Asian and South Asian Studies
By Neda Mostafavi
Published: 15 August 2004
What do you come out with? BA, or an MA in Scotland.
Why do it? Because you've done a modern European language at school but fancy something more exotic. Sometimes students have a family or business connection with Asia. Sometimes they have a distinct career motive such as becoming a lawyer or working in business in Hong Kong or Singapore as it's vast market and rapid economic growth needs a lot of people. Some have fallen in love with Japan or China, and their culture, history and politics. All have read Wild Swans by Jung Chang.
What's it about? At the School of Oriental and African Studies you have more choice than anywhere else. You can do Korean, Japanese and Chinese combined with any of 20 subjects, including economics, law, politics and music; South-East Asian studies, including Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese and Burmese; or South Asian studies, including Hindi, Urdu and Bengali. At Oxford and Cambridge students study standard Chinese or Japanese as well as the classical form of those languages. At Edinburgh, you can take Sanskrit as well. You can combine Chinese with economics, and Japanese with linguistics. At Leeds all the Asian Studies degrees include at least one language from either Chinese, Japanese, Mongol, Thai or Indonesian. Sheffield offers Chinese, Japanese and Korean, plus dual honours in one of these languages with another subject such as business, sociology, politics or music, or a European language. Sheffield also runs three year regional East Asian degrees (single and dual honours) with optional language modules.
How long is it? Three or four years. In the latter case, one year is spent studying the language while living in the country.
What are the students like? Hardworking, with good visual memories. Chinese and Japanese are difficult languages to learn, though by no means impossible, although some students come from an East Asian background though it is quite evenly split between students who simply have an interest in the area. You have to be persistent and have stamina. Some students are vocationally minded rather than interested in their subject for the sake of it.
How is it packaged? SOAS does 80 per cent exams to 20 per cent coursework. At Edinburgh, continuous assessment ranges from 25 to 50 per cent.
How cool is it? Pretty cool. Japanese is very cyber. And, potentially, China has the largest consumer market in the world. Saying you are studying these subjects is the perfect conversation-stopper.
What A-levels do you need? SOAS favours a modern language if you are studying a language. At Edinburgh anything goes. The same goes for Sheffield.
What grades? BCC for South East Asian Studies at SOAS; BBB at Sheffield and for Sociology with South Asian Studies at Edinburgh. BBC at Leeds or BBB for Chinese and Japanese as well as a good GCSE language mark.
Will you be interviewed? Sometimes at SOAS and Leeds. Not normally at Sheffield.
Will it keep you off the dole? Probably. Graduates go into the law, banking, business, management, journalism, foreign office work or teaching. A lot of them go to work in the Far East.
What do students say?
Aphra Macdonald, second year, Edinburgh. "East Asian Civilisation makes you realise how focused our education is on the Western World."
Lucy Johnston. "The language was so different from anything I had ever done before. My year abroad in China was amazing and so many unexpected opportunities arrive through this course."
Where's best for teaching? SOAS, Leeds and Westminster were all awarded 23 out of 24 for teaching. Hull and Sheffield received 22.
Where's best for research? Tops are Oxford and Cambridge with a 5*. Then come SOAS, Edinburgh, Leeds, Hull and Westminster with 5. De Montfort and Sheffield got 4s.
Where's the cutting edge? Robert Ash, Professor of Taiwan studies at SOAS, is researching the economic development of Taiwan since 1949.
Added value: Sheffield?s music department has a specialist each in Chinese and Korean music.
