Sarah Thompson
Surprisingly enough, this combination isn’t a popular one for joint honours, I eventually settled on Philosophy. It wasn’t as though I ever disliked the subject, but the thought of three years of purely theoretical academic study wasn’t an overwhelmingly joyful prospect to someone who’s love of reading had gotten lost somewhere in the pipeline to secondary school.
I am not a prodigy but I cannot fault my choice
Even as I write this, I am aware that I will not be getting a 1st in this degree – I am unfortunately not a prodigy of the philosophical age. But I cannot fault my choice, the study of philosophy has allowed me space to think, in a way that most other degrees don’t quite allow for. The abstract nature of continental philosophy transcends any definitive categorisation, it is genuinely applicable to anything. I feel so lucky to have spent three years gaining such unique understanding of some of the most generally inaccessible texts.
Overall, through my degree I have got to grips with reading philosophy, and I truly believe it is something I will continue to indulge in long after leaving Newcastle.
Lucy Reeves
I am in love with languages, especially Spanish, and this passion is why I chose to study modern languages at university level. I was expecting to be in an environment where I’d be able to practise and develop my language skills constantly and consistently, but that's not the reality of the course. Ultimately my goal is to be able to communicate fluently and freely in the languages I study, however by putting languages in a highly academic setting, the fun and informality can be lost. Perhaps that was something I overlooked when applying.
In university you have to be independent and self-driven in your studies, which can sometimes be limiting in language learning; there needs to be plentiful opportunities to practise, communicate and collaborate. It’s common knowledge that the best way to become fluent is to live in the country; maybe I have taken the wrong approach in achieving my linguistic dreams.
I am still in love with my degree subject, but not necessarily the degree itself.
Alexander James
While I enjoy my degree subjects immensely, the same cannot be said for my educational experience at the University - the overarching disruption of Covid and strikes has tainted my three years of study irreversibly.
I take a Combined Honours degree in History, Politics and Art History. I get to choose from over 40 modules each year - an immense variety -for example this term I'm taking a dissertation in politics, researching populist communication strategy on Twitter, a module on the history of the Soviet Gulag system and for Art History a module on representations of the body in visual art. My degree allows me access to an wide range of scholarship, and I get to explore an endless amount of ideas and material. However, my degree has disappointed me in that it is, almost entirely self taught.
This term, I get five in person hours a week - three seminar hours, two lectures and occasional meetings with my dissertation supervisors. A laughable number of in person teaching hours. While my seminars are always a constructive environment that allow me to recap the scholarship for that week and bring up issues I might have had, the vast majority of my education is done on my own, in the library, or frankly, in discussion with friends and peers. In my first year of study, these seminars where held entirely online, usually done in my room.
The past two years have been marred by the strike action at Newcastle, and across the universities more broadly. I struggle to support staff in their industrial action, despite evidently sub-par conditions with pay, workload and pensions - they have yet to come to a resolution with the university and have detracted countless hours from my university education. At this point in my degree, unfortunately my focus is on my assessments and unfortunately little more.
