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TSR Wiki > University > Choosing a Subject > University Courses > History Degree

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Contents 1 Course Overview 2 Universities offering History 3 Admissions 3.1 Entry Requirements 4 Choosing your Courses 5 Personal Statement 6 Life as an History Student 7 Graduate Destinations and Career Prospects 8 Frequently Asked Questions 9 Also See

Course Overview

People who study History have an interest in the past, in all sorts of ways; studying the past helps us to understand our present, and to see it in perspective.

Quote from the Southampton website: "Studying history will sharpen your insights into the functioning of past societies, helping you formulate a more critical awareness of the problems of the present."

The study of History is a wonderful training ground for people to learn how to evaluate evidence and bring it together to form a considered and well-argued judgement. The skills that people acquire when studying for a History degree can be used in all sorts of jobs and are much valued by employers.

Universities offering History

Most universities offer some kind of History course. Some courses are very specialist, others more broadly based. The single honours History course is usually V100, although there are some variants of this, such as V101 at Queen Mary, London. The universities that do not offer History at all include: Imperial College, London; Bath; Loughborough.

For joint honours, history can be combined with most things somewhere or other; UCAS course search is probably the only way of finding them all.

Admissions

History is one of the most competitive courses to get into, at the top universities. It is not unusual for applicants for V100 and some of the joint honours courses (History and Politics particularly) to find themselves with more rejections than offers. Unfortunately, it does happen sometimes that people end up with only one offer, or even none. To avoid this happening to you, it's essential to do your research and to pitch your application sensibly. For most people, applying to five "high risk" choices (ie all top 10 unis) is not a good idea as it is likely to result in disappointment. Unfortunately the volume of applications some unis receive means that some apparently arbitrary choices are made, and so you do need to "target" your application carefully. This means getting some idea of what particular unis are looking for in their assessment of your application, and tailoring your application to suit if you can. If there are specific requirements that you don't meet (eg numbers of GCSE A*s, AS/A2 subjects or grades) it is pointless to apply on the off chance that they will make you an offer after all. Unless you have extenuating circumstances backed up by your referee, all you will get (and pretty swiftly probably) is a rejection. Unis have enough of a hard time sifting through the numbers of applications from people who on paper completely meet all their criteria, so giving them an application that in some way doesn't meet them is just making their life easier.

Entry Requirements

Note that some universities, especially at the top end, do not use the UCAS points system to specify their offers. Those universities that do use the UCAS tariff will normally include points from additional AS levels in the total. Entry requirements should always be checked both on UCAS and the university website as changes can occur unexpectedly. Make sure that you have established whether there are specific subject requirements (including GCSE requirements too); not all universities require History at AS/A2. Quite a few specifically exclude General Studies. It also important to remember that for some universities (Edinburgh and LSE are good examples) the entry requirements are set at a level to attract a broad range of applicants, but many if not most of the people actually getting offers will have or be predicted grades well above that.

2008 Entry Requirements updated from Lottie's list by Jxhn.

Coming soon: the 2009 Entry Requirements

Choosing your Courses

Course structure and content varies widely, and it is an essential part of your research to make sure you know what the compulsory modules are and how much choice you have and when. Always visit the Department website and check out the module descriptions that should be there; if they aren't, try and find the current students course handbook. This is worth finding anyway if you can, as it will tell you much more about the department and the way it operates than the prospectus will. If the tone and style of the handbook appeals to you this is a positive sign; if it puts you off, give some thought as to why.

Avoid choosing a course based on one particular feature that interests you. Ask yourself how you would feel about that course if a particular module was withdrawn. It happens - especially with specialist subjects, if a lecturer leaves/goes on sabbatical/gets pregnant there's no-one else to teach it. You might get very little notice and your choice of alternatives will be limited. So make sure that there is more than one thing that is of interest to you, just in case. Charismatic academics are great but also - to some extent anyway! - unpredictable, and it would be just your luck to pick the year that Professor Flankingirons, the international expert who leads the module on "Mill Workers in the 1830s: Their Lives and Times" decides to go off on sabbatical.

Also look at the unique features of the courses you are checking out. For example, the languages module in V100 at Warwick, or the "Representing the Past in Film" module in V100 at Hull. Both are compulsory elements of their courses. If you gave up languages after GCSE Spanish with a sigh of relief, don't apply for V100 at Warwick (although this language requirement is waived for those doing joint honours courses, such as History and Politics). If you are a passionate film buff, don't let the fact that Hull's standard entry requirements are BBB put you off considering their course just because you are predicted AAA. A lot of rubbish is talked about the "prestige" of different universities and this can get in the way of sensible decisions; try to look beyond this to the specialisms of the universities in question. If medieval history is your thing, look for the universities with a strong contingent of people whose research interests are in that area. Birmingham, Cardiff, and Leicester (to name but a few!) are better bets if you are a medieval history buff than Warwick or LSE. Royal Holloway is renowned for gender history; Oxford Brookes and Chichester both offer work placement modules, especially suitable if you are interested in museums/archives/the heritage industry.

