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Asian and Middle Eastern Studies: A Churchill Student's View

Helen Raftery
4th-year student of Chinese Studies

I didn't do any Chinese at school so I started the course at Cambridge as a beginner. Luckily, my Director of Studies suggested going to China in the summer before term started and recommended an introductory language course in Yantai, where I studied for 6 weeks. I stayed with a host family who spoke hardly any English so for the first week we could only communicate via dictionary. Once the course started, though, I found myself able to have simple conversations with them and with other Chinese people that I met. The emphasis that the teachers there put on tones and pronunciation was really useful because that's skipped over at Cambridge, and I would definitely recommend doing something similar before first year if you can.

The first year course is intense and hard work, but it's necessary if you want to build a good foundation for succeeding years. The course isn't 'just Chinese' either, as there are East Asian history and cinema modules and optional Japanese politics modules. I never thought I would enjoy classical Chinese as much as I do, and although it's difficult it's really rewarding to be able to read poetry and texts from hundreds of years ago in their original forms. One of the benefits of having such a fast-paced course is that you can really see the progress you've made over the term. It also creates a level playing field between students who've done Chinese before and those who haven't, because everyone's learning a lot in a short time. There's a lot of support at Churchill to give students the best start to their degrees, including links with the university in Yantai or with a kindergarten for those who want to teach in China during their gap year. Students do a mock exam at the end of Lent term in first year and it gives you a chance to see what Cambridge exams are like and what areas you need to be working on more before the real exams.

The year abroad is brilliant and forces you to use your language every day. I don't think there's enough time given to oral lessons in Cambridge; when I arrived in China I had to learn how to speak like a real person and not like a newsreader. It's interesting to witness cultural phenomenon you've only ever read about and have good conversations with teachers and friends to see what they think about them. The faculty at Cambridge provides travel grants to help with costs and many colleges, such as Churchill, have their own travel funds too, so there's definitely more financial help than at some other universities.

The course is very much language-oriented but there's also a strong emphasis on history, politics and literature. This means that if you want to do a Masters degree or apply for a job in a different field later you have similar transferable skills to someone who studied History or English, but with the added advantage of speaking a language that's increasingly sought-after.