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

A school friend went to Leeds for English and Arabic.
They are now doing very well.
Further study was needed.
But it led to a very successful career.

Good to hear @Blamethecat57 !
@ealing - thanks - she thinks she won’t hear for ages so I have bet her a tenner she will have 2 offers at least by Friday. We shall see!

hope your DD is well happy and getting stuck into the Arabic this year…

I think that’s a tenner coming your way then :)

All good with DD. She is finding Arabic a touch challenging but I think it’s compounded with all the extra juggling this year. And perhaps due to a lack of getting a head start over the summer break on basics like some of her peers sensibly did!

Did her peers go and do intensive courses abroad over the summer, or just sit down with the textbook and make an early start?

I think a mixture, with some having previous knowledge through native, others getting to grips with learning the letters as a start. Tbh, I haven’t engaged too much because I think it’s quite natural for there to be a mix of ability in a new subject, but things also even out quickly throughout the year.

Patience is not her virtue!

Best of luck to your DD @Delphigirl - hope those early offers are on their way! Of the Exeter courses is it MArabic she is going for?

Thank you! Just acknowledgments so far. Yes, MArabic. Standard offer has dropped from AAA last year to ABB this 👍

AAB offer from Exeter!!
she is delighted but refusing to pay up on the bet which she says I made with myself (she has a point tbh - also it was for 2 offers by Friday) 🤣

Fantastic news - congratulations to her! So exciting to have the favourite (conditionally) in the bag. Brilliant!

Thank you @Marisquita !

Have just noticed I put the wrong offer. It’s ABB, not AAB. Even better!

You’re welcome! We are watching closely, as on current plans DD would make a very similar non-deferred application for 2026. So perhaps they will meet someday.

Do your DD’s year-out plans involve lots of Arabic, or would she have a different focus?

Oh ABB! I had wondered whether they had upped it a bit for the deferral, but apparently not 😀

Sorry but overexcited when I originally posted. Actually her gap year she wants to focus on getting her Spanish fluent. But is also talking about maybe some time in Morocco… or India… or west Africa. It honestly changes every time we talk at the moment so we’ll see.

Fabulous news Delphi, well done her. I still think you may come good by Friday :))

Thanks @ealingwestmum … fingers crossed

https://sciencespo.gs.columbia.edu/

Hi OP. Just posted the above in case it might be of interest. Warning - its not cheap (but I see you were looking at Mc Gill).

Basically, it's a 4 year degree - first 2 years spent at Sci Po France, second 2 (when they choose their major) at Columbia, NYC. They end up with degrees from both!

Sci Po has various campuses around France which, for this degree, all have a different global regional focus. Luckily for your DD, the campus dealing with Middle Eastern perspectives (history, politics, economics options) and the Arabic language (as well as optional Farsi?) is in Menton. What a place to spend 2 years! It would be a very international cohort and lots of Arabic speakers. They also have to learn French, but obvs much easier when you're living there. And she could keep up her Spanish too.

I'm just mentioning this as my DD did exactly the same A-levels as yours and was accepted into this programme. She did not take it in the end (due to the fees) and also got into Oxbridge, though not for MML or AMES.

If I were you, I wouldn't get too hung up on 'teaching quality' league tables and all that as it varies so much, student to student and term to term. There are helpful and less helpful tutors at any uni. Do have a look at AMES at Cambridge - it's one if the less competitive courses in terms of admission rates and it's a fantastic degree.

If your DD is genuinely worried about 'monoculturalism' at Durham, well, she is probably being a little unfair as you know (my DD was the same!) - but certainly Exeter and St As will be no different in this respect! If she wants multicultural diversity, she might as well apply to LSE or UCL.

PM me if I can help as my DD had the same A-levels / predictions and similar set-up.

She also took a gap year and worked overseas.

@qizz thanks for posting. What a great idea - 2 years in s France, 2 years in nyc, come out with 2 degrees! Amazing.

Sadly I think the cost will prohibit - she was looking at McGill but as canadian citizen (Quebec) so it is cheap as chips. The sciences po part looks not dissimilar to uk uni costs but I think the 2 years in Columbia is $100,000 per annum minimum, from what I can gather from the website - fees and living expenses. I can’t justify that for a bachelors. I need to play with the calculator to see if that’s right though.

Also it doesn’t seem that there would be very much Arabic language teaching so she would have to do that in her own time and I know she is keen on intensive teaching and a year abroad in an Arabic speaking country. But I know the broad social science part would appeal. I will show it to her!

DD looked at cambs and hated it. I have told her that the demographic of exeter v Durham v St Andrews is basically identical but she has it stuck in her head that she won’t go within a million miles of Durham - we do know a particularly bad cohort of boys in my DS year who all went up there and have all returned even more appalling than when they left so I think that has poisoned the well.

M so what subject has your daughter ended up studying? So nice to hear about all these cool girls making their way in the world.

She doing Geog @Delphigirl. The time has flown. What did your DD hate about Cambridge?

She is from oxford so the whole colleges and architecture thing does not move her. She really didn’t like the AMES department which felt quite dead and dusty. I spent the whole day being super enthusiastic about everything and going from college to college and at about 2pm she said “It is like a series of boarding schools in a ghost-town , isn’t it?” at which point I gave up and we went home 🤣🤣🤣

Horses for courses and all that - this horse was not drinking because it felt, quote, “like oxford but smaller”. Fair enough. I think geog is a fab degree and I love geog graduates turned young lawyers when I deal with them as they are numerate and articulate and have well structured thought and are evidence-based without waffling. So if your daughter thinks in that direction do encourage her!!

Oh I can understand that if she's from Oxford. I wouldn't describe Cambridge as a ghost town though / it's usually rammed! I know they get all kinds of ideas about unis though and a lot if it is from online sources - TikTok and YouTubers etc. My DD had all sorts of notions about Durham and Exeter being full of 'rah rah' rugby-types, but after working abroad, realised the differences between these top unis is minimal and there are hundreds / thousands of all types of people pretty much everywhere.

Well, quite! But I guess they have to decide on some criteria, even if quite random, and for her subject I doubt it makes the slightest difference to anything long term whether she goes to durham, exeter, edinburgh, cambridge... At 21 I decided between 3 pretty much identical law firm offers on the basis that one had kitkats in the meeting rooms... I still maintain that was an absolutely valid decision and one which worked out pretty well for me 😂

BBB offer from SOAS…!