Finally, check out the student satisfaction figures. The numbers of history students are generally big enough for these to be valid for comparison purposes, and you may find that some courses have a much higher satisfaction rating than others. Again, depends what matters to you, but you are planning to spend three years doing this degree and it might as well be a positive experience!

Personal Statement

Your personal statement is the most important part of your application. Especially if you are applying to the top 10 universities, stellar grades are not enough to guarantee offers. So it is really really really important to spend time on this; do not leave it until the last minute!

When drafting your PS consider the following:

• make sure your opening sentence is original without being pretentious/cheesy/arrogant/too clever by half
  • avoid the "I've been interested in history since I was 2" bit unless you have a genuinely individual take on this
• don't repeat information from the rest of your application; you haven't room
• there's no need to run through all your A2 subjects just for the sake of it; make sure that mentioning them adds something to the mix
• for the top universities particularly, you need to demonstrate engagement and understanding, so
  • pick one or two topics that have particularly caught your interest
  • make sure you have read about them beyond the basic curriculum
  • engage with it - do you agree with the authors you have read? Why? Why not?
  • don't just list books you have read - apart from being very boring it tells the admissions tutor nothing at all about what you gained from the exercise (NB: Carr and Evans are a little "tired" now)
• your academic stuff should take up at least two thirds of your PS
• extra-curriculars are useful and should be there, but be careful not to turn a CV into prose; use them as evidence of your skills
• work experience is only worth mentioning if it is relevant (and don't panic if you haven't got any, it doesn't seem to be expected in the same way as it is for some other subjects)
• if you have some idea of what you'd like to do after you graduate mention it by all means, but do not give the impression that you only want a history degree in order to be able to move seamlessly into IB and earn £££; admissions tutors are rather fond of their subject and don't appreciate it being used as a means to an end

An excellent suggestion from WokSz is that if you are reading journal articles or other texts that aren't part of your course, make notes as you go so that when you come to write your PS you have something to remind you/refer to.

If you are applying for joint honours, it is usual to have a fairly equal balance between the two subjects, but it doesn't always happen. Usually there is a lead department for the joint honours course, and it could be helpful to know which it is as that might be relevant to how you structure your PS (as in, if an admissions tutor for history is likely to be reading your PS first, you might want to tailor your PS accordingly).

Finally, if you know that particular unis are looking for specific things, make sure that these are covered. Some (Bristol is a good example) publish their application assessment criteria. So does QMUL. It's worth looking at these.

The PS Helpers are here to help, so do post your draft in the Forum. No-one apart from the Helpers will be able to see it, so it's quite safe from potential plagiarists. Remember to allow time for the PS Helper to get to it - things get very crowded in September particularly so don't assume you'll get an instant response.

Life as an History Student

History students have to be self-starters; disciplined and organised. You will be expected to do a lot of work by yourself, as most history courses are based on contact time of 6-10 hours a week. This includes lectures, seminars, and tutorials. The rest of your time, pretty much, is spent either in the library or working on the stuff you got from there, as to do well as a History student, it is important to keep up with the reading - there's an enormous amount of it - and become a skilled note taker.

History BA at uni has some feedback from the front!

Graduate Destinations and Career Prospects

Anything and everything, as a recent report suggests. While the value of a History degree in 21st century is often questioned by those who don't understand it, recent studies have shown 'History graduates are found in disproportionate numbers on the boards of the UK's top 100 companies.' This seems to suggest that the skills obtained reading history are highly valued in the 'real world'. The following is just a small selection of careers, as well as some people you may have heard of with History degrees:

• The Civil Service/Parliament: Gordon Brown MP; John Reid MP; Alan Milburn MP; John Prescott MP and Lord Coe.

• Media/Television: Jonathon Ross; Simon Mayo; Ali G; Dermot Murnaghan; Jeremy Bowen.

• Heir(s) to the throne: Prince Charles; Prince Edward.

Historians frequently end up as lawyers; quite a few can be found lurking in the public sector such as the NHS or local government; others become authors or journalists. Some even become teachers... and then go for a career change like the England rugby coach Brian Ashton.

Career prospects with a good degree in History are as broad and as good as you want to make them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Also See