History BA Welcome Pack
Welcome to History BA 2023.
History BA (Hons) at Northampton offers you the opportunity to explore your interests in History and also look at issues that have contemporary relevance to us today.
We have an exciting programme of modules for you, covering a wide range of time periods and different types of history.
Our programme covers different areas of History from the medieval period up until the early 2000s. You’ll be able to study topics as diverse as medieval knights, Tudor kings and queens, the experiences of Native American peoples, Victorian asylum patients, soldiers during the First World War, twentieth century extremist politics, and British society post-1945.
We also support you to develop skills for your future after university, such as writing for social media platforms, researching for podcasts and radio shows and presenting to different types of audiences.
You will be supported in your studies by a team of expert historians, who are engaged in cutting-edge research in these fields.
You will also be assigned a Personal Academic Tutor, who will meet with you in your first week at university.
Programme Leader
Dr Caroline Nielsen
Senior Lecturer in History and Heritage
Caroline.nielsen@northampton.ac.uk
Welcome and Induction sessions
To welcome you to History BA, we will be hosting a series of online welcome meetings, and a series of in-person activities during Welcome Week.
The History team will be offering several online study skills and orientation sessions for our new students, to help welcome you to our History student community and to the BA History course.
The aim of the sessions is to help you prepare for Welcome Week, and to ask any questions you may have before you arrive in Northampton. It also means that you will know some of the tutors and your Personal Academic Tutor before you arrive for the University’s Welcome Week (commencing 18 September).
Each online session will be 30 minutes, but tutors will remain available on the call afterwards in case of any questions and to help you.
Equipment
Textbooks and History Materials
We are sure you are all eager to get started, and we know that some of you may wish to look at some course reading or materials prior to our first week.
Please note we don’t have any set pre-course reading and you do not need to invest in a large collection of books before your course. You will be able to access materials via the University Library and Learning Services.
You will be given access to the Library and to our wide collection of materials shortly after your formal enrolment on campus.
There is no single textbook for the entire first year of the course. Tutors will use multiple resources across each module.
If you do wish to learn more about a particular topic, or have a passionate for an area of history, please contact the tutors who will be able to advise you. Our contact information is on the History course page.
Study Skills
There are some useful general study skills guides that you may find useful, each designed to help you read more about a particular university study skill.
These resources are available in the University Library, for you to access after enrolment. You do not need to purchase any of them in advance of the course.
Reading these before the course starts is not obligatory!
- Jeremy Black and Donald Mcraild, Studying History, fourth edition (Macmillan Study Skills, 2016).
- Stella Cottrell, The Study Skills Handbook, sixth edition (Macmillan Study Skills, 2019)
- Ian Mabbett, Writing History Essays, second edition (Macmillan Study Skills, 2016)
- William Kelleher Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students, (Oxford University Press, 2020).