History
Durham University
UCAS Code: V100 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Durham University
UCAS Code: V100 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
Specific subjects/grades required for entry: History at grade A. Specific subjects excluded for entry: General Studies and Critical Thinking.
Access to HE Diploma
We require 60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at level 3 (or equivalent). At least 12 credits must be taken in History at Level 3 and passed with distinction..
Cambridge International Pre-U Certificate - Principal
To include History. Specific subjects excluded for entry: Global and Independent Research Pre-U.
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
To include 6, 6, 6 from Higher Level subjects including Higher Level History.
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
To include History
OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma
Additionally an A Level in History at grade A
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Additionally an A Level in History at grade A
Scottish Advanced Higher
History is required at grade A.
Scottish Higher
Departments will normally make offers based on Advanced Highers. In the absence of 3 Advanced Highers, where these are not offered by the applicant’s school, offers comprising of Advanced Highers and Highers or a number of Highers may be made on a case by case basis.
At Durham we welcome applications from students of outstanding achievement and potential from all educational backgrounds. We will consider applicants studying T level qualifications for entry to many of our courses. Where a course requires subject specific knowledge and this is not covered within the T level being studied, you may need to supplement your T level studies with a suitable qualification to meet this requirement, for example at A level. Where this is needed this will be clearly stated in our entry requirements.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
The History degree at Durham is designed to give you a sense of the diversity of human experience – geographically and chronologically. We offer an unusually broad range of options that will take you to very different places and times. You can also explore diverse themes and approaches, such as environmental and scientific history, visual cultures, and gender and sexuality. The course will equip you with critical and presentational skills that are valuable in many careers.
Year 1 offers you an induction into advanced historical study, engaging with different periods and approaches to the study of the past.
Year 2 raises new questions about the human past, setting these in specific periods and parts of the world. It develops your understanding of historiography - the history of history-writing – and gives you experience of writing an extended historical argument. You can also apply to add a placement year or a year abroad to your degree, increasing the course from three years to four.
In Year 3 the focus is on intensive study and independent learning. The special subject guides you through the primary and secondary material on a specific period or phenomenon; the dissertation allows you to choose your own topic, and devise your own question, for an extended piece of writing. The dissertation is an opportunity to focus on a topic that fascinates you – and brings together the skills you have developed through your time at Durham.
Throughout your degree, you will be encouraged to attend an extensive programme of activities, including research seminars and public lectures from high-profile guest speakers.
Modules
We have one core module in Year 1: Making History. But our students do not all study the same thing on this module: we teach it through multiple strands. You will choose a ‘strand’, focused on a particular topic. With the other students on that strand you will meet regularly in a seminar group, following a course of reading and discussion that gives you a grounding in the key skills you will need at later stages of the course to interpret and explain historical information.
You will also take four optional modules in Year 1, choosing from a list of around a dozen.
Some recent examples of optional modules:
Decline and Crisis? Europe 1300–1500
Transformations in the Late Antique Mediterranean, c.300–c.700 CE
Connected Histories: Early Modern Europe, c.1450–1750
The Atlantic Archipelago, c.1500–c.1750
Modern Times: A Cultural History of Europe, c.1860–1960
Power in Africa
Imagining East Asia in the Modern World
Wars and Welfare: c. 1900–1945
The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, 1607–1865
Assessment methods
The Durham degree involves coursework and examinations. In each year of the course, you will have to do some of both – though coursework is the larger part of the assessment. There is also an assessed spoken presentation in the second year, because we think it is important that we develop and test your skills in talking to an audience.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
Extra funding
We're committed to supporting the best students irrespective of financial circumstances. https://www.durham.ac.uk/study/scholarships/
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)
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.
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.
£22k
£29k
£40k
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.
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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
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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