About this course
At Southampton, English is an interdisciplinary course. You’ll see how literature connects with areas such as film, science, performance and politics. You can study everything from medieval travellers’ tales to modern fictions of globalisation.
English at Southampton is a degree where studying the rich history and flourishing present of literature opens out into explorations of history, politics, science, and visual media. This provides the critical skills necessary to interpret cultures from the past and shape those of tomorrow.
Our modules allow you to focus on literary genres and specific periods of literary history, with a wide choice of modules informed by the research interests of our academic staff including
- literature and the environment
- queer theory and fiction
- experimental performance poetry
- Arthurian legends across media
- Contemporary women's fiction
- Creative Writing
- Writing the Holocaust
Your studies will include critical analysis, presentations and group work. These will help you develop your independent conceptual thinking, communication and research skills.
As part of this programme you can:
- join one of 40 student-led performing arts groups
- take part in Writers in Conversation workshops
- use the unique collection of rare books at Chawton House Library and the Parkes Library and Archives
- learn a modern language at any level
- explore experimental writing with our Entropics events
- receive one-to-one tutorials on writing from our Royal Literary Fund Fellow
You'll have the opportunity to study abroad, spending a semester, a summer or even a full year at one of our global partner universities.
Year abroad
A year abroad will enhance your understanding of visual arts and let you experience a new culture. Going abroad | University of Southampton Our year abroad partner universities in Europe include.
Apply using:
- Course name: English with A Year Abroad
- UCAS code: Q301
Year in employment
Enhance your employability by taking this course with a paid industrial placement year.
Apply using:
- Course name: English with A Year In Employment
- UCAS code: 8088
You'll spend this extra year at an engineering firm, applying the skills and knowledge you've learned so far.
The fee is 20% of the standard annual tuition fee.
As a research-led University we undertake a continuous review of our courses to ensure quality enhancement and to manage our resources. As a result, this course may be revised however, any revision will be balanced against the requirement that the student should receive the educational service expected. Find out why, when and how we might make changes.
Learn more about this subject area
Course location
This course is based at Avenue.
Awarding body
This qualification is awarded by the University of Southampton.
Download the Course Description Document
The Course Description Document details your course overview, your course structure and how your course is taught and assessed.
Entry requirements
For Academic year 202425
A-levels
ABB including an essay writing subject
A-levels additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. Essay writing subjects include: History, English Language and Literature, English Language, English Literature, Drama and Theatre Studies, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Classical Civilisation, Politics, Geography, Sociology, Latin or any other humanities-based essay writing subjects.
A-levels with Extended Project Qualification
If you are taking an EPQ in addition to 3 A levels, you will receive the following offer in addition to the standard A level offer: BBB including an essay writing subject and grade A in the EPQ.
A-levels contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all applicants with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise an applicant's potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme, as follows:
BBB including an essay writing subject
International Baccalaureate Diploma
Pass, with 32 points overall with 16 points at Higher Level, including 5 at Higher Level in English Literature or another relevant essay writing subject.
International Baccalaureate Diploma additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. Essay writing subjects include: History, English Language and Literature, English Language, English Literature, Drama and Theatre Studies, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Classical Civilisation, Politics, Geography, Sociology, Latin or any other humanities-based essay writing subjects.
International Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
International Baccalaureate Career Programme (IBCP) statement
Offers will be made on the individual Diploma Course subject(s) and the career-related study qualification. The CP core will not form part of the offer. Where there is a subject pre-requisite(s), applicants will be required to study the subject(s) at Higher Level in the Diploma course subject and/or take a specified unit in the career-related study qualification. Applicants may also be asked to achieve a specific grade in those elements. Please see the University of Southampton International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme (IBCP) Statement for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
BTEC
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC National Extended Diploma plus B in an A level essay writing subject or Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC National Diploma plus B in an A level essay writing subject or Distinction in the BTEC National Extended Certificate plus AB in an A level essay writing subject and one further A level
RQF BTEC
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
Additional information
Essay writing subjects include: History, English Language and Literature, English Language, English Literature, Drama and Theatre Studies, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Classical Civilisation, Politics, Geography, Sociology, Latin or any other humanities-based essay writing subjects.
QCF BTEC
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Extended Diploma plus B in an A level essay writing subject or Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Diploma plus B in an A level essay writing subject or Distinction in the BTEC Subsidiary Diploma plus AB in an A level essay writing subject and one further A level
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
Access to HE Diploma
60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at Level 3, of which 30 must be at Distinction and 15 credits at Merit, to include 6 Distinctions in an essay writing subject.
