Bachelor's degree

In Cambridge

Price on request

Description

  • Type

    Bachelor's degree

  • Location

    Cambridge

  • Start date

    Different dates available

Overview History at Cambridge Across centuries and continents Cambridge has one of the largest and best history faculties in the world and the course we offer reflects this quality and breadth of interest. Our course gives you the opportunity to explore the past from many different angles – including political, economic, social and cultural history – and to explore the interaction between history and other disciplines, such as politics, anthropology and archaeology. There’s ample scope throughout to pursue personal interests and experiment with different historical approaches. Some paper options are shared with other courses, such as Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Classics, and Politics and International Relations and specialist papers allow you to work with a variety of source materials as varied as Hollywood movies and Renaissance art. Facilities and resources Our major resource is our teaching staff, made up of more than 100 leading academics, who are experts in fields as varied as the history of medieval Britain and modern India and China, nineteenth-century Europe and twentieth-century South Africa. The Faculty consistently tops the Guardian and Times league tables, and was ranked first in the UK in the QS World University Rankings 2015. The Faculty has achieved outstanding teaching and research ratings in surveys by the UK national press, and was ranked first for History in the QS World University Rankings 2014. The Seeley Library, one of the largest history libraries in the world, and the nearby University Library mean that finding the right book is rarely a problem, and there is a wealth of rare materials and manuscripts within collections in Cambridge suitable for students’ research. Undergraduate historians are also encouraged to take up or improve foreign languages. They have access to both the University Language Centre and specialist language teaching. Many Colleges have travel grants for students who wish to study...

Facilities

Location

Start date

Cambridge (Cambridgeshire )
See map
1 Trumpington Street, CB2 1QA

Start date

Different dates availableEnrolment now open

About this course

Entry Requirements Typical offers require A Level: A*AAIB: 40-41 points, with 776 at Higher Level For other qualifications, see our main Entrance requirements pages. Course requirements Required by all Colleges: no specific subjectsRequired by some Colleges: A Level/IB Higher Level History, A Level/IB Higher in an essay-based subject All undergraduate admissions decisions are the...

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Subjects

  • IT
  • University
  • Teaching
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Course programme

Course Outline History Course Outline

Teaching is provided through a combination of Faculty lectures and classes to cover course content, and College supervisions. On average, you attend eight to 10 lectures each week.

Your weekly supervisions, for which you typically write an essay, give you the opportunity to debate and develop your ideas with a senior historian and expert supervisor.

Years 1 and 2 (Part I) Breadth

Part I lasts two years (six terms) and comprises six papers, the first five of which are broad survey papers designed to give you an overview of a period in history. You study one each term for the first five terms and sit a written examination in each at the end of Year 2.

  • You take at least one paper on a period of British political history and at least one paper on a period of British economic and social history.
  • For the other three papers it’s possible to study any period of European history from the Greeks to the present, global and imperial history, the history of North America and the United States, and/or the history of political thought. If you wish, you can begin to specialise, for example in ancient and medieval papers, or almost entirely in the twentieth century.

For the compulsory sixth paper – Themes and Sources, an introduction to the handling of primary sources – you submit a 3,000-5,000 word essay. There’s a wide choice of topics, typically investigating a major comparative theme in history (such as the environment, money and society, or the history of the body). The essay is written over a period of some months and involves individual research.

Year 3 (Part II) Depth

You take five papers, three of which are compulsory:

  • Historical Argument and Practice – a general methodological paper that reflects on the broad issues of historical argument and practice arising out of work throughout the degree course (themes range from empire to gender, and from revolutions to race)
  • a Special Subject – consisting of two papers (one assessed by a long essay of 6,000-7,000 words, the other by a written examination) that provide an opportunity for advanced in-depth study of an important historical period, process or problem (eg the Angevin Empire, Indian democracy, the Black Death, the history of Ireland,) through detailed examination of primary sources

For your remaining papers, you can either choose two Specified Subjects from a selection of topics or comparable themes in history, or choose one Specified Subject paper and write a dissertation of 10,000-15,000 words on a topic you have devised.

Specified Subject papers cover many different time periods and parts of the world, from the Roman world to the twentieth century, and from the history of the Pacific Ocean to America’s involvement in Vietnam.

Though the dissertation isn’t compulsory more than half of our students take the opportunity to write one, and many find it one of the most rewarding aspects of their time here at Cambridge. Recent examples of dissertation titles include Crime and the Entertainment Industry of Chicago 1921-33, The Decline of Vauxhall Gardens 1780-1859, and Robert Clive and the ‘Gift’ in Eighteenth-Century India.

For further information about studying History at the University of Cambridge see the Faculty of History website.

History

Price on request