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History (Professional Placement Year) at Bath Spa University - UCAS

Course options

2025 - 2026
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Bath Spa University has participated in the Teaching Excellence Framework. These ratings were awarded in 2023, for four years.

Open days

30Nov
Bath Spa University undergraduate open day
Undergraduate
11Jan
Bath Spa University undergraduate open day
Undergraduate

Course summary

Fascinated by the past? Want to make a difference in the present? Develop practical and professional skills with our applied History degree.

  • Develop practical and professional skills and apply them to contemporary challenges, issues and debates.
  • Use your understanding of evidence and your ability to analyse information to solve problems and challenge convention.
  • Explore the next stage in your career - our graduates have gone on to work with leading employers in a wide range of different roles.
Apply your knowledge of History to contemporary challenges, issues and debates. Our innovative History degree has been designed to enable you to acquire specialised subject knowledge alongisde practical and professional skills. Our History course is inspiring, innovative and compelling. Our Newton Park campus is beautiful, but it’s also a historic resource in its own right and a way into a wide range of historical subjects and approaches – from reading a landscape to analysing the symbols of wealth and power and tracing their international connections. The nearby cities of Bath and Bristol offer an extraordinary wealth of material for historical study. Bristol, after all, is where the statue of Edward Colston was toppled into the river, and made us all reflect on the ways history continues to shape the present; we need to understand where we’ve been to have a sense of where we might go next. Develop practical and professional skills Working collaboratively with a wide range of disciplines, we offer a unique approach to learning in and outside your subject. You’ll become a confident communicator, able to sift through the raw materials of history and re-present your findings to any audience – on any platform. Yes, you’ll write essays. But you’ll also learn to podcast, tweet, blog, create scripts for film and radio, and adapt your style to suit a range of consumers, including young audiences. We also want you to be able to plan and initiate projects, work with your peers and with our external partners, and make a contribution to our wider community. Our programmes are taught by people whose research embraces past and present, abstract concepts and physical structures. It crosses continents. You'll analyse big data and tiny fragments of text, and explore objects and images, the rhetoric of power, the gaps in the narrative. What can you do with a History degree? Our research has impact internationally, nationally and locally. Our teaching draws on this and on our work as policy advisors, trustees, fundraisers, advocates, curators, conservators, broadcasters, game designers, web editors, poets. Our graduates go on to do all of these things – and more. More about the Professional Placement Year A Professional Placement Year (PPY), traditionally known as a sandwich year, is where you undertake a period of work with an external organisation for between 9-13 months. The placement occurs between your second and final years of undergraduate study. You can engage in multiple placements to make up the total time and are required to source the placement(s) yourself, with support from the Careers team.

Modules

Year 1 - 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. In Year 2 - 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 3 - Professional Placement Year. Year 4 - 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.

Assessment method

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.

How to apply

29Jan

This is the deadline for applications to be completed and sent for this course. If the university or college still has places available you can apply after this date, but your application is not guaranteed to be considered.

Application codes

Course code:
S171
Institution code:
B20
Campus name:
Main Site
Campus code:
-

Points of entry

The following entry points are available for this course:

  • Year 1
  • Year 2
  • Year 4

Entry requirements

Qualification requirements

English language requirements

TestGradeAdditional details
IELTS (Academic)6IELTS 6.0 - for visa nationals, with a minimum score of IELTS 5.5 in each element.

Student Outcomes

Operated by the Office for Students
65%
Employment after 15 months (Most common jobs)
90%
Go onto work and study

The number of student respondents and response rates can be important in interpreting the data – it is important to note your experience may be different from theirs. This data will be based on the subject area rather than the specific course. Read more about this data on the Discover Uni website.

Fees and funding

Tuition fees

England £9535 Year 1
Northern Ireland £9535 Year 1
Scotland £9535 Year 1
Wales £9535 Year 1
Channel Islands £9535 Year 1
Republic of Ireland £9535 Year 1
EU £16460 Year 1
International £16460 Year 1

Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website .

Additional fee information

No additional fees or cost information has been supplied for this course, please contact the provider directly.
History (Professional Placement Year) at Bath Spa University - UCAS