Access to HE additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. Essay writing subjects include: History, English Language and Literature, English Language, English Literature, Drama and Theatre Studies, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Classical Civilisation, Politics, Geography, Sociology, Latin or any other humanities-based essay writing subjects.
Irish Leaving Certificate
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2017)
H1 H2 H2 H2 H3 H3 -including as essay writing subject
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2016)
A2 A2 A2 B1 B1 B1 including English or a related subject*
Irish certificate additional information
Essay writing subjects include: History, English Language and Literature, English Language, English Literature, Drama and Theatre Studies, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Classical Civilisation, Politics, Geography, Sociology, Latin or any other humanities-based essay writing subjects.
Scottish Qualification
Offers will be based on exams being taken at the end of S6. Subjects taken and qualifications achieved in S5 will be reviewed. Careful consideration will be given to an individual’s academic achievement, taking in to account the context and circumstances of their pre-university education.
Please see the University of Southampton’s Curriculum for Excellence Scotland Statement (PDF) for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
Cambridge Pre-U
D3 M2 M2 in three principal subjects including an essay based subject.
Cambridge Pre-U additional information
Essay writing subjects include: History, English Language and Literature, English Language, English Literature, Drama and Theatre Studies, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Classical Civilisation, Politics, Geography, Sociology, Latin or any other humanities-based essay writing subjects.
Welsh Baccalaureate
ABB from 3 A levels including an essay writing subject or AB from two A levels including an essay writing subject and B from the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge Certificate
Welsh Baccalaureate additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. Essay writing subjects include: History, English Language and Literature, English Language, English Literature, Drama and Theatre Studies, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Classical Civilisation, Politics, Geography, Sociology, Latin or any other humanities-based essay writing subjects.
Welsh Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
T-Level
Not accepted for this course.
Other requirements
GCSE requirements
Applicants must hold GCSE English language (or GCSE English) (minimum grade 4/C) and mathematics (minimum grade 4/C)
Find the equivalent international qualifications for our entry requirements.
English language requirements
If English isn't your first language, you'll need to complete an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to demonstrate your competence in English. You'll need all of the following scores as a minimum:
IELTS score requirements
- overall score
- 6.5
- reading
- 6.0
- writing
- 6.0
- speaking
- 6.0
- listening
- 6.0
We accept other English language tests. Find out which English language tests we accept.
You might meet our criteria in other ways if you do not have the qualifications we need. Find out more about:
- our Access to Southampton scheme for students living permanently in the UK (including residential summer school, application support and scholarship)
- skills you might have gained through work or other life experiences (otherwise known as recognition of prior learning)
Find out more about our Admissions Policy.
Got a question?
Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.
Email: enquiries@southampton.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000
Course structure
This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying poetry, prose, drama and film. You can complement your degree in English with modules in other subject areas, including modern languages and history. Your personal academic tutor can help you plan your course.
You can also enrich your course with informal learning. You can:
- write for one of the university’s many student-run magazines
- learn media skills with our student radio society
- join a performing arts group
Year 1 overview
You’ll gain a foundation in critical thinking, essay writing and joint research. This will help you develop your own views and approaches to studying literature.
You’ll take 8 modules, on topics including:
- poetic language
- the novel
- the act of the essay
- a group research project, on topics such as city writing in the Nineteenth Century, literature to save the planet, or decadence and decay at the fin de siècle
Year 2 overview
You’ll be able to choose from any of our year 2 modules. You can decide what to study based on your interests and the skills you want to develop. There are modules on key periods in literature, like the Renaissance, Romanticism and Modernism.
Topics include:
- African worlds
- Victorian feelings
- world literature and visual culture after globalisation
- images of women
- film adaptation
- scriptwriting
Year 3 overview
You’ll write a dissertation on a research topic of your choice. Recent topics have included Shakespeare in Russia, modernising fairytales and Edinburgh in the 1960s.
You’ll also choose modules on topics such as:
- Jane Austen and the Regency world
- sex and the city in Stuart drama
- utopias and dystopias
- Chaucer and his world
- animal forms: poetry and the non-human
- literatures of islands and oceans
- narrative non-fiction
You can also take a module on creative writing in schools, which includes a voluntary placement.
Want more detail? See all the modules in the course.
Modules
The modules outlined provide examples of what you can expect to learn on this degree course based on recent academic teaching. As a research-led University, we undertake a continuous review of our course to ensure quality enhancement and to manage our resources. The precise modules available to you in future years may vary depending on staff availability and research interests, new topics of study, timetabling and student demand. Find out why, when and how we might make changes.
