(Full time) 2023 start
Ancient History and History BA
Overview
This degree allows you to study history from the ancient world right up to the 20th century. You’ll have the chance to explore the civilisations of ancient Greece, Rome and Persia as well as more recent history across the globe.
A combination of core modules will give you a good grounding in different types of historical research methods, archaeology, literary analysis and life in ancient Greek and Roman society. You’ll also choose from a range of optional modules that covers everything from Sparta to the Tudors, the history of Britain, modern Chinese history or black politics in the US to the present day. You’ll even have the chance to begin or continue with Latin or Ancient Greek throughout your degree. This degree allows you to combine the skills of the classicist and the historian to pursue your interests across periods and cultures.
Explore our libraries
Leeds has plenty of useful resources for History and Ancient History students. The world-class Brotherton Library holds a wide variety of manuscript, archive and early printed material in its Special Collections. Our other library resources are also excellent, and the University Library offers a full training programme to help you make the most of them.
Take a look around our libraries:
Course content
A joint honours degree allows you to study the same core topics as students on each single honours course, but you’ll take fewer optional and discovery modules so you can fit in both subjects.
This combination will allow you to explore how ancient concepts, ideas, events, art, architecture and literature continue to influence the modern world.
From your first year, you'll develop your historical skills and knowledge, as well as an understanding of concepts like historiography. You’ll also gain an understanding of the development of Greek and Roman civilisation and literature.
Once you have this firm foundation, you’ll choose from a range of optional modules over the following two years while striking a balance across historical periods. You could study Greek religion, the legacy of Augustus, Persia under the Achaemenids, the Crusades, medicine in the Middle Ages, Victorian England, pre-colonial India, 20th century African history, the fall of the Soviet Union and more.
By the end of your final year, you will have built a wide range of skills across disciplines, allowing you to research topics and think critically about what you find. You’ll apply these to an independently researched dissertation on a topic of your choice.
Classical sources are taught in translation, so you don’t need to have studied an ancient language. However, we offer Ancient Greek and Latin in every year of the degree if you want to learn or continue with either.
Course structure
The list shown below represents typical modules/components studied and may change from time to time. Read more in our Terms and conditions.
Modules
Year 1
Compulsory modules
- The Greek World: an Introduction 20 credits
- The Roman World: An Introduction 20 credits
- Exploring History 20 credits
Optional modules (selection of typical options shown below)
- Ancient Lives 20 credits
- Introduction to Classical Archaeology 20 credits
- Beginners Latin 20 credits
- Beginners Ancient Greek (Level 1) 20 credits
- Intermediate Latin (Level 1) 20 credits
- Intermediate Ancient Greek (Level 1) 20 credits
- Intermediate Latin (Level 1) 20 credits
- Faith, Knowledge and Power, 1500-1750 20 credits
- The Medieval World in Ten Objects 20 credits
- Medieval Lives: Identities, Cultures and Beliefs 20 credits
- Global Empires 20 credits
- Global Decolonization 20 credits
- The Making of the Twentieth Century 20 credits
Year 2
Compulsory modules
- Evidence and Enquiry in Classics 20 credits
- Ancient Empires: Power and Control 20 credits
Optional modules (selection of typical options shown below)
- Traversing Time: The Voyage of Argo 20 credits
- The Athenian Empire 20 credits
- Herodotus and the Beginning of History 20 credits
- The Rise of Rome: Myth and History 20 credits
- Invisible Greeks and Romans 20 credits
- Roman Comedy 20 credits
- Augustus and his Legacy 20 credits
- The Ancient Greek Novel 20 credits
- Screening Antiquity 20 credits
- Heroines: Representations of Mythological Women from Antiquity to the Present 20 credits
