economics or modern foreign languages?

tried to make the title as simple as possible, but i don’t know if i want to do an economics degree or mfl degree. i’m in year 12 and picked a levels which regrettably ruled out subjects i thoroughly enjoyed at gcse and would have been happy to do at a level but didn’t; i’ve picked maths, further maths, economics and french. i would have loved to additionally pick subjects such as history or rs but picked the subjects i did to leave the options of doing either an economics or mfl degree open. depending on what course i apply for, i might apply to uni with maths, economics and french if i choose to do a mfl degree or maths, economics and further maths if i choose to do an economics degree. here’s my dilemma: (also should note i’m predicted all As for AS and mainly A*s for end of year 13)

For economics, I love the macro side of it and learning about international trade and how politics and economics overlap. I’m really interested in politics and economic history, as well as the political and social aspects of economics plus I am really good at maths (if i do say so myself), so i think i could be an ideal applicant and would be good. in a way, there’s few things stopping me from picking this bar the fact that for unis like cambridge (want to go to cambridge) the acceptance rate is very low which is to expected because it’s cambridge, whereby around 10/11% of people get accepted (this is just me briefly looking on the website) whereas with a modern languages degree, i’m very good for french considering i’m not a native speaker and i think even the top unis only require one a level language, and i didn’t pick spanish because it wasn’t offered at my school for gcse. The acceptance rate at cambridge is much higher, with around 1 in 2 people getting a place, and I know one of my close friend’s siblings went to cambridge for modern languages (from north england). Now I know I could likely not get an interview, or if that not likely get in, or if i get in decided not to go, or i may not even apply (for mfl) but it still seems amazing to say you study at cambridge (on the premises i get in). However, some other unis I’m thinking of applying to from what I’ve heard don’t have the most secure languages departments, whereby I often hear the teaching to be quite patchily taught and not always the most concise; I know wherever I studied economics I’d probably be happy with.

In terms of a future career, I would like to work in finance or government based finance work, so for that reason economics would form a solid basis to go into that field seeing as i genuinely enjoy it and don’t just want to apply for it for the prospect of money and to learn about banking, but because i love learning about the interval between econ and other social science subjects. A relative of mine works in finance and says that in order to get a job in the line of work he does you need a foreign language, now I know this might sound vague but whether a C2 level of proficiency is needed or just a B1/B2 level Im not sure, but without doing a foreign languages degree I don’t know i’ll have the consistency to learn multiple languages that i want to learn / continue. I know at other unis such as LSE and edinburgh that they allow you to take a foreign language with a normal degree, but this is also a bit of a rambley post about how I want to go to cambridge so yeah, I suppose I’m leaning more towards economics but any general advice would be appreciated or just general talk about what the courses are like tyyy!

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Unclear which subjects you are referring to as "ruled out", although the range may be less narrow than you think if you factor in foundation years for STEM subjects and FAD courses for visual arts/design courses.

That aside, you could well look at joint honours courses. I suspect there are a fair few available.

Reply 2

usable-co-founde

Original post by artful_lounger

A history degree more specifically

Reply 3

ageshallnot

Original post by usable-co-founde

A history degree more specifically

You can study history (or history and mfl) at many Cambridge colleges without taking it at A-level.

Reply 4

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by usable-co-founde

A history degree more specifically

As above, not all history degrees require A-level History - it's a common but not universal requirement.

Also more generally, there are other historical degrees which definitely don't have any specific subject requirements e.g. economic history, history of art, archaeology, classics and other ancient language based degrees (such as Sanskrit, Egyptology, ancient near eastern studies etc, which also include a language element!), and so on :smile: