[lofaro]

I've got conditional offers from Nottingham and Bristol to study French and German, I've visited the unis and I really liked them both but can't decide which one to go to. I know Bristol is higher in the league tables, and I preferred Bristol to the Nottingham campus on the visit days (I didn't go to Nottingham city), but I think maybe I prefer the course at Nottingham. They explained it much better than the Bristol lecturers, and they seem to offer more linguistics modules, whereas I read somewhere that Bristol's course is more literature based. I'd love to talk to a past/present Bristol or Notts student, but it would be helpful to hear the opinions of anybody else who knows anything about either uni really.

Thanks in advance

[Stressworthy]

Surely whether or not it's more linguistic modules or literature-based depends on your own choices? I'd assume there's freedom within the course to take a particular route and make certain choices... perhaps just look at the programme outlines and modules offered for each university by going to their websites? Or if you can't find them, you can always email and ask. But, from what you've said, it sounds like you prefer Bristol in terms of where you're going to live, and that's a huge factor given that you're going to spend several years of your life there and you need to make sure you'll be happy.

[thesilvermagnolia]

I think you'll find that you can sculpt the course to suit you by which modules you choose. Obviously, some are compulsory, but others are optional. I have just chosen my second year modules, and I have chosen a more literature-based selection of modules, whereas first year was history and politics orientated. I think that it is a big benefit to have a campus university; everything is central, and easier to get around. If you prefer the course at Nottingham, then it seems to me like that is the best place to go, but its down to you. I looked around both when applying for languages, and personally, I preferred Nottingham. It seemed like the department was more organised, the lecturers and mentors were more approachable, and the fact that it is a campus university was also great.

[Purple Giraffe]

I'm so glad you made this thread! I also have offers from both Bristol and Nottingham to study languages (Spanish and German) and I have NO idea where to go I started a thread too but didn't get loads of replies.

What thesilvermagnolia has said about the campus and the course is so true, I also found the course at Bristol a little hazy and not very well explained, and I adore the campus at Notts. But of course Bristol is higher on the league tables and has an amazing city. I also, like you, prefer linguistic modules to literature, and I've heard the Bristol course is pretty heavy on literature.

I've been chatting with someone who is in her fourth year at Nottingham studying Spanish, German and French, and (you don't have to read all this but it might help a little) she said this:

"Basically, at Notts, you do 120 credits of modules per year and for every language that you study, you do twenty credits of core language modules.That means the amount of non-language modules you take depends on how many languages you're studying. So, if you were going to take German an Spanish you would do 20 credits of German language, 20 credits of Spanish and the rest would be other modules....semester long non-language modules carry 10 credits each, so you' do two per semester for german and two for spanish (some modules last all year but they carry 20 credits, so it all woks out the same). Hope that makes so vague sense!! To give you an idea of what that means classes-wise, you would about 3 hours a week of language stuff for each language - German splits it one hour of oral, one hour of translation and one hour of grammar, and spanish splits its similarly I think.

A ten credit non-language module usually equates to about 2 hours teaching a week, and it's usually in 2 hour blocks. In Spanish these are usually big lectures because the department is huge(but really good!!), but the german classes tend to be smaller and more like tutorials. I can't say that there is a massive choice of modules in your first year but that's pretty similar at all unis, you get more module choice as you go on, the classes get smaller and generally, the subjects are more interesting" - I hope she doesn't mind me posting this!

Unfortunately I don't know anyone who's studying at Bristol so it's difficult to compare, and I don't find their website particularly helpful. Hope you get some other replies so I can scrounge off you

[bizzybee247]

Hi, I'm a current French and German student at Notts- the course doesn't give you a lot of choices in the first year, particularly in French, but you do get a lot more to choose from as you go through second and fourth year (and it does get more interesting). The German course has quite a wide variety of options so if you're not too keen on the literature modules you can always take a linguistics one or something, but the French course, while it does offer some modules in linguistics, film etc is quite literature heavy- most people I know have been given at least one literature module- and the non-literature ones are rather over-subscribed for this reason. Notts city does have a bad reputation for crime but I think that's really over-exaggerated to be honest- I've always felt safe in town and in the main student areas (Lenton/Dunkirk). Hope this helps, feel free to ask anything else if you want more specific information