My First Year University Experience: Academic

I wanted to share my first year of university experience, to not only summarize how the year went, but to hopefully help people out who will be starting their First Year in September, or the near future. This first post will be focused on the academic side. This will be helpful for those who are looking to study English Language, as I will be going into detail about this particular course.

I study English Language at Aston University. It is a 3 year course and you can do a placement year as an option. I thought about doing a placement year but with the career I want to follow, I don't think it's worth it. I would LOVE to study abroad, but there are too many barriers. Perhaps this may become a possibility, but for now the plan is just to do three consecutive years at Aston. God works in mysterious ways so I'm not ruling anything out.

This is going to be a long post, so grab a drink and a snack!

C O U R S E   I N F O R M A T I O N

I chose to study English Language, as I took the subject for my A-levels and LOVED it. I have always loved English, and when I was in secondary school I thought I would take the literature route. After doing language at sixth form, I knew that I definitely wanted to carry it on as an undergraduate course. English Language is a social science and is a very broad subject to study. It covers aspects of History, Science, Business, Politics, Sociology etc.

If you are a very analytical person who enjoys paying attention to detail, it is a great course to take on. There is a lot of analysis involved....and I mean a lot.

M O D U L E S

This year I took 5 modules. I'm going to give a brief description of what each module entailed, and my experience with them.

1) English Across Time and Space 
- This module was more humanities based and I found it really interesting. The module was broken up into two but the grades are combined as it is one module. The 'Time' aspect of the module focused on the development of English as a language and the changes that have occurred over the years. We looked into internal and external factors, including Accent and Dialect, the invention of technology, the impact war had on language change etc. On the other hand, the 'Space' aspect of the module focused on different varieties of English around the world, as well as language policy. This included English Only Policies in the workplace, Pidgins and Creoles, as well as Globalisation of English.

2) Discourse Analysis 
- Discourse Analysis was my favourite module from the year. Not only because I had my favourite lecturer, but because it was so fun and fascinating. Discourse Analysis looks into how meaning is created beyond words or the sentence we are given. This means paying attention to details including colour, shape, layout and lexis (word choices). For example in advertisements, memes, conversations and symbols. There are many different forms of discourse analysis and I'm excited to explore them deeper in the future. I really enjoyed the assignment for this module (I'll talk about that a bit later), and it has definitely swayed me to make advertisement a backup career plan.

3) Linguistics 
- This was one of my least favourite modules but it was fairly interesting regardless. Linguistics is a lot more science based, which is probably why it wasn't my favourite. Linguistics focuses more on sounds, how they are created and grammar. We studied anatomy, the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), transcription and Word Classes. If you want to go down the career path of speech therapy, it is a very useful module. I enjoyed learning about the different parts of the body that contribute to everyday speech and sound, however it's a very technical module, so I definitely had to cover my desk in post it notes and flashcards.

4) Language and Society
- This is the module I thought I would enjoy the most, however the style of teaching wasn't my favourite. I struggled to engage in the lectures, so the module wasn't as fascinating as it could have been. Sociolinguistics is the study of language within society. It focuses on language change as well as language variety depending on age, gender, sexuality and culture. This module includes lots of case studies and data. For example, we looked at whether there was a pattern when it came to using swear words and offensive language. Is it used more by a particular gender? Is there a common age where it increases? Are certain words deemed as less or more offensive compared to 10 years ago?
I did enjoy the actual content of the module, I just wish the lectures and assignment were more interesting.

5) Practical Application of Language Description 
- This module focused around three areas. These were business, education and memory. The business side of the module focused on language within the workplace, the importance of communication within a business, and the importance of non-verbal communication. Doing this part of the module helped me to understand how body language and gestures convey meaning or show hierarchy.
We also studied the effects of memory and language. We looked at instructions, short term and long term memory, as well as concentration and information retention. The final area of the module was an introduction to teaching, including TESOL. We studied the impact of teacher talk and teacher feedback. As an aspiring teacher, I found this part of the module most helpful.

Overall, I really enjoyed the modules this year. I definitely gained a lot of knowledge and it was nice to explore so many different areas of English.

L E C T U R E S

I actually attended MOST of my lectures this year, which I'm proud of. I probably missed 4 or 5 altogether. My student ID was broken the whole year though, so even when I scanned myself in, my attendance would never record. In the first term it claimed that I had 6% attendance, when I only missed two lectures and the second term recorded 21%. Most of us had this problem though, and many of my lecturers also had paper copies, so I won't have to explain to future employers that I wasn't skiving uni all year.
Most of my lectures were 1-2 hours long. I didn't mind many of them as they were quite interactive, but goodness those 9ams were a killer. I used to always wonder why so many students moaned about 9am lectures when pretty much every school started around 8:30am/9:00am.......I now understand. The worst part is, that I had a 9am every Friday. BRUTAL. It's one of those things that you have to go through to relate to. God help me in second year when I have to commute everyday.

I'm so thankful for Aston Replay and Blackboard, because I swear lecturers put themselves on a timer to switch the slide. I started writing my notes before or after a lecturer, because I couldn't keep up. Everyone has had that one lecturer that leaves about 3 seconds for note-taking.

A S S I G N M E N T S

Before starting uni, one of my worries was whether the assignments were going to be significantly harder than my A-level assignments. As a whole, it was about the same in terms of difficulty. The workload was definitely more, but the actual tasks themselves were doable. I actually enjoyed a couple of them.
Here is a breakdown of each module assignment:

English Across Time and Space- Portfolio of essays x 6
Discourse Analysis- 1000 word Literature Review & 3 Analysis' + 3 essays
Linguistics- Exams x 2
Language and Society- Portfolio of essays x3
Practical Application of Language Description- 2000 word Case Study & Exam

I really enjoyed the Analysis assignments for Discourse Analysis. It required creativity and attention to detail, which is one of my favourite aspects of the course. Out of all the modules, this is where I did best, in terms of grades. We had a few presentations too, but they weren't graded. They were mainly to help us with our written assignments and for some practice.

We don't get our overall grade until August, but in terms of individual grades, I am very happy with how things went. There is one exam I wish I could re-do, but it doesn't affect my degree at all, with it being first year. I had 2:1's and Firsts all year, which is great! I thank God for helping me get through the year.

S E C O N D   Y E A R ?

So, what's the plan for second year? We have to pick our modules for 2019/20 by mid August I believe. I went to a meeting where the Dean and other department leaders spoke to us about each module, which was super helpful. I have an idea of a couple I definitely want to go ahead with, but I'm still deciding on the final choices. There are some really interesting looking modules, so I am excited about second year. The pressure is on, with this year counting to my final degree. eeek. Bring on the challenge.

I hope this post was helpful to those who are thinking about studying English at Aston University. I would have really appreciated this post back in year 13. And if you've ever wondered what English Language is like, then I hope you enjoyed reading a bit about it.

Look out for the next part of my First Year Experience series.

Thanks for reading,
Have a great day x