History students review their degree

Almost all of my posts are me talking about my experience of being a history student at Warwick. But this time, I thought I’d change it up a bit by asking my housemates (S and I) to look back on their experiences of doing history, now that we’ve finished all of our undergraduate course content!

What made you want to choose history?

S: I originally applied for English and History, but I missed the grades and was made an offer for History instead. I decided to go with History because I thought it was an important subject that helps you to understand the world and inform your personal and political life. The more aware we are of history and the importance of the written word, the less vulnerable we are to dangerous ideas and conspiracy theories.

I: I thought it was cool! Before the open day, I hadn’t considered doing history, but I went to the talk and it was great, and I then wanted to do it. It seemed like you could do the history of anything on Warwick’s course.

Was it what you expected it to be?

S: No. In terms of the course, I think a lot of people expect to learn to recite historical dates like we did at A Level, however, we link events to wider themes, ideas, and arguments, which is more stimulating. At the start it felt like I wasn’t learning anything and I met loads of people who said the same thing, but now I see that we were learning to think in a new way. In terms of social life, I had a better time than I was expecting!

I: No, but that’s mostly because of the pandemic. Aside from that, it’s different from high school where you do the work in lessons and then leave. The amount of reading felt overwhelming sometimes but it was always fine.

What were your favourite modules?

S:  First Year – Europe in the Making: I hadn’t done early modern history before, so I spent most of the year not really understanding everything that was happening in the seminars. However, I knew I was interested in it, so I took more early modern options in second year and my understanding got a lot better.

      Second year – Historiography II: It was interesting because it looked at the big themes of history.

      Third year – Venice in the Renaissance: You get to learn on site in Venice!

I: First year – Making of the Modern World and Latin America were both really cool!

 Second year – Crossing Boundaries: I’d never studied the topics before and the module was really well organised. Early Modern science because it was interesting to have a history of science that wasn’t centred on Europe, and the content was a less “doom and gloom” than some of the other modules I’ve studied.

Third year – Socialist Bodies: There was a lot of varied content; we did LGBT history, the significance of tattoos in gulags, and analysis of film.

I hope that if you’re thinking about applying to study History, this has given you a bit of insight into what it’s like!