Question for English students at Edinburgh...

Hello!
I couldn't make it up to Edinburgh for the post offer day, but have seen the city before and love it. I have an offer for English Lang & Lit and was wondering if you could give me any information on the course as there is nothing on the uni site?
What kind of books do you study? If you're an Eng Lang & Lit student, which gets more weight or is it equally focused?
And would it be at all possible to change to Eng Lit if it turns out that the focus is a little too lang-heavy for my liking?

Any information on the course would be appreciated.
Many thanks!
xxx

Reply 1

artorscience?

I'm not an English Lit/Lang student but I can answer some of your questions.

In first and second year you are required to take 3 subjects, each of these is given the same weighting and importance as the others. In your case both Lit, Lang and your outside course are of equal consequence. Following that, if going into third year you sign up for a joint honours course, both Lit and Lang will be equally weighted, you will pick the same number of modules from each course.

If you come to Edinburgh, as it is a Scottish university, running a Scottish degree course you have plenty of opportunities to change course if you desire. Firstly, if during the first few weeks of your first year you decide that a course is not right for you, changing should not be hard. You are expected to drop a course at the end of the first year and take a new first year leveled course. If you decide at this point you don't want to carry on with one of your courses you should easily be able to get rid of it. Your second year courses should consist of 2 second level courses and one first level one. To take a course to honours (third year and beyond) you have to have achieved 50% or higher in your second year level course. At this point you can pick to take a single or joint honours course made up of your remaining courses dependent on what you prefer.

As for your comments about the website, I find that it has a lot of information as to English Literature 1 listing a suggested selection of books to read before arriving (Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Henry James, The Turn of the Screw, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, and James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner) in it's section on reading in advance and a full reading list for this year's course (07/08). There was also this year's course handbook for English Language 1 here.

Having followed one of my flatmates (who does take Literature, both English and Scottish) around Blackwells, you have a lot of books to get and read, heavy work, but she loves it.

If you want to find out more, I suggest you use google rather than the search engine on the university's website. Google is cool. Uni website is uncool.

P.S. looking at your sig, you look like you're not really sure what you want to study - if that's the case, remember Scotland's the best place to come because of all the extra choice doing outside courses gives you!

University of Edinburgh

Reply 2

alwayswhereineedtobe

Could I just ask also, whether there are any modules in film on the English Literature course because I find the website to have limited information! thanks

Reply 3

artorscience?

alwayswhereineedtobe

Could I just ask also, whether there are any modules in film on the English Literature course

I can't find any mention of, there aren't in first and second year I can pretty definitely say within the English Literature department. There is a department of film studies which is a part of the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures which may mean there's a module to be had somewhere.
Can I ask what website you've been looking at when you're finding no information at all as the English Literature site is one of the more informative ones... :smile:

Reply 4

alwayswhereineedtobe

I think the Eng Lit one. Maybe I subconsciously believed there was nothing on it as I was hoping to find something about film modules! oh well :frown:

do you know if I could do something with the department of film studies in terms of the 2 extra subjects?

Reply 5

miranti

artorscience? you know too much for not English Lit/Lang student :smile:

Reply 6

artorscience?

I gave you the link to their site. They are a postgraduate centre of study so you won't be able to do a course with them until you graduate with your first degree. Have you got a contact email for someone in the English Literature Department to email with queries? If not steal one off the website, someone in the department should be able to answer any questions you have.

miranti

artorscience? you know too much for not English Lit/Lang student

I keep my eyes open and have developed a skill in using google...

Reply 7

juls

is here anyone studying french and english lit? i just would like to hear some opinions about the level of studies/teaching and whether the programme is interesting? + i could not find a more detailed programme of the studies than in the prospectus - which is really general - anyone know is?

thanks for all help
byebye

Reply 8

artorscience?

My flatmate's doing English Lit and French, but she's not around to pester.

For French, I assume you're already studying it so you'd be doing French 1B - is this what you've seen already?

And for English lit you want this (which I've already given before.)

I'm not sure what you mean in terms of "studies/teaching", if you explain your question I might be able to help. Everything is interesting to someone, if you're interested in English Literature and French Culture, they could be the courses for you, but as you appeared to have applied everywhere for them, it's possibly a little late to be questioning whether they are what you are interested in.

Reply 9

juls

of course i'm interested in it! :smile:

thank you very much for the links!

what i was also asking about was whether languages are really good at edinburgh and whether this dep is well-organised? :smile:

Reply 10

nearlyheadlessian

Languages are quite good at Edinburgh. I think most people doing them love it. You do have to have a pretty big interest in literature to get by. If you're starting ab initio you'll have a lot of work to do. The smaller languages e.g. Swedish are better organised simply because there are fewer people. If you were choosing a language as an outside, you could do worse than choosing a language. There are probably a few courses which are better, but languages are good.

Reply 11

urgh

artorscience?

As for your comments about the website, I find that it has a lot of information as to English Literature 1 listing a suggested selection of books to read before arriving (Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Henry James, The Turn of the Screw, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, and James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner) in it's section on reading in advance and a full reading list for this year's course (07/08). There was also this year's course handbook for English Language 1 here.

Many thanks, this was incredibly helpful. I don't know why I couldn't find that page before!
Beckie
x
Re: Your PS about my sig: I know I want to do English and I know I love Spanish... the only one I threw in for ridiculous reasons was the drama/english joint at bristol! Hahaha... who knows why...?