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  • Philosophy
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  • Psychology
  • Public Policy

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  • Strategic Studies
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BA History and Economics

  • UCAS code
    LV11
  • Typical offer
    BBB
  • Year of entry
    2024/25
  • Course duration
    Full Time:  3 Years
  • Year of entry
    2024/25
  • Course duration
    Full Time:  3 Years

With our BA History and Economics you can understand the cultures and societies that shaped the past and explore the critical economic issues that influence the world today.

Discover a thousand years of history whilst experiencing all the specialist areas on offer at the University of Reading. The History Department's expertise covers a wide range of regions, from Europe and Africa to America, South Asia and the Middle East. Module choices cover diverse periods and topics, from the Crusades to Cold War Berlin and from Medieval Magic to the Rwanda Crisis. In 2022, we achieved a 94% satisfaction score for BA History (National Student Survey 2022).

In your first year, your core modules will explore people, politics, and revolution - finding out how people struggled for power in past societies - and the culture and concepts those societies developed. We will teach you the skills you need to study and research history through an individual project of your choice. This joint degree enables you to address contemporary issues and trace them back to their historical roots.

In economics, you will study practical issues and explore the relationship between economics and society. This course places less emphasis on mathematical and statistical content, and instead you will focus on the relevance of these techniques to applied problems. You will still learn necessary maths skills in your core modules, but extensive support is available should you need it. Your core modules span a number of topics including business, policy, economic history and even the economics of climate change.

Choose economics at the University of Reading

  • Established for more than 50 years.
  • 100% of our research impact has been classed ‘outstanding’ or ‘very considerable’ (REF 2021, combining 4* and 3* submissions – Business and Management Studies, and Anthropology and Development Studies).
  • The University of Reading is ranked in the top 200 in the world for Economics and History (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023).

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 in both sides of your degree, and our modules History Education, Discovering Archives and Collections, and Going Public all offer students short work placements and act as an introduction to possible career paths. In economics, students can take a year out to complete a paid placement.

You can study abroad for a term in your second year at one of the University's partner institutions, including those in Europe, the USA, and Australia. The University also offers all students the chance to learn a modern language alongside their core subjects.

Placement

Placements are a prominent feature of our degree courses and highly encouraged. 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 and media organisations, and encourage students to reflect on what they have learned from previous employment or voluntary work experience. For third years, two optional modules offer placements of 10 working days in local archives and secondary schools.

Through our links with the Careers 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 the Berkshire Record Office.

Study abroad

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; University of Maastricht, Netherlands; University of Georgia, USA; and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

For more information, please visit the Department of History website and the Department of Economics website.

Overview

With our BA History and Economics you can understand the cultures and societies that shaped the past and explore the critical economic issues that influence the world today.

Discover a thousand years of history whilst experiencing all the specialist areas on offer at the University of Reading. The History Department's expertise covers a wide range of regions, from Europe and Africa to America, South Asia and the Middle East. Module choices cover diverse periods and topics, from the Crusades to Cold War Berlin and from Medieval Magic to the Rwanda Crisis. In 2022, we achieved a 94% satisfaction score for BA History (National Student Survey 2022).

In your first year, your core modules will explore people, politics, and revolution - finding out how people struggled for power in past societies - and the culture and concepts those societies developed. We will teach you the skills you need to study and research history through an individual project of your choice. This joint degree enables you to address contemporary issues and trace them back to their historical roots.

In economics, you will study practical issues and explore the relationship between economics and society. This course places less emphasis on mathematical and statistical content, and instead you will focus on the relevance of these techniques to applied problems. You will still learn necessary maths skills in your core modules, but extensive support is available should you need it. Your core modules span a number of topics including business, policy, economic history and even the economics of climate change.

Choose economics at the University of Reading

  • Established for more than 50 years.
  • 100% of our research impact has been classed ‘outstanding’ or ‘very considerable’ (REF 2021, combining 4* and 3* submissions – Business and Management Studies, and Anthropology and Development Studies).
  • The University of Reading is ranked in the top 200 in the world for Economics and History (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023).

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 in both sides of your degree, and our modules History Education, Discovering Archives and Collections, and Going Public all offer students short work placements and act as an introduction to possible career paths. In economics, students can take a year out to complete a paid placement.

