The course offered in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin-American Studies was ideal for me. It offered a balance between the grammatical aspects of the languages while also offering additional modules relating to the cultural side of languages.
It was also helpful that the year abroad became optional given the unusual circumstances due to the pandemic. This meant students were allowed flexibility and showed a level of care from the university towards students.

Newcastle University offers high quality teaching, a beautiful campus and is conveniently situated in the city centre. The professors are friendly and truly care about teaching the materials that they passionately teach. There is a lot of welfare support at the University as well and the Student’s Union can help you with any query you have or even if you just want to talk to someone.

Overall, my experince at Newcastle has been amazing so far!

The campus is ideally situated a stone’s throw from the city centre, meaning it’s really easy to walk between shops and cafés anc back to uni really quickly. Luckily, a lot of the accomodation buildings are equally well located meaning you can travel most places by foot and it doesn’t take long. There are a few further away hals of residence, i.e. St Mary’s so make sure to research before selecting and weigh up value and location.

The school of Modern Languages is really well equipped, with a special library just for the department with multiple language resources available free of charge. The lecturers are good, and most content is equally available online meaning you can recap or look ahead. One thing I would be wary of is to not buy all the books straight away because often you can get them cheaper down the line or use free online versions, as a lot of the time they aren’t used frequently, especially in first year (however some modules they are necessary).

Classes in both language and content modules are informative and enjoyable, covering a wide variety of topics (additionally, a lot of flexibility/variety is offered with regard to choice of content modules), most of which are taught by engaging lecturers, although there are (as may be inevitable) a couple of weaker modules. Student life also features a wide variety of activities and societies to suit almost any interest, and the university is located ideally for very easy access to the city centre between and after classes, with good transport links to most of the surrounding region. Though I haven’t personally made much use of them yet, a great deal of employability resources also seem to be available, and there are multiple libraries available for students to use (including study spaces that can be booked out easily), some specialising in specific subject areas.
On a more personal note, I’ve met some, if not all, of my best friends here through my course, and am looking forward to returning to Newcastle once my Year Abroad is complete; the city has a wide variety of shops, restaurants, and leisure venues/activities all within easy reach, and genuinely felt like a second home to me.

I find the teachers to be friendly and supportive, as are the fellow students on my Japanese Studies programme. It was easy to make friends in the classroom setting of our lectures, as you would see the same people almost everyday and get to know them well. The Modern Languages department felt very inviting and warm, which me feel part of the university community right away. There are great facilities in our building, including a dedicated and impressive library for language study.

The only thing I would change id to have more Japanese classes (rather than the outside subjects), especially in the second year. In order to make up the right number of credits/modules, there are unfortunately times when I had to pick subjects that did not interest me at all [such as general culture courses/fairly obscure politics courses] They had nothing to do with Japanese or even languages, so it did not feel the best use of my time.

I’m taking the Modern Foreign languages course at Newcastle, studying German, Spanish and Japanese. The Japanese course is outstanding – the seminar leaders are very kind and helpful and the learning resources are fantastic. Spanish and German are alright – the lecturers are fantastic, though the lack of textbooks felt like a drawback to me in these two languages in particular, so if you like structured learning perhaps this Spanish and German course isn’t for you, although they are better for discussing current news and topics than the Japanese course is. The optional modules are good too, I love being able to choose from many topics like history and literature. Everything you need is on campus or very close to it, and I fell in love with the city immediately. Whether you like nightlife or hate it, Newcastle has something for you right at your doorstep. I highly recommend.