Year 1 modules
You must study the following modules in year 1:
English on the Move
English has always been on the move. As a literary language, it has not only travelled from and back to England; lines of influence between texts, authors, publishers, editors, book technologies, and readers traverse the globe in multiple directions, bet...
Poetic Language
How do we read poems, and what language can we use to describe our readings? This module will provide a detailed introduction to the particular qualities your ear, eye and brain will need to read poetry more effectively. You will study key features of poe...
The Act of the Essay
This module focuses upon the essay as a critical practice and a literary form. The essay is fundamental to literary criticism, and basic to assessment across your degree. But the essay is also a literary and popular-cultural genre in its own right, a form...
The Invention of English Literature: Medieval to Early Modern
Where did the idea of ‘English Literature’ as we know it today come from? When and how did writers first start thinking of themselves as English authors? How did the mechanisms of book production and the material forms of books shape readers’ understandin...
The Novel
‘A novel does not assert anything; a novel searches and poses questions’. The contemporary novelist Milan Kundera describes the novel as an exploratory and engaging form, a way of telling stories that involves readers both in its searches and in the quest...
You must also choose from the following modules in year 1:
Literary Transformations
Why have some stories gripped the imagination of writers, musicians, and artists across cultures and centuries? And what does the emergence and constant re-emergence of such stories tell us about ourselves and others, past and present? What do readers and...
Puzzles about Art and Literature
Both individuals and society attach great importance and value to certain works of art, including poems, novels, films, plays, symphonies, and paintings. Most of us spend a considerable amount of our limited time and resources acquiring, creating, experie...
Theory & Criticism
The module asks big questions. What do we do when we interpret literature and culture, and how can we analyse our practices of interpretation? Can anything be a text, and if so what do we understand by ‘literature’? How does literature shape our identity,...
World Dramas
In this module, you will learn how to approach dramatic texts in a way that takes into consideration their place in the world as a complex political, economic, and cultural network. We will focus on questions such as: • What is the difference between r...
Year 2 modules
You must study the following modules in year 2:
Revolutions in English Literature
Revolutions would break, remake, and reform societies on both sides of the Atlantic from the disruptions of the English Civil War to the global conflicts of the Napoleonic Empire. Revolutions may be those sudden changes in political life that men have tra...
The Worlding of English Literature
Since 1800, new modes of transport and communication, commerce and violence, have remade the world. As empires expanded and contracted, and as the relationships between states and individuals were repeatedly reconfigured and tested, ways of conceptualisin...
You must also choose from the following modules in year 2:
Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art
You might watch a stunning film, hear a delightful song, enjoy a beautiful sunset, read a dreadful poem, attend an elegant dance, or see a garish building. Experiences like this can stimulate thoughts and feelings of great depth, and provide pleasure or d...
African Freedoms and The Novel
In Africa, the ideal of freedom has the capacity to evoke multiple layers of struggle and aspiration: from state decolonisation and the end of official racial segregation, to gendered, national, economic and spiritual freedoms. Historically, the novel has...
Brief Encounters: Writing Short Stories
Many writers begin with the short story. Through writing short stories they are able to experiment, learn the fundamentals of narrative composition, and have the satisfaction of completing something to a high standard in a relatively short period of time....
Chaucer and his World
The writings of Geoffrey Chaucer have had a deep and lasting influence on writers in English from the fifteenth to the twenty-first centuries. But every generation since the poet’s death has valued and interrogated different aspects of Chaucer’s works, re...
Children's Literature
Children's literature is a rather slippery term encompassing a variety of genres, child/adult concerns, engagement with historical/contextual issues on, for example, gender; class; nonsense; the nature of time; slavery. Other issues addressed are subject...
Data Environmentalism
Data is material. It is produced by people, it is made possible by resource extraction, it needs power to survive, it inhabits and resculpts the landscape. The use of data, then, contributes to climate catastrophe, but that role can be hard to see, hidden...
Data, Culture, and Justice
Data organise our present and shape our future. Those data are never neutral because they are the product of human labour, of choices made by people about what data to record, how to record it, and who is best equipped to do that recording. Drawing on wor...
Decolonising Modernity
Literary history is often told in epochs. In particular, it can be useful to understand the world in relation to some or other idea of “modernity”: for example, English literary studies is often organised through conceptions of the early modern, the mode...
Experiment!
What does it mean to make literature new? What forms and reformations have offered starting points for rethinking literary convention? In this module, you will explore the revolutions, innovations, and boundary-crossings that have taken place in literatur...
