Should DN go for campus or city uni?

[Stringbean70]

DN lived in London all his life. Is sociable and street wise but not into clubbing or live music. His great passion is football - he wants to go to a uni where he can have a kick about with mates when he has a spare hour at lunch/between lectures.

With that as his top criterion, I’d have thought a campus uni is a no-brainer - green space and football pitches on site rather than a bus ride away? My friend’s DS is at Lancaster and thinks DN would love it - the sporting rivalry between colleges would appeal to him in her view.

Of course DN will assess courses in detail but, as a first filter, do you think he should be looking at campus over city? Londoners like him don’t always go to city unis do they (my DS seems to think they do)?

I went to Lancaster and have always been a strong advocate for campus unis. My son has gone to a uni which is not a campus and is in a small city. I was very grateful for this during covid as I think being on a campus could have been very isolating- fate lent a hand.

Hi @clary - no, just standard English. Could have sworn I read on here that Loughborough no longer offer any languages, including English. However, must be mistaken as I have now checked (thanks for prompt) and they do offer English (although no foreign languages) so that’s another campus uni to consider 😄

CUG has campus in blocks! How odd is that? Attached. Plenty to look at.

I can see The Times Good University Guide. It's behind a paywall but I have access. Of the campuses (campii??), it has (for English)

York 5th ( just ahead of Cambridge, interestingly)
Warwick 7th
Exeter 12th =
Lancaster 12 = (this seems a more Lancaster like position for English than the CUG)
Surrey 14th
Loughborough 16th
Southampton 17th
Hull 20th
Nottingham 22nd
and then Sussex and Birmingham a notch down but still top 30. Birmingham has fared particularly badly in Covid times on NSS. Traditionally it would be much higher for English.

To be honest, even over the last 30 odd years, those positions can't have changed much. That's a fairly standard list of highly regarded universities for studying English.

There are 100 universities on the list.

The 4 higher than York for the record are : Oxford, St Andrew's , Strathclyde and Stirling.

Yay for Luffers! I am shocked about no MFL there tho; great friend of mine took an MFL degree there (20 years ago I guess) and met her lovely husband on the floor above her in the first week 😀

I have a DC at York, loves the campus and also the college set up. Not doing English but knows plenty who are. Definitely one for the long-list.

Thank you so much for the S Times rankings and for the PM @Piggywaspushed

Thank you too @TizerorFizz for CUG and your advice upthread.

Will give DN a ring in a minute to talk through and see where his long list is at and post an update.

definitely agree.

Boys will find somewhere to play football, I really wouldn't worry about it! I was at a city centre uni and there were Astro pitches.

@clary. I’m shocked about state of MFL in unis too - my neighbour’s daughter is researching courses at the moment as she wants to read Spanish and Portuguese

Sure you are right @Pearfacebananapoop

@Stringbean70
In the CUG, Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, St Andrews and UCL are above York for English.

MfL is in free fall but Portuguese is offered at a few but they are nearly all RG. It won’t take that much research! Although somewhat oddly a quick search didn’t show Cambridge which isn’t correct.

Spoken to DN this evening and asked where he was at. Was pleasantly surprised that he's done a lot of research already. His long list so far:

Campus: Lancaster (possibly favourite so far), York, Birmingham, Loughborough, Sussex, UEA
City: Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle

Seems he is most interested in modern literature (including world literature) so he's going to be looking at the courses in more detail over the coming months. He said he doesn't want to do more than 3-4 open days though coz he's busy with football, EPQ and mocks!

That's a good set for starters!

@Stringbean70
DN should remember that he needs to keep his eyes and his minopen and be challenged at university. Trying to get a course tailored to a one aspect of literature that interests you, can leave great works untouched and other genres not explored. The better courses will be diverse.

Further to @TizerorFizz's point, the 'better' universities are almost always going to require English students to study a wide range of literature across the ages. The chance to concentrate on modern works will only come (if it comes at all) in the third year.

DH (English graduate, career as a writer) thinks this is a good thing as it provides a wide body of knowledge and while there were elements which he didn't enjoy as much, they don't last too long!

Thanks - that makes sense @thing47 and @TizerorFizz. I think Lancaster may be an exception as they offer a world literature module in year 1. Btw, they also offer the course with a placement year so that might be worth looking at to increase employability?

@thing47 I looked at Lancaster out of interest. As you might expect there’s a wide range of literature in the core and then in the options . Medieval literature and Chaucer is in year 1 core. That will be a shock then. I did Chaucer at O level. Some options are modern literature so it’s possible to tailor to an extent.

I see a similar issue with MFL on MN. DC who don’t want literature in a MFL degree. They have a very narrow view of what the degrees are setting out to achieve.

@Stringbean70
With placement years, make sure the uni has enough placements! Do DCs find them? If so, it’s trickier. In general yes. Find out more about it. Or a year abroad. That opens up great opportunities if available.

It’s worth thinking about what career fairly early. DD has a friend who did English at Cambridge who then really struggled to get the job she wanted, even after a masters. Others with English seem very unsure about what career I have observed amongst my DDs friends. So think about the cv early and get careers advice. It seems English students can have their heads in books a bit too long.

I don't think there's any doubt that the Lancaster course would meet your DS's desire to study world literature, @Stringbean70. But the core component in Y1 will involve Chaucer, Milton and Shakespeare. And the Y2 options don't really cover modern literature either. Of course modules change from year to year, I'm just pointing out that traditional universities tend to teach English Literature in a traditional way, that's all.

To have your head in a book for 3 years is surely the entire point of studying English@TizerorFizz 😁?

More seriously, though, I do agree with your point that it helps to have some idea of where you might want to go – it's a respectable degree subject, there's no necessity to go into something creative afterwards. Does your DS have anything specific in mind career-wise @Stringbean70 ?

York's degree has always been known as English and Related Literature, its USP being the opportunity to be required to think outside the UK and the US, to do literature in a foreign language whilst also specialising in Anglo Saxon and middle English

He should look. Here is a first year module:

https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/ENG00022C/latest

Second and third year offer modules as diverse as Latin American Literature, Black writers of the 19th century, and Old Norse!

I'd go City. Places like Liverpool, Sheffield have green spaces near the accommodation and lots of parks to kick a ball around.

@thing47
My point was that it can mean students don’t get round to thinking about careers. Some students are very proactive but others might not be. Yes, English is well regarded but the IFS found it didn’t lead to better rewarded jobs and won’t compare with Economics or sciences. So, the best advice is to think about a career as early as you can. I get that not everyone is motivated by money but grad prospects are only 70% at Lancaster (74% at Cambridge) so there’s quite a body of talented students taking lower level work or not getting work at all.

Oh I was just being flippant @TizerorFizz, as I said I do agree with you.

English doesn't really lead to anything specific (unless you want to teach). And nor does a Masters really help, it just means you have spent an extra year reading and analysing books (not that I am trying to put anyone off doing a Masters, but do one because you want to study something in more depth not because you think it will help your career prospects).

So I agree it makes sense to start thinking about future career(s) sooner rather than later.