History is one of the most desired academic degrees amongst students when it comes to pursuing a Bachelor of Arts.
History degrees are designed to teach you to move beyond yourself and envision other worlds, to explore the interplay between material circumstances and human character. History combines the careful analysis of evidence with compelling storytelling. Moreover, History degrees aim to increase cultural sensitivity and literacy.
This degree is divided into various areas of expertise such as Classical History or Art History, which will help students gain relevant knowledge for themselves.
History is one of the most versatile undergraduate majors, due to the fact that it touches upon all forms of human endeavour from arts and languages to science and economics.
Candidates studying a History course will also be taught how to effectively collect, analyse, interpret, and arrange a wide variety of sources into persuasive arguments. Thus, having these skills will increase the chance of any graduate finding a job, no matter if it is in this field or not.
A report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education illustrates that graduates from History majors have the highest salary amongst graduates from all other humanities majors.
History courses are usually a three-year commitment and offer many academic programmes ranging from foundational courses to specialised ones. Some universities even have site excavations, through which students gain more practical knowledge.
Like most of the degrees, any History course concludes with a dissertation in any chosen area of interest.
I am definitely in two minds about my university – on one hand, I love it and am very proud to be attending it, but on the other I’m constantly frustrated with it and sometimes wonder if I should have gone somewhere else.
My reasons for these feelings are varied, so I’ll split them into good things and bad things.
Good things:
-World class research institute for Art History.
-Alumni tend to be very successful in Art History and Heritage fields.
-Very high teaching standard.
-Fantastic locations.
-Peope in the arts and heritage fields tend to be very impressed when they found out you went/go there.
Bad:
-So small – there’s max 65 students per BA year.
-Only one BA, hence it is a specialised institution.
-80% of students are privately educated, 80% are female.
-The curriculum could be more varied – many students would like more non-Western art to be included.
-Again, it’s a single subject institution so you can’t do modules from other departments, e.g. English or History, like you can at most other universities.
-We don’t have a student union bar.
-The admin and student services are incredibly disorganised.
-The range of mental health care could really be improved.