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

There’s definitely plenty of help from the university, both from colleagues in the department (who offer access to their networks) and from the careers service.

Sorry, this was in answer to @Delphigirl’s last question.

And I also wanted to say how much I agree with everything @ealingwestmum just said. Thrilled to hear how much your daughter is enjoying her studies.

If my own children wanted to study Arabic or a related field at Edinburgh, SOAS, Manchester or somewhere else in the UK, I’d be delighted and I do feel really heartened by the community here presenting positive stories about what is, as you say, a niche subject area in the UK

Btw the current rankings for Middle East and African studies from the Times/Sunday Times good uni guide 2026.
once again Durham and St Andrews don’t feature.

Hi all - what a great 1st post @ExeterWilliam I'm going to show it to my DD1 who's in Y2 of Arabic and Politics at Edinburgh.

She said the 1st lesson back last week had the words 'the honeymoon is over' on the board

She has had some Arabic in her life forever ( husband Sudanese but hopeless at teaching it / speaking it to the girls while growing up) and informal lessons on and off with students of mine ( I teach ESOL and have studied it myself in the past but I'm not very good). She said it helped at first but everyone is now pretty much at the same stage.

Cairo next year I think.

Do they both definitely do Arabic as a main course?
Could be something to do with that. Both rank highly for other languages.

Yes they do @Middleaugust . It is quite odd that they are not there, it’s not the first year that’s happened. Maybe as it is a smaller subject they only list the top 7 and if they did the full list they would put them 8th and 9th? Who knows.

@mizu love that message to focus the 2nd years minds!!! Do they all go to Cairo from e’burgh or is there a choice?

@Delphigirl it depends on the course.

Those doing Arabic and History I think go to Jordan and those doing Arabic and something else go to Oman - where I would have loved her to go as I lived there for 2 years many moons ago and would love to go back.

But I think Egypt will - hopefully - be a real experience.

It will be fab, and you can pick @ealingwestmum ’s brains about it as her dd is currently in Cairo on her Arabic year abroad!

Happy to help with any questions or pass them along for her to answer!

@ealingwestmum yes, please! Would love to know how she's finding it.

She's just called actually and said she's met a guy at the tutoring refugees group that has just come back from Cairo! He went August to June!! Did half in greater Cairo and half in Cairo and had the best time.

It's still early days @mizu but 5 weeks in, so far, so good. There are 3 from her uni there, two inc her are at AUC in New Cairo, the other (a mature student doing UG studies), has chosen language school in downtown Cairo. He's doing circa 25 language hours a week, says it's very intense!

Mine will be out there for one semester only, the feedback your DD has received sounds a great option to change things up for a full YA. DD will switch to a Granada for 2nd semester where ME study programme will continue alongside her Hispanic modules, taught in Spanish.

In summary so far:

• needs to complete circa 45 - 60 ECTs across the year
• has 8 hours a wk of Arabic on top of wider modules that have been signed off by home uni (3 x more contact hours than home)
• Language assessment prior to start to determine class level
• GPA system, mid terms, lots of testing
• Classes Sun/Mon. Tues self learning/sports etc, Classes Wed/Thurs
• Weekend Fri/Sat
• Has already travelled to Hurghada, Dahab. Alexandria, Luxor, Suez Canal etc all planned in, either with international friend trips or via international office (Giza will FoC sign up via uni)
• Regular events, this week's was free concert by 'Ruby' on campus
• Facilities at uni are excellent, further investment projects due for completion circa 2026
• Most staff and teaching very good, small classes, enthusiastic and engaging.
• Accom: her peer group are housed off campus (she is 7 mins walk), mainly local freshers are on campus. There are buses too.
• Air con one bed flat, condo single sex block (DD only, others are in private accom all nearby with less restrictions for both alcohol and gender)
• Cheap ubers, downtown Cairo circa 45 mins. No problems so far.
• New Cairo is developing, has eating districts, malls, cinema etc
• Food shopping is a challenge even with Carrefour, DD missing range of veg, apparently this improves in cooler months/importing is not so expensive
• she has made international and local friends, mainly boys have come in from Europe/UK (opp to her home uni in Dublin) combining Arabic studies with business type courses from their respective unis
• WATER! a challenge, both restrictions at peak times and need for care on where is drinkable.
• Visas - entry via visitor's visa that gets changed to student visa (if staying >90 days) whilst there (USD or circa 30GDP), pretty straight-forward
• Mobile - dual eSIM set up for DD, Vodafone Egypt can be complex with rules but she has to have an Egyptian number for food deliveries, local phone etc.
• Most businesses use WhatsApp including the teaching faculty, which DD finds highly novel
• It's bloody hot (but they have a 50M outdoor pool and great track and field facilities
• Not everywhere is dry so good balance of social life with alcohol if preferred
• Jazz clubs, local and hotel bars all welcoming - downtown, Zamalek, Maadi
• Not overly dress restrictive as other ME regions

Sorry this is a long dump and completely anecdotal to DD and her interests, but in summary, she is VERY busy, and really enjoying it so far. There are niggling challenges, but she is around so many who are there with families in areas of current conflict, especially Lebanese, Palestinians, Israelis, Syrians to name a few regions, that she feels a little more humble and inclined to moan less to us, which has been the biggest change we've noticed in her so far in her UG studies. A good thing I believe.

