Моя подруга учится на филологическом факультете и любит литературу.

Because подруга is a feminine noun, so the possessive pronoun must also be feminine.

• мой = my (masculine)
• моя = my (feminine)
• моё = my (neuter)
• мои = my (plural)

So:

• мой друг = my male friend
• моя подруга = my female friend

The ending -а in подруга is a strong clue that the noun is feminine.

Подруга usually means female friend. In some contexts, it can also mean girlfriend, but that depends on the situation.

A learner should know this contrast:

• друг = male friend / friend
• подруга = female friend

If someone wants to make it very clear that they mean a romantic partner, they might use other wording depending on context. But in many ordinary sentences, моя подруга simply means my female friend.

The basic verb is учиться, which means to study.

The ending -ся is part of the verb. You should learn учиться as a whole word, not as учить + something extra in a loose way.

This is an important contrast:

• учить = to teach, or to learn/study something by memorizing it
• учиться = to study, to be a student, to learn at a school/university

Examples:

• Я учу русский. = I am learning/studying Russian.
• Я учусь в университете. = I study at a university.

In your sentence, учится means she studies.

Because учит and учится are different verbs in meaning.

• учит from учить
• учится from учиться

Compare:

• Она учит литературу. = She studies/learns literature (as a subject, material, content).
• Она учится на филологическом факультете. = She studies at the philology faculty.

So in your sentence, the idea is not that she is learning one specific thing, but that she is enrolled and studying at a faculty. That is why Russian uses учиться.

Russian often uses учиться на факультете when talking about someone’s faculty or department.

So:

• учиться в университете = to study at a university
• учиться на факультете = to study at a faculty/department

That means both prepositions are possible in similar contexts, but they go with different nouns:

• в университете
• на факультете

This is something you largely have to learn as a collocation:

• учиться на филологическом факультете
• учиться на историческом факультете
• учиться на медицинском факультете

Because after на in this meaning, Russian uses the prepositional case.

The base form is:

• филологический факультет

In the prepositional singular, it changes to:

• на филологическом факультете

Both words change because the adjective must agree with the noun:

• филологический → филологическом
• факультет → факультете

This is normal adjective-noun agreement in Russian.

Because литература is the direct object of любит, so it goes into the accusative case.

Base form:

• литература

Accusative singular:

• литературу

So:

• Она любит литературу. = She loves literature.

This is a very common pattern in Russian:

• любить музыку
• читать книгу
• знать язык

For feminine nouns ending in -а, the accusative singular often changes -а to -у.

Yes. Both verbs are in the present tense, third person singular:

• учится = she studies
• любит = she loves

In this sentence, the present tense expresses a general fact or habitual situation, not just what is happening right this second.

So the meaning is more like:

• She studies at the philology faculty.
• She likes/loves literature.

This is very normal in Russian. The present tense often covers both now and in general.

Because the subject is already expressed: моя подруга.

Russian does not need to repeat the subject with она the way English sometimes might for clarity. Once you already have the noun phrase, adding она would usually be unnecessary.

So this is perfectly natural:

• Моя подруга учится... и любит...

Russian often avoids repeating information when it is already clear.

Yes, Russian word order is fairly flexible, although some orders sound more neutral than others.

The sentence you have is a very natural neutral order:

• Моя подруга учится на филологическом факультете и любит литературу.

You could also say:

• Моя подруга любит литературу и учится на филологическом факультете.

That changes the emphasis slightly, but the basic meaning stays the same.

Russian uses word order partly for focus and style, not only for grammar. Cases and verb forms do a lot of the grammatical work.

Russian has no articles.

So Russian does not have direct equivalents of English a and the. Whether something is definite or indefinite is understood from context.

That is why Russian simply says:

• Моя подруга
• на филологическом факультете
• любит литературу

English requires articles much more often, but Russian does not.

A helpful stress guide is:

• моЯ
• поДРУга
• уЧИТся
• на филолоГИческом факульТЕте
• и
• ЛЮбит
• литераТУру

A rough pronunciation guide:

• ma-YA pa-DRU-ga u-CHIT-sa na fee-la-la-GEE-cha-skam fa-kul-TYE-tye i LYU-bit lee-ta-ra-TU-ru

A couple of useful notes:

• г in подруга sounds like a hard g
• -тся in учится is pronounced roughly like -ца
• unstressed о often sounds closer to a in actual speech

So учится is written with -тся but pronounced approximately уЧИЦа.