BA (Hons) English Language and Journalism with Placement Year

What's the course about?

In your first year, you’ll explore the diversity of use of the English language including regional variants, language and ethnicity, and slang and street English. In journalism, you’ll be introduced to three key skills—research, writing and interviewing over several different platforms and think about the ethical dilemma journalists face every day.

In your second year, core modules in English language focus on grammar and the sounds of English. You can explore theories of how and why language developed and study language-related real-life problems such as plagiarism and crime investigation in forensic linguistics. You’ll also have the opportunity to find a news story, create your own magazine, make a radio broadcast and learn about the part journalists played in discovering major scandals or covering the growth of social movements such as Black Lives Matter.

Work placement/study abroad option: Between your second and final year, you’ll have the option to study abroad or do a work placement for up to a year. Not only will this give you an amazing experience to talk about but will also give your CV a boost. If you’d rather go straight to your final year, that’s fine too. You’ll decide in your second year with us, so there is still plenty of time to think about this.

In your final year, you can follow modules in different topics, including child language and communication, clinical linguistics, gender and language, and formulaic language, informed by our academics’ own research specialisms. In journalism, you will have the opportunity of doing work experience within journalism or a related field, studying international reporting, creating your own journalistic website, and building a journalism portfolio or creating your own freelance or media business, based on your interests. You will create studio presentations and meet industry practitioners through our series of talks by people working in the communications industry, some of whom are former graduates of UH.

Guest speakers and networking (Media Matters and Creative Conversations)

Each year the School of Humanities hosts a range of industry professionals, giving talks on their experience in the media and publishing industry. These lectures are recorded by our final-year students and available on our Taster Hub. Some of our previous speakers have included:

• Andrea Thompson, editor in chief of Marie Claire
• Richard Keith, Journalist for Edge Magazine and Publisher, PCGamer
• Georgina Lawton of online ezine Gal-Dem for women and non-binary people of colour
• Damian Barr, writer, literary editor and TV host
• Steve Swann, investigative journalist, BBC

For a full list of modules, see the section under ‘What will I study?’

Applying for this course is easy. Simply add us to your UCAS account by using the institution and course code mentioned in ‘Key information’. There is no interview for this course. We’re just interested to hear why you want to study this subject at degree level.

Your main campus is de Havilland

You’ll share this campus with students from business, law, sport, education, and humanities subjects. The student housing is close to our Sports Village which includes a gym, swimming pool and climbing wall. You can get breakfast, lunch, or dinner in our on-campus restaurant or bar (in the newly built Enterprise Hub) on days you don’t feel like cooking. You can also use the common room to play pool, video games or just to hang out with friends. Our Learning Resources Centres are open 24/7, which means you can study whenever suits you best. Want to pop over to the other campus? You can take the free shuttle bus or walk there in just 15 minutes.