Uni suggestions - Joint Honours Business & German

[Scottishvisa]

After any suggestions please.
DD is already looking at Manchester and Leeds.

Doesn't want to go to a Uni populated by private school, although she goes to one herself!

Thanks so much.

Bath and Warwick are well known for business. What sort of year abroad does she want to do?

I think work placement via British Council

DD is at Oxford doing German and another language which she picked up from scratch. She always said if she could go back in time to Y13, she would have applied for German and Business at Bath.

Very interesting.

my youngest is currently doing German and Linguistics at Lancaster. She meticulously researched the best Uni's for languages and I think Lancaster was in top 3. No idea about business though.

One of my DC is doing French and Business. He hates studying French literature so avoided unis where language study is traditional and heavily literature focused - eg Durham and Oxbridge. He loved Newcastle and Bath. Swansea, Leicester and Surrey were on his radar but I don't recall them offering German (not all unis do by any means)

@Scottishvisa Durham has the highest (nearly) private school population of any university! Exeter isn’t far behind. Surely quality matters above who else might be at the uni? Reverse snobbery is such an odd trait.

The biggest issue will be ensuring it’s a decent German dept. Bath should be on her list and definitely Bristol.

Someone else posted this on MN recently. Very helpful list if this is a consideration:

https://thetab.com/2025/01/17/the-russell-group-unis-where-the-most-private-school-students-are-lurking-in-2025

Manchester has about 16% privately educated students. Not particularly high when you consider Durham with the most, has almost 40%.

Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh used to do an excellent International Business with Languages course. Might be worth checking if they still do?

Apologies for not having current info but I did my year abroad at Sciences-Po in Paris (one of the best grandes-ecoles) where I met a HW IBL student and through her met LOTS of HW IBL students ( in Edinburgh, France and Germany) and they were all very impressive - and nice, normal people from a variety of backgrounds (from educated at Gordonstoun to a Norwich comp). I’m still good friends with quite a few of them and they’ve gone on to have very successful careers, often involving jetting around the globe but still staying nice.

Herriot Watt was always bottom of the barrel choice, ever since the late 80s. I don't know that this has changed?

Bottom of which barrel exactly?

That's never been true .

Yes agree, not bottom of any barrel AFAIK. Very strong on science, engineering, industry-related degrees. Not for things like English lit. But what looks to be some good MFL degrees relating to translating and interpreting.

It's always been well known for MFL!

I think it was also the first uni to offer degrees in brewing !

Scotland doesn't tend to have the same rank order/ RG obsession. More students attend local unis in Scotland and select a uni which offers their choices or specialism. The main 'snobberies' existed largely around law degrees but, otherwise, nearly all choices were valid. HW has always had the same stature as unis such as Stirling, Aberdeen, Strathclyde and was a targeted uni, yes, for those who wanted industry experience.

I know people who did Business + MFL at Birmingham. Not familiar with their German dept but worth having a look. Birmingham was a great campus uni but close enough to the city to escape campus life if you wanted to.

For business the question I would ask is not so much the proportion of private school pupils but the proportion and composition of international students. At the uni I work at the business school is extremely heavily dominated by one nationality to the point where the uk and other small number of international students often feel quite excluded.

@clary Those very vocational courses/roles should not be encouraged now. AI is taking over and it’s a non career. The strength of MFL is how you think and how you apply that to your career. I’d always choose a very strong MFL department where MFLs are not just an add on to a business course. If you don’t “get” the culture of the MFL you aren’t much use to a business these days. I’d always look at Management courses too.

and Leeds too. All the kids I know at Leeds are private school kids. According to the Tab 2024, there are 30 universities with the most private school kids, so she can use that to remove those from her list.

MFL aren't an add on to a business degree at HW.

Agree. I was very impressed with the depth of MFL at HW on their IBL course. It was far better than my own uni (where I did joint honours in Economics & French - and which was rated higher than LSE at the time). The majority of HW IBL graduates I know went on to use their MFL in their graduate roles (all big name international corporates). Definitely not an add-on.

Vote for Leeds! They have a fantastic German department and Leeds is a great place to study.

Although she will meet many people like herself there, and they tend to stick together!

If she wants to get out of that bubble Manchester might be a better option.

Yeah if it’s Chinese students they tend to be a bit more insular as well ime (compared to say Spanish and Latin American students who are generally up for mixing).

I wouldn’t study translation or interpreting now!

Has she considered studying in Germany or Austria?

@Piggywaspushed German for business is limited. Always has been. With international recruitment big business isn’t looking for translators or interpreters as was suggested. Also HW isn’t in the CUG for German. It does MFLs for Business Management which isn’t the same thing. The idea HW is great for German is way off the mark and misleading.

Queens University Belfast offers an International Business with a language degree, with German among the languages.

https://www.qub.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/international-business-major-german-bsc-n2r2/#:~:text=The%20International%20Business%20with%20a,is%20disabled%20in%20your%20browser

The University is located in a pleasant part of the city, and you're not going to find a lot of the boarding bubble types there.