Burmese - Work load

I'm in kind of a similar position. I'm doing single honours Chinese and I'm thinking about doing some optional modules in Thai, which sounds very interesting. I don't know enough about Burmese to say much about it, other than that it looks quite different to Japanese, which might be a problem (compared to say, Korean, which looks a lot closer). In terms of it impacting on your Japanese language, does the course at SOAS actually have optional modules that focus on improving your Japanese? I looked into the course I'm (potentially) doing at Leeds and all the language modules (bar Classical Chinese) are core modules. If all the Japanese language modules are core modules on your course, then you wouldn't be losing out much I don't imagine if if you picked up some Burmese.

Still, if you study another language on the side, it will definitely open up some more doors for you after you graduate. My best advice would be to talk to some of the staff when you get there and get some opinions. Also try and look into the language beforehand, maybe some books or some CD's, to give yourself a little introduction and see if it's something that you'd enjoying speaking and listening to.