English Literature with a Placement Year

English Literature is the academic study of the written word in its richest and most demanding forms, examining how fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction construct meaning, reflect their historical moment, and shape the experience of readers across different times and cultures. At its best, it trains students in a distinctive combination of close reading and broad contextual understanding, asking both what individual words and sentences do and how texts relate to the societies and traditions that produced them.

At the University of East Anglia, this four-year, full-time degree with a placement year is set in Norwich, a city with a remarkable literary heritage, and based in a department with a long tradition of taking literature seriously on its own terms. You will explore how storytelling has shaped the world from ancient times to today, developing the close reading skills and critical vocabulary needed to engage with texts across historical periods, genres, and traditions. The placement year connects your literary study to professional contexts, building real-world experience in industries where close reading, communication, and cultural knowledge are valued.

English Literature graduates develop capabilities that are valued across a remarkably wide range of careers. Publishing, journalism, education, the civil service, law, marketing, public relations, communications, the arts, and the cultural sector are all common destinations. The discipline's fundamental skills, reading carefully, thinking analytically, and writing well, are useful wherever language and ideas matter.

Many graduates also go on to postgraduate study in literature, creative writing, publishing, or education, including teacher training, for those who wish to develop specialist expertise or pursue a particular professional path.