vl12 - Politics and History BA
Politics and History BA Honours
UCAS Code: VL12 (full time: 3 Years)
Course Overview
This degree allows you to combine your interests in history and politics, dividing your time equally between the two.
At a Glance
UCAS Code
VL12
UCAS Institution Name and Code
NEWC, N21
Degree Awarded
BA Honours
Course Duration
3 Years
Entry Requirements
A Level: AAA-AAB
IB: 35 points
Opportunities
In order to ensure we keep our courses fresh, exciting, and reflective of the latest research developments, we regularly review and update our course content and structure. Full details of our BA Politics and History for students beginning in 2020 will be available on our website in October 2019.
Choose from a wide range of topics including British, European, American and world history, and international politics and political thought.
Concentrate on different areas of the world from both an historical and a political perspective, or develop your interest in particular approaches to the study of history or politics.
Explore and evaluate different forms of historical evidence and benefit from the University's historic collections and the acclaimed Great North Museum on-campus.
Develop skills in critical analysis, communication and research through an independent research project on a topic of particular interest to you.
Quality and ranking
History at Newcastle is highly regarded:
- top 200 – Arts and Humanities category – Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject 2018
Politics at Newcastle is also highly regarded:
- top 20 in the UK - the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020
- 90% overall satisfaction score – National Student Survey 2019
- top 200 – Social Sciences category – Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject 2018
Boost your employability with a work placement
Apply to spend 9 to 12 months on an optional work placement between Stages 2 and 3. You can apply to spend your placement year with any organisation and will receive University support to do so.
You’ll gain first-hand experience of working in the sector, putting your learning into practice and developing your professional expertise.
It will extend your degree by a year and is subject to availability, however it isn't available if you're spending a year studying abroad.
Find out more about Work Placements.
Flexible degree structure
This degree offers you flexibility to follow your own interests rather than follow a prescribed course of study.
See the Course Details for details of the wide variety of topics you can choose from.
You can also take topics from other subjects within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, such as:
- archaeology
- classics
- politics
- philosophy
- a modern language
Study abroad
Studying abroad as part of your degree is a fun, challenging experience that will broaden your cultural horizons.
It will increase your employability and help you acquire a range of practical life skills. It's also a chance to improve your language skills and develop an international network of friends.
You have the opportunity to take part in a study abroad exchange in either Stage 2 or Stage 3.
You can study in a European country, including:
- France
- Italy
- Finland
- Slovenia
You can also choose to study in a non-European country, such as Australia, the USA or Hong Kong.
Facilities and support
As a joint honours student at Newcastle, you will divide your time between politics and history.
Politics is delivered by the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology and History is delivered by the School of History, Classics and Archaeology.
Facilities
In both schools you have access to modern teaching and learning facilities.
University-wide facilities include the multi-award-winning University Library Service, with over one million books, a huge range of electronic resources, and a Special Collections department with excellent historical and literary books and manuscripts.
The University-led Great North Museum is adjacent to campus. It has world-class archaeological treasures and a resource-rich library.
Support
You will have an academic member of staff as a personal tutor throughout your degree. They can help with academic and personal issues.
Peer mentors will help you in your first year. They are fellow students who can help you settle in and answer any questions you have.
Social activities
You will have the opportunity to take part in activities organised by the Politics Society and History Society.
Alex, Politics and History BA HonoursDoing any joint honours degree will allow you do so a wider selection of modules and still get a great degree. Politics and history combines the old with the new. Someone once told me that history is past politics and politics present history. I can learn about how events effected people then and learn how it is still affecting people now.
Modules for 2019 entry
Please note
The module and/or programme information below is for 2019 entry. Our teaching is informed by research and modules change periodically to reflect developments in the discipline, the requirements of external bodies and partners, student feedback, or insufficient numbers of students interested (in an optional module). To find out more read our terms and conditions.
Module/programme information for 2020 entry will be published here as soon as it is available (end of May 2020).
Our degrees are divided into Stages. Each Stage lasts for an academic year and you need to complete modules totalling 120 credits by the end of each Stage. Further information, including the credit value of the module, is available in each of the module descriptions below.
Stage 1
Compulsory modules
Optional modules
You must take at least one module in History and one module in Politics from the lists below:
History modules
- HIS1025 World Empires
- HIS1027 European History
- HIS1029 Varieties of History
- HIS1044 Aspects of British History
- HIS1046 The History of the Americas
Politics modules
- POL1017 Governing Under Pressure: The Politics of the UK and EU
- POL1032 Introduction to International Politics
- POL1045 Politics: Essential Research Study Skills
- POL1047 Power, Participation and Democracy: Comparative Perspectives
- POL1048 Foundations of Modern Political Thought
You must select your final 40 credits from the History or Politics lists, or, with the approval of the Degree Programme Director, you may select one module from either list, plus modules to a maximum of 20 credits from those offered by other schools in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Stage 2
Optional modules
You choose up to three History modules and up to three Politics modules from the lists below. You must take at least one History module and one Politics module in each semester.
You can take a module for the ERASMUS student exchange programme, subject to agreeing an overall selection of modules with the Degree Programme Director. If you wish to participate in Study Abroad, you should choose one of the following modules:
History modules
- ARA2011 Prehistoric Europe
- ARA2016 Aegean Prehistory
- ARA2091 Archaeologies of the Roman Empire: The Roman World from Augustus to Justinian
- ARA2092 The Medieval World: AD 400-1500
- ARA2097 Historical Archaeology of the Modern World (post 1492)
- CAH2006 Hellenistic Empires from Alexander to Cleopatra
- CAH2061 Slavery in Greco-Roman Antiquity
- CAH2207 Caesar's Gift: Rome under the Emperors (V100 & VL12 only)
- HIS2002 Fatal Allies: Anglo-Irish Relations, 1798-1998
- HIS2003 Religion and Politics in Tudor England, c.1470-1558
- HIS2012 Clash of Civilizations: Islam, the Crusades and the Mongol Invasions (c.750-1300)
- HIS2031 Between Revolutions: Britain 1688 - 1789
- HIS2072 Anglo-Saxon England: from Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest, 410-1066
- HIS2078 Approaches to the History of Western Medicine
- HIS2084 Europe's Reformations
- HIS2085 Pre-Columbian and Spanish America
- HIS2086 Twentieth Century France 1914-95
- HIS2095 Social Histories of Alcohol: Britain and Ireland, 1700 - Present
- HIS2104 The Dark Ages: The Post-Roman World, 500-700
- HIS2114 Death, Dying and the Dead in Early Modern England, 1500-1832
- HIS2124 A History of Contemporary Britain
- HIS2131 American Slavery, American Freedom: Black and White America in the Age of Revolutions
- HIS2133 Society and Politics in Colonial India, 1880s-1947
- HIS2140 Survey History of Japan
- HIS2170 The History of New Orleans
- HIS2219 Oral History and Memory
- HIS2228 The Habsburg Empire
- HIS2235 The Soviet Experiment: 1917-1991
- HIS2239 Colonialism and Post-Colonialism in Egypt and Sudan
- HIS2240 Greece from ancient times to the 21st century: Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the past
- HIS2241 The History of Modern Germany, 1806 until today
- HIS2242 Researching History
- HIS2252 Aotearoa New Zealand: From Acquisition to Autonomy
- HIS2259 The Russian Empire from Peter the Great to Lenin
- HIS2260 Republicanism from Antiquity to Enlightenment
- LAS2030 Comparative History of Hispano-America and Brazil: from Independence to the Mexican Revolution (1789/1810-1917)
Politics modules
- POL2012 Politics of the Middle East
- POL2022 Government and Politics of the USA
- POL2034 The Politics and Policy of the European Union
- POL2045 British Politics: State and Society
- POL2078 Critical International Politics
- POL2081 Research Methods in Politics
- POL2082 Political Violence and the Modern State
- POL2087 Contemporary Russian Politics
- POL2088 The Politics of Africa: Africa's Place in Global Politics
- POL2090 Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Social Issues in Contemporary Political Philosophy
- POL2110 Security Studies
- POL2113 Sex, Gender, and Power
You may select, subject to the approval of the Degree Programme Director, one of the following modules:
- NCL2007 Career Development for Second Year Students
- NCL2100 Developing Enterprise, Entrepreneurship and Employability
- POL2096 Politics Work Placement
Work Placement (optional)
You can apply to spend 9 to 12 months on an optional work placement between Stages 2 and 3. You can apply to spend your placement year with any organisation and will receive University support to do so. It will extend your degree by a year and is subject to availability. It isn't available if you're spending a year studying abroad. Find out more about Work Placements.