- The Image of Sparta 20 credits
- Greek Art and Society 20 credits
- Intermediate Ancient Greek (Level 2) 20 credits
- Intermediate Latin (Level 2) 20 credits
- Beginners Ancient Greek (Level 2) 20 credits
- Beginners Latin (Level 2) 20 credits
- The Tudors: Princes, Politics, and Piety, 1485-1603 20 credits
- Colonial Encounters: France and its Empire, 1830-1945 20 credits
- Sin in Spanish America, 1571-1700 20 credits
- Medieval Romans and the shape of Afro-Eurasia today 20 credits
- Britain and the Atlantic World 20 credits
- Imperial Germany 1871-1918 20 credits
- The Body, Disease and Society in Europe, 1500-1750 20 credits
- 20th Century Britain: Progress and Uncertainty 1945-1990 20 credits
- The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1921-1993 20 credits
- Life and Death in British India, 1690-1871 20 credits
- America and the Sixties 20 credits
- Bass Culture in Modern Britain 20 credits
- The History of Africa since 1900 20 credits
- Black Politics from Emancipation to Obama 20 credits
- Thinking about History 20 credits
- Histories of Black Britain 20 credits
- Global Business History 20 credits
- Mao Zedong and Modern China, 1949-Present 20 credits
Year 3
Optional modules (selection of typical options shown below)
- Traversing Time: The Voyage of Argo 20 credits
- Major Research Project 40 credits
- The Athenian Empire 20 credits
- Herodotus and the Beginning of History 20 credits
- Ovid the Innovator 20 credits
- The Rise of Rome: Myth and History 20 credits
- Augustus and his Legacy 20 credits
- The Ancient Greek Novel 20 credits
- Screening Antiquity 20 credits
- Heroines: Representations of Mythological Women from Antiquity to the Present 20 credits
- The Image of Sparta 20 credits
- Plato on Love 20 credits
- Greek Religion 20 credits
- Greek Tragedy 20 credits
- Intermediate Ancient Greek (Level 3) 20 credits
- Intermediate Latin (Level 3) 20 credits
- Beginners Ancient Greek (Level 3) 20 credits
- Beginners Latin (Level 3) 20 credits
- Advanced Latin 20 credits
- Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 40 credits
- Popular Belief in the Medieval West 1000-c.1500 40 credits
- Ordinary People: The Everyday Lives of Men, Women and Children in Britain, c. 1920s-50s 40 credits
- The Good Life: Global Commodities of Luxury and Leisure, 1492-1700 40 credits
- The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 40 credits
- Body, Mind and Senses: The Social and Cultural History of Disability in Britain, 1833-1998 40 credits
- Black British Culture and Black British Cultural Studies 40 credits
- Teaching & Learning in Early Modern England: Skill, Knowledge, and Education 40 credits
- The Soviet Sixties: Politics and Society in the USSR, 1953-1968 40 credits
- War, Regicide and Republic: England, 1642-1660 20 credits
- Early Modern Media: Printing and the People in Europe c.1500-c.1800 40 credits
- Mapping the Middle Ages: space and representation from the Pacific to the Atlantic 20 credits
- White Africans: Intimacy, Race and Power 40 credits
- Georgians at War 40 credits
- The Later Elizabethan Age: Politics and Empire 40 credits
- Order and Disorder in Early Modern France: Understanding the French Wars of Religion 20 credits
- Nazism, Stalinism and the Rise of the Total State 20 credits
- Men and Masculinity in Britain, c.1860-1960: War, Work and Home 20 credits
- Gender and Slavery in Latin America, 1580-1888 20 credits
- Medieval Women Mystics: Visionaries, Saints and Heretics 20 credits
Discovery modules
Throughout your degree you will benefit from a range of opportunities to expand your intellectual horizons outside or within your subject area.
This course gives you the opportunity to choose from a range of discovery modules. They’re a great way to tailor your study around your interests or career aspirations and help you stand out from the crowd when you graduate. Find out more about discovery modules on our Broadening webpages.
Learning and teaching
Our tutors are experts in their subjects whose teaching is informed by high-quality research. We use different teaching and learning methods to help you benefit from their knowledge and experience. These include lectures, seminars and tutorials, and occasionally workshops. However, independent learning is also an important part of the degree since this is where you build your critical and research skills.
