Bachelor of Arts in History
Today's challenges, dispositions, habits, and conflicts are all rooted in the past. If you do not understand the past, you cannot begin to fathom the present, let alone look ahead to the future. Retrospectively speaking, the past is a strange realm, an exotic place where people thought and acted in vastly different ways. Yet, precisely that contrast makes the History programme such an interesting and challenging course of study!
What
As a History student, you learn to ask the right questions, track down relevant sources, and determine which methods to apply to extract useful information. Subsequently, you learn to analyse, evaluate, and synthesise this historical data. The History programme provides historians with a thorough understanding of the past and a broad knowledge of social sciences and the humanities. Our graduates possess a research-oriented mindset, a broad perspective on the world, and a critical understanding of societal processes and structures, both past and present. Historians with a university degree can conduct independent historical research, present their findings orally and in writing to a broad audience, and contribute to the current social debate.
For whom
You are fascinated by 'all things history' for the sake of the past and its intrinsic value, but also for a better understanding of the structures of your times. You want to know what happened, but more importantly, you want to understand why it happened. You look forward to understanding the coherence and meaning of historical events. Lastly, you have an inquiring mind. Historical work has much in common with detective work: it is all about asking questions, searching, analysing, and interpreting! An aptitude for and interest in foreign languages are certainly assets when meticulously consulting and processing sources and historical literature. A talent for critical writing is another welcome asset. Prior knowledge of Latin and/or Greek can be beneficial if you specialise in classical antiquity or the Middle Ages.
Structure
Bachelor
The Bachelor's curriculum includes three types of course units. The course units focusing on knowledge and understanding offer overviews of significant historical periods and themes. The historical seminars are guided exercises where you learn to design and execute independent research. The non-historical course units provide introductions to the Humanities and Social Sciences.
- The first year includes several general course units, such as essential introductory Humanities courses and two fundamental History course units. The curriculum also features programme-specific course units, four period-specific ones focusing on areas like Antiquity or the Middle Ages, and two region-specific ones delving into the histories of Belgium and Africa, respectively. The History Studio consists of two course units. In the first one, you will learn the essential skills for conducting and reporting historical research. The second is a practical course unit that applies this knowledge to a specific period-related theme.
- The second-year curriculum leaves more room for electives alongside course units to foster your methodology skills. Your practical expertise is furthered by choosing two 'research focuses' from four historical periods and an option in extra-European history. Two additional electives will introduce you to an interdisciplinary consideration of the past, offering an in-depth understanding of a non-Western region, its religion, and its culture.
- In the third year, you have even more opportunities to tailor the curriculum to your interests (see the "Programme Summary" tab). Apart from two general specialist course units on how history and memory are recuperated in society and historical economic concepts, models, and structures, the third-year curriculum also focuses on honing your research skills. You build on the choices of the second year by specialising in one Research Focus. This also becomes the framework for your Bachelor's dissertation. In addition, you can take on more focused course units, an elective set from another study programme, or a practice-oriented track in Public History.
Master
The Master’s programme contains the actual discipline-specific specialisation. In the context of your research project, you choose a specific period (e.g., the Middle Ages), a specific topic (e.g., urban or world history), or a specific region (e.g., African History). These choices tie into your Master's dissertation.
- The Master’s programme contains the actual discipline-specific specialisation. In the context of your research project, you choose a specific period (e.g., the Middle Ages), a specific topic (e.g., urban or world history), or a specific region (e.g., African History). These choices tie into your Master's dissertation. Your Bachelor’s diploma also grants access to additional Master's programmes beyond those mentioned here, including the Master of Science in Teaching. Please refer to the ‘Postgraduate Studies’ tab.
Labour Market
The study programme’s broad scope and academic depth gives our History graduates access to various professional contexts (in Dutch). History graduates can be found in all sectors of civic life: education, academic research, the culture sector, (government) administration, journalism, diplomacy, the social sector, publishing, and the banks and insurance sector. Historians also do rather well in a number of advanced studies, such as Cultural Studies, Archival Sciences, Communication Studies or Social Sciences. This is a clear advantage of our study programme’s polyvalent, flexible and critical character. Take a look at interesting testimonials by some of our alumni at www.durfdenken.be (in Dutch).
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
Unique Selling Points
- A broad range of specialisations: the History programme covers Western history, from Antiquity up until the present, in a context of world history. It offers opportunities for an in-depth study of historical periods (Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Early Modern Times, Modern Times and Contemporary Times) as well as regions (African history) and themes (urban history, economic and ecological history).
- Public history: we offer a range of modules on public history, focusing on the role of history and the historian outside the academic world, including the possibility of an work placement. We organise an annual project week for all students, “The Past Week” (in Dutch: de Verleden Week), in which Bachelor’s and Master’s students work together on a specific theme from public history.
- Curricular freedom: students have extensive freedom to put together their own curriculum, with a choice from a range of specialised historical as well as elective modules.
- Focus on research: the different modules we offer promote interdisciplinary approaches based on the study of sources. In the Master’s curriculum, the Master’s dissertation takes centre stage, allowing students to demonstrate their research skills on a topic of their choice. We offer guidance on the improvement of oral and written communication skills and writing skills.
- Transferable skills: our students acquire a wide range of skills that will be of use to them in their future career, also beyond the field of History: critical, analytical and synthetical thought; independence and team work; presentation and communication skills.
Strengths
- Student satisfaction: students give highly positive feedback on our programme, especially in terms of content, methods and approaches.
- Excellent research: our lecturers’ internationally renowned research feeds into the curriculum, and stimulates our students’ critical thought.
- Quality assurance: we encourage our students to participate in the Programme Committee. We also consult with our students regularly in order to detect points of improvement, which we then follow up closely.
- Diversity: we focus on diversity in the curriculum. By means of English-taught course units (among other things) we introduce international research into the programme.
Challenges
- Wider focus on non-Western history: we want to broaden our offer of course units on non-Western history by collaborating with other departments, among other things.
- Monitoring the workload: we set high demands vis-à-vis our students, but at the same time we monitor our students’ workload closely by co-ordinating the deadlines in the various modules.
- International and intercultural skills: we want to render the international dimension of the History programme more visible to our students and want to teach our students how to deal with cultural differences in as many course units as possible. We also intend to offer a coherent offer of English-taught course units.
- Career prospects: strengthening our ties with academic and non-academic partners should allow us to strike a proper balance between the academic study programme that we are, and the preparation for the manifold career prospects we want to offer our students.
This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.
This information was last updated on 01/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.