Year 3 (Placement Year)
On completion of Stage 2 and before entering Stage 3, you may as part of your studies for the degree spend a year in a placement with an approved organisation. If you are required to re-sit your Stage 2 assessment, you must delay the start of your placement until you have done so. If you fail Stage 2, you may not complete a placement year.
Stage 3
Optional modules
You choose modules from the History and Politics lists below, totalling no more than 60 credits but at least 40 credits from each subject. Some prerequisites may apply.
History modules
- HIS3000 Reading History
- HIS3030 History and Society
- ARA3013 Early Medieval Britain
- ARA3016 The Archaeology of Byzantium and its Neighbours
- ARA3021 Frontier Communities of Roman Britain
- ARA3031 Historical Archaeology of Britain 1500-Present
- ARA3118 Origins and Transformations: Early Prehistoric Europe
- ARA3121 Sex, bodies and identities in Classical Greece
- CAH3010 The Life and Afterlife of Alexander the Great
- CAH3012 Geographical Knowledge in the Ancient World
- CAH3025 Celluloid History II
- HIS3035 Elizabeth I: the Politics of Religion
- HIS3131 China in Revolution
- HIS3134 The Great Patriotic War and its Aftermath
- HIS3135 The Nazi New Order in Europe
- HIS3181 The American Civil War, 1861-1865
- HIS3203 Madness, Nerves and Narratives in Georgian Britain, c. 1714-1830
- HIS3204 The English Revolution, 1640-1660
- HIS3206 The Irish Revolution, 1879-1923
- HIS3212 Reconstruction and the New South, 1865-1914
- HIS3219 Living Together: Christians, Muslims and Jews in Medieval Iberia
- HIS3220 British Foreign Policy since Suez
- HIS3221 Birth Control in the 19th and 20th Centuries
- HIS3222 Jarrow Crusade
- HIS3229 The Spanish Second Republic and Civil War, 1931-1939
- HIS3232 Civil Rights and Armalites; Northern Ireland since 1969
- HIS3235 Genocide and Justice in the Twentieth Century: From the Armenian Genocide to the International Criminal Court
- HIS3240 Civil Rights in America, 1948-1975
- HIS3278 England, 1714-1820: The Birth of a Consumer Society
- HIS3284 The Mexican Revolution
- HIS3285 Post-Revolutionary Mexico: From Zapata to the Zapatistas
- HIS3295 Royal Portraits: Christian Kings and Kingship, c. 870-c. 930
- HIS3321 Viking-Age Scandinavia
- HIS3326 Women in Colonial South Asia: Tradition, Reform and Modernity
- HIS3328 Imagined Futures
- HIS3330 Islamism and its Origins
- HIS3331 God's Terrible Voice: the experience and impact of Plague in England, 1500-1722
- HIS3334 Talking Cures and Troubles: An Oral History of Health and Medicine in Britain, c.1948-2000
- HIS3335 Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1453-1798
- HIS3336 Punishing the Criminal Dead: Crime, Culture, and Corpses in Modern Britain
- HIS3337 Russian Cities and Culture from Peter the Great to Revolution
- HIS3341 Lunatic to Citizen? Madness and Society since 1900
- HIS3342 Republicanism from Antiquity to Enlightenment
- HIS3344 The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1961 - 1990
- LAS4001 Inter-American Relations from the Spanish-American War (1898) to the end of the Cold War (1989/1991)
Politics modules
- POL3059 Democracy and the Constitution
- POL3079 The Government and Politics of Italy
- POL3092 Political Parties and Elections in the UK
- POL3104 The Fall and Rise of China
- POL3106 Democracy in Deeply Divided Societies
- POL3108 The Politics of the Far Right in Europe
- POL3109 Gender, Campaigns and Media
- POL3110 International Organisation and Diplomacy
- POL3111 UK Parliamentary Studies
- POL3114 Animal and Environmental Ethics
- POL3116 The Ethics of War
- POL3117 Politics of Immigration
- POL3118 Environmental Governance and Policy
- POL3122 Politics of Happiness
- POL3124 Mexican Politics: Authoritarianism and Democracy
Subject to the approval of the Degree Programme Director, you may select no more than 40 credits from the the following list:
- HIS3020 Writing History
- POL3046 Dissertation in Politics
- POL3047 Projects in Politics: Semester 1
- POL3048 Projects in Politics: Semester 2
- POL3103 Community Based Research in Politics
Subject to the approval of the Degree Programme Director, you may select one of the following modules:
All candidates are considered on an individual basis.
