I’m now halfway through my time in York as an English trainee, and I have actually been delighting in every minute of it. Here’s some things I wish I ‘d understood about the course prior to beginning uni:
You learn that there is a whole wide world of literatures (Yes, with the plural’s’!).
One fantastic aspect of the York English Lit structure is that it exposes students to English Literature across period and across continents, and permits you to find authors you’ve never ever 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 modern day. In readings, lectures and workshops, conversation of these texts also always includes discussions of the significant historic occasions of that period, how life resembled in that period, and obviously, crucial philosophical and cultural readings of the text (something which I’ve grown to actually enjoy reading).
In another module, York’s English programme exposes us to global literatures, centred around styles such as post-colonialism (the Literature of countries who were ex-British nests, for example). Personally, I discovered that to be an extremely enhancing experience that broadened my worldview and prompted me to think of the relationship between Literature and Politics, and to question the function of a literary text.
This might sound a little difficult, however it actually isn’t really so! You certainly can anticipate to discover studying English at uni to be greatly different from the method we did it at A Levels, and while I did feel quite stressed out in the very first few weeks of term, I ultimately discovered my footing and grew to like the volume and rate of work we have at uni. Likewise, it provides you a substantial sense of accomplishment when you look back at the end of the term at all the poems, plays and books you have actually gone through in simply 10 weeks!
The broad exposure to several periods of literature makes you find interests in topics you never engaged with in the past. For me, post-colonialism was my newfound love.
Versatility, versatility, versatility!
Studying English at York is thrilling because the course provides you a lot of self-reliance to direct your research studies. The English course has fairly few contact hours (a.k.a. time spent in lectures and workshops) as compared to other topics. The coolest thing about the English course would be that you get to decide exactly what you desire to write you essay on– there are no set concerns (conserve for the written exams in summer season term)!
Having more flexibility with your timetable also means that you can use the time to sign up with more societies or even use up a term-time internship, which was precisely what I did! Through the York Careers Portal, I obtained a term-time internship lasting for 12 weeks in Communications, and spent roughly 12 hours a week at the internship, which equates to about three days a week. This helped me acquire work experience and employability skills, as well as some extra income on the side.
We have movie screenings.
We watch film adaptations of a few of the texts in our reading lists (side note: I enjoy how these sessions show up on our timetable as legitimate compulsory lectures to participate in)! Who ‘d have thought that studying English at uni likewise consists of sitting in a dark lecture theatre and enjoying a motion picture forecasted on to the big screen? Think of it as a Netflix movie date … however with an entire bunch of individuals.
In my very first year, I keep in mind viewing A Midsummer’s Night Dream and loving how the motion picture represented the characters of the play a lot that I wrote one of my essays on the play! And simply last term, viewing Samuel Beckett’s Endgame during a movie screening made me see the play in an entire different light, triggering me to obtain three various books from the library about Beckett and his works.
They’re not going to let you be confused and worried all by yourself.
We’re assigned an individual manager at the start of university, and this supervisor will be an academic from your department– in our case, English– and you ‘d fulfil him/her regularly throughout your 3 years of research study to just talk about how you’re finding the course and how you’re feeling, if you’re coping well or if you’re having a problem about module choices, etc.
