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BA HISTORY V100
Full Time: 3 Years
Take a journey through time from crusading in the High Middle Ages to anarchy in the UK on our BA History course. Complement your learning with a study abroad option and improve your employability with our exciting work placements.
Discover a thousand years of history whilst experiencing all the specialist areas on offer at the University of Reading, including Britain, Europe, Russia, Africa, America, the Middle East and South Asia. Your first year acts as an introduction and helps you identify your particular areas of interest. You will explore people, politics and revolution, and culture and concepts. We will teach you the skills you need to study and research history, and you will start to shape your own degree through your choice of optional modules.
You can immerse yourself in modules covering subjects such as crusading, witchcraft and heresy; fascism and communism; gender and culture; and politics and colonialism.
You will be taught in small interactive seminar groups, encouraging discussion and debate with teaching staff and fellow students. We place a great deal of importance on employability skills, and our modules "History education", "Discovering archives" and "Public history" all offer you short work placements and act as an introduction to career ideas. In 2018, we achieved an 89% satisfaction score for the teaching on our courses in the National Student Survey.
Field trips in the UK and abroad give you the opportunity to see history in context, for example at Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire, Winchester, Westminster, and further afield in Paris and Berlin. Additionally, you can choose to spend a term in your second year at one of our partner universities in Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia. We encourage all our students to take up this opportunity as it can open your eyes to new areas of history and build your confidence and skills.
Placement
Placements are a prominent feature of our degree courses and highly encouraged. Through our links with the Careers, Placement and Experience Centre, you can source potential employers and help with CVs and letters of application. Staff in the department also have close links with the university’s Institute of Education, Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) and Special Collections (archives), and with external organisations such as Cliveden House, English Heritage, Reading Museum, Reading Borough Library and the Berkshire Record Office.
Placements are a good way to show you how you can use the skills acquired through studying history in the real world. In History we ensure that placements are incorporated into your core learning. In the second year, we offer opportunities for short group placements in museums and heritage organisations, and encourage students to reflect on what they have learned from previous employment or voluntary work experience. For third years, two optional modules provide placements of 10 working days in local archives and secondary schools.
You also have the option to study abroad for a term in the second year. Some of the universities we have links with include University of Ottawa, Canada; Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey; University of Maastricht, Netherlands; Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, USA; University of Georgia at Athens, USA; and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Quick look entry requirements A Level AAB-ABB | IB 32-34 pts overall
What will you study?
How much will it cost?
How much will it cost?
New UK/EU students: £9,250* per year
New international students: £16,475 per year
* UK and EU Fee Changes
UK undergraduate fees are regulated by the government. These fees are subject to parliamentary approval and any decision on raising the tuition fees cap for new UK and EU** students would require the formal approval of both Houses of Parliament before it becomes law.
Information on this page is based on 2019/20 figures and is likely to change slightly for 2020/21 entry. We will publish up-to-date information about 2020/21 entry as soon as it becomes available.
From 2020, the UK government may link tuition fees to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).
**EU students in 2019/20
EU home students starting in the academic year 2019/20 will pay the same fees and have the same eligibility for loans and grants as UK home students for the duration of their course. The situation for students starting in 2020/21 is not yet known and may be affected by UK Government policy following the outcome of any negotiations regarding the UK’s exit from the European Union. The UK Government will confirm future arrangements for EU students in due course.
Additional Costs
These course fees cover the cost of your tuition. Some courses will require additional payments for field trips and extra resources. You will also need to budget for your accommodation and living costs. See our information on living costs for more details.
Financial support for your studies
You may be eligible for a scholarship or bursary to help pay for your study. Students from the UK and other EU countries may also be eligible for a student loan to help cover these costs. See our fees and funding information for more information on what's available.
Flexible courses (price per 10 credit module)
Home/EU students: £750
International students: £1275
* UK and EU Fee Changes
Subject to the Government passing legislation to raise the minimum fee cap, we will raise undergraduate tuition fees from £9,000 to £9,250 for new UK/EU students applying to start courses in the 2017/18 academic year. You will not be affected by this rise if you have deferred entry to the 2017/18 academic year. The Government will confirm future arrangements for EU students in due course.
The tuition fee will remain £9,000 per year for the full duration of this course if you start in the 2016/17 academic year or have accepted an offer but deferred your entry until the 2017/18 academic year. This is unlike other institutions who are planning to raise fees midway through courses.
For further information, please see our webpage on the Teaching Excellence Framework and future tuition fees.
Additional costs
These course fees cover the cost of your tuition. Some courses will require additional payments for field trips and extra resources. You will also need to budget for your accommodation and living costs. See our information on living costs for more details.
Financial support for your studies
You may be eligible for a scholarship or bursary to help pay for your study. Students from the UK and other EU countries may also be eligible for a student loan to help cover these costs. See our fees and funding information for more information on what's available.
What career can you have?
What career can you have?
Throughout your degree you will complete career and skills related modules, encouraging you to think about what career you would like and what skills you will need. Our second-year modules, "My career: Working it out", and "Public history: Uses and abuses", will help you to develop strategies for building successful careers after graduation.
If you would like a career in teaching, or in archives or records management, try our optional third-year modules, "History education" and "Discovering archives and collections". We have had a high success rate from students who have completed "History education", with many of our graduates gaining places for Initial Teacher Training. Additionally, both these modules help develop a wide range of interpersonal, organisational, presentational and research skills readily transferable to other areas of employment.
Our graduates have a broad range of transferable skills, including the ability to think clearly and critically, to communicate with confidence and work effectively both individually and as part of a team. Our graduates are valued by employers for their research, analytical, teamwork and communication skills; 96% are in work or further study within six months of graduating (DLHE survey, 2016-17).
Recent employers have included The British Museum, The Football Association, The House of Commons, Marks and Spencer, MI5, Morgan Stanley and Siemens Financial Services.