You can study abroad for a term in your second year at one of the University's partner institutions, including those in Europe, the USA, and Australia. The University also offers all students the chance to learn a modern language alongside their core subjects.

Placement

Placements are a prominent feature of our degree courses and highly encouraged. 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 and media organisations, and encourage students to reflect on what they have learned from previous employment or voluntary work experience. For third years, two optional modules offer placements of 10 working days in local archives and secondary schools.

Through our links with the Careers 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 the Berkshire Record Office.

Study abroad

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; University of Maastricht, Netherlands; University of Georgia, USA; and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

For more information, please visit the Department of History website and the Department of Economics website.

Entry requirements A Level BBB

Select Reading as your firm choice on UCAS and we'll guarantee you a place even if you don't quite meet your offer. For details, see our firm choice scheme.

Typical offer

BBB, including History or a humanities-based essay subject.

Humanities-based essay subjects include: Classical Civilisation, English Language, English Literature, Geography, Philosophy, Politics, Religious Studies.

International Baccalaureate

30 points overall including 5 in History or a humanities-based essay subject at higher level.

GCSE

GCSE Maths at grade B (6)

Extended Project Qualification

In recognition of the excellent preparation that the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) provides to students for University study we can now include achievement in the EPQ as part of a formal offer. 

BTEC Extended Diploma

DDM (Modules taken must be comparable to subject specific requirement)

English language requirements

IELTS 7.0, with no component below 6.0

For information on other English language qualifications, please visit our international student pages.

Alternative entry requirements for International and EU students

For country specific entry requirements look at entry requirements by country.

International Foundation Programme

If you are an international or EU student and do not meet the requirements for direct entry to your chosen degree you can join the University of Reading’s International Foundation Programme. Successful completion of this 1 year programme guarantees you a place on your chosen undergraduate degree. English language requirements start as low as IELTS 4.5 depending on progression degree and start date.

  • Learn more about our International Foundation programme

Pre-sessional English language programme

If you need to improve your English language score you can take a pre-sessional English course prior to entry onto your degree.

  • Find out the English language requirements for our courses and our pre-sessional English programme

Structure

  • Year 1
  • Year 2
  • Year 3

The following modules have been approved in principle for delivery in 2024/25. Please note that as part of our current curriculum improvement process, all modules require final University approval and may be subject to change.

Compulsory modules:

  • Perspectives in History 
  • Making History 
  • Principles of Economics 
  • Quantitative Economics 
  • Quantitative Methods and Data Analysis 

Optional modules:

  • Arriving in Britain: A History of Immigration, 1685–2004  
  • Anti-Semitism: Medieval Christian-Jewish Relations and the Concept of ‘Anti-Semitism’ 
  • Doomsday Dystopias: Nuclear Disaster in the Cold war Imagination 
  • Rape in the United States: From Colonisation to Civil Rights
  • War, White Heat, and the Winds of Change: Britain’s Twentieth Century 
  • Hunger and Famines in History 
  • Merlin the Magician 
  • Western Imaginaries of the Middle East 
  • Radicalism and Protest in Britain: From the Levellers to Occupy  
  • Everyday Life in a Medieval Town: Reading, 1100-1500 
  • The Rwanda Genocide of 1994 

The University cannot guarantee that all optional modules will be available to all students who may wish to take them. Further information about the content of final approved modules will be available between May and July 2023. We suggest that you regularly revisit this webpage during this time to ensure you have the most up-to-date information regarding the modules offered on this programme.

You can also register your details with us to receive information about your course of interest and study and life at the University of Reading.

The following modules have been approved in principle for delivery in 2024/25. Please note that as part of our current curriculum improvement process, all modules require final University approval and may be subject to change.

Compulsory modules:

  • Intermediate Microeconomics
  • Intermediate Macroeconomics

Optional modules:

Students intending to write their final-year Dissertation in History should take 'Preparing for your Dissertation' as one of their optional modules in History. 

