History
University of Portsmouth
UCAS Code: V100 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
University of Portsmouth
UCAS Code: V100 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
104-112 points to include a minimum of 2 A levels, to include a relevant subject.
106-112 Tariff points from the Access to HE Diploma (History based).
Cambridge Pre-U score of 44-46, to include a Principal Subject in a relevant subject.
GCSE/National 4/National 5
3 GCSEs at grade C or above to include English and Mathematics/3 GCSEs at grade 4 or above to include English and Mathematics.
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
25 points from the IB Diploma, to include 3 Higher Level subjects, to include a relevant subject.
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
H3,H3,H3,H4,H4-H3,H3,H3,H3,H4
To include Higher Level History or another relevant subject.
Acceptable when combined with other qualifications. Must be with a History qualification or another relevant subject.
Acceptable when combined with other qualifications. Must be with a History qualification or another relevant subject.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Acceptable when combined with other qualifications. Must be with a History qualification or another relevant subject.
104-112 Tariff points to include a minimum of 2 Advanced Highers, to include History or another relevant subject.
Acceptable when combined with other qualifications.
UCAS Tariff
104-112 points to include a minimum of 2 A levels, or equivalent, to include a relevant subject.
104-112 points from the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate including 1 A level in a relevant subject, plus the Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate.
About this course
This course has alternative study modes. Contact the university to find out how the information below might vary.
**This is a Connected Degree**
Portsmouth is the only University in the UK with the flexibility to choose when to do an optional paid placement or self-employed year. Either take a placement in your third year, or finish your studies first and complete a placement in your fourth year. You can decide if and when to take a placement after you've started your course.
**Overview**
Explore the past to understand the now. Dive into moments of challenge, change and everyday life across six centuries and four continents.
Uncover the ways in which diverse groups of people were shaped by, and themselves shaped, the world they lived in. In doing so, you can reflect on your own values and better understand how history is about the present, and the future.
The city of Portsmouth has its own rich stories to tell, connecting to local, national and global history. Past and present meet on every corner - from its Tudor Castle to the millennial Spinnaker Tower. It's the ideal place to create your own immersive and relevant BA (Hons) History degree.
**Course highlights**
- Study in a city that’s always been a gateway to the wider world, with options to explore the past of Britain, Europe, Africa, Asia and North America
- Get closer to history thanks to close links with Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, and the Portsmouth Museum and Records Service
- Tailor your studies to times and themes you find most fascinating - from the British Civil Wars to the Opium War, from Victorian cities to modern Germany
- Learn in a place where historians collaborate with linguists, sociologists and political scientists to answer deep and complex questions
- Develop demonstrable skills in research, analysis and argument that are highly valued by all kinds of employers
- Apply your new expertise in a CV-boosting work placement at a museum, heritage site, charity or other organisation of interest
**Optional pathways**
You can follow optional Sociology or American Studies pathways through this degree, or include History as a pathway in our English Literature or International Relations courses. It'll lead to one of these awards at the end of the course:
- BA (Hons) History with American Studies
- BA (Hons) History with Sociology
**Careers and opportunities**
Studying history will give you transferable skills in critical thinking, collaboration, research, analysis and argument, all of which are highly valued by many kinds of employers.
As a qualified historian, you can move forward to further study and research or put your degree to work in areas such as:
- archives and information management
- corporate governance
- creative industries
- heritage
- law
- primary and secondary schools
- higher education providers
- publishing and media
- trade unions
Graduate roles and destinations
Roles our graduates have taken on include:
- administrator for social enterprise
- barrister
- case worker for MP
- development editor in publishing
- exhibitions project manager
- founder of a digital solutions company
- researcher and writer for TV
- teacher
- workplace financial education consultant
Portsmouth alumni have worked with organisations including:
- central and local government
- higher education providers
- National Trust
- National Maritime Museum
- NHS
- the probation service
- Royal Navy
Work experience and career planning
Our Careers and Employability service can help you find relevant work experience during your course. We can help you identify placements, internships and voluntary roles that will complement your studies and build your portfolio.
We'll also be available to help, advise and support you for up to 5 years as you advance in your career.
This course allows you to take the Learning From Experience (LiFE) option. This means you can earn credits towards your degree for work, volunteer and research placements that you do alongside your study.
