English degree with exams (not 100% coursework)

[UniTendril]

My dd is looking at English degrees, she’s looking for courses which aren’t completely coursework and are more traditional (she likes close analysis and classics). She’s a hard worker and would be happy with a course that was pretty intense.

It’s proving surprisingly hard to get this information. She’s booked a few open days and will ask questions at those.

I know this board has a lot of experts, any suggestions of where might be worth a look?

She’s being encouraged by her school to apply for Oxbridge, so she’s a strong student.

Has she considered Exeter? Things may have changed but around 10 years ago the degree there was excellent — very rigorous, with plenty of opportunity to study the traditional canon. Assessment practices vary depending on the modules chosen, but they had a decent range of examined rather than coursework-assessed modules. Also some great lecturers.
If close analysis is her thing she would probably enjoy Cambridge more than Oxford. Does she have any particular authors or periods she’s especially interested in?

What are you basing this idea on, given Oxford has been teaching English literature one way or another since it was founded in 1096?

OP, it’s possible that assessment will vary according to which modules your DD chooses. My DD read history, but different modules were assessed either by coursework or exams or a mixture of both depending on which particular subjects you chose.

Yes, and I’m absolutely not knocking Oxford! The reason for my suggestion that Cambridge might be better for her is that its English department has long been known for a closer focus on what is often termed practical criticism or close analysis of the text. It is famous for it. Oxford tends a little more toward approaches including historicism and performances studies (eg). Which is great if that’s how a student thinks and wants to learn, but if her passion is close reading Cambridge might be a better fit.

My DH read English at Oxford and disagrees.

From a sample of ,not very many, my ex students who have gone to Oxbridge for English have all chosen Oxford. This stands out because we are closest to Cambridge and most students across the disciplines choose Cambridge. I am guessing maybe to my type of student, Oxford might seem a bit more 'modern'.

But prospective students do have to choose between Oxford and Cambridge, so there has to be a reason, not just a pin in the map. I presume each thinks it has a USP?

I really don’t think that’s true since the Leavises’ day!

I think Cambridge still runs a dedicated practical criticism paper. Oxford has a broader ‘theory abd approaches’ paper. But a lot has to do with the academics who have gravitated to each institution, and I think it remains true that the department in Cambridge preserves in its teaching staff and researchers a greater veneration for close reading than its Oxford equivalent.

I think, @UniTendril it might be helpful for your DD to think more about forms of assessment.

Is it that she prefers exams? Or is it that she wants to avoid:
group or collaborative work
participation/contribution marks
presentations
portfolios ?

I would counsel her to loosen up a bit about this. All of these forms of assessment develop and test skills and abilities which are not tested or developed by only writing essays/exams.

And the skills required to succeed, for example, in a presentation are hugely useful in many careers. Imagine having to read, comprehend, and analyse a complex nuanced document and then organise and communicate your thoughts about it, and then present your ideas and analysis of this document in person in front of clients or your team? In a clear, concise and comprehensible way through spoken presentation?

That's something that many many people have to do in all sorts of jobs. And a university assessed presentation on a novel, or an historical document or the like - well, you can see how that develops really good communications skills. It's all very well knowing lots of cool stuff; even better to be able to communicate that knowledge so other people are intrigued and inspired by it.

@ParmaVioletTea I completely take your point, and she’s not against other sorts of assessment. It’s just that she tends to agonise and spend far too long trying to perfect anything that’s coursework. Exams are better, in that she prepares very thoroughly (possibly over-prepares) but at least once they’re done, she relaxes. So she’d find 100% coursework a lot more stressful.

She does presentations and groupwork at school, and does well, though I suspect often does well over her fair share of the work. So it’s not about being unable to do that, it’s just about knowing that she’s likely to find it much more stressful, and not wanting that to be the only way she’s assessed.

My DC’s friends at non-Oxbridge universities apparently do very little work for their English degrees. Of the order of one essay a term. And they fit in part time jobs. And those at Oxbridge do loads of essays. There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium. But some hard facts would be more use to you than my generalisations I realise 😀

I think this thread shows that many if not most uni students of Eng lit do more than one essay a term. Is this in year 1? DD at a non-RG uni did multiple essays each term.

@clary possibly the story gained in the telling but these were students at Bristol, York and Newcastle — good universities.

