Stop telling me how easy my History degree is

We have no clue who the hell anyone is

There are over 200 people studying History in one year at Bristol. Good luck if you think you’ll know more than 10 people well.

You start off confident, go into a seminar, have small talk, and bond over bad mouthing that one module everyone agrees is bullshit.

You see this set of people once a week, and bond through group presentations. But when the term ends, all your sort-of acquaintances are lost, and you’re thrust into a friendship free-for-all of new seminars and hours.

Okay, so there’s someone there who was in your group before but you can’t remember their name. Should you talk to them?

I mean it’s obvious you both remember each other, but you’ve never really spoken to them. Best play it safe and say nothing.

Lectures are a showcase of awkwardly looking busy on your phone to show other people you’re fine and don’t need them. After all, you can count on someone turning up you actually know. Can’t you?

Yes, we get the privilege of having to be in uni for only a few hours a week, but if you’re studying a science your social life massively benefits from the fact you all know each other well by the end of your degree.

By contrast, historians spend three years going ‘”Hey, it’s… that guy…” and awkwardly shying away from new faces.

We have no contact hours

You’d think no hours would be fun, wouldn’t you?

That we could just chill, sit back, and do whatever.

Thing is, you can do that. For the first day. But then there’s the next day… and the next… and the next.

Pretty soon. having all this free time becomes a chore, as days blend together, and arses become sore. We even start rhyming our sentences just so we have something to do.

The reason the uni gives us no hours is because we’re supposed to do “solitary work”. Essentially this means we pay £9,000 for a library membership.

Plus, “solitary work” is harder than it seems. The real challenge of our degree is to try and keep your work ethic up. When you’ve got nothing to do all day but sit alone in the library, reading some bollocks about how the suffragettes caused the rise of Hitler, it’s hard not to think: wait why am I paying for this?

We have no work to do

Along with no hours, we also have no work. So, party time right?

Sure I’ll admit we’ve got bugger all to do. But having less marked work means it becomes a challenge to improve, and in history it’s all about technique.

Developing your technique becomes impossible when you consider that our essay feedback makes no sense. If I get “use more historiography” or “needs more analysis” on any more of my feedback forms this year I’m going to cry.

Vague is an understatement.

The impact this has is that I actually spend most of my “solitary work” time Googling this:

Mindlessly writing up our notes isn’t going to get us a 1st. We actually have to think about things, and invent arguments. There are basically extra points awarded for the levels of bullshit you’re able to squeeze into your essay.

And if we haven’t mastered the technique of a good essay by the time we have to write out dissertation, we can kiss goodbye to any career prospects we might have had.

Seminar work isn’t compulsory

Sciences generally have pre-labs and post-labs for contact hours. Historians, meanwhile, have an easily avoidable batch of work every week.

Each reading takes around one and a half hours to complete. Although we never actually have to talk about what we’ve read in any detail, so we know we can just read the conclusion and get by on that.

To make sure we use our time efficiently, we’ll only read something if it’s under 20 pages long and has at least a 4 page bibliography.

 

This laid-back attitude makes our degree extremely hard. We work for ourselves, and have to be motivated to sit alone reading bollocks. I doubt anybody can manage that.

If you get to the exam and haven’t done enough reading then say goodbye to a 2:1 or higher.

We have no work space or materials

The home of a history student is the library. This is fine, I love the library. One key problem though: lots of other people have to work in it too.

 

Despite paying so much in fees for what is essentially a library membership, it’s ridiculous how often there are never enough books for everyone. Come essay time, you check the library for books on your key reading list, only to find that every damn book is taken out.

Career prospects

I reckon half of all History students only do the course because they’ve got no idea what they want to do in the future. Why bother though?

Yes, it gives us a qualification, but it’s the purgatory of education: a delayed entry into the realities of life, a stepping-stone to a “second degree” you should have chosen in the first place.

 

Before the criticism starts in the comments below, I want to point out I’m not trying to say History is the hardest degree around, but those who talk down an arts degree’s difficulty don’t understand how hard it can actually be. In the end, difficulty is all subjective. I’m sure if a scientist and I switched places, we would both find it harder to be in each others’ shoes.