Philosophical wimp

I'm now halfway through my time in York as an English trainee, and I have actually been enjoying every minute of it. Here's some things I want I 'd understood about the course before starting 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 time periods and across continents, and enables you to find authors you have actually never heard of in the past. In your first year, you'll start with a module that consists of texts from the 15th century all the way to the contemporary. In readings, lectures and workshops, discussion of these texts likewise always involves conversations of the major historic events of that duration, how life was like because era, and obviously, important philosophical and cultural readings of the text (something which I have actually grown to truly delight in reading).

In another module, York's English program exposes us to international literatures, centred around styles such as post-colonialism (the Literature of nations who were ex-British nests, for instance). Personally, I found that to be an extremely enhancing experience that broadened my worldview and triggered me to consider the relationship between Literature and Politics, and to question the function of a literary text.

This may sound a little complicated, but it actually isn't really so! You absolutely 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 in the very first few weeks of term, I ultimately found my footing and grew to love the volume and speed of work we have at uni. Also, it offers you a huge sense of achievement when you recall at the end of the term at all the poems, plays and novels you've gone through in just 10 weeks!

The large direct exposure to several periods of literature makes you discover interests in topics you never ever engaged with in the past. For me, post-colonialism was my newfound love.

Versatility, flexibility, flexibility!

Studying English at York is awesome 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 invested in lectures and seminars) as compared to other subjects. The coolest thing about the English course would be that you get to decide exactly what you want to write you essay on-- there are no set questions (conserve for the written tests in summer season term)!

Having more versatility with your timetable also indicates that you can use the time to sign up with more societies and even take up a term-time internship, which was exactly what I did! Through the York Careers Portal, I applied for a term-time internship lasting for 12 weeks in Communications, and spent roughly 12 hours a week at the internship, which corresponds to about 3 days a week. This assisted me gain work experience and employability abilities, as well as some extra income on the side.

We have film screenings.

We enjoy film adaptations of some of the texts in our reading lists (side note: I love how these sessions show up on our schedule as legit compulsory lectures to go to)! Who 'd have thought that studying English at uni also includes being in a dark lecture theatre and viewing a film predicted on to the substantial screen? Consider it as a Netflix movie date ... but with a whole lot of individuals.

In my first year, I keep in mind seeing A Midsummer's Night Dream and caring how the motion picture represented the characters of the play a lot that I composed among my essays on the play! And just last term, seeing Samuel Beckett's Endgame throughout a film screening made me see the play in a whole various light, prompting me to obtain 3 various books from the library about Beckett and his works.

They're not going to let you be puzzled and stressed all by yourself.

We're assigned an individual supervisor at the start of university, and this manager will be an academic from your department-- in our case, English-- and you 'd satisfy him/her regularly throughout your three years of study to simply chat about how you're discovering the course and how you're feeling, if you're coping well or if you're having an issue about module choices, and so on.