For those still on your journey, I salute you. For those about to begin, I wish you the best of luck. These have been four of the most difficult but best years of my life, and the best part? Turns out I’m hella employable ;). It is time for me to leave the nest and start the next chapter of my life: adulthood. Yes, it seems scary and daunting if you are looking at it from far away, but I am writing this from an office in the deep south of Mexico, doing adulty things like grocery shopping and apartment hunting. If I have learnt one thing from MLang, it is that you have to embrace life, and that this will take you on new and exciting adventures after this. I am so proud of all of my MLings, and I know that you will do great things, so as a final gift, I shall impart my wisdom of bad decisions, so that maybe you can avoid trouble and start your own exciting adventures.
Relationships
Many of you who studied alongside me know that I had a rocky start to university and relationships, but if anything, it made me appreciate more the statement “you have to kiss a few frogs before you meet your prince”. Anyone who knows me knows that I am annoyingly happy, and part of that reason is because I don’t feel like I missed out on anything because I dated and saw the world before settling down. Here are my top tips for a happy, relatively healthy, love life:
Mates before dates always. You need friends way more than partners to get through this, especially your fellow MLangs because without sounding harsh, nobody else gets it.
DON’T sleep with your flatmates. Just don’t. It is not worth it.
Don’t fall in love just before you go abroad. Goodbyes are difficult, and new relationships are not easy to sustain if you go long distance after one month.
There is always time in the day to talk, be that online on skype or whatsapp, via phone call or in real life. If I can speak to my boyfriend every day for an hour even though we have a six-hour time difference and he has a mobile phone ban at work, there is no excuse. You are worth speaking to everyday, and so is your partner. Never say that you are too busy or treat them badly in return, especially if you are abroad.
Get tinder on your year abroad. It is hilarious. I played the “yo soy una inglesa que quiere praticar más mi español... puedes ayudarme? ;)” [I’m an English girl that wants to practice her Spanish more... can you help me? ;)]. Shameful I know, but sit back, relax and watch the terribly translated chat up lines come pouring through :’).
Have fun on your YA! Unless you are in a relationship, obviously, as I am extremely opposed to all forms of cheating and will kick any MLang ass that disrespects another human that way... But, if you're single, date! You can reinvent yourself on your YA and try things that you never would do at home because let’s face it, nobody knows you! And maybe you’ll even find your perfect match that way.
Be honest always. Honesty is the best policy, but one lie or omission has the power to do serious damage. Relationships are built on two things: trust (90%) and sex (10%). If you are entering into the relationship stage and not just the ‘having fun’ you need to make sure that is your priority.
Avoid French guys. *Shivers*
Be safe, ALWAYS. Get yourself checked before you go (fyi France is a nightmare for healthcare), use condoms cause you don’t know if the other person is having a SHAGMUS not ERASMUS, and don’t rely on the pill. Germany is okay as far as I am aware, but France are useless with medicine and charge a fortune, and Mexico and Spain are Catholic countries, so you’ll have a hard time finding the pill or an abortion clinic. Be careful! Also, make sure you always let a friend know where you are if you are on a date, you never know who is out and about on the streets.
Education
You can probably tell from this article that I am quite a liberal person, and that I had a bit of a fiesta on my year abroad... that may be true but for me EDUCATION ALWAYS COMES FIRST. This is a very difficult degree, and you need to make sure that it is always books before hook ups! As a graduate, here is my advice:
Keep in constant contact not only with your tutors, but your mentors. They went through this already, they have comments and feedback on their work which was marked by the people who are setting your work. Use them as much as you can because, let’s face it, the MLangers have more of a clue than the actual staff, who are treating us as if we are normal students.
DELC210 COUNTS AND IS DIFFICULT BECAUSE NOBODY KNOWS WHAT TO DO. Use normal students to help you out, and make sure you use a lottttt of references.
Choose an undergrad dissertation that you love. This is a smaller dissertation to ease you into the monster in your final year. Choose something that you love, and if you don’t love anything, choose something that will help you in your post-Mlang career.
Choose classes that excite you. I love history, so I chose history-based classes. Also, choose classes that will help you out with your career later on. I want to be a manager, and I am very glad that I did a module in project management.
You are amazing. Don’t forget that.
Don’t work more than 12 hours a week in third or fourth year, it will kill you.
Start prepping for your MLang fourth year dissertation before fourth year even begins. Ignore them when they say not to think about it in advance, because what happens is that you get four months to write a 15,000-word translation project from scratch and that is not good for your hair or mental health.
Did I tell you that you are amazing? Just checking.
Choose classes in Michealmas term if you can and give yourself lent term to do placement modules and focus on your thesis. Also, double check that everyone knows that you need your results early, cause masters classes end in September usually and that means June and July deadlines for everyone else but you, who needs to have results submitted to the senate for the 25thMay, meaning that the latest you can hand things in is the 11thMay.
Support your fellow stressed out MLangers. You are brilliant and intelligent but damn fourth year gets to the best of us.
NO MORE POITIERS! Keep the fight alive, don’t let my dream of another French university swooping in to the rescue die.
General
This will be short, I promise.
Live, laugh and love.
Let yourself be loved and don’t be afraid of people laughing at you.
Don’t live on campus in fourth year, you don’t have enough classes for it to be worth it and you aren’t allowed to live in grad.
Travel on your ERASMUS grant.
You don’t need to have a plan straight away: I was dead set on teaching until the last minute, and then within two weeks I had a job, and within another four weeks I turned that job down because I got myself on a sweet management graduate scheme.
Life is sometimes gonna be shit, but with lemons you can make sweet revenge lemonade.
National Student Survey, just saying ;)
Take lots of photographs.
MLang is a really employable degree, and because nobody knows what an MLang is, you can explain how difficult and prestigious it is to employers and random people on the street. 99% success rate that they are blown away (screw you, Cambridge law jackass).
Always keep in touch!
These have been the best and worst years of my life. I would not have survived the past three without my trusty fellow MLang alumni Alicia, and it has been a pleasure to help some of you on your journey, be that as an MLanger, or as something different. I have lived, laughed and loved, and I urge you to all do the same.
I hope that this has been useful advice for you, and if you ever need to hear a friendly voice I am always on the other end of a phone: once an MLang, always an MLang.
Good luck, and all the best for the future.
Love,
Megan Edgar
MLang (Hons) Modern Languages and Culture (Spanish and French)