Film, Realism and Reality: representing the world, from revolution to the everyday
Moving pictures are often thought of as having a unique ability to uncover reality, because their basis in photography offers a mechanical record of the world rather than a creation dependent on the hand of the artist. Indeed, the very first films were do...
From Black and White to Colour: A Screen History of Race, Gender and Sexuality in Post-War Britain
This module presents a history of post-war multicultural Britain through the lens of British film and television, considering how our attitudes to 'race', sexuality and British identity more generally have been defined, challenged and changed by film and...
Great Writers Steal: Creative Writing and Critical Thinking
Many writers have penned essays about fiction and memoir: E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Italo Calvino, Vladimir Nabokov, Milan Kundera, A.L. Kennedy, A.S. Byatt, to name just a famous few. Indeed, it seems essential at some p...
Images of Women
Cultural representations of women shed important light on notions of female subjectivity, sexuality and racial identity in the modern world. Medical discourses on gender, mental pathology and the rise of modern feminism are just some of the pivotal histor...
Inventing America
This module studies writing and visual representation in the early years of the republic of the United States. Focusing on the period from shortly before the American Revolution to the early years of the nineteenth century, this module will introduce stud...
Puzzles about Art and Literature
Both individuals and society attach great importance and value to certain works of art, including poems, novels, films, plays, symphonies, and paintings. Most of us spend a considerable amount of our limited time and resources acquiring, creating, experie...
Queens, Devils and Players in Early Modern England
Early modern England is a period associated with Elizabeth I and the Tudor court, the plays of Shakespeare, blood and violence on the Jacobean stage, the discovery of new worlds, and the persecution of witches and heretics. The diversity and vitality of t...
Romantics and Victorians
In 1831 the philosopher John Stuart Mill struggled to define the ‘Spirit’ of the nineteenth century. ‘It is’, he wrote, ‘an age of transition. Mankind have outgrown old institutions and old doctrines, and have not yet acquired new ones.’ If the nineteenth...
Scriptwriting
Dialogue, pace, setting, and story. Understanding the nuts of bolts of scriptwriting is not only key to a successful piece of theatre, cinema, or radio, but to all forms of creative writing or literary analysis. This course will introduce you to the art o...
Speech Acts
How do writers activate and amplify the sonic properties of language? Why do artists use vocal performance of text in video art? How can text ‘perform’ on the page (or onscreen), and what does it mean for language to be performative? What does writing for...
Sweatshops, Sex workers, and Asylum Seekers: World Literature and Visual Culture after Globalisation
What can the voices and narratives of sex workers and asylum seekers depicted in world literature and visual culture tell us about the conditions and pressures of life in the contemporary world? How might considerations of narrative technique, genre, and ...
The Early Modern Body
In this module, students will explore a wealth of different texts and different discourses, from the literary to the scientific, on humanity and the human body in the early modern period. Starting with a glimpse of ancient and modern visions of the body, ...
Vienna and Berlin: Society, Politics and Culture from 1890 to the Present
This module will introduce you to the social, political and cultural history of Vienna and Berlin in the 20th century, German using a wide range of sources which will include literature, film and architecture. Topics covered may include the following:...
Year 3 modules
You must study the following module in year 3:
You must also choose from the following modules in year 3:
Burning Worlds, Drowning Worlds: Oil Cultures, Climate Crisis, and Traumatic Desires in World Literatures
We keep being barraged with a deluge of unnerving news - about environmental crisis, multi-level pollution, exceeding desertification and inundation of centuries-long places of human habitation, floods, forest fires, relentless rise in sea-level due to t...
Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art
You might watch a stunning film, hear a delightful song, enjoy a beautiful sunset, read a dreadful poem, attend an elegant dance, or see a garish building. Experiences like this can stimulate thoughts and feelings of great depth, and provide pleasure or d...
American Cinema Since 1965
The module offers a history of American cinema since 1965, covering the decline of the Hollywood studio system and the moment, from 1968 to 1975, when a new wave of directors produced a number of key films sometimes known as constituting the Hollywood art...
American Gothic
As the Puritan colonialist John Winthrop said at Holyrood Church in Southampton before embarking for Boston, American was to be ‘as a city upon a hill’, a beacon of progress and enlightenment for the world. But from the beginning, America has been shadowe...
Animal Forms: poetry and the non-human
What can animals teach us about the human and non-human? What do the creative forms we use to describe them show us about human form and the other? In this module, you will read a range of poetic and critical material which explores the porous boundaries ...
Authoring Austen: Writing, Reception and Adaptation
Jane Austen’s global appeal in the twenty-first century has been shaped by the ways that she has been read in the 200 years since her death. In this module, you will read Austen's novels, letters, and unpublished juvenile fiction, and explore some of the ...
