I am a current English Literature student at the University of Sussex. AMA!

Ask me anything about my course, the uni, accommodation, student life, nightlife in Brighton, anything you can think of!

I got accepted for English at Sussex today! Any advice on how to prepare for the course?

yeah are there any books etc you need to buy so how can we find out? how are the examinations like?

Hello!

I am aiming to join Sussex to study English lit. I have just finished AS and come out with a C in English when I was predicted and working at an A. This is being sorted, but what I would like to know is what Sussex look for if a prospective student doesn't get an A at A-Level? What happens then?

Hopefully this is relevant to the thread. If anything, how did your approach to applying to uni get you to Sussex?

Ask me anything about my course, the uni, accommodation, student life, nightlife in Brighton, anything you can think of!

Hi! What's the timetable generally like? How are the hours spread out and how many hours do you have to be actually at uni per week?

Hello,
I have recently been offered a place for English through Clearing and I was just wondering what the accommodation/ night life/ course/ societies are like? Are you enjoying your time at Sussex and was it difficult making friends ect..
I have never been to Sussex although I have been to Brighton and really liked it.
Thanks
Gemma

Why are English students so hot?

Have you found the contact hours/time in lectures to be a fair amount? And do you feel like you get enough support from your tutors?

i just got Brighthelm as my accommodation, is it good in terms of sociability? Thanks

You get 11 contact hours a week in first year: three two-hour seminars, three one-hour lectures, and a two-hour workshop. They do tend to spread them out so you're in class at least once a day, every day. They expect 100% attendance as you can expect, but I think dropping below 80% is when they actually start to call you out on it, and below 50% when they really chase you down. To be honest, it's your degree so if you need to miss the odd lecture or seminar (lecture attendance isn't recorded) they won't mind, but you won't want to miss too much or you'll lag behind surprisingly fast.



The accommodation varies a LOT, from the ridiculously nice to (if I'm being honest, here) the surprisingly subpar. It depends entirely on what you get: Northfield, Lewes Court and Stanmer Court are all quite nice, whereas Park Village (where I was) and East Slope are very small and minimal.

The course is fantastic. You don't get any choice in first year as to what you study, but after that there are loads of modules to choose from, and so many non-English elective modules to study instead if you don't fancy any of them. It's almost entirely coursework based, apart from two pretty gnarly three-hour exams per year, so you've got more control over your assessments. Word of warning though, the Critical Approaches module in first year is absolutely amazing and incredibly interesting, but very hard at times, so if you come to Sussex get a headstart on your theorists/philosophers ASAP!

The nightlife is very good in Brighton as well, because while it doesn't have as many huge tacky clubs as places like Birmingham, there is *so much* in town for all interests and types, I'm still finding new stuff and I've been here bloody ages. Standard modern clubs, retro places, Hawaiian styled places, more pubs and bars than you can count, loads of LGBTQ places (probably the most you'll find in one place anywhere in the UK), seafront places, indie places, live music places, literally everything. And if you don't fancy the bus ride into town, East Slope and Falmer Bar on campus are definitely worth spending a chill evening at. Plus, there's a student night pretty much every night somewhere in town. The night life will definitely not disappoint.

There are a lot of societies, although I personally never really got involved in anything much outside of Live Music. They're super friendly and enthusiastic to get Freshers on board though, and the Freshers Fair at the beginning of the year (a fair where all the societies come out and make themselves known, basically) is always extremely popular.

Making friends depends entirely on your own circumstances. I was extremely anti-social when I first came to uni, but because I ended up in a sociable house, I changed my ways and ended up going out two-three times a week (English is relatively lightweight as far as workloads go). I can't really comment on how easy it is to make friends because everyone's experience is different, but I will say that there is a million ways to make friends at uni, so don't worry about it! I love it at Sussex, especially because it made me a million times more sociable.

Thanks for such a detailed and informing reply! Is it an expensive place to live after first year? At the moment I think I am probably going there it does sound like a great place to be

Expensive? Yeah, it can be very expensive, got gonna lie. If you're smart and you're willing to let living conditions slip a little bit to save money, it can get much cheaper (I paid £86 a week in second year for my house, which is cheaper than the typical £100 for a decent room in Brighton), but as far as I know it's the second most expensive place to live besides London.

But again, there is a lot of work for students in Brighton, and if you come under the university's First Generation Scholar program (household income of under ~£42k a year), you get a LOT of free money from the university on top of your normal loans and grants, very low accommodation costs on campus in first year, plus a tuition fee cut of £1000 after first year, PLUS a £400 grant for travel costs. So yeah, it's expensive, but if you're not getting a lot of money from home like a lot of uni students do, there is plenty of help and work available, so it's not as big of an issue as you would expect.

Thanks again this is my final question I promise Just wondering what job prospects look like for students (from your experience) not necessarily after graduation more part time jobs ect.. during Uni? Cheers

I have no idea, does seem to be a trend though.



Aahhh... that's an awkward question. In first year? Yeah, eleven hours is all you'll want with everything else you'll be thinking about at university. But after that it goes down to seven, which to be entirely honest, is not enough. You only get one lecture a week in second and third year, and they drop workshops entirely, which gets a bit annoying when you consider that other courses get up to 20 hours a week in later years. Tutors are always there to help, and are usually super enthusiastic to help with an essay or just talk about the course (being an English tutor must get boring with all that bloody reading to do) so that's all good, but yeah contact hours are a big problem that's being protested about at the moment.



It depends on who your housemates are. If you end up with four other people you get on with, then yeah it's very "homely" (it's more of a small house than a flat), and a popular choice to have people round. But if you don't really talk to your flatmates there, then it seriously lacks the community and connections that places like East Slope and Park Village (which hold MUCH more people to a flat) have, and you will want to make friends with coursemates or through societies. Brighthelm is easily the nicest accommodation to live in (literally EVERYONE who applies to Sussex asks for it, and doesn't get it haha) so congrats, but sociability might be hit-and-miss.

thanks so much for the advice! I'm a bit worried now about the contact hours in the second and third years... But i guess nothing can be done now haha!

Hello!

I am aiming to join Sussex to study English lit. I have just finished AS and come out with a C in English when I was predicted and working at an A. This is being sorted, but what I would like to know is what Sussex look for if a prospective student doesn't get an A at A-Level? What happens then?

Hopefully this is relevant to the thread. If anything, how did your approach to applying to uni get you to Sussex?