**Course outline**
In English, you’ll harness the power of the written and spoken word to discover how English works in society and become an expert communicator. The English programme has been designed with your future in mind, linking your studies to professionally relevant contexts with practical applications. It is directly informed by the research expertise of our staff, who specialise in disciplines including literary linguistics, forensic linguistics, language education, workplace communication, corpus linguistics, and contemporary and historical literature.

We study everything from poetry and plays to news reporting and social media, providing you with the opportunity to develop skills in linguistic analysis, while exploring literary genres from Shakespeare to post-apocalyptic science fiction, considering periods from the seventeenth century to the present day. You’ll study literacy as a social practice and explore how and why people read and write at all levels of society. You’ll develop theoretical knowledge, cutting-edge linguistic skills, and techniques in close reading and literary analysis, with applications in legal, educational, and business contexts and beyond. We will train you to critically engage with a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts, and you’ll have the chance to develop your skills as a writer through our creative writing module.

Meanwhile, Sociology is about real-life, everyday experiences. Our research-led teaching brings social theory to the study of pressing issues in the modern age, such as migration, climate change, welfare, crime, health, and sexuality. We focus on key contemporary issues, social policy and decision-making, global trends, and international comparisons.

In Sociology, you’ll gain an in-depth understanding of social processes, organisational dynamics, and inter-group relationships. We explore the social constraints we encounter in our everyday lives and how they are reinforced by class, race, religion, and gender. To understand how these issues perpetuate existing inequalities and unequal life chances, we analyse how policy is intertwined with the profit-making aims pursued by big corporations and how their combined interests dominate our social imaginations. When learning about contemporary topics such as inequality, racism, health, migration, sexuality, identity, education, the media, crime, and climate change, you will be taught by experts in these fields.

Together, both English and Sociology will equip you with the knowledge and analytical skills that will enable you to think critically and work independently. This includes how to design a research project, collect empirical data, handle complex datasets (e.g., through applying coding techniques) and, most importantly, develop an advanced analytical mindset. This training will be essential for your final-year dissertation, during which you will carry out your own individual research project. This experience will provide you with a skillset that is highly desired in a wide range of industries and areas of work.

**Key benefits**
- As part of your degree you’ll undertake a professional placement year, gaining valuable practical experience that employers demand. Aston University’s Careers and Placements team was recognised as the ‘Best University Placement Service’ at the National Undergraduate Employability (NUE) Awards 2022.

- English at Aston University was ranked first in the UK for ‘graduate prospects – on-track’ (Complete University Guide, 2022).

- English at Aston University was ranked among the top 5 universities in the UK for ‘spend per student’ (Guardian, 2023).

- Sociology at Aston University was ranked 9th in the UK for ‘Graduate Prospects – Outcomes’ (Complete University Guide, 2023).

- Sociology at Aston University was ranked among the top 10 universities in the UK for ‘student to staff ratio’ (Guardian, 2023).