Program Overview

Our BA Modern Languages with Latin American Studies (including foundation year) is open to Home and EU students. It will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the three-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills.

This four-year course includes a foundation year (Year Zero), followed by a further three years of study. During your Year Zero, you study four academic subjects relevant to your chosen course as well as a compulsory academic skills module.

After successful completion of Year Zero in our Essex Pathways Department, you progress to complete your course with the Department of Language and Linguistics. In addition to mastering both Spanish and Portuguese at a high level of proficiency, you gain practical skills in the use of these languages (such as in translating and interpreting), as well as developing a thorough understanding of several of our planet’s most vibrant societies. We house the internationally important collection of Latin American art, ESCALA.

Beginning with a broad survey of the area and its history in your first year, from pre-Conquest times to the present day, our course gives you a substantial degree of freedom.

This allows you to focus on the topics and areas which inspire you the most, such as:

• Contemporary Latin American art, culture and society
• The economic and political history of Latin America
• Indigenous issues in Latin America
• Caribbean literature 

You can also add an additional language to your portfolio, choosing a third language from French, German, and Italian.

We also offer a month-long summer course with fees paid for by us if you start a language from scratch via the route.