Chaucer and his World
The writings of Geoffrey Chaucer have had a deep and lasting influence on writers in English from the fifteenth to the twenty-first centuries. But every generation since the poet’s death has valued and interrogated different aspects of Chaucer’s works, re...
Creative Writing in Schools
Are you interested in helping young people study English? This module will introduce you to teaching creative writing in secondary schools by providing training in effective classroom management and guidance on designing lesson plans for studying fiction ...
Environmental Cinema and Media
There is now an overwhelming scientific and political consensus that climate change is occurring as a result of human activity and that there is an urgent need for action to address the causes and effects of this. This module will consider the place of f...
Fantasy Film and Fiction
Fantasy film and fiction spans a wide range of texts, from Gothic 'classics' and feminist fairy tales, to Utopian literature and musicals. Analysing fantasy texts alongside psychoanalytic and cultural theories will enable you to engage with questions conc...
Framing the Past:Stardom, History and Heritage in the Cinema
This module explores cinema’s relationship to the past, whether distant, as in that of ancient Greece, Rome or Egypt, or from a more recent history.
German-Jewish Writing Across the Twentieth Century
The turbulent history of Austrian and German Jews during the twentieth century was accompanied by the production of a diverse and influential body of German-language literature by Jewish authors. Prior to World War Two, Jews played a crucial role in the c...
Holocaust Literature
How has the Holocaust been represented? We will examine a range of responses to the Holocaust from the 1940s to the present day, including memoirs of camp survivors and experimental texts. Focusing on the limits of representation we will approach question...
Kings, Poets and Terror: Literature of the 1790s
The 1790s was a decade of revolutions abroad and of chaos and state paranoia at home. Britain began its longest continuous war in 1792. In a letter years afterwards to Byron, Percy Shelley declared that the French Revolution was ‘the master theme of the e...
Language and the City
One of the socially and culturally most significant consequences of transnational mobility is that urban populations in particular are increasingly multilingual: in global cities such as London, New York and Berlin there are speakers of hundreds of differ...
Love and Death in Africa's Cities
The stereotype of Africa as a predominantly ‘natural’ space ignores the existence of large and cosmopolitan urban environments on the continent. Yet today, the sprawling conurbations of Lagos, Nairobi and Johannesburg (as well as Africa’s other towns and ...
Minorities and Migrants: Exploring Multicultural Germany
Germany has had a long tradition of immigration and is one of the most multi-cultural countries in Europe today. We will examine the impact of diverse immigration movements on recent German history and notions of German identity. This includes examining b...
Narrative Non-Fiction: The Interdisciplinary Art
Writing is inherently an interdisciplinary art. From novelists to poets to narrative non-fiction writers, writers tend to delve into fields that are not their own. Ian McEwan shadowed neurologists for several years as he was researching Saturday; Hilary ...
Radical England: Literature and Crisis in the Seventeenth Century
The seventeenth century was a time of extreme change and political instability in England. In 1649, after years of civil war, Charles I, the King of England, was beheaded on Whitehall in front of a crowd of thousands. England, overnight, became a republic...
Shakespeare Then and Now
Has Shakespeare aged well? From the boys in wigs on the Elizabethan stage to the digital wizardry of the twenty-first century, the technology as well as the ideology that informs Shakespearean performance keeps evolving—sometimes in unexpected ways. This ...
The Origins of Climate Crisis: Ecology in Victorian Literature
Are we living in an age of climate change or climate crisis? In her 2019 speech to the World Economic Forum, Greta Thunberg famously declared “Our house is on fire”: a statement underscored by the Australian bushfire crisis of 2020 and the mass devastatio...
Utopias and Dystopias in Literature and Culture
From Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia to Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, utopias have always been haunted by the spectre of the dystopian. If utopias imagine alternative ways of organizing society, dy...
Writing Queerness
Once upon a time, no one called themselves queer; now it names everything from a kind of person to a type of weather. Queerness seems necessary, ubiquitous, paradoxical – but why? Ranging from the eighteenth century to the present day, this module will ex...
Writing the Novel
The essential elements of writing a novel include crafting beginnings and endings, constructing characters, manipulating structure and plot, and developing an intimate relationship with language. Writing exercises and discussions of work in progress will ...
