- Coming to London has been really amazing.
It's been really easy and really great
to make friends here at SOAS, because the course is so small
and so you see a lot of the same people all the time,
and you just get to know them really well,
and it's kind of like a little family.
Hi, my name is Melanie,
I'm a third year English student here at SOAS.
The English degree started at the same time I did.
It was culminated, I guess,
from other modules that already existed
in terms of literature and linguistics,
and they just brought them all together,
introduced new ones, to create a whole new course.
The setting at SOAS has been different
to the other places I had in mind because it has,
right from the first year, a very global focus,
and it's not something that they sort of ease you into
right from the beginning
of studying postcolonial literatures,
and looking at English as a global language,
as opposed to just a traditional canon.
What's been great about studying the English degree
has been the way that we've been able to have a lot of say,
and been able to tailor the course to our own preferences
because the professors are as new to the course as we are.
So they've been really receptive
into what kind of texts we've enjoyed,
and which ones we think should be excluded
or maybe not as focused on, in coming years.
The course has grown every year.
And it's my understanding that second year has about 25,
and now the new first years have about 35.
And from what I'm told,
we get new applicants and more applicants every year.
Because the course is so young,
it obviously has evolved with time.
My experience in my first year was two literature modules,
and one linguistics module.
Those being, ways of reading,
which was an introduction to critical theory.
The other being global Shakespeare.
And the third linguistics module being,
English in the global world.
For our forth module, we could either choose
two half modules, one in term one and one in term two,
or one for the whole year.
But the important thing was
that that slot in your modules could be anything,
so as it was what we call an option module,
and it doesn't have to be related to the course.
I chose basic Japanese one, which is just the beginnings
of learning the Japanese language.
Despite the fact that SOAS looks at so many,
shall we say, like, unusual texts,
there still is very much a focus on the canon.
So I enjoyed that, not only to be able to read those texts,
but to also then get a different angle on them,
and talk about the influence of Shakespeare in China,
and those sorts of things,
as opposed to just Stratford Upon Avon.
My favorite module in first year was global Shakespeare.
There were many interesting things we learned
about Shakespeare in Japan, and the way that it influenced
traditional forms of Japanese theater,
such as Kabuki theater, or Noh theater,
as well as Japanese cinema.
We watched lots of Kurasawa
adaptations of Shakespeare plays, such as Throne of Blood,
which is an adaptation of Macbeth,
set in feudal times Japan.
I think the way that learning about these texts
has influenced me as a writer, is that
it's made me aware of the different perspectives
that any work receives.
I'm sure Shakespeare when he wrote Macbeth,
didn't expect it to be perceived in Japan,
and then studied again by English students
looking at it from that angle.
So, it's been nice to sort of learn that
you won't always have the audience you expect,
but you can use that to your advantage.
In terms of what to put in your personal statement
and what you should have in mind, is that,
an institution like SOAS,
aside from the English degree, the school itself
is really interested in global perspectives,
and in what makes you different,
and your voice different, in the wider academic world.
In my personal statement I talked about
being really interested in children's literature,
both sort of classic older things like The Hobbit,
and then things like the Harry Potter series
And having studies French and Portuguese at A level,
I talked about how different languages
and the opportunity to learn more languages
was really appealing to me.
Most people would say that at A level,
it's probably most feasible to take English literature,
I personally didn't, I took English language,
and obviously then that has it's own advantages
with studying things like English in the global word
and the linguistics modules.
I also think what helped me in my application
was taking languages and a focus on languages
in that wider global perspective.
There's a real focus on J.M. Coetzee,
in all the years that I've studies at SOAS
I feel like I've read at least one J.M. Coetzee text,
so reading one of his books
would definitely put a leg over and give you an advantage.
I think a very memorable moment for me in my degree was
one of the early meetings I had
with my dissertation tutor about my ideas
for what I wanted my dissertation to be.
And I think the first time I had a really concrete idea
about what it was gonna be about,
my professor immediately was like,
"Oh and you can talk about this, and this, and this.
And she said, "Oh this is so exciting."
And this idea that an idea I had
was gonna be exciting in the world of academia,
and was gonna potentially be a piece of writing
that other academics were gonna be really excited to read,
was something that, I think, made me feel
like it had all been worth it.
Not that it hadn't been amazing up until that point,
but it just made me really realize how much I had grown,
and how much I had become confident in what I had to say.
London, it's alive, come to SOAS.
(laughs)
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