The University offers a variety of tailored support for ancient and modern historians; the University Library runs free classes and workshops so you can learn how to use them.
On this course you’ll be taught by our expert academics, from lecturers through to professors. You may also be taught by industry professionals with years of experience, as well as trained postgraduate researchers, connecting you to some of the brightest minds on campus.
Assessment
As well as exams and essays, you’ll be assessed using wikis, posters, student surveys and online discussion forums, among others (depending on which modules you study). We aim to make sure you develop skills not only in your chosen subjects but also ones which you can take into your future career. We offer plenty of support, and extra classes are available on issues like exam technique and public speaking throughout your time at Leeds.
We offer support in these areas as well – for example, we run extra classes on skills such as public speaking, structuring essays and exam techniques that you’ll be able to attend throughout your time at Leeds.
Entry requirements, fees and applying
Entry requirements
A-level: AAB
Other course specific tests:Where an applicant is taking the EPQ in a relevant subject this might be considered alongside other Level 3 qualifications and may attract an alternative offer in addition to the standard offer. If you are taking A Levels, this would be ABB at A Level and grade A in the EPQ.
We welcome applications from mature students with Access qualifications, and from students with a wide range of qualifications.
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Access to HE Diploma
Pass diploma with 60 credits overall, including at least 45 credits at level 3, of which 30 credits must be at Distinction and 15 credits at Merit or higher. An interview and a piece of written work may also be required. Contact the Admissions Office for more information.
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BTEC
We will consider this qualification in combination with other qualifications. Please contact the Admissions Office for more information.
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Cambridge Pre-U
D3, M1, M1
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International Baccalaureate
35 points overall with 16 at Higher Level
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Irish Leaving Certificate (higher Level)
H2, H2, H2, H2, H3, H3
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Scottish Highers / Advanced Highers
AB in Advanced Highers and AABBB in Highers, or A in Advanced Highers and AABBB in Highers
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Welsh Baccalaureate
The Welsh Baccalaureate is not typically included in the academic conditions of an offer made to you for this course. If you choose to undertake the Welsh Baccalaureate we would strongly encourage you to draw upon these experiences within your personal statement, as your qualification will then be taken into account both when your application is initially considered by the selection panel and again when reviewed by the admissions tutor at the time your A-level results are passed to us.
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Other Qualifications
European Baccalaureate: 80%
Read more about UK and Republic of Ireland accepted qualifications or contact the School’s Undergraduate Admissions Team.
Alternative entry
We’re committed to identifying the best possible applicants, regardless of personal circumstances or background.
Access to Leeds is an alternative admissions scheme which accepts applications from individuals who might be from low income households, in the first generation of their immediate family to apply to higher education, or have had their studies disrupted.
Find out more about Access to Leeds and alternative admissions.
Typical Access to Leeds offer: BBB and pass Access to Leeds
International
We accept a range of international equivalent qualifications. Contact the Undergraduate Admissions Office for more information.
International Foundation Year
International students who do not meet the academic requirements for undergraduate study may be able to study the University of Leeds International Foundation Year. This gives you the opportunity to study on campus, be taught by University of Leeds academics and progress onto a wide range of Leeds undergraduate courses. Find out more about International Foundation Year programmes.
English language requirements
IELTS 6.5 overall, with no less than 6.0 in any component. For other English qualifications, read English language equivalent qualifications.
Improve your English
If you're an international student and you don't meet the English language requirements for this programme, you may be able to study our undergraduate pre-sessional English course, to help improve your English language level.
How to apply
Apply to this course through UCAS. Check the deadline for applications on the UCAS website.
Read our guidance about applying.
International students apply through UCAS in the same way as UK students. Our network of international representatives can help you with your application. If you’re unsure about the application process, contact the admissions team for help.