Learning and assessment
The learning activities for this course include the following:
- lectures
- classes and tutorials
- coursework
- individual and group projects
- independent learning (studying on your own)
Course time
How you'll spend your course time:
Year 1
Study time
Your scheduled learning, teaching and independent study for year 1:
How we'll assess you
- blogs
- creative projects
- dissertations
- essays
- individual and group projects
- module journals
- portfolios
- self-assessment
- teamwork
- written exams
Your assessment breakdown
Year 1:
Year 2
Study time
Your scheduled learning, teaching and independent study for year 2:
How we'll assess you
- blogs
- creative projects
- dissertations
- essays
- individual and group projects
- module journals
- portfolios
- self-assessment
- teamwork
- written exams
Your assessment breakdown
Year 2:
Academic support
You’ll be supported by a personal academic tutor and have access to a senior tutor.
Course leader
Alice Hunt is the course leader.
Careers
English at Southampton gives you a strong foundation in:
- research
- presentation skills
- project management
- critical thinking
- writing
You’ll learn how to tell a story - a crucial skill whether you want to write a press release or funding application, or edit a book or podcast.
Our English graduates have progressed to careers including:
- administration
- advertising
- business
- creative writing
- government, including the civil service
- journalism
- marketing
- media
- publishing
- public relations
- teaching
- translation
We offer a series of lectures and seminars given by experts, employers and alumni, which take you through career planning. These are designed for humanities students and cover:
- careers opportunities for graduates, including digital jobs
- entrepreneurial and start-up options
- skills self-assessment to help you discover hidden talents
- writing CVs and applications
Your personal academic tutor can write a reference based on knowledge of you as a student over the 3 years.
Careers services at Southampton
We are a top 20 UK university for employability (QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2022). Our Careers, Employability and Student Enterprise team will support you. This support includes:
- work experience schemes
- CV and interview skills and workshops
- networking events
- careers fairs attended by top employers
- a wealth of volunteering opportunities
- study abroad and summer school opportunities
We have a vibrant entrepreneurship culture and our dedicated start-up supporter, Futureworlds, is open to every student.
Work in industry
You can take work placements through our Excel internship scheme or Year in Employment scheme. Placements include art galleries, publishing houses, schools and performing arts organisations. We can help you get placements and employment with local, national and international employers.
Fees, costs and funding
Tuition fees
Fees for a year's study:
- UK students pay £9,250.
- EU and international students pay £22,300.
What your fees pay for
Your tuition fees pay for the full cost of tuition and all examinations.
Find out how to:
Accommodation and living costs, such as travel and food, are not included in your tuition fees. Explore:
Bursaries, scholarships and other funding
If you're a UK or EU student and your household income is under £25,000 a year, you may be able to get a University of Southampton bursary to help with your living costs. Find out about bursaries and other funding we offer at Southampton.
If you're a care leaver or estranged from your parents, you may be able to get a specific bursary.
Get in touch for advice about student money matters.
Scholarships and grants
You may be able to get a scholarship or grant to help fund your studies.
We award scholarships and grants for travel, academic excellence, or to students from under-represented backgrounds.
Support during your course
The Student Services Centre offers support and advice on money to students. You may be able to access our Student Support fund and other sources of financial support during your course.
Funding for EU and international students
Find out about funding you could get as an international student.
How to apply
When you apply use:
- UCAS course code: Q300
- UCAS institution code: S27
What happens after you apply?
We will assess your application on the strength of your:
- predicted grades
- academic achievements
- personal statement
- academic reference
We'll aim to process your application within 2 to 6 weeks, but this will depend on when it is submitted. Applications submitted in January, particularly near to the UCAS equal consideration deadline, might take substantially longer to be processed due to the high volume received at that time.
Equality and diversity
We treat and select everyone in line with our Equality and Diversity Statement.
Got a question?
Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.
Email: enquiries@southampton.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000
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PhDs and research degrees
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Find a PhD project
- A missing link between continental shelves and the deep sea: Have we underestimated the importance of land-detached canyons?
