Lack of modern history in an ancient and modern history personal statement?

12

Basically I'm applying for these courses:
Ancient and Modern History, Oxford
History and Classics, Edinburgh
Ancient, Medieval, and Modern History, Durham
History, St. Andrews
History, UCL

I know it's important to talk about your interests when it comes to your personal statement but everything on my personal statement is ancient and medieval with a TINY bit of early modern - i talk about a greek tragedy and talk about lady lumley's translations (tudor woman who was the first to translate euripides)
my epq which is comparing spain under the roman empire and under the arab empire (so ancient and medieval)
and nero.

is it worth adding something on more modern history? i took part in a debate which i suppose i could link to a modern history topic but it's not as interesting to me as the other stuff i have on there.

i think my current range might be decent for oxford, but my other unis, i.e., durham, st andrews, maybe edi? have separate courses solely for ancient and medieval history, and i fear that they'd think my personal statement is not ranged enough for the specific course i applied to if that makes sense. i do still want to have modern history and enjoy current courses i do on it but ive mainly done supercurricular stuff for ancient and medieval history because they are my main interests and they flow and link nicely in my ps.

Reply 1

brodster.rums

3

Original post by haum3a

Basically I'm applying for these courses:
Ancient and Modern History, Oxford
History and Classics, Edinburgh
Ancient, Medieval, and Modern History, Durham
History, St. Andrews
History, UCL

I know it's important to talk about your interests when it comes to your personal statement but everything on my personal statement is ancient and medieval with a TINY bit of early modern - i talk about a greek tragedy and talk about lady lumley's translations (tudor woman who was the first to translate euripides)
my epq which is comparing spain under the roman empire and under the arab empire (so ancient and medieval)
and nero.

is it worth adding something on more modern history? i took part in a debate which i suppose i could link to a modern history topic but it's not as interesting to me as the other stuff i have on there.

i think my current range might be decent for oxford, but my other unis, i.e., durham, st andrews, maybe edi? have separate courses solely for ancient and medieval history, and i fear that they'd think my personal statement is not ranged enough for the specific course i applied to if that makes sense. i do still want to have modern history and enjoy current courses i do on it but ive mainly done supercurricular stuff for ancient and medieval history because they are my main interests and they flow and link nicely in my ps.

Do you know if these courses, specifically the ones which include modern history, have a requierment to have studied it beforehand? If they don't then I doubt it would matter if you have studied modern history or have as much interest in it.

I think in personal statements the unis are looking for people who have a genuine interest in the subject. Perhaps you could stress that, although your knowledge does not cover as much of modern history, as it does of ancient/medieval, you are still striving to learn more about it? Because I know that some people who apply to a certain uni course may have not learnt all the specifics of it beforehand.

I think it depends on whether the unis stress that you mudt have studied all those three types of history before, if not, then I don't think you'll need to include any of the modern examples, especially if it feels like you're trying to scrape together some points for it, just to say that you've looked at it before.

I hope some of this helps :smile:

Reply 2

haum3a

OP

12

i study 2 very modern history subjects at alevel (tsarist and communist russia and modern britain 1950-2007) so i guess further reading on that could cover it + the debate i did had me researching a modern history topic. st andrews, ucl, and durham require a level history so i assume im fine with just having that? not sure though

Lack of modern history in an ancient and modern history personal statement?

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