Read about visas, immigration and other information in International students. We recommend that international students apply as early as possible to ensure that they have time to apply for their visa.
Admissions policy
University of Leeds Taught Admissions Policy 2023
Fees
UK: £9,250
International: £22,250 (per year)
Tuition fees for UK undergraduate students starting in 2022/23
For UK full-time undergraduate students starting in 2022/23 the fee will be £9,250. The fee may increase in future years of your course in line with inflation and as permitted by law. Fees for UK undergraduate students are decided by the government and may vary if policy changes.
Tuition fees for UK undergraduate students starting in 2023/24
Tuition fees for UK full-time undergraduate students for 2023/24 have been agreed by the UK Government and will remain at the current fee level of £9,250. The fee may increase in future years of your course in line with inflation and as permitted by law. Fees for UK undergraduate students are decided by the government and may vary if policy changes.
Tuition fees for international undergraduate students starting in 2023/24
Tuition fees for international students for 2023/24 should be available on individual course pages from September 2022.
Tuition fees for a study abroad or work placement year
If you take a study abroad or work placement year, you’ll pay a reduced tuition fee during this period. For more information, see Study abroad and work placement tuition fees and loans.
Read more about paying fees and charges.
Part-time fees
Fees for part-time courses are normally calculated based on the number of credits you study in a year compared to the equivalent full-time course. For example, if you study half the course credits in a year, you will pay half the full-time course fees for that year.
There may be additional costs related to your course or programme of study, or related to being a student at the University of Leeds. Read more about additional costs.
Financial support
If you have the talent and drive, we want you to be able to study with us, whatever your financial circumstances. There is help for students in the form of loans and non-repayable grants from the University and from the government. Find out more in our Undergraduate funding overview.
Career opportunities
A degree in Ancient History and History crosses disciplines and gives you a wide range of knowledge and skills.
You’ll be capable of researching complex topics independently and thinking critically about information from different sources. You’ll be analytical and have highly developed communication skills. You’ll also have organisational and time management skills. In addition, studying for a joint honours degree allows you to become intellectually versatile as you switch between different disciplines.
Graduates from the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures go on to a wide range of careers, including publishing, the armed forces, journalism, law, curatorship, the civil service, advertising and marketing, education, business and finance and the charity sector. Some of our graduates progress onto postgraduate study.
We do everything we can to help prepare you for your career. Student-run career groups allow you to get together with other students who share your career ambitions. At the same time, you could also become a peer mentor under our scheme or apply for one of the internships offered every year.
You can read more about the range of careers our Ancient History and History graduates progress into, as well as the support we offer you throughout your degree.
The School of Languages, Cultures and Societies careers and employability support includes promoting internships, providing opportunities to work for the School and employer-led workshops and events.
Careers support
We encourage you to prepare for your career from day one. That’s one of the reasons Leeds graduates are so sought after by employers.
Leeds for Life is our unique approach to helping you make the most of University by supporting your academic and personal development. Find out more at the Leeds for Life website.
The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more at the Careers website.
Study abroad and work placements
Study abroad
On this course you have the opportunity to apply to spend time abroad, usually as an extra academic year. We have over 300 University partners worldwide and popular destinations for our students include Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa and Latin America.
Find out more at the Study Abroad website.
Classics at Leeds has exchange links with Verona University (Italy) and modern language classes are available before you go to prepare you for the experience. There are also opportunities at our partner universities across the world where courses are taught in English.
Work placements
Practical work experience can help you decide on your career and improve your employability. On this course you have the option to apply to take a placement year module with organisations across the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK, or overseas.
Find out more about work experience on the Careers website.
A work placement year is a popular choice with our students as it provides an opportunity to gain invaluable work experience as part of your degree. As with study abroad, you don't have to decide whether to pursue this before coming to Leeds.
You'll apply for the work placement year when you are already here and settled into your degree. If you are successful, you'll work in a graduate-level role and return to Leeds to complete your final year.
Hannah spent a year working for an integrated marketing group.