History - your questions answered! video transcript

Hi, I'm Dr Oliver Godsmark. I'm a lecturer in History and I teach as part of the history team here at the University of Derby. The course is really aimed at anyone in many ways that has an interest and passion for doing history as a subject. And you can go into all sorts of different careers as a consequence of doing a history degree. And that's something we're really keen to emphasise. Doing a degree in History at Derby gives you a host of different skills that prepare you for going into the wider world of work. So that might be related to more traditional occupations that you think are more related to history. Things like librarianship and archival studies, whether it be working in the heritage sector or museums, whether it's in the teaching industry. But we also see lots of our students go off and do all sorts of different things in professions that you might not necessarily associate with history. Things like the legal profession, civil service, HR and PR. We're very keen on applied learning and very keen on giving our students opportunities to get out and to have real world experiences. We have a whole host of different assessment types, which students can undertake, which are framed around not exams, but instead things like digital learning experiences, things like podcasts and blogs. We also have students present their research and their findings as part of a public conference or work to a live brief with various partners within the heritage and cultural sectors.

We're really keen on encouraging students to engage in global histories. And we see that as a core element of the degree programme rather than as a bolt on or an addition. And we're particularly proud in that sense of Derby in the World, which is a module where we try and encourage students to think about global histories through a local perspective. We're also a really friendly and approachable team. And I think we're really keen to get to know our students and build personal relationships with them so that we can help best guide themthrough their time here at the University. We have regular field trips and study visits. We also have an active history society who host regular events. And all of that is in part about building this cohort identity so that people feel part of a cohesive community. So I think one of the major things we like to try and encourage our students to do is to develop a sense of independent learning and independent working. And that's a really central part of doing the history degree. And then on the other hand, we're really keen on emphasising criticality and critical analysis as a skill to develop and learn as a consequence of doing the degree. So it's not only about independent working and learning, but it's also about independent thinking. We have a really interesting, rich, varied programme with lots of different subject areas, time periods, events to focus on. So that can be global as much as European and British. And we have specialist expertise in Chinese and Indian history as much as we do in European histories and British histories too.

History - your questions answered! video

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