- A seismic study of the continent-ocean transition southwest of the UK
- A study of rolling contact fatigue in electric vehicles (EVs)
- Acoustic monitoring of forest exploitation to establish community perspectives of sustainable hunting
- Acoustic sensing and characterisation of soil organic matter
- Advancing intersectional geographies of diaspora-led development in times of multiple crises
- Aero engine fan wake turbulence – Simulation and wind tunnel experiments
- Against Climate Change (DACC): improving the estimates of forest fire smoke emissions
- All-in-one Mars in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) system and life-supporting using non-thermal plasma
- An electromagnetic study of the continent-ocean transition southwest of the UK
- An investigation of the relationship between health, home and law in the context of poor and precarious housing, and complex and advanced illness
- Antibiotic resistance genes in chalk streams
- Being autistic in care: Understanding differences in care experiences including breakdowns in placements for autistic and non-autistic children
- Biogeochemical cycling in the critical coastal zone: Developing novel methods to make reliable measurements of geochemical fluxes in permeable sediments
- Bloom and bust: seasonal cycles of phytoplankton and carbon flux
- British Black Lives Matter: The emergence of a modern civil rights movement
- Building physics for low carbon comfort using artificial intelligence
- Building-resolved large-eddy simulations of wind and dispersion over a city scale urban area
- Business studies and management: accounting
- Business studies and management: banking and finance
- Business studies and management: decision analytics and risk
- Business studies and management: digital and data driven marketing
- Business studies and management: human resources (HR) management and organisational behaviour
- Business studies and management: strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship
- Carbon storage in reactive rock systems: determining the coupling of geo-chemo-mechanical processes in reactive transport
- Cascading hazards from the largest volcanic eruption in over a century: What happened when Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai erupted in January 2022?
- Characterisation of cast austenitic stainless steels using ultrasonic backscatter and artificial intelligence
- Climate Change effects on the developmental physiology of the small-spotted catshark
- Climate at the time of the Human settlement of the Eastern Pacific
- Collaborative privacy in data marketplaces
- Compatibility of climate and biodiversity targets under future land use change
- Cost of living in modern and fossil animals
- Creative clusters in rural, coastal and post-industrial towns
- Deep oceanic convection: the outsized role of small-scale processes
- Defect categories and their realisation in supersymmetric gauge theory
- Defining the Marine Fisheries-Energy-Environment Nexus: Learning from shocks to enhance natural resource resilience
- Design and fabrication of next generation optical fibres
- Developing a practical application of unmanned aerial vehicle technologies for conservation research and monitoring of endangered wildlife
- Development and evolution of animal biomineral skeletons
- Development of all-in-one in-situ resource utilisation system for crewed Mars exploration missions
- Ecological role of offshore artificial structures
- Effect of embankment and subgrade weathering on railway track performance
- Efficient ‘whole-life’ anchoring systems for offshore floating renewables
- Electrochemical sensing of the sea surface microlayer
- Engagement with nature among children from minority ethnic backgrounds
- Enhancing UAV manoeuvres and control using distributed sensor arrays
- Ensuring the Safety and Security of Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems
- Environmental and genetic determinants of Brassica crop damage by the agricultural pest Diamondback moth
- Estimating marine mammal abundance and distribution from passive acoustic and biotelemetry data
- Evolution of symbiosis in a warmer world
- Examining evolutionary loss of calcification in coccolithophores
- Explainable AI (XAI) for health
- Explaining process, pattern and dynamics of marine predator hotspots in the Southern Ocean
- Exploring dynamics of natural capital in coastal barrier systems
- Exploring the mechanisms of microplastics incorporation and their influence on the functioning of coral holobionts
- Exploring the potential electrical activity of gut for healthcare and wellbeing
- Exploring the trans-local nature of cultural scene
- Facilitating forest restoration sustainability of tropical swidden agriculture
- Faulting, fluids and geohazards within subduction zone forearcs
- Faulting, magmatism and fluid flow during volcanic rifting in East Africa
- Fingerprinting environmental releases from nuclear facilities
- Flexible hybrid thermoelectric materials for wearable energy harvesting
- Floating hydrokinetic power converter
- Glacial sedimentology associated subglacial hydrology
- Green and sustainable Internet of Things
- How do antimicrobial peptides alter T cell cytokine production?
- How do calcifying marine organisms grow? Determining the role of non-classical precipitation processes in biogenic marine calcite formation
- How do neutrophils alter T cell metabolism?
- How well can we predict future changes in biodiversity using machine learning?
