The most striking thing about History at Oxford is the enormous amount of choice offered to students (there are over 100 different options), reflecting the breadth of interests and expertise among those who teach here. You can study wide-ranging survey papers in World, European and British history from the end of the ancient world to the present day. You can develop interests in different historical themes, including gender, race, empire, religion, political history, economics, science and medicine, and political thought. You will encounter a wide variety of sources, including film and visual culture as well as written texts. A popular first-year course is Approaches to History, which examines interactions between History and disciplines such as Anthropology and Sociology. Modern south Asia, China, Africa, Ireland, eighteenth-century America, early modern European court cultures, women and print in early modern England, and the medieval Middle East are among more than 30 second-year Further Subject options. The third-year Special Subject offers a similar breadth of options, and the undergraduate dissertation allows you to delve deeper into whatever interests you most about the past.

At Univ, the History tutors provide an environment which is both supportive and rigorous. All undergraduates are encouraged to confront periods and concepts beyond those encompassed by a narrow chronological focus. Students have the opportunity of seeing things not just in their immediate context but also in the perspective of long-term developments. Our tutors foster a strong sense of community among the College’s historians, regularly bringing together undergraduates, graduates and faculty members for academic and social events. The College library has a very well-stocked History section, and Univ is just a few minutes’ walk from the History Faculty Library and the Bodleian. At Univ we offer tuition in History as a single honours course, and also in three joint schools: History and Modern Languages, History and Politics, and Ancient and Modern History. (Correct for 2023 entry.)

There is a wealth of information about the History course structure, possible option choices, and admissions criteria on the University of Oxford’s main website, available at ox.ac.uk

Any undergraduate degree at Oxford provides you with a wide variety of transferable skills and therefore Univ’s students progress to a diverse range of careers. For some, their undergraduate degree leads to academic research, industrial research or teaching. For many, their future career, for instance in business, government or the charitable sector, is defined less by the subject they studied and more by the skills they acquired. Oxford’s Careers Service provides destination statistics for graduates.

Resources

If you are considering applying for History, a number of resources you might find useful to explore beyond the school curriculum can be found on Univ’s Staircase12 pages, including the Reading Bank and Resource Hub.