Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in History and English Language (with Sandwich Year)

at University of Hertfordshire - De Havilland Campus United Kingdom

Our Politics and History programme gives you the opportunity to study current challenges in national and international politics while gaining an understanding of the wider historical context of our modern world. 

The course brings together the two naturally close disciplines of Politics and History through a focus on political history. Studying history and politics in tandem will develop your ability to understand how people lived and thought in the past, and the ways in which they act politically in the present.

You’ll study with a top history department – we’re ranked first in the country for the social and cultural impact of our research - and be taught by political historians working at the cutting edge of their research disciplines.

Alongside core politics modules in your first year introducing you to contemporary British politics and international relations theory, you’ll study history modules that will give you an insight into the making of the modern world, such as campaigns for freedom and equality and America from Hamilton to Trump. 

Modules devised for this joint degree such as Political History: Milestones, Change and Continuity provide a bridge between history and politics. In your second year you’ll continue this interdisciplinary approach with a module on Nation and Identity, which examines the growth of new states and the political landscape of interwar Europe.

Just as an historical approach brings breadth and depth to your study of politics, the theories of political science you’ll study in our core politics modules will give you the analytical tools to explore the implications of major historical events, alongside their socio, economic and political impacts. 

In your final year, you demonstrate your research skills by producing a dissertation on a topic of your choosing. Previous students have been inspired by their year of study abroad, while others have worked on women code breakers at Bletchley Park, the Notting Hill riots, and vice and sexuality in 17th -century London. You’ll also have the option to follow an oral history project, or study modules ranging from the challenges and opportunities of Brexit, to terrorism and security, to the politics of gender.

This multi-award-winning course will give you a thorough grounding and understanding of the commercial applications of illustration. Our aim is to develop creative thinkers and visual communicators who aren’t confined by the conventional boundaries of the industry. We encourage you to think imaginatively to develop engaging and purposeful ideas, and to execute them beautifully. The First Year is about core skills and finding the right pathway. Teaching guides you to be creative, generate ideas and solve problems, with workshops in software, typography and printmaking. Later, we focus on professional projects, emphasising commercial constraints and expectations. We also explore areas like digital design, interaction and motion graphics. In the Final Year you’ll produce a high-quality portfolio.

We have an enviable record of success. In recent years our students have won over many awards in all of the most prestigious national and international design and illustration competitions. These include: the overall winner of the Carmelite Prize, coveted D&AD pencils; various awards at New Designers; countless YCN awards; and many short listings and nominations in competitions such as the Penguin Random House Design awards, Folio Society, the London Transport and Lloyds TSB Illustration awards.

Clever, original ideas and excellent craftsmanship are vital for a successful career working at the top end of the profession and our course is committed to teaching students how to achieve these skills. We foster a fun yet demanding atmosphere that encourages our students to think independently, question the world around them and be opinionated.

If you want a career in photography, this is the course for you. Through a range of projects, you’ll explore and evolve your vision and practice in photography. Through practical workshops, you will learn technical expertise and through feedback and group sessions you will critique and expand your visual language. You’ll also study the theoretical side of photography, including its fascinating history and contemporary practices. Experimentation, creativity and collaboration are encouraged and facilitated throughout the course. The course has a clear industry focus that aims to develop your professional awareness. A key part of your Final Year is learning how to operate as a freelancer, interact with clients and approach potential employers. This culminates in the presentation of your final portfolio to employers and public-facing graduate shows.

The friendly and supportive course encourages you to explore and evolve your photographic vision and practice through a programme of workshops, seminars, lectures and work experience opportunities. Through a sequence of practical projects, you gain a range of technical skills and professional knowledge. Experimentation and risk-taking are encouraged together with the critical study of photographic histories, theories and contemporary practices.

The photography programme emphasises professionalism and industry relevance. The tutors and visiting lecturers are practising photographers or potential employers from the media industries such as working photographers, agents, artists, art directors, marketing professionals and curators.