@Texelspreadsheet I’d be amazed if an eng lit student at Bristol only had to write one essay a term and that was all the assessment there was. When I was there a history student I knew had to write one essay a week in year 2.

I wonder if it might have been one essay per term for each module. This would be more typical and would generally lead to a workload of 2 very long (6000-8000) word essays per term. This is fine for some students but I think most do better either with something closer to the Oxbridge/UCL system (lots of regular essays with short deadlines that don’t count much or at all toward final degree mark followed by mix of hefty coursework/dissertations and exams at end of year, weighted toward final year) or a modular degree in which they choose a spread of modules that delivers a mix of exams and more frequent, less heavily weighted essays across the term.

Yes. Dd is at Oxford and has had two essays one week, one the next all through, with a ten book reading list common for an essay. Essay marks don’t count towards her degree.

Yes, that’s exactly what dd wants to avoid - weeks and months on one longer essay. She might well do tons of research and end up with 20,000 words, and then spend weeks agonising over what to cut. She thinks she’s better off with a weekly essay, and likes to be fast paced so that would also work.

DD sounds similar to your DD @UniTendril in that frequent fast paced deadlines suit her better than extended coursework. She read Biology at Oxford (took A Level in Eng Lit.) and was required to tackle a lengthy reading list and write an essay for a weekly tutorial (in addition to lectures, lab work and reports). Skills and knowledge are therefore acquired at pace over three/four years and then demonstrated at the end in final exams. Group work isn’t a thing but that’s not to say Oxford students do not learn to collaborate because all the ones I know are collaborating furiously in their extra curricular interests; putting on plays, concerts and competing in team sports.

The bad news for your DD is that there aren’t many universities that retain the regular unassessed essays with end of year exams approach. It’s mostly Oxbridge and UCL. There might be others but I don’t know of them. The good news for your DD is that the more common modular method typically permits a considerable amount of choice. All courses that I know of include a dissertation component which will require her to expand her ideas and show her research skills in an extended piece. But more often she’ll be able to choose from a range of modules with varied assessment styles. Many of these will require two essays per term, and deadlines will often be staggered so she’ll likely be able to find a path through the degree, at least in most terms, that suits her study style.
just to add — she should absolutely avoid group work. I’ve taught several modules (devised by colleagues, not me) that have included a group component and every single time it has been an absolute joke. This type of project, at least in the humanities, always seems to penalise strong students and over-reward weaker or lazier ones. She can do extra curricular stuff to learn and demonstrate collaboration skills.

I graduated from Durham with a BA in English Literature about two years ago (so was a student there from 2020 - 2023) and the English Literature course there would be a really good fit for her.

The assessment breakdown is such:
Year 1 - assessed 100% by end of year exams.

Year 2 - the two compulsory modules (Shakespeare + Literary Theory) are assessed 100% and 80% by end of year exams respectively. The majority of optional modules (including Victorian Literature + Literature of the Modern Period + Renaissance Literature, which will appeal to your daughter if she likes Classics) are assessed 100% by end of year exam.

Year 3 - it's compulsory to do a 12,000 word dissertation and four other modules. Of those four other modules, a maximum of three can be lecture modules (assessed 100% by end of year exams). The remaining one has to be a seminar module, which is assessed across two 3,000 word essays.

The exams take the format of 24 hour online open-book exams in which you write 3 essays of between 1,000 and 1,500 words (exact word count varies from year to year and module to module). I really liked this because (factoring in sleeping) it gives you 4-5 hours per essay; enough to get stuck into your arguments but not so long you can read + edit endlessly.

For each exam module, there's the opportunity to write a formative essay a term to get feedback from lecturers. Anecdotally, my friends and I found that if you wanted more feedback, lecturers were also very receptive to reading + marking practice essays you might have done in your spare time.

The reason it can be difficult to find out how the course is assessed is it can vary a lot within one degree programme depending on the module combinations you take. But to find out how individual modules are assessed,you might want to try searching for each university's module handbook - this is the link to the Durham one: https://apps.dur.ac.uk/faculty.handbook/2024/UG/department/English%20Studies. They're designed to help current students choose which modules they'd like to study, but they're also a good way for prospective students to get a flavour of the course. Where they're not available online, if you email the Head of Department at the university you're interested in, they're normally more than happy to send it across.

@ClimbingtheLadder2024 Just wanted to pass on DD’s thanks for that post, she found it super helpful.