Hope this helps, albeit one person's perspective.

@ealingwestmum sounds like a semester she won't forget! What an opportunity to meet so many people! Thank you so much, all really useful.

I am hoping to visit at some point while DD is there, but am restricted with time due to job.

@ealingwestmum if you are looking for an extra 21st present for her, you could get her a grayl water bottle. They are fantastic - can put any water in, push down the filter, and drink. Gets rid of all pathogens, viruses, heavy metals. Tremendous for travel. Not cheap but totally worth it not to have to worry about the water any more. I would get the ultra press rather than the larger and heavier geo press. Filters last about 3 months.
grayl.co.uk

Wow, these look totally hardcore @Delphigirl, thank you for the link!

it did ds2 v well in Indonesia and then on his epic ocean adventure, and dd2 has taken one with her to Peru. I’m a huge fan!

Happy new year, and I hope all your young Arabists are doing well wherever they are. I’m very interested in this week’s news from Exeter about their forthcoming campus outpost in Cairo:

https://news.exeter.ac.uk/staff-news/university-of-exeter-to-establish-pioneering-branch-campus-in-egypt-a-russell-group-first-in-africa/

@ExeterWilliam I hope it’s not too cheeky to ask whether you have any insights to share into how this will work in practice? It looks potentially a very exciting and innovative partnership.

Hi Marisquita, it's in no sense cheeky to pose the question! My sense is that this may end up broadening Exeter's students' exposure to the Arab world well beyond the specialist degrees which we offer in Arabic, Middle East & Islamic Studies. Lots of students studying degrees like History, Politics & Theology, already take some modules with us, but this new link-up may well offer even more to them in terms of studying in the Arab world itself. For our own students, it ought to provide another site in which they can go to practice their Arabic. 😀

Oooh thanks for posting this @Marisquita , I hadn’t seen it! Sounds exciting. @ExeterWilliam do we know when it is likely to be operational?

I'm afraid I don't know, @Delphigirl, but I guess that it'd most likely to come online in 26-27 and 27-28.

Perfect, thanks.

Coming back to the thread to share this - it’s not new, but was shared with me this week by a young person I met who had switched away from AMES at Cambridge after their first year. I can’t vouch for any of it, but thought it was interesting:

https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/27406

Otherwise: although I’ve been on the thread for ages, we are only now approaching UCAS time for DD. She thinks she won’t fill her 5 choices in the first instance as she is only really interested in the courses at Exeter, Manchester and Edinburgh from a UK point of view. (SOAS is much too close to home!).

Does anyone have a sense of how morale is in Edinburgh IMES? Such worrying news in the public domain about the depth of cuts being considered at Edinburgh overall, and I really hope that IMES will continue to thrive there.

Not happy reading @Marisquita, one would hope that things had improved.

How exciting for you and your DD re applications. I do not have anything but limited anecdotal experience of Edinburgh from DD. One of her friends from school had to drop the Arabic learning of her course to amended Middle Eastern Studies, due to finding it too challenging with little support, but, DD is now having a positive experience with a couple of students who have taken the same language combo and now with her in Spain this semester. They are sharing their pain of being taught Arabic from a Spanish base (vs English), and that their classes, on top of how challenging they already are, have a number of students who are language native,100% fluent, and yet are sat in their classes for the easy credits. No different to school A level days I say back to DD :)

Their feedback on Edinburgh is positive, both enjoying their course, so hopefully it will continue to be a core offering of the language provision. But key to keep asking the questions given the current climate!

In 2022, Manchester interviewed prospects before offer, but it was more like an informal chat. If your DD knows exactly what she wants from her course, then filling the full 5 can be a struggle. St Andrews also as a back up in case EDI changes maybe?

I had cause to look at the recent student satisfaction figures for Arabic at Edinburgh @Marisquita and they were very good. Arabic has been taught for so many centuries at Edinburgh it is almost unthinkable that the dept would close, but I suppose nothing is sacred these days…. Off to read the varsity article!

Wow that’s quite a sobering read marisquita. Lucky escape for your dd I think @ealingwestmum ! So lovely to hear how much she is enjoying the second half of her year abroad 💕

Hi, I know this thread has been going for a while but my DS is about to sit his GCSEs and has already decided he wants to take Arabic and Spanish. He is not keen on going to Scotland or Manchester, so what we are left with are Oxbridge, Exeter, Durham, Warwick and Leeds. Are there any others we should consider? I’m going with older DS this summer to the open days (for Physics) but thought it may be worth popping into their language dept to check for younger DS.