African Studies

By Zoe Flood

Published: 15 August 2004

What do you come out with? BA

Why do it? Would-be students straight from school see it as an alternative to the mainstream degrees on offer; second or third generation African students are keen to explore their ethnic roots. If you are passionate about studying all aspects of African culture for whatever reason, this is the degree for you.

What's it about? Specificity. There are only two universities that offer African Studies as an undergraduate degree - Birmingham and SOAS - others only offer it as a component part of other courses. At SOAS, African Studies is the most popular course, exploring culture and literature, with students taking an African language for at least one year. The more specific African Language and Culture is a four year course focussing on either Swahili or Hausa. Students will spend their third year either in Tanzania, Zanzibar or Northern Nigeria, depending on their choice of language. Birmingham offers a comprehensive interdisciplinary mix including history, politics, sociology, anthropology, geography and literature. Yoruba is taken in the first year, whilst in the second and third years students can opt for modules from outside the discipline. Joint honours courses are popular at Birmingham, with African Studies often being combined with history, English, geography, anthropology or modern languages.

How long is a degree? Three years; four if you spend a year overseas developing your language skills.

What are the students like? A mixed bag. School-leavers generally have had some contact with Africa, such as having lived there or having African heritage. Increasingly, there are students who developed a passion for Africa on trips there in their Gap Year. The intake will often include a number of mature students who have worked or lived in Africa and want to learn more about the culture.

How is it packaged? A high proportion of exams at SOAS, with a gradual move to a greater variety of assessment methods. Birmingham uses a mixture of coursework and written exam.

How cool is it? Increasingly so, although it is not for everyone. It is an excellent means of branching away from the mainstream.

What A levels do you need? No specific subjects are requested, but A levels in a language (not necessarily the one you hope to study) are used as pointers to linguistic capability if you're planning to major in languages.

What grades? At both SOAS and Birmingham, BCC for African Studies.

Will you be interviewed? Only occasionally, and generally only if you are a ?non-conventional' entrant (meaning that you aren't a school-leaver who has studied for a number of A-levels).

Will it keep you off the dole? Sure. Graduates can expect to go in to any number of jobs. The specialist regional, historical and linguistic knowledge could help in getting jobs in the media or in aid or development agencies. Others go for jobs in the City, the law, financial services, the civil service, or in industry.

What do students say? Marc Meyer, 25, just graduated in African language and culture at SOAS "I am really satisfied with my time at SOAS, I had a great time stuyding there. I studied Hausa, specialising in the language and also studying some religion and philosophy. It opened my mind to a lot of things in life that I hadn't experienced. Although my learning curve was very steep as I started the language from scratch, I could always cope with it and I can now speak Hausa as well as English."

Where's best for teaching? Birmingham scored 23 out of 24,whilst SOAS was awarded 22.

Where's best for research? Birmingham came in tops with 5*; SOAS was rated 5. Other departments researching Africa do not offer undergraduate degrees.

Where's the cutting edge? The ability of departments to bring together a range of disciplines: languages, politics, history, culture, law and economics. Development is a particularly big area and anthropology has recently experienced a revival. At Birmingham, it's work on the effects of environmental change and on the role of ethnicity in social change. At SOAS, linguists are working on the Coissan and Bantu languages.

Who are the stars? Dr Ato Quayson for African literature at Cambridge, Dr Phillip Jaggar for Hausa language and linguistics at SOAS, Professor Henrietta Moore, at LSE, for African studies and gender issues; Professor Tom McCaskie, an Asante specialist at Birmingham.

Added value: At Birmingham, students have the option to go to Ghana for four weeks at the end of every other academic year. Attachments to local institutions, such as NGOs, development institutions and the press, are arranged.