If your qualifications are not listed here, please see our additional entry requirements web pages to find out which other qualifications are considered.
The entrance requirements below apply to 2020 entry.
Careers
Politics and History careers
The skills you develop as a historian are highly regarded by employers in many sectors. You will learn to critically evaluate evidence, organise ideas and present a coherent argument. You will assess problems in the light of considerable amounts of information, often conflicting, and will present complex material accurately, clearly and convincingly, both orally and on paper.
Such skills are essential in a wide range of careers – including commercial management and administrative roles in the public, private and charitable sectors. As a result our graduates enter a variety of careers:
- finance
- management
- information
- education
- human resources
- media
- marketing
- legal services
A survey by David Nicholls of Manchester Metropolitan University revealed that History turns out more directors of top companies than any other subject.
You can also make direct use of your knowledge of history in certain sectors including undertaking specialised research, publishing, information management, archivist, museum and curatorial work, plus other opportunities across the cultural and heritage sector.
Qualities such as self-motivation, teamwork ability and leadership may also be gained through non-academic activities and work experience and prepare you for a range of careers.
Find out more about the career options for Politics and History from Prospects: The UK's Official Careers Website.
What our graduates go on to do: employment and further study choices
See what our recent graduates went on to do and view graduate destinations statistics. These statistics are based on what graduates were doing on a specific date, approximately six months after graduation. Take a look at the most recent data available for our graduates.
The destination data is available in varying levels, beginning with the University and moving through Faculty and School down to individual course reports. This final level may give you some useful ideas about possible options after your course or a course you are considering.
Careers and employability at Newcastle
Newcastle University consistently has one of the best records for graduate employment in the UK.
96% of our 2017 UK-domiciled UG/PG graduates progressed to employment or further study within six months of graduating.
85.5% of our graduates are in graduate level employment or further study within six months of graduating.
We provide an extensive range of opportunities to all students through an initiative called ncl+. This enables you to develop personal, employability and enterprise skills and to give you the edge in the employment market after you graduate.
Our award-winning Careers Service is one of the largest and best in the country, and we have strong links with employers.
Applying to Newcastle University through UCAS
To apply for undergraduate study at Newcastle you must use the online application system managed by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).
UCAS codes for Newcastle University
- institution name - NEWC
- institution code - N21
UCAS buzzword
Ask your teacher or adviser from your school or college for the UCAS buzzword. You need the buzzword when you register on the Apply system. This makes it clear which school or college you are applying from.
All UK schools and colleges and a small number of EU and international establishments are registered with UCAS.
If you are applying independently, or are applying from a school or college which is not registered to manage applications, you will still use the Apply system. You will not need a buzzword.
Making your application
On the UCAS website you can also find out more about:
- application deadlines and other important dates
- offers and tracking your application
Application decisions and enquiries
Find out more about our admissions process and who to contact if you need help with your application.