When I was in secondary school
I really hadn’t a clue. All I knew was what I didn’t want to do, and
throughout sixth year my CAO form became covered in pen from all the crossing
off of courses and adding of others, until I’d eventually whittled it down to
ten, all of which I realised were firmly set in the humanities. My school
guidance counsellor once told me that he thought I was an aesthete, and I
almost feel like I embarked on an English degree at UCD if only to find out
what that word actually meant!
At school I had broad
interests so for my Leaving Cert did a bit of everything – one subject from
business, one science and one foreign language. I’m not exactly sure when I
realised that the humanities were the thing for me. When at the UCD Open Day in sixth year I
saw the breadth of subjects available to me, as well as the size of the
departments in UCD Arts I was beginning to make up my mind.
The Arts Block
Coming from Louth
the big campus vibe really appealed to me - UCD seemed like a town full of young
people, and I wanted to be a part of that. Big enough so that you wouldn’t be
forever running across people you didn’t want to talk to but yet small enough
so you could easily bump into your classmate or friend getting coffee or in the
bar.
I always enjoyed
English in school and was pretty good at it as a result, so it made sense to choose Single Honours English. It had the best of
both worlds – I was in a small class of 15 students for the modules we had
together over 3 years, but also in first year I could study at least two other
Arts subjects for the year.
A Selection of First Year Modules
In addition to English in first year I also studied
Psychology and Linguistics, which is the study of language and how we use it.
The beauty of this system was that throughout my studies I found that I could
use what I’d learned in the two subjects in my study of English: my Psychology
classes gave me insights into human behaviour and the mind, particularly
debates such as Nature versus Nurture, the clash of theories of whether human beings are who they are inherently since birth or because of how they were raised.
Something like this has popped up numerous times in
the literature we studied. Linguistics taught me about the way
language is constructed, the very sounds of words are something which many
poets, playwrights and authors as famous as James Joyce were particularly
concerned with in their work.
Speaking of Joyce, the fact that he had been a fellow UCD Arts student really makes me kind of proud in a way I can't really explain. Just being associated with his greatness is one thing and speaks to the university's caliber and rich history, but also something much more practical - UCD is one of the leading universities in the world for Joycean Studies, and so attracts great academics to lecture students, for example Declan Kiberd, who lectured a module in Children's Literature to us in first year.
One of my favourite
things about studying Single Honours English was that there was that in our
small class of 15 we had our own modules, usually one per semester, just for
us. These modules were given by different lecturers in the English Department
and involved in-depth study into different types of literature usually more
specific than the general English modules in first and second year. As a class
we bonded out of lectures through trips to the restaurant, the student bar or
just grabbing coffee. This culminated in Second Year when we went on a class trip
to Holland for a weekend. We went out to galleries, checked out Anne Frank's (surprisingly spacious) house and generally partied for most of the time!
Some of our class on the trip to Holland!
Even now, three years later we’re all still
pretty close. Some of my class have gone on to take Masters courses at home and
abroad, four of them are journalists, another is a playwright who took her play
to the Edinburgh Fringe last summer.Throughout her time in UCD Lisa was involved with the Drama Society (Dramsoc) whether she was directing, acting or doing backstage work, and now she is working part time in the Abbey Theatre as well as directing and writing screenplays.
Another girl is now the editor of an
English-language magazine in Berlin, who fell in love with the city on her
Erasmus year studying there. Some of the articles she's written are here. Whenever we do meet up it's still satisfying that almost all of us are pursuing our own interests in jobs or research still very related to our degree, definitely showing that the pessimistic things you hear about Arts graduates all becoming either teachers or unemployed are all bull!
One of the huge
privileges of studying in UCD for me was this option of studying abroad for a
year, in between Second and Third Year. Not only did it turn my degree (The
Bachelor of Arts Honours) into an International degree (which looks damn
impressive to potential employers!) but it was easily the best year of my life
so far. I elected to study in the Université Sorbonne Paris IV in France, one
of the oldest and most famous universities in the world.
La Sorbonne, Paris
I spent the year living in an
apartment in Paris (with the help of the Erasmus Grant for the EU!) and studied
English Literature and Culture in the university, through English and French.
It was the quintessential French existence: every morning, full of fresh
baguettes and patisseries from my
local boulangerie, I cycled through
the most iconic city in the world on my way to class, past the Eiffel Tower,
Arc de Triomphe.
The Street I Lived On
Paris in Winter
Playing Boules on Les Invalides
At night myself and my friends
(both French and other international students studying in Paris) would go out
to bars, clubs or just sit on the banks of Seine and drink (extremely cheap)
wine with hundreds of other students.
The Ceiling of One of My Lecture Theatres
Massive Art Installation by Anish Kapour in Le Grand Palais
As well as experiencing the culture of
the city I also gained valuable perspective on the teaching of English and
universities in general, as in France university is completely different – the
way it’s taught and assessed as well as the different priorities of the
lecturers themselves. For example UCD employs world-famous scholars of Irish
Literature, particularly experts in the likes of Yeats, Joyce and Beckett to
name but a few, whereas in La Sorbonne there was more of an emphasis on World
Literature, particularly many of the American writers who came to Paris in the
1920s, such as F Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and Gertrude Stein.
It
truly was an unforgettable year, and all my international friends have kept in
contact and visited each other, little reunions all over the world!
A typical week studying English
at UCD differs massively from studying many other courses. My flatmates who
studied Agricultural Science and Business and Law were both astounded and
jealous by how few hours of class I had a week compared to them - approx. 12
hours compared to 25+! It all balanced out however, so for the hours they spent
doing labs or long tutorial classes I had to be in the library (or my bed)
reading books and poetry and more books and plays and short stories and even
more books!
Sunrise Over UCD
It meant that I had to manage my time to make sure I got started on
something long (Dickens) or complicated (Joyce) early so that I wasn’t rushing.
All told though with Arts you are given a lot of free time for your own
research and self-directed learning, an important skill which since then has
aided me in many other parts of my life.
Third year was definitely my favourite
year in UCD, as there was a massive choice in classes. I could choose six from
over 40 different modules, the largest selection in any Arts degree in the
country!
Classes were now on specific authors, periods of literature or
subjects. Having already realised that my passion lay in American
Literature, I chose as many classes as possible. It was perfect – I was
studying what I not only loved but also knew a good deal about with classes
full of like-minded students and lecturers whose speciality was American
Literature.
Between classes I could hang out with my friends around the Arts
Block, play 5-a-side football beside the sports centre or just chill by the
lake in the nice weather. Because it was our final year a big group of us
suited up and went to the Arts Ball, a huge event in a swanky hotel in the
city.
I felt my Erasmus year had given me much more confidence in my abilities
and with people so whereas before I might have been more reluctant to speak up in
class sometimes or talk to other people in my tutorials that wasn’t a problem
at all any more. The great thing about UCD was that you could have friends from a
variety of places – friends I’d known before, friends from home, classmates,
people from the International Students Society, UCD students who I’d met on
Erasmus, even guys you’d play football with. This huge variety of people in UCD
was great as everybody was always into something different and the huge number
of clubs and societies meant that there’s always something on, be it a play in
the Dramsoc theatre, a comedy (or serious) debate by the L&H Society or
even a celebrity visiting the university, be it Roddy Doyle, Paul O’ Connell or
even the cast of Geordie Shore! (Cast of Geordie Shore not pictured for your own safety)
