Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

English Lang/Literature/Creative Writing with German? :)

Just have a query about uni courses for anyone who can clear up my muddled brain!! I've just finished my AS Levels and am looking into universities, and have a big, scary list of possible ones that is a bit formidable to tackle :wink:

It's a definite about studying German, but I'm having a bit of a dilemma with whether to study it with English Lang, Literature or Creative Writing. I'm not doing Creative Writing A Level but at Surrey to do it with German it looks like I just need German, and I'm doing both Englishes at the mo. I'm pretty sure I would really enjoy this course but then there are of course other unis which offer German with English Lang or Lit!! Regarding career prospects and just generally, what did people enjoy studying more/found was more useful? Is Lang more useful than Lit or vice versa? I do want to have a good time at uni too and I did enjoy English Lang more than Lit this year. However, the German and English Lit courses look interesting for Southampton and Exeter...though again I have doubts that if I got there I wouldn't enjoy it! Plus I need to make a decision about what I'm dropping for A2, haha.
I'm doing English Lit, Lang, History and of course my faithful buddy German.

Thanks very much for anyone who can make any sense out of this post and help me out a little!! :smile:

Edit: I add if I did German with Creative Writing at Surrey, German would be my major as it is the subject I'm most interested in.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

corybantically

Creative Writing A-Level is very new, so most current undergad creative writing students don't have it (myself included.) So long as you are actively writing and can talk about it on your statement, doing english lit/lang rather than creative writing will be fine, possibly even an advantage.

Reply 2

corybantically

Personally, I'd go for Literature, but I didn't study Language... either would work, so I'd go with whatever you're happier studying, and whatever you do best in. However, taking german / an english / history would give you greater variation, which could be useful.

Reply 3

The Empire Odyssey

Well, I think first and foremost, you need to decide what you are dropping at A-level. It's safe to say you shall be keeping German. So the toss up is between the two English A-levels and History. If you were to pick German with Creative Writing, it really doesn't matter what English A-level you decide to pick up. Having said that, you now need to decide what English you like. I do know most sixth forms ask their Year 12 students to come back after study leave for their A2 transition stages. Have you done this? If not, I would suggest going onto your exam board's websites and looking at their A2 spec and see if there are any set novels you would be keen on studying. Is there anything in A2 Language you would like to study, and History... meh :P

Once you've done this, you then need to contemplate Results Day. Are you expected your predicted grades, have you come to a plan B if you don't get that and you get lower? All these things are what you should be deciding in the near future. You can apply up to 5 unis on UCAS, so if you keep both English A-levels, you have a better chance at applying for different degrees: German with CW, German and English, German and Lit, German and Lang, etc, etc. So it will become completely irrelevant. I do know some unis do not require you to have studied Language if it's going to be your minor subject and because you are already studying a Language, German it shouldn't be a problem to still apply for German and English Language, with having German, Lit and History as A-levels. On the other hand, uni admission tutors will see that if you did apply for German and Lang, and dropped Language, they would be very confused as to why you didn't drop history or Lit and kept Lang. The same would apply if it was Lit instead of Lang.

What I would do is, just perhaps look at lots of different courses of German and English (simply because unis that say German and English) normally have modules from Creative Writing, Lit, Language, Linguistics courses and sometimes possibly Media and Film modules from their degrees. I think it would open more doors is you picked German and English because if you were in your 1st year, and picked a mixture of Lit and Lang modules, decided you didn't like Lit or vice versa, you can lean towards Lang or Lit modules in your 2nd and 3rd year of uni.

Hope this helps :smile:

(edited 9 years ago)