I’m now midway through my time in York as an English student, and I have actually been delighting in every minute of it. Here’s some things I want I ‘d known about the course prior to beginning uni:
You find out that there is a whole wide world of literatures (Yes, with the plural’s’!).
One brilliant thing about the York English Lit structure is that it exposes students to English Literature throughout time periods and throughout continents, and permits you to discover authors you have actually never heard of previously. In your first year, you’ll start with a module that includes texts from the 15th century all the way to the contemporary. In readings, lectures and workshops, discussion of these texts also necessarily includes conversations of the significant historical events of that duration, how life was like in that age, and obviously, crucial philosophical and cultural readings of the text (something which I’ve grown to actually take pleasure in reading).
In another module, York’s English program exposes us to worldwide literatures, centred around styles such as post-colonialism (the Literature of nations who were ex-British colonies, for example). Personally, I found that to be a very enhancing experience that expanded my worldview and prompted me to think about the relationship between Literature and Politics, and to question the purpose of a literary text.
This might sound a little challenging, but it actually isn’t so! You definitely can expect to discover studying English at uni to be greatly various from the way we did it at A Levels, and while I did feel rather stressed out in the very first few weeks of term, I ultimately discovered my footing and grew to love the volume and pace of work we have at uni. Also, it gives you a big sense of achievement when you look back at the end of the term at all the poems, plays and novels you’ve gone through in simply 10 weeks!
The broad exposure to various durations of literature makes you discover interests in subjects you never engaged with before. For me, post-colonialism was my newly found love.
Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility!
Studying English at York is exhilarating since the course provides you a lot of self-reliance to direct your studies. The English course has reasonably couple of contact hours (a.k.a. time invested in lectures and workshops) as compared to other subjects. The coolest thing about the English course would be that you get to choose what you want to write you essay on– there are no set questions (save for the composed tests in summer term)!
Having more versatility with your timetable likewise indicates that you can utilise the time to sign up with more societies and even use up a term-time internship, which was precisely what I did! Through the York Careers Website, I got a term-time internship lasting for 12 weeks in Communications, and spent approximately 12 hours a week at the internship, which equates to about 3 days a week. This assisted me gain work experience and employability abilities, and also some additional earnings on the side.
We have film screenings.
We watch movie adjustments of some of the texts in our reading lists (side note: I love how these sessions show up on our timetable as legit compulsory lectures to attend)! Who ‘d have thought that studying English at uni also consists of sitting in a dark lecture theatre and watching a film predicted on to the substantial screen? Think of it as a Netflix film date … but with an entire lot of people.
In my very first year, I keep in mind seeing A Midsummer’s Night Dream and caring how the film represented the characters of the play a lot that I wrote one of my essays on the play! And just last term, seeing Samuel Beckett’s Endgame throughout a movie screening made me see the play in a whole various light, prompting me to borrow three different books from the library about Beckett and his works.
They’re not going to let you be puzzled and stressed all on your own.
We’re appointed a personal supervisor at the start of university, and this manager will be a scholastic from your department– in our case, English– and you ‘d fulfil him/her regularly throughout your 3 years of study to just chat about how you’re finding the course and how you’re feeling, if you’re coping well or if you’re having a dilemma about module choices, etc.
