Hi
@AxSirlotl! It's great to hear of your interest in studying History at UEA! I'm a BA History graduate from UEA (2015) so well-equipped to offer advice and share my experience of the course.
Making the step from A-Levels to university can be daunting - I was in a similar boat as you having only studied the War of the Roses and World War II in sufficient detail in my A Levels. The modules at UEA in the first year are organised to counter this issue and solve any potential lapses in knowledge with an introductory module in Medieval, Early Modern and Modern British History, two subject-specific modules (for 2018/19 entry, this is 'Age of Extremes: Europe 1918-2001' and 'Witchcraft, Magic and Belief in Early Modern Europe) and a module in 'History, Controversy and Debate', which challenges you to reflect on the nature of history and what it means to be a historian. Your first year at UEA does not count towards your final mark - so this is a brilliant opportunity to explore potential subjects of interest and time periods, so you are prepared to specialise in second year if you wish to.
In your second year, you will have six modules - for Option A & B study you pick two modules of 20 credits each, and in Option C & D study you pick one module of 20 credits each. Although the modules can span a large time-span, you do have the option to focus on a particular time period in both your assignments and in the examinations. For your assignments, you can select from a number of questions or themes, or even propose a relevant theme to your tutor for approval. In the examination, you are presented with several questions to chose from (this may change in your year of study, but in my studies we were provided with ten questions) and expected to answer only two of these. As such, you are not expected to answer a question spanning the whole time-span unless it specifically states as such - and you can simply avoid these ones and select another question if you wish!
In my experience, I found the course well-suited to specialising in a certain time period. I focused on gender and cultural politics in Modern British History and selected modules around this period and theme, such as 'Women, Power and Politics' and 'Twentieth-Century Britain, 1914 to the Present', as well as those that could be applicable or helped my experience - such as 'Heritage and Public History'. You also have the option to take a free study module in the School of Humanities - I chose an American Studies module on New York from 1950's and focused on the media around the Johnson-Hinton and Malcolm X incident in New York. With all my modules, if I felt I wanted to explore a theme in gender or cultural politics that was still relevant to that particular module as part of my assignment, the tutors were always really supportive in letting me do so. As such, I never felt there was a barrier in exploring my interests. A great example of this was in my third year studies of 'Victorian Underworlds'. The theme of The Contagious Diseases Act and Josephine Butler was never a part of the core syllabus, but my tutor was incredible helpful in allowing me to explore this as part of my essay assignment and providing advice and resources to aid my research.
I hope this helps! Can I ask out of interest, which period of history are you looking to study?
- Laura, UEA Official Rep