard. Birmingham you spend 9 months in your ab initio country and they say that if you put the work in you should be well beyond A level which is what he wants so he can watch Anime in the original for hours on end.

Given ds did all the applying and accepting this last school year, would it be helpful for people with dc applying this year to know what offers he was made?

I would find that really helpful, @mimbleandlittlemy. Thank you. DD is applying to do joint honours in one post-A level language and one ab initio language, like your DS.

Cardiff - standard offer ABB - offered ds ABB in October (less than 36 hours after UCAS form going in), dropped offer at Christmas to BBB if he put them as first choice

Manchester - standard offer ABB - offered ds ABB after interview in January (they interview for ML - be prepared if putting Manchester)

Warwick - standard offer ABB - offered ds BBB (became Insurance). Offer didn't come in until March. Hold your nerve if applying to Warwick

Newcastle - standard offer ABB - offered ds ABB, or BBB if he put them as Firm. Offer within 48 hours of UCAS form going in.

Birmingham - standard offer ABB, took a couple of weeks to respond, no budging on grades despite him schmoozing the Admissions Tutor on offer holder day (!) but fortunately he more than made the grades and with room to spare.

Obviously Warwick was a fantastic Insurance to have (when it eventually sauntered in) even though it was With rather than And with the Japanese, though I think he would have preferred to have been able to put Manchester or Newcastle second but just didn't feel he had the leeway.

Hope that helps.

Where DD went, Bristol, both languages are equal for joint honours and they are certainly degree level. Not remotely just above A level and that goes for ab initio too.

If you are ab initio it’s still one semester in that country I believe plus one semester in your post A level country. DD wasn’t ab initio but plenty of students on one of her languages were. For Y1 they are separated out for language teaching (Post A level / ab initio) and the ab initio have to do the work to catch up by y2 because they are then taught together. So it’s not just about A level standard that’s required. It’s above that. By Y3 they are ready to go abroad and converse!

Anyone doing 3 languages to proper degree standard would really find it nearly impossible to match the joint honours in attaining the same high standard in all 3. Also with 9 months in one country, what about the other language? A short time won’t really be the same as proper joint honours students and can leave the student short of practice and immersion. A couple of months cannot possibly be as good unless the class is full of native speakers.

No course is 100% literature. Everyone gets options. The core can be literature heavy on the more academic courses but not the options which are very wide ranging at the best universities. Language degrees are partly about language acquisition but not solely. Neither are they solely about translation. The culture, politics, arts, social history of a country are all in the mix.

I forgot to mention earlier but if a student wants law afterwards, it’s vital to go to a university with a super strong law department. MFL students can often attend law societies and go to specialist law careers events. Getting a handle on how you go about converting to law, internships, mini pupillages, and networking are vital at an early stage in a law career. The lawyers will be getting their ducks in a row and MFL students who want to be lawyers need to do the same. I imagine the same applies for other careers. So looking at universities in the round and not just the MFL dept pays dividends.

I’m surprised Manchester now interview. DD went for an offer day and they said they didn’t care what grade she got in her other A level as long as she got the grades in her languages. Give them a ring if she had any issues they said! So effectively AB and and E would have sufficed!

DD I recall had some ultra quick responses from Leeds and Manchester but Durham and Bristol were March. Many actually accept students with lower than the advertised grades. Many courses go into clearing. There are not enough linguists!

Trouble with Bristol for ML is they don't seem to know there are any languages outside a European bubble with the exception of Arabic. DS loved Bristol and loved the balance of the course but you aren't allowed to do French ab initio at Bristol, he doesn't enjoy Spanish much, so it would have had to be Italian or Russian as a second language or just German which he felt was too limiting. German and Russian would have been a great combo, but as Japanese is his real passion, Bristol dropped off the list.

All of ds's 5 original courses were in Clearing on Thursday 6th August when the unis got the results. Birmingham came out of Clearing on 7th obviously having realised they had enough students. DS rang them on results day to ask if they might take him this year rather than do his gap year (under the circumstances, there are not enough linguists etc etc) but they said they were absolutely full and he would have to stick to 2021. They only take a very small number for Japanese though so it might have been to do with that.

Few do Japanese I think. Not sure why ab initio French is not offered but Oxford are the same for Spanish and French snd they don’t do Japanese either. So it’s not just Bristol.

DDs friend worked in Japan for 2 years after uni (History) and picked up Japanese there. He had lessons too. Is now with MI5.

Sorry to drip away here - obviously the choice of German & Japanese together limited enormously which unis ds could put hence no Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh, Oxbridge etc etc.

All 5 of his picks in the end wanted ABB and it did not matter what you got the grades in. Because of the terrible nature of languages in schools now, all said a B was perfectly acceptable in the language(s) you were taking and if you got an A - so much the better and give that boy a coconut but otherwise fine. Bristol was AAB but again, the B could be in your intended language, it didn't matter.

I think things have changed a fair bit in the last couple of years for ML degrees, which is great for those wanting to apply, but a terrible shame they are so disregarded now.

MI5 - that's a thought!

Manchester interviews for lots of courses now : not sure why.

I think picking up Catalan if studying Spanish is a good opportunity. So much business done in and out of Barcelona.

Is it really necessary when Catelans all speak fluent Spanish? And Catelan is harder than Spanish - worse grammar.