MA departmental aims

General aims

Degree programmes offered by the Department of History have the following general aims:

To provide high quality teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels that is informed and invigorated by research and scholarship and alert to the benefits of student-centred learning.
To sustain a culture of research and learning that promotes the free pursuit of knowledge, impartial analysis and the acquisition of informed attitudes to the study of the past.
To maintain broad access to its programmes of study for students from a wide range of educational and social backgrounds to the extent permitted by intellectual aptitudes which the programme demands.
To respond to the diversity of student interests by offering an appropriate level of choice within the degree programme, enabling students to pursue chronologically, geographically and methodologically diverse fields of study.
To equip students with the skills that will prepare them for employment or for further study.

The MA Programme is designed to meet the following course-specific aims:

To help students to recognise their personal ability, motivation and interest in pursuing further study and to equip them with the skills needed for independent research at MPhil/PhD level.
To offer students a programme that is qualitatively different from BA-level study by maximising opportunities for independent study and reflexive practice.
To focus on transferable research, learning and presentational skills that are applicable both within the academic discipline of History and in other professional settings.
To improve students' chance of developing a coherent and rigorous PhD proposal and obtain funding for further study