• This Photography degree is designed for those that want to work towards a career as a professional photographer or in related media professions.
• The degree prepares you for employment in a range of photography-related professions.
• You'll explore and evolve your individual photographic vision and practice, specialising in your chosen genre.
• Our tutors and visiting lecturers are practising photographers or potential employers.
• Our student work is increasingly getting recognised within the photographic world. Our industry partners are high profile and recent student work placements include the prestigious photography agency Magnum. In addition, we have a number of interns working for the BBC.
• Our lively talks programme also allows students to show and discuss current work-in-progress and receive direct feedback from key figures. Our recent visitors include Tereza Cervenova, Matthew Finn, Alexandra Lethbridge, Carl Bigmore, Sebastian Edge from The North London Darkroom and contemporary photographic agency Together Associates.

Fashion impacts upon all aspects of our lives and shapes our appreciation and understanding of the world around us. This course offers a commercially informed, creative and innovative design experience for tomorrow’s generation of fashion professionals. You’ll learn vital pattern-cutting skills in 2D and 3D as well as core manufacturing abilities. You’ll also enhance your freehand and technical drawing and illustration skills using traditional and computer-aided design methods.

As well as technical skills, you’ll explore the history of fashion and exciting innovations in contemporary design. Optional study trips, fashion shows, exhibitions and competitions will enrich your educational experience, while live industry projects could lead to your designs going into production and open up employment opportunities.

If you've already completed an Undergraduate degree, why not take a look at our Postgraduate degree and specialise in MA Fashion?

• We support freedom of expression and individuality and help our students to be industry informed, socially responsible and creatively prepared
• Our Fashion Design award offers an exciting balance of creativity, innovation and technical design helping to develop the next generation of fashion professionals in a rapidly changing industry
• Strong industry relationships with a number of leading brands and designers collaborating through live projects, work placements, competition sponsorship and graduate employment opportunities
• A great spacious contemporary environment including industry standard resources for you to thrive in
• A highly experienced and dedicated academic and technical team putting your learning at the centre of the programme

Explore the English Language from a variety of different angles and further your skills with a unique film course which combines the study of film as an art form with learning the practical skills of film making.

Our BA English Language and Film degree introduces you to the scientific study of the English Language and allows you to examine human communication in different contexts. You’ll be taught by research-active academics working in cutting-edge areas.

In your first year you’ll be introduced to film criticism, genre and style. You’ll also explore the diversity of use of the English language including regional variants, pidgin and creole English, language and ethnicity, and slang and street English. Core modules in your second year focus on English grammar and the sounds of English. You can explore theories of how and why language developed and study language-related real-life problems such as plagiarism and crime investigation in forensic linguistics. You’ll also gain knowledge of film production and you’ll think more about European or US cinema.

In your final year you can follow modules in different topics, including child language and communication, clinical linguistics, gender and language, and formulaic language, informed by our academics’ own research specialisms. You’ll also have the opportunity to make your own video essay as one of your film modules.

We give you:

• A flexible programme of study, allowing you to concentrate on areas you find especially interesting
• A supportive, research-active academic team
• Access to huge online databases to underpin your original research projects
• CV-building potential through practical experience and extra-curricular activities
• An expert film team with in-depth knowledge of the film industry plus the opportunity to get involved with local cinemas and our own bespoke film club
• A guaranteed post-graduation interview with the School of Education

The massive research expenditure of Britain’s pharmaceutical companies and the fierce competition in the field ensures a continual demand for well-trained pharmacology graduates. This degree covers all aspects of drugs and their uses as medicines. You’ll learn how new drugs are discovered and tested and understand the reasons for their effectiveness in treating disease. You’ll also gain an appreciation of why new drugs are needed and how they can be developed. Our links with major pharmaceutical companies will provide cutting edge insight into the drug discovery process and give you the opportunity to gain valuable experience during your placement year. This degree is accredited by the Royal Society of Biology.

• Pharmacology is the study of the action of drugs or other chemicals on living systems.
• Pharmacology studies the mechanism of action of drugs and the effects of drugs at the whole body level (therapeutic pharmacology), at the tissue level (system pharmacology) and at the level of receptor proteins (molecular pharmacology).
• The demand for new drugs continues and the University of Hertfordshire has strong links with the pharmaceutical industry which is located in this region.
• A number of the pharmacology teaching staff have extensive experience working in industry and this expertise ensures that the course provides an excellent stepping stone to a career in a range of healthcare industry roles.

Indicative course structure

Careers in event management and tourism are full of possibilities, with exciting projects in interesting places, all over the world. Whether you want to organise festivals and sports fixtures or develop thriving tourist destinations, this course will help you launch a really successful career. It uses the latest theories and real- world case studies to explore their successes and failings, as well as their sustainability, impact, cultural attributes and community engagement.

