Alumni careers

Introduction

This section of the website is where we invite you to contribute your experience and wisdom in order to help fellow alumni and current School of Modern Languages students negotiate their way through the careers jungle.

A degree in Modern Languages is, of course, tremendously flexible, and we are proud that our graduates end up in all sorts of surprising (and not-so-surprising) places, working in a huge variety of roles. Do you have an interesting story to tell about where your Modern Languages degree from St Andrews has taken you?

Whenever you graduated from St Andrews, we would love to hear more about how you have used – or not used! – your degree. If you would like to appear on the website, or feel you would be able to assist the School in some other way (for example, by making yourself available to answer questions about your chosen career, or by offering work experience placements to our talented crop of current undergraduates), then please write to us at langsdoer@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Case study: Douglas G J Paterson, French and German, 1963-66

 I do regret not being able to attend the reunion for modern language graduates especially since I believe I benefited enormously from my degree in French and German away back in 1963-66.

On leaving school in 1962 I was unable to gain entry to St Andrews in that year but was accepted for 1963. In the interim I embarked on a career in chartered accountancy but on the understanding with my firm that I would interrupt my fledgling career to go to university.

I studied French and German under, respectively, Professors McFarlane and Carr. The course was excellent and I subsequently discovered how well grounded it had been. At the end of the second year I was under some pressure from the German department to take the honours course and after an agonising Easter break I resolved to continue with the ordinary degree thus enabling me to return sooner to my accountancy career. Read more

Case Study: Sheila McLynn Atherton

 I planned from the first to do a joint degree in French and German, and added Classical Culture and Fine Arts to broaden my knowledge base. It was a choice of degree I’ve never regretted, although at school my passion had been English Literature. The emphasis on the study of literature was one of the features that made St Andrews so attractive to me. My career plans involved writing – journalism perhaps, or research assistant? Anything but teaching! Read more