Arabic +\- Middle Eastern Studies

[Delphigirl]

Hi does anyone know anything about undergraduate Arabic/MES? My daughter (currently Y12/L6) is thinking about this for uni. She is doing Spanish Geog and economics at A level but also an Arabic club (3hrs/week) so she can read and is learning to write and speak Modern Standard Arabic for beginners level. She loves it.

So I would love to know anything about various uni departments at the moment. She doesn’t want to be in zlondon so SOAS is out. She doesn’t think she wants oxbridge. She has been to Edinburgh and St Andrews for a look and liked both, she is going to look at Exeter and maybe Manchester, also McGill in Canada.
She wants to get a high level of language acquisition, not keen on much literature analysis, likes the social science aspects of MES, not really interested in Islam as a religion. She would like the possibility of a choice of dialects, and perhaps of some Farsi teaching on the side. She has 8s and 9s at gcse and will get predicted all As and Astars. What are the best departments currently, and why?
Thanks

Pah, I just typed out a whole response and it disappeared!

Leicester don’t offer degrees in Arabic but they do offer courses run by truly charismatic teachers which you can study alongside another degree.

The only unis I know of that offer non-European degrees are Soas and goldsmiths but I can see London isn’t for her.

It makes me so happy to hear that there are young people not only interested in languages, but even show a curiosity for non-European languages, it fills me with hope.

Ahh thanks @Cheekyandfreaky ! Yes she is really interested in the world outside Europe…

My son is doing Arabic in Leeds so that is another worth a look. He spent last year in Morocco and felt he made a lot of progress then as they had 5 hours language teaching a day. For him this was very important, has been less impressed with the teaching since he got back.

Oh thanks geogteach! Is he doing only Arabic or combining it with another subject? Interesting that he is not entirely enamoured of the language teaching which fits with what a friend of my older dc says who is there.

Bump for the day crowd… anyone else? Particularly interested in St Andrews Edinburgh and Exeter info. Also Manchester

Hello stranger, good to hear your DD is still on track and enjoying her learning ;)

Is there a reason she didn't have Durham on her shortlist? Otherwise, I think you have captured all, the key ones in UK will be, aside from Oxbridge St Andrews, Edinburgh, Durham, M'cr, Leeds, Exeter, SOAS and I think KCL. Some will be more lit heavy than others.

You know where mine is, but Arabic doesn't start there until Y2. She is loving the course, it's very multi disciplinary, JH with Spanish, and is much more contemporary than the lit heavy courses in UK.

She walked away from McGill in the end because the year abroad wasn't guaranteed and much more challenging to secure vs here, whilst geographically being further away for language immersion. The ability to travel to her language speaking countries was important as decision time came, and this year alone, she has 'hopped' across to Europe 4 x times since Oct.

I believe, through one of her friends being a fresher this year in Edinburgh, that there are circa 6 students studying arabic (JH with another subject) and whilst she has egyptian arabic, she is finding it tough and not enjoyable. It may be just Y1 jitters though and not gelling yet with course. Mine is in a class of 20, only 2 from arabic speaking households.

For us, which is different for your DD, given she has already self taught to a good level, was that the ab initio for arabic was as level playing as it could be, but accelerated learning from Y2 still resulted in same language proficiency as a top tier UK course after 4 yrs. We don't know the answer to this yet, but she currently gets decent contact hours with interesting modules spread across medieval and modern european and ME geographies. But there is a lot of Islam as well as Jewish studies in the mix.

There may be a higher mix of native speakers/heritage with the northern UK unis based on their geography alone, but each cohort intake is different.

Good luck to her, wherever she selects, and PM me if you need more info on mine.

Oh I’m so pleased to hear from you and about your DD @ealingwestmum ! I was going to post a link to this thread from the other to try and catch your eye but work keeps getting in the way.
I am fascinated by there being 20 in your DDs class at T and only 6 at Edinburgh. I’m so pleased she is enjoying it and has settled well. It was a bit of an intrepid leap in the dark for her so well done her! Edinburgh in the only dept dd has been able to look at so far, on an open day, and she found the talk a bit underwhelming and dull but had a taster Arabic language lesson there which totally enthused her. So it was a mixed bag… but I got the impression there would be at least 20 or 30 in each cohort. 6 is … moribund. I’m sorry your DD’s friend isn’t enjoying it yet and may ask you for updates as this year progresses!!
DD will not countenance Durham at the moment - for reasons of social homogeneity. I’ve pointed out that the places that do Arabic are often the very MC places she says she wants to avoid, viz Exeter at St Andrews, and there are always a mix of people- but I think Durham particularly suffers from being the place her school just empties into. I will look at it though. She is only looking at Exeter under sufferance for the same reason, but that is the course (MArabic with 2 stints abroad in 4 years) I think looks most interesting from an Arabic point of view.
Re McGill - it is awfully difficult to find out much online, but I think I am concluding it is a big and quite vibrant department with excellent Arabic and Persian teaching (dd is also interested in this). I am struggling to work out if one can take enough Arabic language classes to get to near proficient standard as one would after a good 4 year UK Arabic degree. I think the answer is yes if you do an WIMES honours degree, and arrange your own year abroad at a language school NOT affiliated with a university (so effectively zero credit) and take all your language credits at McGill. But it might be that takes a bit longer than 4 years. If you do Honours and go to a university abroad then your language classes are credited and that reduces the language classes you can take at McGill. It’s a bit counter intuitive.
If your DD can find out what the T Arabic faculty think of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Exeter and McGill I would be super interested!!!!

