Hello!
I’ve really enjoyed the history course, I’m a modern historian too and there’s been plenty of opportunity for me to do very recent stuff. If I’m remembering correctly (although it might have changed now!) in the first term of first year everyone does the same modules; I think they were modern, early modern, and one about how to study history- but that one was also taught through using the 20th century as a case study. In the second term of the first year there was a compulsory medieval unit (I HATE medieval history haha, but I actually didn’t find it too terrible) and that’s also the first term that you get to choose two of your own units- I did America since WW2 and a weird one about the place of music in modern Britain.
In second year and third year you can pretty much entirely choose what you want. I think there’s one compulsory unit on global history, but otherwise you’re free to pick anything! A lot of my friends went for European or African history, one is obsessed with medieval things and witchcraft, but I did units on 1970s Britain and youth subcultures! Next term I’m doing something on the 90s and 00s (so about as modern as you can get!)
Basically I’d say that the course is really good in that there are so many options and you have control to study pretty much whatever you like. The history department as a whole is definitely academic, but they’re also quite chill if you need to submit something a bit late and I found this really helped me to enjoy the year. As the course goes on and you start to specialise you get to know specific lecturers a bit more too, which is nice.
Assessment is the same as most unis I think. It’s a mixture of exams, essays, and we did one presentation in first year. First year doesn’t count for your final mark. Since covid the exams in history have been converted to seven day papers that you submit online, so they’re open book. (You don’t spend seven days on them! You just have a seven day window to submit!) I’m not sure if this will be the same next year or if they’ll just be normal ones again. I’ve got the specific modes of asseament for my first year units written down somewhere... PM if youd like to see it and I’ll dig it out 😊
In terms of the history soc I’m afraid I don’t know much about it cos I’m very involved with some other societies at the uni instead. But they’re good in that they run lots of social events, including the party in December. They also do academic support sessions you can pop into if you want! I probably should’ve made use of them a bit more haha
Sorry for the wall of text! If you are going to Bristol or need anything else let me know! I could go on about it for hours!