When you first come to Kent and take American Studies you're introduced to
how all kinds of things connect. You look at Disney, McDonaldisation, 9/11, the Civil
War, crime fiction and how all these different aspects of American culture,
society, history and politics inter-lock.
students will do is take a course called 'Writing America' which does that work of
placing your literary interests and books within a wider historical and
intellectual frame. So you'll be thinking about how literature relates to history;
how literature relates to politics; and other concerns that will then develop
further during the course of the degree programme.
it's very approachable; You can go to, sort of, your lecturer's office hours whenever
you need to ask any questions and it's quite a small centre, so, there's
about 30 people in the course, so you get to know people and know people from
other disciplines and things like that. So it's very approachable, very friendly
and accessible.
options. You can look at things such as the Civil War or Cold War. You can look
at the American Revolution or the Environmental Revolution. And the idea
is that you'll get a strong good understanding of the American experience.
We teach courses on the history and the literature of Latin America so that you
can put it together and understand the hemisphere in a better way. So, not just
the United States and Canada but also Mexico, the Caribbean and everything to
the south of that.
you'll have a full understanding of how American literature relates to the
nation and its place in the world.
Brazil and Cuba in North America and this provides you with a
very wide understanding of how the continent has developed. We also have
courses on literature; there's courses on the Cuban Revolution; on short story
writing. So it really depends on your interest on where you can take it.
Instead of writing about the 'great unknown', which we do for a little bit in
first year when everything is very new, you find yourself, kind of, writing about
what you know now. You'll end up knowing America very very well after living there
for that long.
So American Studies at Kent allows you to choose two different ways of doing the
or you can take a four year programme which has a year abroad.
One of the main reasons I did American Studies, aside from the academic advances you get
from it, was to do the year in America. So I really had my heart set on going to
America when I started the course, so I knew exactly what I wanted to do and I
knew Kent would offer me the right application choices to go.
interview where they think it was the international office representative and
that are important to you. So, for me, I wanted to go to a smaller campus. I
wasn't wanting to go to a big state campus, and so that was, I didn't really
mind where I went but as long as, sort of, that was my main criteria and I was
fitted personally to the one of my top two two choices really.
was great! It was very different to the UK. It was a lot of keg parties and not
quite the same kind of atmosphere you have in a UK University but it was really, really
good. They had a really good international office which was dedicated
to helping out international students and where I was, there was only 200
international students, so we had a big team of support behind us as well as the
international students so we had a big team of support behind us as well as the
always on hand to talk.
College where I was at, I also had someone there to liaise with so that I
knew that when I arrived someone was there at the airport, with all the
other international students to pick me up and make sure I was going to
the right dorm and things like that and so that kind of... those kind of little
the right dorm and things like that and so that kind of those kind of little
things that make a difference to the transfer and things like that to make
sure that you're not really on your own and that you're secure in that kind of
parents.
motivated that it just rubbed off and you just...you just want to be, sort of, in that
same zone. So, you're just studying at the same level as everyone else.
they give you a bit of scope to go around when you finish your degree - in
same zone so you're just studying that the same level as everyone else it's
visa. So you can you can really do what you want, once you're finished, and you also
you get the holiday breaks as well.
travelled down the East Coast and you can travel, well I traveled on a budget,
in that I managed to get a Megabus from, I think it was, New York to Philadelphia
for a dollar and it may have been four hours on a coach but it's very
accessible, you can do it very last minute and you just have travel
with a rucksack and just stay in hostels and it's all very welcoming.
lot more options to go in the South, which isn't a place I would normally see
myself going. If I was to go on holiday I probably go to California or New York.
So I wanted to see the places in America I wouldn't see necessarily.
and had it with their family. So it was really good just to
experience it in that way, as well as being with friends in
the States. So it was really good.
illustrious history. We have been here since 1973 which is only eight years
after the University opened. American Studies is a discipline that is
sometimes called a 'multi-discipline' or an 'interdisciplinary' degree and what
experience it in that way as well as sort of being with sort of friends in
different lenses and different intellectual styles.
study yourself. Like doing the extended essays and the dissertation, you
can go wherever you want really and I focused on history. But because of my
history strand, I could choose whatever topic I wanted really (or within
the bounds of history). It meant then, that my experience
could be sort of my own, within the degree.
classes with people who have had similar experiences to you and you can talk
about it with them - a lot of people don't want to hear about your year abroad
because you'll be going on about it for years and years after!
It's a very friendly centre,
One of the first things that
In the second year and third year, you choose from a wide range
That means that by the time you get to the end of the degree
We make comparisons between slavery in
degree. You can take a three year degree with a semester abroad