Definitely caveat DD’s friend’s feedback with anecdotal *Delphigirl’, as it may be only 6 in her classes as part of her JH mix/schedule, whereas at T all single and joint takers sit the same classes. I suspect there will be a combination of beginners AND intermediate level classes that are >6 at Edinburgh.

I get your DD’s challenge on selecting prospect unis based on a combination of course quality and demographics, we had similar discussions. Mine is not missing ‘the London crowd’ right now ;)

McGill was a difficult one to walk away from; their program is supposed to be phenomenal. I got the jitters when it was not a dead cert that students secured a place on the ME Majors program, highest performers selected based on freshers grades and classes taken, with same for Year Abroad selection, which led me to look at summer programs in case, adding complexity.

I will, for sure, DM you if I hear any constructive feedback on the UK courses your DD is interested in, and best of luck with her research too leading up to selection.

Ah ok noted re Edi.
Did your DD go to McGill and see the dept/ask her questions? I’m trying to work out if that is necessary. Of course Dd did a summer school there but didn’t see the department and wasn’t thinking of Arabic yet. I didn’t realise doing a major was competitive - presumably Honours is even more so? Hmmmmmm

OP, why has your DD ruled out Oxbridge? EMEL is a brilliant undergraduate degree and results in fluency in a Middle Eastern language as well as a European language. Two years out in total abroad learning these languages. Standard of teaching impeccable. Very very academic, but it looks like your DD Is very capable too!
EMEL.

Hi Someone - the problem is we live in oxford so she won’t look at that, and she says Cambridge is just the same as oxford, but smaller. She wants something different, hence her interest in Scotland and McGill. But I have got her to agree to go to the Cambridge open day and will look at AMES.

What about Leeds? ahc.leeds.ac.uk/arabic-islamic-middle-eastern-studies

exeter has a strong gulf studies department.

DD has just completed a degree in Arabic Studies at Manchester. She loved the department and felt well supported there. Interesting mix of modules to choose from - her interests were mainly political and historical rather than literature. Obviously the massive downside for her was that her year abroad was completely scuppered by the pandemic. The language school she would have attended provided an excellent and very intensive course of study on Zoom so she didn't miss out academically but not the same as being there of course.

Re McGill: She had to sign up to humanities based presentations via online tech, often set at night time due to time zones. Info wasn’t subject specific and any queries outside of these were fed into an automated x days SLA type response, not personal at all.
Whilst applying for visa (hopefully you bypass this painful process!), building the first year program for Sept timetabling would have required a lot of hands on logging into taster sessions from Apr onwards, info meetings etc that just would have clashed with school timetable/revision for A levels and I refused by then to stand in. I think McGill has many positives, but it was a step too independent, business like with limited support for the international community beyond the generic presentations for DD to progress.

I think going to Cambridge open day is a great idea for your DD. Her self taught style and natural curiosity for AMES would fit, v well; she’s clearly a great academic fit and this needs to be equally addressed alongside her quest for good cultural fit. As you know, DD got rejected and whilst was disappointed, recovered quickly. She got a further boost by their later written feedback that beyond the generic WP stuff, didn’t highlight anything negative, said she’d do well wherever she went for UG and would welcome her application for post grad studies. Could have been bullshit, but made her feel better! But being stretched was high on her list of prospects.

Still time for much change post visiting and researching for your DD, keep all her options open to autumn!

Thank you everyone! Yes she will definitely look at Leeds, thanks. @criminallyvulgar tgat is great feedback about Manchester, although I am so sorry for your daughter missing out of the fully immersive year abroad. Such bad luck! What is she doing now she has graduated, as a matter of interest? Using her Arabic?

@ealingwestmum - no visa as she is a citizen. So phew! She also thinks she wants a gap year, so all that timetabling etc wouldn’t clash with a level revision. So it might be a bit easier to manage than it was for your DD. But it would certainly require more independence and structured thought from her than an easier uk option. Mind you she is scary organised!
i agree she shouldn’t be shutting any doors at least until she has had a good look at Cambridge. But I’m not going to push it, not least because I doubt any kid has won a place that doesn’t really really want to go there. I think it will all just feel like oxford where she has friends whose parents run colleges etc so there isn’t much magical about it all from her point of view. But she is capable of changing her mind - if the department gives good open day she may surprise me!

