I will never regret talking at length about Edinburgh's English department
- Stephen Fry:
- I'm about to start UCAS and will probably make you regret saying that
Could you just describe it to me? Sorry, I know I'm being horribly vague, but what's your average week? What kind of things have you covered? What are lectures/classes/whatever else you have like? What books have you covered? What would you recommend reading beforehand? What's your advice on accommodation? What do you wish you'd known before going? I want to know as much information as possible, even though I'm pretty much already sold
The timetable should be the same for the forseeable future, but we have three weekly lectures, all 50 minutes long. They're on a Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. In addition there's also a 50 minute tutorial but there's no fixed time and you have a little bit of choice about this. A lot of the info about what we read should be on here. Especially check this page out, you should be able to access it and it gives you an idea of how much reading is set per week and how the lectures are structured.
Lectures, well, what can I say about lectures. The lecturers themselves are generally amazing, there are a few who lack charisma/the ability to make things interesting, but by and large they're the sort of people who are pretty ~inspiring to listen to. Like, I really wish I could go to the 'What is literature?' lecture again because the guy who gives it is just so wonderful. I'm so nerdy I cannot even, but whatever. Tutorials are a bit more hit-and-miss, but you'll be in a group of about 4-5 students. You'll probably be set weekly tasks as well as having a discussion on the week's text(s). Tutorials can be a bit awkward because the groups are small, and especially if you're the only one who actually wants to talk (as happened to me during my first term) - but I'd imagine this is the same at every uni.
I honestly would say you don't need to do any reading before you start (anything specific, I mean. You should still read. But read what you want). I did no reading whatsoever and I can't help but think the people who'd read everything beforehand must have been kind of bored because I never felt like there was too much reading. If you're desperate to do something, though, you could go with some of Paradise Lost or possibly The Pilgrim's Progess. I wish I'd known before I'd started that there was only one copy of Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine in the entire library and that it's difficult to find elsewhere. I also wish I'd known never to even try walking up to the seventh floor in the David Hume tower for my 10 o' clock tutorial. Just wait for the lift, no matter how huge the queue is.
Accommodation: pick self-catered, unless you really want to pay an extortionate amount to live in Pollock Halls (but the food isn't great and you get charged so much for it). All of the s/c accommodation is of a fairly good standard so you don't need to worry about it too much. Darroch Court is the 'nicest' inside but also the most expensive.
Have I missed anything?
Honestly, we didn't do that much Spenser. We only did a few extracts - but there is a lot (lot) of Milton involved, the department seriously has some kind of Milton fetish. We also did Bunyan. But yes, we're very chronological. We do everything in order (at least after Christmas, the first term is more of a general intro-to-Literature course), starting from the Medieval and working through the Renaissance and Restoration during first year and then to ~Modernism and beyond~ in second year.
- kafka.:
- First year at Edinburgh seems pretty hardcore because you do Milton, Spencer and Chaucer, but then I've heard that a lot of people don't survive the second year course on literary theory at Glasgow. I think, although I'm not sure and Meg should feel free to contradict me, Edinburgh teaches books in a somewhat chronological order while at Glasgow English Lit and Comparative Lit courses are based on themes in the first two years, but they offer a lot of courses about specific time periods at honours.
August 11th, 2010 at 06:18pm
But knowing me I'll go just to get out of Norfolk 
