Are these A-levels suitable for Japanese/humanities at a top uni?

Just graduated from Japanese at Cambridge - my A-levels were History, Politics, German and Maths. I knew people with sciences, languages, maths, all sorts. As long as the courses you’re applying to don’t require a specific A-level, you’re fine. I would try and self-study some language though, even if only a bit of Japanese or Chinese, as a good background in languages is desirable and the course is VERY intense.

oh my god thank you for your response. its so hard to find ppl who did japanese at cambridge since thats kinda the uni im most interested in. how was your experience there? honestly i think i spent more time researching jp at cambridge more than i studied for my gcses,,, T-T

My experience was very much tainted by Covid - my year abroad was horrible because I couldn’t physically get to Japan for most of it, so bear that in mind as it made things a bit harder for my fourth year!

Pros:
- the Japanese teachers are absolutely astounding. I went from absolutely nothing to being able to read novels and newspapers in less than four years. It’s honestly all down to them, especially the senior language officer who I won’t name purely because of privacy but she is INCREDIBLE.
- it’s a tiny course (albeit slightly bigger than in my day). No more than 15 people will be in your class. You’ll get to know everyone.
- from second year you get to do a bunch of half-papers to try out lots of different disciplines, e.g. literature, classical language, sociology/anthropology, history. Much more choice now than when I was in second year.
- Tonnes of options for the year abroad, with both universities to study at and also internships if you’re more interested in applying your skills. This is a massive difference from Oxford, which sends all its students to the same university. It means you can apply to scholarships and go all over Japan.

Cons:
- genuinely the most difficult experience of my life. You’ll need a lot of resilience to push through. It’s an obscene number of contact hours, far more than most humanities subjects and bordering on exceeding some science subjects.
- you’ve got to put in the work from the very beginning. Even though the degree won’t count, the time you dedicate to learning kanji and grammar in first year will help you SO much. Otherwise you’ll lag behind. The retention rate is historically low, with many taking time out between years or even switching subject.
- compulsory dissertation. 12,000 words. Very long. This isn’t necessarily the case at other unis.
- fourth year options are mostly 7500-word coursework options. They’re basically extra disses. I wrote 27k this year in total. Hell.

Essentially: it starts off intense but quite fun. You’re learning something new every day. You can feel yourself getting better. Second year is very heavy on contact hours though, with assignments flying out the wazoo every day. But it’s still okay. Fourth year requires so much resilience but at that point you must keep pushing through. The degree is absolutely not for the faint-hearted, but has a high payoff when you get to the end. ❤️*🩹