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History at Glasgow

Hello :hello:

I am going to study history at The University of Glasgow (at least I am hopping to fulfil my offer :smile:) from this September and I wonder could anybody tell me their experience. Do You like your course and lecturers? Do you like the university and the atmosphere in it? I know that this will be a personal opinion, but that is exactly what I want :smile:) Thank You for Your time :smile:
(edited 12 years ago)
Hello!

I'm in my final year of Law and History Joint honours. History at Glasgow is brilliant! First year you do basic history, medieval and modern focused on Europe. Second year you have more choice with Scottish or American offered. In third year you can do a huge range of courses. I love medieval history and have done Irish medieval history, a course about native British tribes in Scotland after the Romans and this year I'm doing a course Pagans, Princes and Priests and the tutor is lovely and the topic is so interesting, all about converting the Anglo-Saxons. I only wish I hadn't done law and could have done more history!:tongue:

The tutors are lovely and helpful, in my opinion more so than the law ones anyway. They help you to get hold of books (the library doesn't always stock a lot of copies so you need to be fast to get what you need) and any questions you have. A difference from school is that it is much more focused on what you think, rather than what historians think. You use historians opinions and evidence to make your own opinion so there is much more freedom.

The uni is a very beautiful campus as I'm sure you know, and as a history student your classes and tutorials are usually in 1,9 or 10 uni gardens which is the row of Victorian terraced houses along from the QM towards the library. The rooms are lovely and because they are small you have much more opportunity to discuss things.

I can't recommend history at Glasgow more, its a brilliant and interesting degree which lets you learn so much more than just world wars! :biggrin:

If you've got anymore questions feel free to ask!
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Reply 2
Wow, it's so nice to see that you are so happy about the subject you have been studying for almost four years :smile: I'm really looking forward to September, can't wait to start my studies :^_^:
Hi, I'm just coming to the end of my third year of a single honours in History and I can honestly say that it's amazing, it gives you a really broad view of different time periods in the first year and then in second it tightens it slightly. The honours year is amazing as the selection of courses you can take is immense!! I personally love the Early modern period and have studied things such as Reformation and Empires and Colonies however every period is covered from Medieval right through to Modern History.

The lecturers are really good, very helpful. I have found myself in a bit of a bind a few times whilst trying to work on essays with a lack of books and there has been at least one lecturer that has been able to jump in and loan me a copy.

The Uni itself has a great atmosphere as well, Glasgow does tend to get a bit of stick for being snobby but in general it's fantastic!! The campus is stunning especially on the main campus which resembles Hogwarts :smile: I really hope that you enjoy your time at Glasgow and have a fantastic time studying History!!!
Reply 4
Wow, Hogwarts ;D Now I am waiting even more to study there ;D

I have one more question :smile: Does the courses usually cover periods from the Early Middle Ages or just the Late Middle ages? :smile:
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 5
I'm starting History & Archaeology and this thread has been quite helpful so thanks to the posters!

Just wondering if anyone can give me an idea of what your timetable is like in the first year? Is the course quite heavy in terms of lectures/tutorials or is most of the work done as self study time? I was at uni before studying something completely different and I was in at least 5 hours a day Monday to Friday. A few friends have told me this seems a hell of a lot to them so I'm wondering what to expect.

Cheers!
Not sure about what you'll get for archaeology, but if I remember correctly it's 3 one hour lectures a week and a tutorial. Which isn't too heavy. I imagine archaeology will be a fuller timetable because of the theoretical and practical side but I could be wrong! Science subjects always have more class time, but for History and Arts in general they expect you to do a lot of independent work, which is one of the reasons why the library books go missing!
Oh and about the courses.....

There is a variety. First and Second year you cover pre- Norman conquest of England, so about maybe 900AD on and then later you can choose to do early medieval or late medieval or modern. I don't think there are any courses that are earlier than about 400AD, you would need to do Classics (Roman and Greek) or Celtic for that.
Reply 8
It's exactly what I want, because in many other universities history programs the erliest date is about 1600AD (at least it seems so from their descriptions) and I wanted to study a little bit wider period :smile:
I done both Archaeology and History in first and second year before taking History into third year as a single honours. The programme for history covers from 800 up to modern history. The good thing about Glasgow is that they give you a wide variety of subjects and cover a pretty broad time period. :smile: The further in you get the more specfic the time period you can choose for example I just done Reformation this year which took me through the period of 1517 up until around the 1600s another one called Making Saints which too us from 800 to around 1300.

With Archaeology you get two lectures a week and a tutorial in first year and as you progress you have more time in the labs, for example you do field Archaeology where you do the theory in semster 1 and then practicals in semster 2 including writing a report and compiling a portfolio. It's tough going, I won't lie and some of it had me in despair but overall its a great course and really managable in terms of work load, plus at the end of second year you get to go away to field school which I have been told is a lot of fun!!

Hope this helps :smile:
Reply 10
I should interject here that there will be brand spanking new history modules by the time you start. Exactly how they look is yet to be finalised, but they'll be along the broad lines of the previous set-up. We used to teach three first year modules, 1A & B on Medieval and Modern being compulsory with 1C on Scotland being optional, and four second year modules, which you had to pick at least two based (usually three) from another Medieval module, early modern, Scottish and American. The other slots were free for you to pick and choose as you please: most take politics, philosophy or economics, but English or a language were also popular. In short, the experience of current third years won't map exactly onto what you'll find. Hopefully for the better though!

New structure has a Scottish module, a medieval module, and modern Europe module and then one or two which have as yet still to be finalised covering Early Modern & America. The idea behind it is that it means all students will be exposed to the same training and thus theoretically we won't have anyone in a Nuclear Weapons course in third year having not really looked at the 20th Century since a couple of weeks in level 1B, or taking Charlemagne having not thought about the period since 1A.

There are also four Economic & Social History modules covering Britain and Europe from circa 1700 to present. It's in a different academic school so there is no requirement to take those modules, but I think they help people understand how to approach history in different ways, so I'd strongly recommend them.

Honours will be based on which staff members are around to teach: There are around 45 historians at Glasgow- one of the half dozen or so largest departments in the UK & Ireland, so at any one time eight or nine won't be around as they'll be writing books or articles. Module choice will be vast though- in some years there have been well over 50 possible module choices, of which you pick six. That's sufficiently far away that you don't have to worry about it now though.

If I'm quite honest, first and second year aren't usually what most students find interesting, the classes are broad to give everyone a little taste of everything, so it might be that you don't love it straight away, but the smaller, intensive modules on something like the European Enlightenment with intensive discussions with a professor are what the degree is built on. I'd take the first two years to find yourself and settle into university and get into good habits, and take it from there.

As an added added bonus, I won't be teaching anything this year (I was on Level 1 ESH and Level 2 American last year) as I have pressing research to do, so there is no chance that you'll run into me.

ALL students should remember there's a Scottish History library in 9 University Gardens and both Medical and Business History libraries in Lilybank House. They're not listed on the main university library search, so it might be worth checking them yourselves in case something you think is out of stock is there. Also: reading lists are designed to be instructive and not exhaustive. Glasgow's library is also one of the five biggest in the UK, so if the title on the list isn't there, I always encourage students to go look on the shelf where it should be, chances are a similar book by someone else is. The more people that read widely, the better.
Reply 11
Thank you for your answer. It was really helpful :smile:
Reply 12
Hi! I'm going into my third year and wondered if you guys could help me, do we have assessment deadlines in October time? I'm trying to remember what was said but I can't seem to remember! Thanks!!

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