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Reply 1
Original post by arielynjoan
Hi, I would like to study French and medicine at uni. Obviously I would spend 6 years studying medicine but where would french come into play? I'm slightly confused about dual courses and how they work.


I don't think with medicine you can do dual course.
It's demanding enough.

Usually, you apply for a dual course like Economics with Maths, etc

I've never seen Medicine with French.
Original post by SGHD26716
I don't think with medicine you can do dual course.
It's demanding enough.

Usually, you apply for a dual course like Economics with Maths, etc

I've never seen Medicine with French.


Oh okay, would you recommend doing a post graduate later on then? I'm just really keen to be fluent in French as I love languages.
Medicine does not have options to take other courses with it. You could study a language through part time or evening classes, which may be offered by the university itself (for example, both Cambridge and Southampton have facilities for students to learn languages in evening classes for reduced prices).

Medicine isn't offered as a joint honours degree because MBBS (and equivalent titles e.g. BMBS) are not honours degrees in themselves. It's possible although highly unlikely you could intercalate in some aspect of French Studies or similar but typically intercalated years are spent in medically relevant areas (which can include medical humanities, but this isn't just "language learning because I like French").
Reply 4
Original post by arielynjoan
Hi, I would like to study French and medicine at uni. Obviously I would spend 6 years studying medicine but where would french come into play? I'm slightly confused about dual courses and how they work.


I'm not sure if that's even possible, I haven't seen a dual course with Medicine.
Original post by arielynjoan
Hi, I would like to study French and medicine at uni. Obviously I would spend 6 years studying medicine but where would french come into play? I'm slightly confused about dual courses and how they work.


What A-levels are you doing? You cannot study medicine and French together at all, in any way. If you can't decide between then you're really not that interested in either and you don't understand what they're about. Medicine is hard and tiring enough without studying something completely unrelated (which is why you can't study them together).
Reply 6
Original post by arielynjoan
Oh okay, would you recommend doing a post graduate later on then? I'm just really keen to be fluent in French as I love languages.


No. If you do medicine you'll be too busy preparing for exams.

If you really want to learn French, do it in your holidays by doing some sort of online course. No need to be £9250 a year.
Original post by artful_lounger
Medicine does not have options to take other courses with it. You could study a language through part time or evening classes, which may be offered by the university itself (for example, both Cambridge and Southampton have facilities for students to learn languages in evening classes for reduced prices).

Medicine isn't offered as a joint honours degree because MBBS (and equivalent titles e.g. BMBS) are not honours degrees in themselves. It's possible although highly unlikely you could intercalate in some aspect of French Studies or similar but typically intercalated years are spent in medically relevant areas (which can include medical humanities, but this isn't just "language learning because I like French":wink:.


Hi, I'm in year 11 so still slightly confused about the application process but when you attend the evening classes do you obtain any sort of qualification at the end of it?
Original post by Glassapple
What A-levels are you doing? You cannot study medicine and French together at all, in any way. If you can't decide between then you're really not that interested in either and you don't understand what they're about. Medicine is hard and tiring enough without studying something completely unrelated (which is why you can't study them together).
]

I will be taking Chemistry, Biology, French and English Language; I understand that medicine is tough (parents are doctors) however, I also love languages.
Original post by arielynjoan
]

I will be taking Chemistry, Biology, French and English Language; I understand that medicine is tough (parents are doctors) however, I also love languages.


I doubt your parents are doctors; why couldn't you just ask this question to them? They'll have been to medical school and would have told you that you can't study anything else with it.

You'll have enough to do by going to uni, revising, writing essays, doing projects and doing clinical placements at hospitals; you won't have the time or energy to do evening classes in something. It would be a complete waste of time, you could better spend that time making sure you don't fail medicine.
Original post by arielynjoan
Hi, I would like to study French and medicine at uni. Obviously I would spend 6 years studying medicine but where would french come into play? I'm slightly confused about dual courses and how they work.


My friend was struggling between dentistry and Chinese but realised that she only wanted to be a dentist because her mum wanted her to be one, now she's doing Chinese at a top uni.
Original post by arielynjoan
Hi, I would like to study French and medicine at uni. Obviously I would spend 6 years studying medicine but where would french come into play? I'm slightly confused about dual courses and how they work.


This is might be of interest:

https://www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/medicine/study/undergraduate/manchester/europe/

There are also courses you can do in medical French as a medical student or junior doctor (though you'd probably have to self-fund these).

You should bear in mind though that if you're doing medicine, even on a special course like the Manchester European Studies MB ChB, you're still a medic first and foremost and you'd be learning the language in a different way to students who are doing a BA in French. If you want to be immersed in French culture, history and literature, a languages degree would be something to think about. I think you would need to consider whether you're more interested in learning languages or medicine - but as other users have pointed out, you can always learn French in your spare time or as a hobby.
Original post by Glassapple
I doubt your parents are doctors; why couldn't you just ask this question to them? They'll have been to medical school and would have told you that you can't study anything else with it.