  • People, Power and Revolution: political culture in seventeenth-century England
  • Kingship and Crisis in England, c.1154–1330 
  • ‘The brightest jewel in the British crown’: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1757-1947 
  • Europe in the Twentieth Century 
  • Revolutionary Cities 
  • American Century: United States history since 1898 
  • Black Britain: Race and Migration in Post-war Britain 
  • Women and Medieval History 
  • The Colonial Experience: Africa, 1879 to 1980 
  • Hollywood Histories: Film and Past 
  • Rebel Girls: The Influence of Radical Women 1792-1919 
  • Reform and Revolt in the Modern Middle East: Egypt from Ataturk to the ‘Arab Spring’  
  • Encountering the Atlantic World, 1450-1850 
  • The American Civil War 
  • Representations of the People: Democracy and Society in Britain 1838-1928 
  • Business Economics 
  • Games and Economic Behaviour 
  • Economics of Social Policy 
  • Economic History 

The University cannot guarantee that all optional modules will be available to all students who may wish to take them. Further information about the content of final approved modules will be available between May and July 2023. We suggest that you regularly revisit this webpage during this time to ensure you have the most up-to-date information regarding the modules offered on this programme.

You can also register your details with us to receive information about your course of interest and study and life at the University of Reading.

The following modules have been approved in principle for delivery in 2024/25. Please note that as part of our current curriculum improvement process, all modules require final University approval and may be subject to change.

Compulsory modules:

  • Dissertation in either History or Economics.

Optional modules:

  • Anarchy in the UK: Punk, Politics and Youth Culture in Britain, 1976-84  
  • Becoming a Revolutionary: the Old Regime and the French Revolution, 1787-1794  
  • Eugenics from 1865 to the Present Day 
  • Heretics and Popes: Heresy and Persecution in the Medieval World  
  • Slavery in America  
  • History Education 
  • Discovering Archives 
  • Medieval Magic and the Origins of the Witch-Craze 
  • Battleaxes and Benchwarmers': Early female MPs 1919-1931 
  • Axis at War: Life and Death in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, 1936-45 
  • Politics and Popular Culture: Post-Arab Spring Egypt 
  • From Darwin to Death Camps? Evolution and eugenics in European society, 1859-1945 
  • Ireland and the English in the middle ages 
  • The United States and the Cold War 
  • Modern Science and the Imperial World, 1750-2000 
  • The Romantic Revolution: Culture, Environment and Society in England, c.1790-c.1900 
  • Sexual Politics: Gender, Sex, and Feminism in Britain after 1918 
  • Public Economics 
  • Environmental Economics 
  • Behavioural Economics 
  • Industrial Organisation 
  • Financial Economics 
  • International Economics 
  • Development Economics 
  • Money and Banking 

The University cannot guarantee that all optional modules will be available to all students who may wish to take them. Further information about the content of final approved modules will be available between May and July 2023. We suggest that you regularly revisit this webpage during this time to ensure you have the most up-to-date information regarding the modules offered on this programme.

You can also register your details with us to receive information about your course of interest and study and life at the University of Reading.

Fees

New UK/Republic of Ireland students: £9,250

New international students: £22,350

*UK/Republic of Ireland fee changes

UK/Republic of Ireland undergraduate tuition fees are regulated by the UK government. These fees are subject to parliamentary approval and any decision on raising the tuition fees cap for new UK students would require the formal approval of both Houses of Parliament before it becomes law.

EU student fees

With effect from 1 August 2021, new EU students will pay international tuition fees. For exceptions, please read the UK government’s guidance for EU students.

Additional costs

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 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.

Careers

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. If you would like a career in teaching, or in archives or records management, you can try out 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 develop a wide range of interpersonal, organisational, presentational and research skills readily transferable to other areas of employment.

As a graduate you will have a broad range of transferable skills in research, analysis, presenting and working in groups. Overall, 92% of graduates from the Department of History are in work or further study within 15 months of graduation and 92% of Economics graduates. [1] Recent graduates have found roles with The British Museum, The Football Association, House of Commons, Marks and Spencer, MI5, Morgan Stanley, PwC and Siemens Financial Services.

[1] Based on our analysis of HESA data © HESA 2022, Graduate Outcomes Survey 2019/20; includes first degree History responders, and first degree Economics responders/

 

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