The Student Room Group

Universities for History and Russian

I am in Year 12 and have been thinking about studying History and Russian. Are they're any universities with good departments for Russian and History, that care about they're students and have high teaching quality? I ask this because I read often about how shambolic some universities are.
Reply 1
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UCL?
Reply 4
Original post by ageshallnot
UCL?

Thanks for responding. I have looked at UCL and I really like the course but I hear that there are a lot of strikes which can affect the teaching quality. If you know anything about that could you let me know? If you don't then no worries.
Original post by Gloobmaster
Thanks for responding. I have looked at UCL and I really like the course but I hear that there are a lot of strikes which can affect the teaching quality. If you know anything about that could you let me know? If you don't then no worries.

No, sorry.
Reply 6
Original post by ageshallnot
No, sorry.

Fair enough
Original post by Gloobmaster
Fair enough

Have you been to any open days to try to get a feeling about unis?
Original post by Gloobmaster
Thanks for responding. I have looked at UCL and I really like the course but I hear that there are a lot of strikes which can affect the teaching quality. If you know anything about that could you let me know? If you don't then no worries.

Strikes affect all UK universities more or less equally, since most academics are part of the same union(s).

Original post by Gloobmaster
I am in Year 12 and have been thinking about studying History and Russian. Are they're any universities with good departments for Russian and History, that care about they're students and have high teaching quality? I ask this because I read often about how shambolic some universities are.


In any event UCL SSEES and Oxford are the big names that come to mind. I think realistically here you need to start by looking at the relatively small number of universities offering Russian, and see if they offer the joint honours with history.

Note also a lot of the stories of "shambolic" teaching quality/student support are simply due to students having wildly inaccurate expectations about what degree level study entails. That is, focusing on the student developing as an independent learner and budding academic and not simply a passive pupil in a school lesson. A lot of students think of university as "school 2" and are disappointed when they realise they aren't going to be spoon fed the material across a high number of contact hours directly teaching to the exam as in A-level.

Bear in mind at degree level you're expected to spend about 30-40 hours a week on your studies including your timetabled activities (i.e. roughly equivalent to full time work). But a lot of students think that means they should have 9-5 teaching when it actually means you should be spending 9-5 studying, broken up with your lectures as needed which will guide your studying.
Reply 9
Original post by artful_lounger
Strikes affect all UK universities more or less equally, since most academics are part of the same union(s).
In any event UCL SSEES and Oxford are the big names that come to mind. I think realistically here you need to start by looking at the relatively small number of universities offering Russian, and see if they offer the joint honours with history.
Note also a lot of the stories of "shambolic" teaching quality/student support are simply due to students having wildly inaccurate expectations about what degree level study entails. That is, focusing on the student developing as an independent learner and budding academic and not simply a passive pupil in a school lesson. A lot of students think of university as "school 2" and are disappointed when they realise they aren't going to be spoon fed the material across a high number of contact hours directly teaching to the exam as in A-level.
Bear in mind at degree level you're expected to spend about 30-40 hours a week on your studies including your timetabled activities (i.e. roughly equivalent to full time work). But a lot of students think that means they should have 9-5 teaching when it actually means you should be spending 9-5 studying, broken up with your lectures as needed which will guide your studying.

I really appreciate your response. That was really insightful and I will definitely take that into account when considering.
Original post by ageshallnot
Have you been to any open days to try to get a feeling about unis?

A lot of the open days I'm interested in are in June so I will definitely go then but currently I haven't been able to.

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