Foreign Perspectives

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The English language course that I’m doing at the moment has the reputation of being one of the hardest of all the courses that the university do.

Yet, although I’m getting consistently in the 90% mark for assignments, I’m starting to find that it’s one of the most boring courses that I’ve every done. If nothing else, that knocks down my theory that I always got good marks in subjects that I liked!

Having said that, it’s boring because of a peculiarity of the way in which the degree programme that I’m following is constructed. It’s a modern languages degree which most people would take to mean that it’s about foreign languages. Well, it is, mostly but you have to do one English language course to meet the degree requirements. The snag with that is that the French and Spanish programmes which I’ve already completed covered a good deal of the topics that are now being covered in the English course, albeit in different words.

So, for example, the current section of the English course is about learning English as a foreign language. I’ve covered learning Spanish as a foreign language (ie how to learn it as a foreign language rather than just learning it as a foreign language) already and although there are obviously differences in how English is learnt as a foreign language, it feels very much as a repeat of the Spanish segment.

Similarly, there was a section of the course on marketing English. I’ve already done that in the MBA.

Anyway, net effect of that repetition is that it looks likely that I’ll have completed the course by the end of June rather than the official end-date of September.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Somehow or other I seem to be about to run off the end of my modern languages degree and have started to think about what I’ll do next.

I’m not quite sure how I got to this point as all I really wanted to do was to be able to speak French better and six years down the line it looks like I’m on the home run with the modern languages degree.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about several different plans as to what I might do after this one is out of the way of which the major options are

1. sit back and relax (there’s a lot to be said for this option!);
2. get going on German (out of curiosity as to whether a Germanic language would be easier to learn than the Romance ones);
3. do the creative writing course (always useful for blogging!);
4. carry on with the English courses and do the degree in English (not too keen on the literature choices with this though);
5. get going on the science degree that I always meant to get around to.

I really don’t know which one I’ll go for at the moment. Technically, I am already signed up for both the English and science degrees at the moment in that I’ve already done one course for each but there’s not commitment to complete either. The creative writing option seems quite scary to be honest and as it’s a full credit course it would be awkward to schedule in with the graduation ceremony as indeed would other full credit English course options. There’s a half credit science course which would do quite nicely though and the German would be a relatively easy fit too.

My thinking at the moment is that perhaps the science half credit course would be an idea as it would give me a fairly easy year and let me choose a full credit option in either English or science the following year.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Intern programmes are something that sounds like a whole lot of trouble for very little return to many employers.

That’s far from the case in reality. Sure there’s the hassle factor of bringing someone into the company for a short period but there’s also the major plus point that they’ll bring with them the very latest ideas and a fresh viewpoint. It also gives you an opportunity to pick from the very highest calibre of staff as, if it’s a good experience for both of you, many of them will seek to return.

What about the organisational issues though? Managing and training students is something that you’ll usually need help with and that’s where the Internship Institute comes in. They can provide you with a complete kit to make the whole process from student selection a good deal more smooth than it would be otherwise.

Clearly the business of selecting a student for a relatively brief period with your company is quite different from that of selecting permanent employees yet at the same time you have to consider that the student you select today could well become the permanent employee of your firm a year or two later. In fact, in my experience it’s very common for that to happen.

One thing’s for sure: you’ll remember the contribution of every student that passes through your company even if their stay is a relatively brief one.

If you’ve not run an intern programme before, this will give you a fairly painless way to start.

Popularity: 38% [?]