- Hydrant dynamics for acoustic leak detection in water pipes
- If ‘Black Lives Matter’, do ‘Asian Lives Matter’ too? Impact trajectories of organisation activism on wellbeing of ethnic minority communities
- Illuminating luciferin bioluminescence in dinoflagellates
- Imaging quantum materials with an XFEL
- Impact of neuromodulating drugs on gut microbiome homeostasis
- Impact of pharmaceuticals in the marine environment in a changing world
- Impacts of environmental change on coastal habitat restoration
- Improving subsea navigation using environment observations for long term autonomy
- Information theoretic methods for sensor management
- Installation effect on the noise of small high speed fans
- Integrated earth observation mapping change land sea
- Interconnections of past greenhouse climates
- Inverse simulation: going from camera observations of a deformation to material properties using a new theoretical approach
- Investigating IgG cell depletion mechanisms
- Is ocean mixing upside down? How mixing processes drive upwelling in a deep-ocean basin
- Landing gear aerodynamics and aeroacoustics
- Lightweight gas storage: real-world strategies for the hydrogen economy
- Long-term change in the benthos – creating robust data from varying camera systems
- Machine learning for multi-robot perception
- Machine learning for multi-robot perception
- Marine ecosystem responses to past climate change and its oceanographic impacts
- Mechanical effects in the surf zone - in situ electrochemical sensing
- Microfluidic cell isolation systems for sepsis
- Migrant entrepreneurship, gender and generation: context and family dynamics in small town Britain
- Miniaturisation in fishes: evolutionary and ecological perspectives
- Modelling high-power fibre laser and amplifier stability
- Modelling soil dewatering and recharge for cost-effective and climate resilient infrastructure
- Modelling the evolution of adaptive responses to climate change across spatial landscapes
- Nanomaterials sensors for biomedicine and/or the environment
- New high-resolution observations of ocean surface current and winds from innovative airborne and satellite measurements
- New perspectives on ocean photosynthesis
- Novel methods of detecting carbon cycling pathways in lakes and their impact on ecosystem change
- Novel technologies for cyber-physical security
- Novel transparent conducting films with unusual optoelectronic properties
- Novel wavelength fibre lasers for industrial applications
- Ocean circulation and the Southern Ocean carbon sink
- Ocean influence on recent climate extremes
- Ocean methane sensing using novel surface plasmon resonance technology
- Ocean physics and ecology: can robots disentangle the mix?
- Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal: Assessing the utility of coastal enhanced weathering
- Offshore renewable energy (ORE) foundations on rock seabeds: advancing design through analogue testing and modelling
- Optical fibre sensing for acoustic leak detection in buried pipelines
- Optimal energy transfer in nonlinear systems
- Optimal energy transfer in nonlinear systems
- Optimizing machine learning for embedded systems
- Oxidation of fossil organic matter as a source of atmospheric CO2
- Partnership dissolution and re-formation in later life among individuals from minority ethnic communities in the UK
- Personalized multimodal human-robot interactions
- Preventing disease by enhancing the cleaning power of domestic water taps using sound
- Quantifying riparian vegetation dynamics and flow interactions for Nature Based Solutions using novel environmental sensing techniques
- Quantifying the response and sensitivity of tropical forest carbon sinks to various drivers
- Quantifying variability in phytoplankton electron requirements for carbon fixation
- Resilient and sustainable steel-framed building structures
- Resolving Antarctic meltwater events in Southern Ocean marine sediments and exploring their significance using climate models
- Robust acoustic leak detection in water pipes using contact sound guides
- Silicon synapses for artificial intelligence hardware
- Smart photon delivery via reconfigurable optical fibres
- The Gulf Stream control of the North Atlantic carbon sink
- The Mayflower Studentship: a prestigious fully funded PhD studentship in bioscience
- The calming effect of group living in social fishes
- The duration of ridge flank hydrothermal exchange and its role in global biogeochemical cycles
- The evolution of symmetry in echinoderms
- The impact of early life stress on neuronal enhancer function
- The oceanic fingerprints on changing monsoons over South and Southeast Asia
- The role of iron in nitrogen fixation and photosynthesis in changing polar oceans
- The role of singlet oxygen signaling in plant responses to heat and drought stress
- Time variability on turbulent mixing of heat around melting ice in the West Antarctic
- Triggers and Feedbacks of Climate Tipping Points
- Uncovering the drivers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease progression using patient derived organoids
- Understanding recent land-use change in Snowdonia to plan a sustainable future for uplands: integrating palaeoecology and conservation practice
- Understanding the role of cell motility in resource acquisition by marine phytoplankton
- Understanding the structure and engagement of personal networks that support older people with complex care needs in marginalised communities and their ability to adapt to increasingly ‘digitalised’ health and social care
- Unpicking the Anthropocene in the Hawaiian Archipelago
- Unraveling oceanic multi-element cycles using single cell ionomics
- Unravelling southwest Indian Ocean biological productivity and physics: a machine learning approach
- Using acoustics to monitor how small cracks develop into bursts in pipelines
- Using machine learning to improve predictions of ocean carbon storage by marine life
- Vulnerability of low-lying coastal transportation networks to natural hazards
- Wideband fibre optical parametric amplifiers for Space Division Multiplexing technology
- Will it stick? Exploring the role of turbulence and biological glues on ocean carbon storage
- X-ray imaging and property characterisation of porous materials
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