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Clare Halldron is our departmental Senior Careers Consultant and supports students through confidential one-to-one appointments.

Careers appointments are open for booking both in and out of term, please note you

do not need to have a career idea(s) to arrange an appointment – tailored in-depth discussions can help you make informed choices and pursue your career goals – including pathways from your degree, gaining experience, further study options and preparing for upcoming job interviews. View and book an in-person or online slot here: /services/careers/help/

Not sure about writing/updating your CV?

Take a look at the resources here: /services/careers/applications/ 

Want help reviewing your CV?

Job Search Advisors offer support and feedback on applications, CVs, cover letters and personal statements, you can book a session through our . These appointments are available in person on central campus in the Student Opportunity Hub, online or via email. Advisers are experienced in supporting students from across the university and all job sectors.

Want to prepare for assessment tests?

/services/careers/applications/testing/

It is never too late to access careers support.

Your Careers Service is here to help you make your career decision and you can continue to get advice and support for up to 2 years after graduation via . To choose ‘log in as a graduate’ and use the ‘reset your password’ link. Enter your username and a current email address

.

Access the Student Careers Website for more information and careers events.

Not sure about vacancies on Advantage?

try – and set your preferences to get alerts to relevant events/opportunities.

Don’t forget that, at any point, there’s lots of people you can speak with for further support. You can contact your Personal Tutor, the History department’s Final Year Senior Tutor (Mathew Thomson), your module convenor and seminar tutors, the Final Year Director (Anca Cretu), and/or Wellbeing Support Services.

That’s a difficult question to answer! Some would say that Second Year has more deadlines, so with Final Year you have a bit more time to focus on each assignment and develop your ideas and work. That said, there are certainly different challenges of Final Year compared to previous years (such as longer seminars rather than lectures, which is discussed below), but these build on the training and experiences that you have been developing throughout the previous years of your degree. So, a short answer to this question would probably be that there are some different challenges about completing your Final Year, but that the degree is designed that way.

There aren’t lectures in Final Year for various reasons, such as that Final Year is encouraging you to do some more independent study (e.g., you doing readings and obtaining background information, rather than relying on lectures to provide an ‘introduction’ to topics), and that two-hour seminars allow more time and space in smaller groups to deepen discussions of specific topics. You’ll still get the background and overview of the topics, if you do the preparation(!), as well as having the ability to discuss anything you’re not sure about during the extended time in your weekly seminars.

Some will be. Any module that has a ‘timed assessment’ element will take the form of a 7-day take-home assessment, rather than an in-person examination. Further information can be found by speaking with your module convenor or checking the module webpage.

There is plenty of support and advice on the Dissertation Moodle page, and support sessions running throughout the year. If you have any questions or concerns that are not answered by those, you can contact either your Dissertation supervisor (once they’ve been allocated by Week 5) or the Dissertation Coordinator, Anca Cretu.

The Dissertation policy entails building on previous knowledge. It is natural to be concerned by self-plagiarism. This would, however, entail using parts of a pre-existing paper in your Dissertation, as well as the same topic and research question(s). We encourage you to use your expertise and interests. You can stay true to your interests and avoid self-plagiarism by extrapolating a topic from a previous paper or developing a new research project around one of the themes you covered previously. You can discuss these aspects with your Supervisor, as well as Dissertation Coordinator (Anca Cretu).

If you are actually submitting work, because of how your degree is made up of lots of smaller assignments instead of one or two ‘big things’ at the end of the year, it is very unlikely that you will fully fail the year! If you have circumstances that are making it hard for you to submit assignments that are a true reflection of your best work, you should let your personal tutor or the department’s Senior Tutor team know ASAP and discuss things like the Mitigating Circumstances process that can take this into account. Remember, these processes are built on the fact that we in the department/university can only mitigate for the impact of things that you tell us about. If you don’t have Mitigating Circumstances, but are struggling to get the marks that you are aiming for, I would encourage you to speak with your module/seminar tutors and personal tutors for some more support. Also, everyone has another opportunity to resubmit work in order to meet the progression requirements to get a degree.

See our End of Year Results page for more information.

Short answer, yes! The longer explanation gets a bit complicated, so hopefully this makes sense… For courses where History is the ‘home’ department (i.e., History, History and Politics, History and Sociology, History & Philosophy), a student’s overall degree classification is based on all of the assessed work completed in their second and final years of study. Therefore, if you got, for instance, 68 in your Second Year, you may be able to obtain a First overall if your Final Year marks are high enough. There are also departmental policies on the consideration of what is known as ‘borderline cases’ (overall marks falling below a class boundary, but within 2% of that boundary – e.g., 68.0% to 69.9%) and, if certain criteria are met, these may be promoted to a higher degree classification.

See our End of Year Results page for more information.

(Students on the joint History degree courses where History is not the home department should refer to the handbooks/websites of the Department which administers their degree for information on how their degree will be classified.)

There are various opportunities and events taking place throughout the year, both within the History department and wider University – so keep an eye out for opportunities that are advertised! You can find links to various services and relevant social media accounts on the History Careers webpage. Clare Halldron is the History department’s designated Senior Careers Consultant – there is information on how to book an appoint to speak with Clare through that link.

Yes! You can have careers support for up to 2 years after you’ve graduated – more details here.

In the first instance, you can discuss a Masters application with your Personal Tutor, module convenor/seminar tutors, or the department’s Director of PGT Studies, Claudia Stein. Also keep an eye out for departmental events later in Term 1, such as social events introducing our History MA course.

Yes! Opportunities that are available to History students are circulated regularly, by the History Office, the department’s Student Engagement Officer Tara Morton, and Director of Final Year Anca Cretu.

As well as getting funding to do some interesting research, there’s lots of other benefits of doing an Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS) project, such as something significant to add to your CV, more things for your referees to write about in references, and it adds points towards the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Award. More info here: /services/skills/urss/. I don’t think that an URSS project would appear specifically on a Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR) – but you can find more information about the HEAR, here! /services/academicoffice/studentrecords/records/hear/.

The ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Award provides official recognition for the skills development activities that students take part in within and alongside their studies. Students can join at any point during their course, it is optional, and free to join.

You can ask to change your Personal Tutor, but this is an exceptional rather than regular thing. If you wish to discuss any difficulties you are having with your Personal Tutor, please contact the department’s Final Year Senior Tutor (Mathew Thomson) or the overall Senior Tutor (Katayoun Shafiee) in the first instance.

There are various department and university induction events for students returning from a Year Abroad at the start of Term 1, and watch out for more social events throughout the year. If you would like to be put in touch with other History students returning from a Year Abroad, please let Anca Cretu know.