Italian
By Neda Mostafavi
Published: 13 August 2004
What do you come out with?ABA or an MA in Scotland.
Why do it? Because you know that a language makes you very employable. With one of the top five economies of the world (ahead of China, GB and Russia), Italian is extremely useful for Business. You also love their pizza, Prada and Pavarotti. "Italian is one of the most dynamic countries from fashion to engineering to style and design" according to Dr. Anne Mullen at Royal Holloway.
What's it about? Everything to do with Italy. Their language and their culture from films to literature, linguistics to history. Some courses are more traditional than others. The course at Bristol is not just about traditional literature. The emphasis is on interdisciplinary cultural studies. It is based on twentieth century literature, culture and film. Royal Holloway offers the chance to study fashion, design, Italian cinema and opera along with the more traditional Medieval and Renaissance literature. Italian is commonly studied along with another modern languages. Royal Holloway offer a degree in Multi-lingual Studies for those linguists among you who can not decide which modern language to study. You can now study three. French and Italian is a popular combination at most universities. Most undergraduates start this degree without having studied Italian before-hand. Leeds has one of the biggest schools of Italian with two thirds of its students beginning from scratch.
What are the students like? Mostly females. At Leeds it is about 60 per cent female. They're also an interesting and open-minded bunch.
How is it packaged? It varies between courses and often depends on what the course is combined with if you're taking a joint degree. At Bristol the emphasis is on coursework. At Royal Holloway it is about two-thirds coursework, one-third exams.
How long is the degree? Four years. The third year is spent in Italy either at a university, teaching English or working in any respectable job from a gallery to a newspaper.
How cool is it? You get to spend a year in Italy surrounded by their fashion, culture, food and wine - sounds fairly cool?
What A-levels do you need? If you want to study Italian from scratch then any modern language will do. However most universities also offer degrees for students who have already done Italian A-level.
What grades? The entry requirements are normally higher for a joint honours degree.BBB for Italian joint honours, or BBC for Italian Studies at Manchester where one of the Bs must be a modern language. Bristol wants ABB-BBB for joint and BCC for single honours Italian. Royal Holloway want ABC; Leeds BBC.
What do students say? Matt Blake, going into his 3rd year at Leeds, studies Japanese and Italian. "As a language student its' all about the year abroad. It's by far the best part. Experiencing the culture and meeting the people is just unbeatable."
Lucy Edge, 20, is going into 3rd year at Bristol. "The course was 25 per cent essays and 75 per cent coursework. So with no exams you feel like you have more control. I particularly liked studying the ?Contempoary Italy' module. We leant about Italian politics and feminism. I also studied Renaissance stuff and can now walk into a gallery in Italy and know about the paintings. I am about to spend my third year abroad in Venice. I am really scared but excited."
Natalia Klimowska, 22, BA Italian, Royal Holloway. "It was completely inspiring. Renaissance art and the mafia studies courses were my favourite. I am going to do a masters in art history. We also covered fashion and modern literature so it was a mix of historical and modern. I spent a year based at Pisa University, which was chaotic. The system there was mad!"
Will you be interviewed? Yes at Manchester. No at Bristol and Leeds unless you are a mature student or non-standard entrant. Sometimes at Royal Holloway.
Will it keep you off the dole? Lots of graduates go into business, so yes. Teaching, translation, law, PR, personnel and further education are also other common options.
Where's best for teaching? Swanseareceived an excellent rating. Birmingham, Exeter and Hull got 22 out of 24, while Royal Holloway, Bristol and Warwick got 21.
Where's best for research? Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, Oxford, Reading and UCL received a tip-top 5*. Next were Bristol, Manchester and Warwick with 5, and Exeter, Leicester, Royal Holloway, Sussex, Westminster, Edinburgh, Strathclyde and Swansea got 4.
Where's the cutting edge? At Birmingham Cultural Theory and Film Studies are big; at Bristol it's Italian Colonial Studies and the representation of the city from middle ages to the present; Royal Holloway is hot on fashion, design and opera. Film studies and Renaissance and Medieval studies are big at Leeds
Where are the stars? Professor Michael Caesar, an expert on Umberto Eco and head of the Leopardi Centre at Birmingham; Professor Giulio Lepschy for Italian Linguistics at Reading; Dr John Foot an expert on the history of language at UCL; and Professor David Forgacs who specialises in Italian culture at Leeds; Professors Judith Bryce and Mair Parry at Bristol; Dr. Stephen Gundle at Royal Holloway; Professor Brian Richardson at Leeds who specialises in the Renaissance period.
Related courses: European Studies, Italian Law, Italian Literature, and Italian Studies.
