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Oxbridge Linguists

I love Oxford and London. My definite number one choice as far as cities count is Oxford. (But I cheat, I'm from the Netherlands and we happen to have friends living near Oxford so I am familiar with the area and the city, and having stayed there a few days in a hostel on a students trip I totally fell in love with the place, whereas we only spent a day in Cambridge, so i din't see any of the nightlife or shopping etc. I think Cambridge would be too small for my taste.)

Reply 21

Catrionanism

Oh, now that you're at Cambridge, what do you think of it? How are you finding the workload? Is it really snobby or not too bad?
I'm currently in Cambridge doing Spanish Ab Initio. I'm an excellent academic, a born linguist with real interest and enthusiasm for language learning, and I've never been afraid of hard work, but I find the workload here unmanageable and the expectations ridiculous. To give one example (and there are many): as our starter book in Spanish we were given a novel so confusing that my native Spanish-speaking teacher had to read each chapter several times to understand it. How is that useful as a starter book? What purpose does it serve except to frustrate and discourage? But I was still rebuked if I only managed to get through a chapter or two a week (which took me hours because I didn't. speak. Spanish and had to look up almost all the words).

Many things here are like that -- you accept them because you're at Cambridge and it's meant to be hard, but when you sit back and look at it for a minute you think: "Hang on, that's not just 'high expectations'. That's impossible and unreasonable and creates massive unnecessary stress." But the expectation is that you'll just work and work and do whatever it takes, no matter how absurd, because it's Cambridge and you're so lucky to be here.

German History and Thought, in case anyone is thinking of taking it, is the bane of my existence. It's an interesting paper, but so badly organised. The lectures began with pre-WWI history, but my supervisions began with the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Naturally. Because when you've never studied philosophy before, it's not at all ridiculous to expect you to sit down in front of a) a text you've never heard of by b) a man you've never heard of from c) a period you know nothing about without d) even the benefit of a background lecture and e) in the space of two weeks, learn enough, entirely by yourself and with your stress levels through the roof, to be able to answer a difficult essay question on it.

No wait. It is ridiculous.

And when the philosophy lectures finally came, they were in the form of basic background knowledge which would have been incredibly useful when I was writing the essays, but was a waste of time once I'd spent all that time reading up on it myself.

Not all supervision/essay interlinks are as badly organised as mine, but really, I had so much more stress than I needed last term and this term doesn't look much better.

Also, you'll only get one hour of speaking each language per week through the department. That's not enough; my spoken language has deteriorated since I've been here. They'll suggest you join the German/Spanish societies to increase your language exposure, but I often can't make the nights they're on, and even when I can it's only an extra hour per week. It's still not good enough. I have friends doing languages in universities which are theoretically not as good as this one, and they get five hours a week speaking in each language through their dept. I'm not pleased.

So yes. To counterbalance all the positive stuff you'll hear about Cambridge, there's the view of someone who came here hoping for the best and found that it really wasn't right for her at all. I want to learn; I love to learn. But there's no time for really learning things and exploring them and taking them in as I love to do when all your time's spent scrambling to produce material for marking -- translations, exercises, essays, day after day. MML is easily the worst of the Arts subjects when it comes to that. I learned very little last term because I was just constantly on a treadmill looking to the next deadline. And the amount of work I got to do over Christmas -- don't even get me started on that. Suffice to say, if I'd taken the time to do it all properly, I wouldn't have had a holiday.

Have a real think before you come here. There are many people who absolutely love it, but there are also some for whom it just isn't right at all. Accepting an offer from Cambridge is the obvious choice, but it may not be the right one.

Reply 22

Richy Rich$$

2

are u sure ure's isnt just an isolated case, coz they are lots of ppl on here that really like studying MML

Reply 23

Catrionanism

I believe the fact that my entire post is written in the first person conveys the idea that these opinions are my own, especially

there's the view of someone who came here hoping for the best and found that it really wasn't right for her at all

The facts regarding the course content, organisation, etc are however entirely true.

I also included the following:

To counterbalance all the positive stuff you'll hear about Cambridge

and

There are many people who absolutely love it, but there are also some for whom it just isn't right at all.

which amply acknowledge that there are lots of people whose experience of studying languages at Cambridge has been entirely positive.

There may be many people on this board who enjoy studying MML but I am not one of them, so I have posted accordingly.

Reply 24

gringalet

12

Hearing that makes me feel glad I was rejected! There definitely are hidden negatives to the whole Oxbridge thing, and I think people should be made more aware of them.

Reply 25

Catrionanism

Hee. I'm glad I could help.

And yes, once Cambridge becomes involved in your university application process, critical thinking often goes out the window. I found it very difficult to put aside the hype and prestige factor and think logically about which university would best suit *me* once Cambridge was on the horizon. It seemed like the automatic best choice. Unfortunately, the negatives don't become obvious until you're here.

Looking back, I think the Scottish system would definitely have been a better one -- the breadth and flexibility would have suited me far better than the more narrow, rigid course I have here. But hey, hindsight's always 20/20.

Reply 26

gringalet

12

I always had this romantic view of Cambridge being where I could explore my subject completely, actually learning rather than being taught to pass exams. But when I think about it properly, it must be just as much about exams at Oxbridge – I mean, they're going to want you to do extremely well in the degree, so...

I'm sorry to hear you're not enjoying youself though, Catrionanism. Pack it all in and become a shepherd in the middle of some desolate country :biggrin:

Reply 27

Poc ar buile

Catrionanism

I'm currently in Cambridge doing Spanish Ab Initio. I'm an excellent academic, a born linguist with real interest and enthusiasm for language learning

Hmmmm... You sound like you might well go to Emma.. :rolleyes:

Reply 28

Catrionanism

Hmmmm... You sound like you might well go to Emma..

Pardon?

Reply 29

Richy Rich$$

2

just thought i post here, coz this thread seems to be dying and it has useful info

Reply 30

kellywood_5

17

Richy Rich$$

just thought i post here, coz this thread seems to be dying and it has useful info

Lol way to revive a forgotten thread :smile:

Edit: I see from your sig you now have an offer from Bristol- congrats! :biggrin:

How did that happen?

Reply 31

Richy Rich$$

2

Well first they sent me a letter saying i got rejected for French and Spanish, so i thought it was over. However they then called me a couple of days ago, to say that they thought i was still a good linguistic, and they had some places left for French and German and whether i would be interested and so i said yes. Im not going to accept it, coz i wanna do French and Spanish, but i thought it cant hurt and i can now say i got all 6 offers- arent I vain and greedy, lol

Reply 32

kellywood_5

17

Richy Rich$$

Well first they sent me a letter saying i got rejected for French and Spanish, so i thought it was over. However they then called me a couple of days ago, to say that they thought i was still a good linguistic, and they had some places left for French and German and whether i would be interested and so i said yes. Im not going to accept it, coz i wanna do French and Spanish, but i thought it cant hurt and i can now say i got all 6 offers- arent I vain and greedy, lol

Lol nah, 6 offers are better than 5!

Reply 33

libra82#

Hi everyone! I've just had an offer to study Russian and French (both post A Level) at Cambridge starting this year.

I just wanted to know if other people have had a similar experience to Catrionanism. I chose the MML course cos it seems really broad, with the chance to develop your own interests and learn lots of different things, but from what Catrionanism has said it seems to be more about learning how to get high marks and pass exams. Is the teaching constantly geared towards the exams? Does anyone know which other unis are best to go to if you really want to learn about the culture and the language in depth, for its own sake? Is there no time to really reflect on what you learn at Cambridge?

Also, MML students, are you satisfied with how much you've developed your knowledge and competence of the language itself, or is this aspect neglected too much in your opinion?

Is the MML course one of the more stressful courses at Cambridge, how easy is it to manage the work and can you get help if you're finding it too much?

I'm looking forward to starting the course, but still not accepted my offer yet cos I wanted to get a picture of the "real" Cambridge first! It would really help to hear as many opinions as possible please!

BTW, are there any mature students (early 20s) doing MML at Cambridge?

Thanks!

libra82

Oxbridge Linguists

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