I enjoyed being given the opportunity to study three languages simultaneously – including 2 languages as a beginner! I felt encouraged and motivated throughout my course thanks to the lovely staff in the department. There were many interesting cultural modules offered on various aspects of society, history and linguistics pertaining to the languages I chose.

There are definitely some positives. Student life is amazing, and I’m not surprised that Sheffield has the best student’s union. However, especially with modern languages courses, there is a severe lack of available modules. For example, if you chose to study Russian Studies for example, they do not actually have enough modules to offer this as a degree so you end up having to do very random modules, such as some in the psychology department. I have genuinely received feedback before from one of the sub-departments saying that my essay was too good, therefore it cannot be awarded a higher grade than a 2.2 as it’s beyond my abilities (yet I’ve been getting firsts in this subject for a while). There is a lack of choice of modules, lecturers can either be really nice and helpful or run away the moment they’re not on the clock. I know some people enjoyed the course, especially if they did more oversubscribed languages such as French or Spanish. I did study Spanish, and every year I would miss the opportunity to study modules that interested me due to factors beyond my control and I’d end up in random modules such as gender studies. You spend a lot of time on campus and it mostly didn’t feel worth it.

All professors have been very helpful. Both in person and via email. The lectures were question-friendly, interesting and enriching. Some tasks were quite challenging, but everything was doable when learned how to manage time efficiently.
Also, there is a splendid offer of societies you can join – there is literally at least one for what you can think of.