Spanish...... where to go?

Do you mean at degree level? Leicester University do Spanish with one other language as a joint degree and I know someone who did Italian and Spanish there and they really enjoyed it. You only need one of those languages at A level.

yeah it is at degree level Italian was also something that i was keen to learn so that's good I havent got any Italian experience at all though, would this make a difference? any ideas what it's like as a city......nightlife/shopping etc? i know that this shouldnt matter but who am i kidding, i need a little va va voom wherever i end up . trees and fields are a definite no no

Shopping isn't bad...just google Highcross shopping centre and u can see what there is also theres plenty of side streets where there are good shops. Plenty of night clubs about lol and if you want scenery you get that too just out of Leicester :P Also, Leicester is not too far from Birmingham and Nottingham. You don't need Italian experience Spanish is enough because during the degree they cover the language you dont know with you to make you fairly competent in it. I think you should go for it! Apart from Italian I think you can do Spanish with German or French also...you can look it up on the uni website.

well thank you, much appreciated if there's anything i can ever help you with then PM

arghghhh where to go?! i want to study Spanish next year and so far only have Cardiff as an option. where would you guys reccommend? i've been told to look at the ERASMUS links that each university has to help me to choose. Any thoughts?

1. Look at the course content. A lot of the time, you can find something offered in one Uni that isn't offered in another. Swansea, for example, teach business Spanish and History of Spanish Language in the 4th year...Cardiff doesn't.

2. Look at the Erasmus links. I didn't, but thankfully Cardiff has quite a wide range of links. Each Uni has their own specific partners. You might find that while one Uni offers you Madrid, another one may avoid it totally and offer Salamanca.

3. Look into what the city is like. You're going to be living there for three of the four years of your course. If you don't get on with the city, then it's not exactly going to be the best experience possible. Also look into the Uni - is it a campus uni (how I hate them!), a city-based Uni, or a city-campus (Cardiff is a prime example of a city-campus)

To give you an idea, I applied to: Cardiff, Bristol, Edinburgh, Swansea and LSE (though LSE was for Politics and history, and I later withdrew my application) - each had its plus points and its letdowns. You just need to know what you want out of the four years.



As for your other question on picking up a language (like Italian) -- if the Uni offers a language ab initio, you should be able to pick it up in your first year, in order to make the full number of credits needed to progress to 2nd year. Most Unis seem to offer an Advanced course for those with an A-level in the language, and an Ab Initio course for those who are of GCSE standard or have no prior experience with the language. You can go from "Erm, I don't know any Italian" to reciting Dante in four years - "Nel mezzo del cammin della nostra vita mi ritrovai in una selva oscura..." - if you put in the work.

Gracias from reading your post i think that we are on exactly the same page (i also hate the thought of a campus uni!) Cardiff is my number 1 option atm. just out of interest, when you first applied for the course did u apply for just Spanish and then change once at university or did u just apply for Spanish and Italian from the beginning?

I started out as Spanish & Politics, but for personal reasons (I loathed A-level Gov&Pol, loved AS...shame I didn't know that when I applied) I dropped Politics. In Cardiff, you have to take 3 subjects in the first year, so I took up Italian and Ancient History. At the end of first year, I chose to carry on with Italian, and that's that. It was definitely worth the change