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SOAS undergraduate combined degree

Hi, I'm planning to apply to SOAS this October. I see a lot of interesting linguistic related courses in their website, but I don't get how the combined degree system works! It's SO confusing. Is it that I choose courses(and compulsory-there's so many??) from their list for each grade?
For instance I could do year 1 Chinese year 2 Japanese year 3 Korean like that? If someone explains this system to me I would very much appreiciate it. Thank you :smile:

Reply 1

Hi, my name is Aleezay and I am a final year law student at SOAS.

SOAS offers a lot of combination degree options, and it can be a bit confusing at the start. Combination degrees are great if you are interested in two courses/degree options, and unable to decide which one to opt for. You will not be studying a different course each year, it will be combined into one degree, such as BA International Relations and Arabic.
Original post
by HayunC
Hi, I'm planning to apply to SOAS this October. I see a lot of interesting linguistic related courses in their website, but I don't get how the combined degree system works! It's SO confusing. Is it that I choose courses(and compulsory-there's so many??) from their list for each grade?
For instance I could do year 1 Chinese year 2 Japanese year 3 Korean like that? If someone explains this system to me I would very much appreiciate it. Thank you :smile:

A combined degree means you study the two specified subjects throughout the whole degree.

So if you do e.g. Chinese and... then you'll do the courses listed on the Chinese and... degree listing, along with the courses listed on whatever the other half of the "and..." is (e.g. if it's Chinese and Anthropology you'd do the courses listed on both the Chinese and... as well as the Anthropology and... degree pages - you'd stick with that combination through the whole degree, unless you drop to do just a single subject in one or the other - although there can be complications in moving to the single subject version of a language course sometimes).

Note though you can also take language modules as outside options on a single honours degree in another subject, and as those are electives you could take the beginners modules for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in each respective year if you wanted (although as you'd not develop a great deal of language competence in any of the three that way, it's debatable whether that's a good idea).

There's also the languages and cultures degree which is kind of a "catch all" for all the other regional studies/language courses that no longer have their own programme (e.g. most South/Southeast Asian and African languages). In languages and cultures I believe you can take different languages in each year if you want. Note again, that only encompasses specific languages and not the East Asian languages or the major Middle Eastern languages to my knowledge.

Basically - you pick your two combined subjects and apply to it from the get go, then do that throughout the whole course. You don't pick and mix through the degree generally.

Reply 3

Original post
by artful_lounger
A combined degree means you study the two specified subjects throughout the whole degree.
So if you do e.g. Chinese and... then you'll do the courses listed on the Chinese and... degree listing, along with the courses listed on whatever the other half of the "and..." is (e.g. if it's Chinese and Anthropology you'd do the courses listed on both the Chinese and... as well as the Anthropology and... degree pages - you'd stick with that combination through the whole degree, unless you drop to do just a single subject in one or the other - although there can be complications in moving to the single subject version of a language course sometimes).
Note though you can also take language modules as outside options on a single honours degree in another subject, and as those are electives you could take the beginners modules for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in each respective year if you wanted (although as you'd not develop a great deal of language competence in any of the three that way, it's debatable whether that's a good idea).
There's also the languages and cultures degree which is kind of a "catch all" for all the other regional studies/language courses that no longer have their own programme (e.g. most South/Southeast Asian and African languages). In languages and cultures I believe you can take different languages in each year if you want. Note again, that only encompasses specific languages and not the East Asian languages or the major Middle Eastern languages to my knowledge.
Basically - you pick your two combined subjects and apply to it from the get go, then do that throughout the whole course. You don't pick and mix through the degree generally.
Ohhh got it that cleared things up a lot. Thank you so much!!

Reply 4

Original post
by Aleezay SOAS
Hi, my name is Aleezay and I am a final year law student at SOAS.
SOAS offers a lot of combination degree options, and it can be a bit confusing at the start. Combination degrees are great if you are interested in two courses/degree options, and unable to decide which one to opt for. You will not be studying a different course each year, it will be combined into one degree, such as BA International Relations and Arabic.

Thank you for your answer!!!

Reply 5

Original post
by Aleezay SOAS
Hi, my name is Aleezay and I am a final year law student at SOAS.
SOAS offers a lot of combination degree options, and it can be a bit confusing at the start. Combination degrees are great if you are interested in two courses/degree options, and unable to decide which one to opt for. You will not be studying a different course each year, it will be combined into one degree, such as BA International Relations and Arabic.

There are restrictions on the modules. You may check for the respective combined courses, e.g. BA Korean and ...

https://www.soas.ac.uk/study/find-course/ba-korean-and#combined-courses

Since there are so many combinations, time table clashes are inevitable and SOAS admin was always blamed of. But they could resolve it, just be patient.

Take a deeper look to see which combination fascinates you the most. Good luck.

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