You'll have enough to do by going to uni, revising, writing essays, doing projects and doing clinical placements at hospitals; you won't have the time or energy to do evening classes in something. It would be a complete waste of time, you could better spend that time making sure you don't fail medicine.


Shockingly, it turns out that it's perfectly possible to have interests outside of medicine and to still pass the degree.

Why is having a hobby a complete waste of time? :confused:
Original post by Democracy
Shockingly, it turns out that it's perfectly possible to have interests outside of medicine and to still pass the degree.

Why is having a hobby a complete waste of time? :confused:


There's a difference between having a hobby and studying something you don't need to, wasting time. I really doubt the OP will want to pay for evening classes then have to stick to them when at university when they've got everything else going on.

I don't think it's a realistic aim to go to a fixed time evening class X amount of times a week to fit it around medicine and your life. Studying French home would be the better option, the OP may not even be able to attend some of the evening classes due to them potentially clashing with medicine commitments, which would be a waste of money and they'd get behind.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by arielynjoan
Hi, I'm in year 11 so still slightly confused about the application process but when you attend the evening classes do you obtain any sort of qualification at the end of it?


No, there is usually no qualification. You could of course take GCSE or A-level exams in those subjects, or certain language certification tests to confirm you have language ability to a given level in the target language - I can't really see this being a worthwhile use of time unless you intend to work e.g. as a translator (and only a translator; not "I'm a medic but also I can speak French to the 3 French tourists a year that come into my hospital's A&E).
(edited 6 years ago)
There will not be any dual honours degrees between medicine and French. You clearly don't need to pursue a degree in languages just to learn a foreign language, though.

Most universities will provide cheap/subsidised language courses that are available to students - Oxford (for example) charges students £38/term for weekly classes (2 hours each). They will be available at all stages from beginner to fluent. There's no reason why you shouldn't register for these, which are either in the day or in the evenings. Some medical schools will let you do this in lieu of a Special Study Module. You could then spend your elective in a French-speaking country (Canada, French Guyana, West Africa, etc) if you were keen.

Universities are pretty solid places for learning anything you want - there will be a French Society, possibly undergraduates studying language degrees, and French newspapers/books in the library.
Original post by artful_lounger
I can't really see this being a worthwhile use of time unless you intend to work e.g. as a translator (and only a translator; not "I'm a medic but also I can speak French to the 3 French tourists a year that come into my hospital's A&E).


This is a very cynical view of knowledge. There are lots of social and cognitive advantages to being bilingual and there doesn't have to be a defined "purpose" for everything you learn at university. Medical school is great but lots of doctors emerge disappointingly 1-dimensional in an intellectual sense.

DOI: Studied evening classes in philosophy, history, journalism, German, Spanish, Modern Greek, British Sign Language, as well as completing a full law degree (LLB) while at medical school...
Original post by MonteCristo
This is a very cynical view of knowledge. There are lots of social and cognitive advantages to being bilingual and there doesn't have to be a defined "purpose" for everything you learn at university. Medical school is great but lots of doctors emerge disappointingly 1-dimensional in an intellectual sense.

DOI: Studied evening classes in philosophy, history, journalism, German, Spanish, Modern Greek, British Sign Language, as well as completing a full law degree (LLB) while at medical school...


I'm not sure if you're deliberately taking my comment out of context or you actually failed to comprehend the basic meaning of the passage.

Learn languages, do whatever you want - but paying extortionate sums of money to take some test to demonstrate you have a specific level of language for no reason is not worth while unless you intend to make a career as a translator where you need to demonstrate unequivocally what language level you are at.

Thus the actual point that I made is that learning a language through evening classes is fine and dandy if you want to but OP isn't going to get a qualification from it nor do they need one.

Might I suggest an evening course in Key Stage 2 Reading Comprehension? It seems to be a crown jewel missing from your apocryphal claims. I've bolded the relevant section to help direct your attention.
Original post by arielynjoan
Hi, I would like to study French and medicine at uni. Obviously I would spend 6 years studying medicine but where would french come into play? I'm slightly confused about dual courses and how they work.


I don't think it's possible to do a dual degree in Medicine and French, but you could learn French on the side in some sort of language school which are sometimes connected to the university. Ignore the people who are saying that you won't have time to learn a language on the side - you don't, and shouldn't, spend all of your university time studying for Medicine. You will have time to pick up hobbies and live a life outside of your studies :smile:
Original post by artful_lounger
I'm not sure if you're deliberately taking my comment out of context or you actually failed to comprehend the basic meaning of the passage.


Not deliberate - I read your post in isolation from earlier comments in the thread. In that case, I agree with you.