International Relations and History (Professional Placement Year)
Bath Spa University
UCAS Code: IRH2 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
A Level - grades BBB-BCC usually including a Grade B in History or a related subject.
Access to HE Diploma
Typical offers for applicants with Access to HE will be the Access to HE Diploma or Access to HE Certificate (60 credits, 45 of which must be Level 3, at Merit or higher).
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
A minimum of 32 points are required.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Extended Diploma grades from Distinction Distinction Merit (DDM) to Distinction Merit Merit (DMM) in a related subject.
T Level
Grade Merit is preferred in a relevant subject.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
- Apply your understanding of the past to some of the most pressing challenges we face today
- Make a difference: join the debate, identify solutions, act on your insight and understanding
- Make connections: from your community to the world around you
Explore the complexities of the contemporary world through an examination of the mechanisms for, or absence of, international governance; security, economics, and globalisation; and the relationships between different states. You'll examine the structures and practices of international relations – from the high ideals of the post-1945 settlement to the different realities of local and national politics, governmental ambitions, and corporate power, and their impact internationally.
Beyond concepts of the state and the formal interactions between governments and government agencies, you’ll also be able to consider the interplay of local, regional and international events and perspectives, and the ways in which ‘international relations’ are shaped as much on the ground as they are in the UN Security Council or the International Court of Justice. This might encompass the work of NGOs or the impact of ‘soft diplomacy’, or the interconnected communities of writers, artists and performers and their contribution to campaigns against international inequalities and injustices.
The course has been designed to enable you to acquire specialised subject knowledge, develop practical and professional skills and apply both to contemporary challenges, issues and debates. Learning how to do is as important to us as learning about, and you’ll be able to work on a series of projects which look out from the University and into the city, the region and the wider world. We want you to be able to develop demonstrable skills and experience, which may include leading a project team, evaluating and acting on alternative responses to a defined challenge, or pitching an idea to one of our many partner organisations, and wherever possible following this through to implementation.
You'll may already be studying History, and know that you want to develop your expertise in it, and your ability to make connections across different disciplines. You might be interested in environmental politics and the need to develop new ways of living and working. You'll want to make a difference, and to develop the skills you'll need to do that - working with others, communicating effectively with different audiences, planning and managing projects.
**More about the Professional Placement Year**
A Professional Placement Year (PPY), traditionally known as a sandwich year, is where a student undertakes a period of work with an external organisation for between 9-13 months. The placement occurs between the students' second and third years of undergraduate study. Students can engage in up to 3 placements to make up the total time and are required to source the placement(s) themselves with support from the Careers and Employability Team.
Modules
An interdisciplinary first year introduces you to the study of International Relations and to a wide range of ideas, approaches and concepts which will underpin and inform your work. Throughout, you'll be developing the skills and insight you'll need to apply your learning to solving problems, working with others, developing your own voice.
There is a focus in the second year on the mechanisms of foreign policy, intelligence and diplomacy and the connections that come from informal collaborations and creative action - the soft power of art, culture or education.
Year three is your professional placement year.
Your final project in your final year brings together your theoretical and practical knowledge and enables you to apply this in a variety of ways. You'll be able to devise, plan and implement your own piece of work, and set this alongside a wide range of optional modules through which you can develop your knowledge and understanding.
Assessment methods
Formal essays, project portfolios, campaign documents and context papers, podcasts and blogposts.
Tuition fees
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The Uni
Bath Spa University
School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
History
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Politics
Sorry, no information to show
This is usually because there were too few respondents in the data we receive to be able to provide results about the subject at this university.
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
History
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
History is a very popular subject (although numbers have fallen of late) — in 2015, over 10,000 UK students graduated in a history-related course. Obviously, there aren't 11,000 jobs as historians available every year, but history is a good, flexible degree that allows graduates to go into a wide range of different jobs, and consequently history graduates have an unemployment rate comparable to the national graduate average. Many — probably most — jobs for graduates don't ask for a particular degree to go into them and history graduates are well set to take advantage. That's why so many go into jobs in the finance industry, human resources, marketing, PR and events management, as well as the more obvious roles in education, welfare and the arts. Around one in five history graduates went into further study last year. History and teaching were the most popular further study subjects for history graduates, but law, journalism, and politics were also popular postgraduate courses.
Politics
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
The numbers of people taking politics degrees fell sharply last year and we'll keep an eye on this one - it can't really be because of graduates getting poor outcomes as politics grads do about as well as graduates on average. Most politics or international relations graduates don't actually go into politics - although many do, as activists, fundraisers and researchers. Jobs in local and central government are also important. Other popular jobs include marketing and PR, youth and community work, finance roles, HR and academic research (you usually need a postgraduate degree to get into research). Because so many graduates get jobs in the civil service, a lot of graduates find themselves in London after graduating. Politics is a very popular postgraduate subject, and so about one in five politics graduates go on to take another course - usually a one-year Masters - after they finish their degrees.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
History
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£17k
£23k
£24k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Sorry, no information to show
This is usually because there were too few respondents in the data we receive to be able to provide results about the subject at this university.
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You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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