BA Chinese and Law (Year Abroad)

SOAS University of London

The teaching is mostly high quality and the environment fosters independent thinking and curiosity. The course is well designed and allows for a lot of flexibility and tailoring it to personal interests. It is very hard to get clear information on things like mitigating circumstances, extensions etc.

Administration is a bit unorganized and they will take forever to respond to emails/help with specific concerns. However, it is a great university with many resources with many students focused on African and Asian languages and culture

professors are very understandable and helping so don’t hesitate to reach them out if you are struggling with the course.

Overall I really like the professors (most seem very passionate, are helpful, and create very interesting modules) and the course materials. I’m glad I’m doing this degree at the end of the day. However SOAS administration is terrible. From giving the wrong term dates for study abroad programs causing the program to be shortened, extremely late at getting grades back, unhelpful IT support, messing up visa information, etc there’s no end to the administrative nightmare that is SOAS

SOAS is a great university. What I definitely consider one of the best aspects is the extremely friendly and accepting atmosphere. Another positive aspect are the studying spaces and library, as well as the campus itself. Just being there makes me very happy and makes my day better. I also think lecturers and the content of modules and readings are an undeniable positive aspect. There’s very little to none modules that are boring or approached in such manner. The lecturers and staff are very friendly and helpful, which makes my university experience even better. The only thing that I could complain about are online services. Getting an emails back regardless of the matter takes a long time, definitely too long to solve any problem or issue in time. Also, SOAS tends to have strikes almost every week, which is very disruptive to our studies. I understand the strikes, their reasoning and I support them and SOAS’ staff, however they way they are conducted and the amount of them is still a major disruption to our education. Besides that, I love this university and I would never change it!

SOAS is decent, it has a strong and stringent Chinese course that I am absolutely loving at current. The campus is great, facilities are strong, and the Student Union has a good presence. For improvements, I'm unsure. Lacrimé