Bump for the weekend crowd. Anyone have a dc at Exeter or anywhere else reading Arabic and/or Persian?

Hi last ditch attempt to catch the eye of those wot know about Arabic degrees…

@Delphigirl I hope you don’t mind if I put down a marker on your thread so as to share in all this very useful insight. DD is at a very preliminary stage of thinking about university - about to start Y11 - but will be interviewed this autumn for prospective sixth forms. It has prompted some early thoughts on tertiary studies, as no doubt the relevant schools will be interested in their 16+ applicants’ ambitions.

She loves her languages and what she has read of linguistics. She’s thinking she might like to do Arabic de novo, possibly with French which she will take at A-level. She already has strong French and a small amount (only) of conversational Levantine Arabic. Like your DD she is wary of courses that would have a major focus on religious/Islamic content which is not her interest.

Re Oxbridge, much as it pains me as an Oxonian I am inclined to think that the Cambridge courses look better. But…early days and we don’t even have GCSEs in the bag yet. If you were able to find out any more since you were last on the thread I’d be really interested.

Exeter is a really lovely course in the most beautiful building. Both Arabic and ML did really well there on NSS student satisfaction. Exeter more diverse than people give it credit for being.

@hi Marisquita! Nice to meet a fellow traveller.
My 2p worth - Cambridge is a better course than oxford for those not interested in high level study of literature. However we really weren’t impressed by the department at Cambs. Arabic and Persian is lumped in with Chinese and Japanese in a depressing building. Not many profs/teaching staff- the list of Arabic staff is less than 20 I’d say. I am sure the language teaching is excellent, but DD was less than impressed by what’s around it. Eg someone asked at the talk what if a student was interested in area studies, and politics in particular. The speaker said “they let you do a module from the politics dept called “Politics of the Middle East” 😱. That seems to be it.
It absolutely cannot compare with the size and breadth and funding of Exeter. Exeter has its own Arab and Islamic building, huge and lovely; with a massive wide ranging multidisciplinary area focus covering politics, economics, archaeology etc etc etc of the Middle East and North Africa; as well as arabic it has a centre for Kurdish studies and teaches Kurdish to high intermediate levels; a centre for Palestine studies; Persian etc. It makes for a really good ME-focussed community which undergrads are really a part of.
If you look at the Exeter/Arabic staff list, it goes on forever. As does the module options list. And they announced another further massive load of funding from the Sheik of Sharjah last week. They have over 100 PhD students in supervision. It is a flagship department in Exeter. In Cambridge it seemed like an afterthought.
To add to that, the 4 year course at Exeter gives you a true masters in Arabic (not if you combine with a modern language or other joint honours though) and each Arabic student gets a scholarship worth £1500 a year for each of the 4 years. V nice thank you.
So that’s where DD is aiming for, seems like a no-brainer to us.

re the other options - St Andrews we discounted as if you want a full year abroad it turns into a 5 year degree. No thanks. Edinburgh is not bad, with a nice building forming a good community, but the satisfaction levels are low and I think Edinburgh is going through a difficult time at the moment. It might be her 2nd choice in the UK. Durham is fine too. We haven’t looked at it in the flesh as by the time of the open day DD had seen Exeter and wondered why she would spend four years to get a BA at Durham rather than an MA at Exeter and I couldn’t think of a good reason to make the long drive. Manchester and Leeds get mixed reviews.

interestingly I contacted an Arabic prof at McGill to ask about eg year abroad possibilities within the Canadian system and she said if DD wanted a full year abroad and intensive arabic study in the GB model of degree, she should go to Exeter! Turns out that’s where she did her undergrad 🤣

@Delphigirl Wow - that’s brilliant information, thank you. The Exeter setup sounds fantastic. I see that their MArabic and also Modern Languages & Arabic are in clearing for 2023-24.

Many thanks also for your valuable feedback on the Cambridge visit. My father read Arabic and Persian there back in the 1950s. It sounds as though things haven’t moved on much since then!

Ahhhh… your dad would recognise the building and the decor probably 🤣.
go and look and make your own mind up - my DD not interested in the whole Cambridge college “thing” (we live in oxford so it is more of the usual) but for someone who is, that might play a big part in the decision.
yes re clearing - not the most oversubscribed subject anywhere which is nice as it keeps offers at a comfortable level.

I’ve just seen this which has come to the same conclusions as DD has. Exeter on top. SOAS and Edinburgh good. His knows how oxford and Cambridge are scored given they aren’t graded on teaching quality, student experience or graduate prospects, but Cambridge’s research quality is crap. All that is left to justify their ranking is very high entry standards.
v interesting.

Whoops sorry image attached

It’s the times/Sunday times good uni guide