Official Ulster University 2022 Applicant Thread

Hi , I got an offer for linguistics and I just had a couple of questions!
What type of person is language and linguistics suited for ? Do you have to be good at learning new languages or is it being good at English ?

How did you move from Linguistics to SLT ? Did you have to do two degrees? So basically start from scratch in slt?

Was it hard to switch between the two ? What sort of requirements is there? Is there a way that you can transfer if you get really good grades in 1st year ?

Sorry for all the questions!! I’m just weighing if this course is suitable and beneficial for me.

(Original post by Anonymous)
Hi , I got an offer for linguistics and I just had a couple of questions!
What type of person is language and linguistics suited for ? Do you have to be good at learning new languages or is it being good at English ?

How did you move from Linguistics to SLT ? Did you have to do two degrees? So basically start from scratch in slt?

Was it hard to switch between the two ? What sort of requirements is there? Is there a way that you can transfer if you get really good grades in 1st year ?

Sorry for all the questions!! I’m just weighing if this course is suitable and beneficial for me.
It’s not about being multilingual but it would be useful if you understood how languages can have structural differences. You learn about child language acquisition, phonetics, semantic/pragmatic sentence structure and pretty general about English language. I’d say you’d have to have a good grasp of English (as a subject) and a little of science (for phonetics).

I was going to do a SLT masters but moving away didn’t suit so I decided on doing a second Bachelors. I’m not too sure if you would be able to switch but that’s something worth asking the Head of the department (I believe it’s Christina Sevdali at the moment) or even admissions.

As far as switch over, I’m yet to find out! Just got into SLT. I know many people however from my course and previous graduating years that have went on to do SLT degrees (Masters/Bachelors) or become Technical Speech and Language therapy assistants!

L&L was my back up degree and I started it part time (1st year split in half over 2 years), switching to full time after 2 years (starting 2nd year full time) and honestly, I loved it. I found the course interesting and challenging!

Not sure if I answered every question but if I missed something let me know!!

Thank you for answering my questions!! I just have a few more ..
What sort of assessments did they have ? Was it majority group work or was it more essay based ? If so how difficult did you find it ? Do you think you kinda need certain skills for it?

Did you do work placement for Linguistics and if so what was it like ?

Thank you again !! I just have a lot of questions because I’ve never really looked as linguistics as a potential future course before ..

They had a mix of assessments. Minimal group work maybe 2-4 over the entire course (more if you pick a minor specialism- I chose to do counselling studies, not sure if they still offer this!). Some coursework, online exam, in person exam and some online things (I think) but mostly essays. I didn’t really find it overly difficult to be honest, I had dreaded the change from ALevel to uni course but uni was much easier for me! I think if you can give a good evaluation of information, eg find patterns and can reference well you’ll be fine. Although don’t be put off by references, I didn’t actually make use of the library and it’s books until final year, you can find lots of things online. No placement but you can do Erasmus or EDGE awards alongside the course. I also believe there are opportunities to help tutor children that are not English first speakers.

Last Question I swear !

When you say reference well does that mean you have a lot of reading material in this course ?

The lecturers do encourage reading materials each class. I remember one lecturer in 2nd year took it quite serious and questioned us on the contents each week (I just sped read through it the night before or time before the lecture began) but reading is not a massive undertaking for the course. I know from friends studying law that they had A LOT more material to read compared to me. I just meant get used to referencing as that’s what a lot of the essays required. The more time you take to get used to the referencing layout the more set you are for dissertation time. I think the uni offers a short session from library staff that show you how to reference, if that’s not something you’ve done much before or at all. Plus there are many websites out there that will help with that too and Google scholar will be a big help!

As I said in above post, I only made use of the books in the library in my final year and maybe purchased around 3 (which I didn’t even read in detail honestly) the whole time I was studying. They weren’t super expensive thankfully!

I think if you have an interest in SLT, or just language in general, that the Linguistics course is worth a go. I actually didn’t get the ALevel grades to do L&L but they were happy to take me on as a part time student, which I think helped me see if I actually liked the contents of the course and just uni in general! At the very least, I think you should see if they have any open day offerings or fire the course director an email asking for more info. The class size is approx 30 typically, apart from a few joint lectures in 2nd year with other courses, so you get to know the lecturers pretty well and they get to know you. I used my dissertation supervisor as my reference for my uni apps! The lecturers are real characters, I still have fond memories of one in particular, he made us laugh regularly and really just wanted you to do well in his class!

check UCAS. I just got offered unconditional place for SLT

Will you be attending the open day on Saturday?

Unfortunately not. would of loved to, but too many activities on for kids at home

No probs!! Looking forward to seeing how many will be on the course and hopefully a wee group chat can be made

No probs!! Looking forward to seeing how many will be on the course and hopefully a wee group chat can be made

how did yesterday go?

Had myself a bit of a shock to be honest! It’s going to be a very heavy load of a course, especially 1st year so now I have to look at moving up there from Belfast and leaving my job completely. We are expected to be in 4-5 days a week for the whole year. There were at least 2 other ‘mature’ students in my talk sitting, maybe no more than 10 groups altogether but there was a later talk as well. Only 33 places on the course altogether. Stress head now tbh!

Holy moly. I wonder how many applied. Did you get talking to any one else on the course? Did anyone have a WhatsApp set up?

No didn’t get a chance really. Think I just started to immediately panic and couldn’t stick around to meet. We should maybe start a thread somewhere and I’ll have a look on fb and see if any groups are on there! Will you be travelling far yourself?

Had myself a bit of a shock to be honest! It’s going to be a very heavy load of a course, especially 1st year so now I have to look at moving up there from Belfast and leaving my job completely. We are expected to be in 4-5 days a week for the whole year. There were at least 2 other ‘mature’ students in my talk sitting, maybe no more than 10 groups altogether but there was a later talk as well. Only 33 places on the course altogether. Stress head now tbh!