International Relations and History

Our practical, applied History degree combines the academic study of history with skill-based modules. You could find yourself learning to write a funding application for one of your modules, pitching ideas to one of our partner organisations for another, and sifting through primary archival sources in a third.

You’ll gain broad historical skills and expertise – how to read historical texts; how to use a wide range of historical sources; how to discuss and debate historical subjects and concepts. You’ll also learn to analyse, process information, make decisions, manage projects, network, collaborate, and work with experts inside and outside the University.

Year one
Introductions and foundations: develop your historical skills and follow a broad curriculum which allows you to ask questions, challenge your own assumptions, interrogate evidence, data and opinions.

Year two
Practical, applied, relevant: this year combines the academic study of your chosen topics with the acquisition of professional skills and the application of your knowledge and understanding to a defined problem or idea.

Year three
Achievement, consolidation, creativity: your final project in the third year brings all this together. You’ll identify your own historical questions, develop your proposal and put it into practice. This might be an extended piece of academic writing, but it might also be an exhibition, community project, or the creation of digital resources.

We’ll assess your progress in a variety of ways including essays, research papers, group presentations, projects, portfolios, and reports. There are timed assessments and some modules may have end-of-year examinations.

Our assessment methods allow you to develop and demonstrate different skills. Many of these will help you in the workplace, for example: planning ahead, working to deadlines, and managing priorities.

Remember that you’ll be devising your own projects and research questions, giving you the freedom to develop your own expertise, supported by your tutors, our partners and your peers.

You’ll get to grips with your subject through lectures, seminars, workshops, and individual tutorials.

You can take advantage of the learning support provided across the University, whether to develop your writing skills or to learn how to use new techniques and technologies.

To find out more about how we teach and how you'll learn, please read our Learning and Teaching Delivery Statement.

As part of your degree, you could study abroad on a placement at one of Bath Spa’s partner universities.

Depending on your module choices, you’ll visit Stonehenge, Avebury, Bristol Harbour, M-Shed, major national museums and galleries such as Oxford’s Ashmolean or the V&A, and hidden gems such as the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes or Dyrham Park, just outside Bath.

Linked to our teaching, trips change from year to year. But our location in the heart of the Bath and Bristol cultural area means you you can learn outside the seminar room. We have The Holburne Museum, Roman Baths and Brunel’s SS Great Britain right on our doorstep.

Placement modules prepare you for the world of work. We have an extensive network of partners across local, regional and national organisations, and can help you make the most of the opportunity to work with them.

You'll be able to work on projects with our partners in the city and region. This might involve research in a historic house, oral history projects, or devising public events and exhibitions. Through these projects, you’ll work collaboratively, manage your time, develop project management skills, and prepare for a future career.

If you’ve ever wondered what you can do with a History degree, the answer may surprise you. Yes, you could become a historian or a teacher, but we prepare you for so much more.

The transferable skills you’ll gain on this course will prepare you for a career that demands confident communication at all levels. This could include curation for museums and heritage organisations, or work in the public and social services, the charitable sector, or the NHS. You’ll be well-equipped for project management, education, and events management. You may also choose to continue your studies at postgraduate level.

Our graduates have gone into such areas as financial services, the police force, and management training schemes with major retailers, as well as worked for the National Trust, Bristol Old Vic and the Southbank Centre.

If you’re a full-time undergraduate student starting your first year at Bath Spa University, you can apply for the Certificate in Global Citizenship, which you’ll study alongside your degree.

You’ll gain global awareness and add an international dimension to your student experience, and funding is available. On successful completion of the programme, you’ll be awarded a Certificate in Global Citizenship. This is in addition to your degree; it doesn’t change your degree title or results.

This optional placement year provides you with the opportunity to identify, apply for and secure professional experience, normally comprising one to three placements over a minimum of nine months. Successful completion of this module will demonstrate your ability to secure and sustain graduate-level employment.

By completing the module, you'll be entitled to the addition of 'with Professional Placement Year' to your degree title.

Before your Professional Placement Year, you'll work to secure your placement, constructing a development plan with your module leader and your placement coordinator from our Careers and Employability team.

On your return to University for your final year, you'll submit your Placement Portfolio, detailing your development on your placement.

Our campus is a historic resource in its own right. You’ll be based mainly at our Newton Park campus. Our campus buildings – which include a period manor house, gatehouse, keep, and state-of-the-art learning and performance facilities – are set in an eighteenth-century landscape complete with lake and pavilions.

With excellent links to nearby Bristol, you benefit from all the advantages of a buzzing, modern city, while being based in a beautiful, rural location just outside Bath city centre.  

You'll have access to excellent facilities including:

• Newton Park Library
• Subject resources and subject Librarian
• Virtual Learning Environment
• Writing and Learning Centre
• English Language Unit

In addition to the Library and online access to secondary and primary resources, we draw on the University’s own archive, other archives and museum collections, and the campus itself in our teaching.