Modules
Year 1
Core modules in this year include:
- Beliefs, Communities, and Conflicts: Europe 1400-1750 (20 credits)
- Discovering World Histories: Peoples and Places (20 credits)
- Societies, Nations, and Empires: Europe 1750-2000 (20 credits)
- Thinking Like An Historian (20 credits)
- Traces of the Past: Exploring Lives Through Sources (40 credits)
There are no optional modules in this year.
Year 2
Core modules in this year include:
- Debating the Past: Historical Case Studies (20 credits)
- Working With the Past (20 credits)
Optional modules in this year currently include:
- A History of US Foreign Policy: From the Great War to 9/11 (20 credits)
- Empire and Its Afterlives in Britain, Europe, and Africa (20 credits)
- Engaged Citizenship in Humanities and Social Sciences (20 credits)
- Envisioning Ourselves: Media and the Making of Modern Britain, 1850-2000 (20 credits)
- Global Security (20 credits)
- Intercultural Perspectives On Communication (20 credits)
- Introduction to Teaching (20 credits)
- Marketing & Communication (20 credits)
- Modernity and Globalisation (20 credits)
- Nationalism and Migration: Chaos, Crisis and the Everyday (L5) (20 credits)
- News, Discourse, and Media (20 credits)
- Principles of Economic Crime Investigation (20 credits)
- Professional Experience L5 (20 credits)
- Puritans to Postmodernists: American Literature (20 credits)
- Slavery and Resistance in the Atlantic World (20 credits)
- The Hidden Lives of Things: Material Culture in the Early Modern World (20 credits)
- Transitional Justice & Human Rights (20 credits)
- Underworlds: Crime, Deviance & Punishment in Britain, 1500-1900 (20 credits)
- Wildlife Crime: Threats and Response (20 credits)
Placement year (optional)
Have the opportunity to do an additional work placement year after your second or third year on this Connected Degree - we're the only UK university to offer flexible sandwich placements for undergraduates.
Year 3
Core modules in this year include:
- Specialist Option: Empires and Identities (20 credits)
- Specialist Option: Everyday Life, Extraordinary Lives and Challenging Inequality (20 credits)
- Specialist Option: Popular Cultures (20 credits)
- Specialist Option: Societies in Revolution (20 credits)
These specialist subjects could cover themes such as:
- Everyday Slaughter? Accidents and Safety in Britain, c.1850-1970
- Sex, Gender and Power in Early Modern England
- Civil Rights USA
- The Opium War, 1839-1842
- The Imperial City: Popular Culture, Slums and Scandal in Britain, 1780-1939
- Racism and Anti-Racism in Post-war Britain
- Conflict, Conspiracy Consensus: Religious Identities in Elizabethan England
- Britain in Revolution: the Impact of the Civil Wars: 1637-1662
- The French Revolution
- Thomas Jefferson and the Making of the American Republic
- Cinema-going in Wartime Britain
- Magic and Modernity, 1780-1900
- The Making of the German Nation
Optional modules:
- Dissertation (History) (40 credits)
- Major Project (40 credits)
We use the best and most current research and professional practice alongside feedback from our students to make sure course content is relevant to your future career or further studies.
Therefore, some course content may change over time to reflect changes in the discipline or industry and some optional modules may not run every year. If a module doesn’t run, we’ll let you know as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative module.
Assessment methods
You’ll be assessed through a variety of formats. The emphasis is on giving you a range of ways to demonstrate what you’ve learned and how your thinking has developed.
Your history degree with us is weighted more towards coursework than traditional exams. Assessment types include:
written essays
written reports
blogs
podcasts
individual presentations
group presentations
dissertation
You’ll be able to test your skills and knowledge informally before you do assessments that count towards your final mark.
You can get feedback on all practice and formal assessments so that you can continue to develop and improve
The way you’re assessed may depend on the modules you select. As a guide, students on this course last year were typically assessed as follows:
Year 1 students: 8% by written exams, 10% by practical exams and 82% by coursework
Year 2 students: 22% by practical exams and 78% by coursework
Year 3 students: 24% by practical exams and 76% by coursework
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
The Uni
University of Portsmouth
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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.
£18k
£23k
£28k
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.
Explore these similar courses...
Higher entry requirementsLower entry requirements
Nearby UniversitySame UniversityThis is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Course location and department:
This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
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.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
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.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
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.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
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
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
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?
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
