Schools vs Departments within a uni

[Temporarilythis]

Am I right in thinking that a Department is bigger than a School, within the Uni set up? So if I want to find a strong MFL degree, for example, am I better off looking at unis where there is a department of MFL rather than a School?

Which unis are particularly well respected for MFL please?

At DDs uni (Edinburgh) its the opposite. School >> Department (plus College bigger than School)

Naming will differ between unis.

Sadly, it's not that straightforward (nothing ever is). Things are called by different names in different universities. At my university, each school is part of a larger faculty. At some others (e.g. Cambridge), each faculty is part of a larger school (e.g. the Faculty of Philosophy is part of the School of Arts & Humaninties). If there are units called departments, in some places a department will be a large unit of organisation, in others is will be a small unit within a school or faculty, etc., etc..

At UCL it's department -> faculty -> school (from smallest entity to largest).

If you go to the Discover Uni website, you can compare MFL courses on lots of metrics such as employability, student satisfaction, average earnings.

A school vs a department (a school is larger than a department) is an administrative structure, organised as such primarily for the convenience of the university's senior management, who prefer to have to deal with one head of school and one budget instead of five heads of department and five budgets. It should make little difference to students in terms of the experience of the course.

@dotdotdash Thanks for discover uni tip. For some reason that website always plays up on me but I will persevere

@GCAcademic ah ok. Will not worry about it then!

@Temporarilythis
MFL is a slightly odd one. Some universities have pretty small faculties - a different word for school or department! They don’t offer many choices as language departments are shrinking as students shy away MFLs. In terms of what’s best, it depends what you want to do afterwards.

DD wanted to do law afterwards. So literature suited her. Others want less literature so look for courses which have a greater emphasis on other things. In general the literature and culture heavy courses are the highest tariff ones - typically AAA at the best universities. So the key is: what do you want to do with the degree? Who will be employing you and for what reason? Language skills or something else? Are you intending to use the MFL or are they a means to an end? Then consider likely A level results. Like many degrees, what employers want is key and it will be more than a degree. Aim high though and don’t be scared of a rigorous degree including literature.

Which unis are particularly well respected for MFL please?

Newcastle. DD has a couple of friends studying, between them, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese. I got talking to one of the parents at house changeover, and she said that she thought the language department was incredibly well organised. The university is in the top 10 for MFL.

The course is very full on though. DD did a STEM degree, which was content heavy, and she said her friends courses were even more content heavy.

It totally depends on what you want afterwards. Very few employers want to know your opinions on Dante or an obscure Spanish film. It’s 36th in the Complete University Guide, so if you are after a top university, Durham up the road is a much better bet. Unless you are a MFL guru, and want to make a career from MFL, many other universities are likely to boost a career more. So looking at employability across all possible avenues is probably a better bet and where might facilitate this by asking for higher grades. What recruiters go to the university?

Newcastle is 7th for French though @TizerorFizz. The table doesn't specify MFL in general, but specific languages. Durham is 5th.

Yes but employers, largely, are not employing purely for MFL skills. The range of skills needed is far greater and whilst Newcastle is great, it’s overall status is not that of Durham. Therefore if you can muster AAA, Durham is a better bet. Few grads are employed for MFLs. Most need to demonstrate wider skills and they will be competing with Oxbridge grads and others for jobs. No one thinks Newcastle trumps Durham I’m afraid. It’s best to go with the general list of elite/top universities.

You aren't wrong about Durham, but as more and more employers recruit university blind I'm beginning to revise my views about these university league tables.

It’s not yet known how many firms actually do this. When firms go to specific universities to recruit, and they do, they surely expect applicants from those universities, or why bother? There are occupations that, even though some firms do recruit university blind, still end up with employees from the elite universities. They just seem to do well. Not that others don’t get a look in but MFL skills are not necessarily what employers use as a reason to employ someone if they don’t tick other boxes.

Within a university, departments are usually smaller than schools. So for MFL, some places will have a "school of languages" which is then divided into "department of French", "department of Spanish", etc. Others may call the whole thing the "department of languages".

Each uni has their own naming mechanisms though, so you can't use them to compare. And like @GCAcademic says, it's just to do with university admin. The name won't affect the student experience.