hey, im gonna be doing English Lit and Publishing as a joint honors this year. I'm not studying English Literature now though, do you think this will hinder me when the year starts?

Also, to 'the empire odyssey' what are the modules you took and which were your favorite? What are the teachers like, what would you be you advice to anyone staring in September?

I know that's a lot of questions but i would really appreciate it.

Reply 7

The Empire Odyssey

Original post by ElizaCupcake

Oh, are you saying you're not studying English Literature at A-level?

Erm, I think you will be slightly at a disadvantage to remember, 1st year all about getting everyone to the same level, because of people like you who haven't studied it. But what's exciting for you is that you get to experience it at uni, which is quite a brave move without an A-level. Some people find 1st year easier than others, it just depends on the individual. So don't ponder on this too much.

Well, I'm Joint honours so you have to do Criticism, Culture and Literature 1 & 2. I preferred CC1 to 2, 2 is so crap. It's all about realism and different narrative structures in 20th century writing. I couldn't stand it. Everybody hated this module. But remember, not every module you'll like.

I did those 2 and then Shakespeare. The rest of my modules doesn't apply since they were from other degree programmes.
The Shakespeare one was really good, I enjoyed that and you definitely feel more confident with Shakespeare and 17th century drama.

The other module I did was Critical Theory in Action (again like Shakespeare, I opted for these - these modules are not compulsory for joint honours). This is all about literary theory and applying it to texts. So Marxism and Feminism in Jane Eyre, Queer Theory in Brokeback Mountain, Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction Theory in Dracula, and so forth. Was the hardest Lit module for me, cause the theories are new to me. But had sooo much fun studying Dracula cause it's one of ma fav novels. I focused on Psychoanalysis and Post-colonialism for Dracula for my exam. It's great cause you can choose about 5 theories to revise and apply it to a text of your choice from the module.

All the lecturers I had were awesome! Shout out to Dr Niall Munro - he's so cute and adorable. And then there's Dr Antonia Mackay who is a Boss! She knows her stuff and she just made me realise why I love Literature. There's so really dedicated staff here. Most of them have studied and lectured at red brick universities so we're in good hands!

I say, don't buy all your books brand new, find buy all the editions they say. Like, I bought King Richard II for the Shakespeare module brand new and the Arden Edition. Never even used it once or read it. For example, To the Lighthouse, you don't need penguin's edition. Like, just be weary because it will cost you A LOT! Another example, the Poetry Anthology that you will use for the first year, is like £40-60! Just buy it preowned, you'll never use it again because the 2nd and 3rd year modules are heavily prose modules. There's not a lot of poetry modules and if there's poetry, it will be from a certain anthology anyway.

Also, try and read at least half of your semester 1 texts. I would suggest reading a few just to give you a heads up. It makes life so much easier!

Feel free to ask about anything else or if you need clarification, please do not hesitate to message me.