Hi. We all study languages at the University of Birmingham and we’d really like to tell
you why it’s such a great choice.
Studies have shown that learning languages is good for you and it’s a great skill to
have. It activates those grey cells and broadens the mind because it helps you to understand
that people from different cultures think differently - making you more open minded
and accepting of others.
It’s also good for the brain because it improves your general intelligence, makes
you better and remembering and noticing things. Apparently it makes you better at making decisions
and it’s even been shown to help people avoid dementia.
Languages is a really flexible subject. There are lots of different ways you can study it.
I study German and Italian, but you can also study just one language on its own. You can
even study three languages like one of my friends who takes French, Mandarin and Russian.
When you take a language at uni, you often don’t just study the language itself. You
do all sorts of things, even skills based modules in things like translation.
You can also take half languages and half something else, or you can take another subject
‘with’ a language. And you don’t always need a language A level. There are all sorts
of opportunities out there.
Language degrees get you jobs. A really high percentage of language graduates walk straight
into good jobs - if they don’t want to go travelling first.
They are more likely to get a good job quickly over students of other subjects, partly because
with languages you learn all manner of transferable skills, but also because the UK is desperate
for graduates that speak other languages.
These are the languages that the British Council has identified as ‘the ten most important
foreign languages for the UK’s future prosperity and global standing’.
Spanish, at the top, is spoken in Spain, but also across Central and South America. It’s
also a good language to learn if you want to go and live in the US.
If you really want to conquer South America, you should also add in Portuguese which is
spoken in Brazil.
German and French, along with English are the official languages of the European Union.
French and Portuguese are good too if you want to go and work in Africa. Feeling more adventurous?
You can’t often do languages with different alphabets at school, but you can pick them
up from scratch at uni.
Language study takes you to all sorts of places. One of the best things about studying Modern
Languages is the year abroad. It makes you a much more employable graduate than someone
with a 3-year degree. You do a lot of growing up on the year abroad, and employers like that.
The first option is to go and study at a University in the country of your target language.
You can also opt to spend your year abroad on a placement with the British Council as
a teaching assistant.
Or, you can choose to undertake a work placement like Katarina or Isobel.
Katarina spent 7 months with Showroomprive, a website for designer brands. She worked
on their marketing, translating their website and developing an app for them.
Isobel worked for a human rights NGO in Geneva dealing with money, invoices and learning
how to code for their website. She also went to several conferences at the United Nations,
and at one of them she met a translator who worked in 6 languages.
A work placement is great for developing skills that will really make your CV stand out.
When I graduate I’m hoping to go into journalism or translation.
I know graduates from my course here at Birmingham that have gone on to work abroad at so many
amazing places - Chanel in Paris, the British Council in Spain, a school on Reunion Island,
even local government in Japan. I’m very excited.
I hope you’ve seen just how many opportunities studying languages at uni can give you, from
skills, knowledge and an unparalleled experience. I love studying languages and I hope you will too.
You can find out about all the topics we’ve talked about and more by visiting our website.