It’s a multi disciplinary, globally focused course developed in collaboration with business leaders and professional bodies and taught by Hertfordshire’s highly regarded, experienced academics.

Partnerships and Opportunities
As part of our enterprise and employability focus, we give you many options to gain work experience.  You can undertake internships during the summer, engage in multiple work shadowing opportunities, and take on a year long placement between your second and third year. Our students have completed placements with a wide variety of businesses, such as Walt Disney, Bluehat Group, British Fashion Council, Givergy Events and charity organisations including Hope for Children.

Many students also choose to broaden their horizons through our study abroad programme in second year with one of our partner universities in Europe, North America or Australia. Some combine their language study options with a half-year of study in the language home country and then a further half-year work placement in the same country. Without a doubt, they come back with excellent skills in a second language in addition to fantastic memories, experiences and career skills.

Our partnership with Walt Disney World Resorts and the University of California Riverside gives our students the chance to study and work in the United States of America on this fantastic internationally renowned programme.

You may also be interested in the following courses:

• Tourism Management
• International Tourism Management
• Event Management
• Event Management and Marketing

5 Reasons to Study BA (Hons) Event Management and Tourism:

• The course is recognised by the Tourism Management Institute (TMI),  is a key partner of the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) and University is a member of the Association for Event Management Education (AEME).
• Studying Event & Tourism gives you the best of both worlds! You will follow two subjects that closely relate in both theory and in practice increasing your options for your future career choice.
• The course gives you the opportunities to do a work placement in small or large corporations, developing key employability skills, both domestically and internationally.
• All students have the option to study abroad to give you an edge in the job market.
• You will develop key management and business skills at a leading international business facing University on a course ranked 5th in the UK for Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management.

On the BA in Politics and International Relations you’ll study the central challenges that politics faces in the 21st century. You’ll develop the skills to understand, analyse, and critically debate the issues and arguments that shape national and international politics today. Our Politics and International Relations degree allows you to take your interest in politics and add the knowledge and training to turn it into a successful career in the world of local and global politics, the media or business.

The School has a strong international reputation for research in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and this expertise influences this course which explores current research and practice in artificial intelligence and robotics. This MSc can lead to a career such as a designer of intelligent systems or in research.

This course is part of our Master's programme in Computer Science. 

• One of a range of advanced courses within our postgraduate Master's programme in Computer Science, this particular course provides you with a specialism in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
• Advanced topics studied include artificial life with robotics, neural computation and machine learning, theory and practice of artificial intelligence.
• Taught by a highly-regarded and long-established computer science department.
• Sixty percent of our research impact in Computer Science and Informatics at the University of Hertfordshire has been rated at world-leading or internationally excellent in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014.

Our BA Politics & International Relations and Philosophy degree allows you to explore the ethical and philosophical questions that help to shape and challenge national and international politics and political agendas.

Here at Hertfordshire, as well as learning about philosophical and political theory, you’ll be doing rigorous and creative thinking of your own. Our internationally regarded academics will help you learn to address the arguments of others, to understand and engage with them so that you can arrive at your own conclusions and create your own original work.

You will also explore topical practical questions. Issues that arise as a result of increasing political focus on different dimensions of security, for example, are raised in the modules ‘Terrorism and Security’ and ‘The State in the 21st Century’. Philosophy will help you to understand the ethical implications and social situatedness of security politics through modules such as ‘Social and Political Philosophy’, ‘Contemporary Moral Philosophy” and ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy and Morality’.

Key social issues, such as, gender equality will be addressed from the perspective of both disciplines in ‘The Politics of Gender’ and in ‘Feminist Philosophy’. Modules will also debate the ways in which religious belief is a driving force behind social and political events in today’s globalised world.

You will be taught by experts who work at the cutting edge of their research disciplines and will share the excitement of doing original work in a supportive and highly-rated academic community. Our Philosophy team is in the top 15 in the Guardian League Table 2019 and rates as one of the 100 best Philosophy departments worldwide in the 2017 QS rankings.

You will be able to undertake a placement or study abroad year to gain professional experience or increase global awareness to build skills relevant to your studies in Politics and International Relations and Philosophy.