Why Study History at Queen Mary?

Our teaching ethos, your skills 

Throughout your studies, you’ll learn all the crucial elements of a historian’s craft, working together with staff and fellow students to develop your knowledge of the past and understand your responsibilities for the present and the future. 

By the end of your degree, you’ll have acquired three key historian qualities: expertise, curiosity, and responsibility. The development of these skills is embedded into your learning, as part of the taught curriculum — and also in your activities outside of it. 

For example, there’s qHeritage, available to all History students, where you'll work in an interdisciplinary team on real-life projects that help solve problems and deliver real benefits to heritage initiatives.

Or you could write for the Queen Mary History Journal, stocked in the British Library. 

We also offer two internship modules, which embed employability into your degree through a placement with one of our local partners in the museum, public history, archival, or education sectors. Through these placements, you will build real-world experience in curating exhibitions, creating digital resources, cataloguing archival materials, and participating in outreach.

Modules 

Our offering is unique, as you'll have the opportunity to tailor your studies by choosing from an extensive range of modules to develop your historical thinking, and focus on what you feel passionate about. Modules include the Middle Ages and their legacy, Japanese film history, the theory of totalitarianism, and technology and the modern world among many others. 

You’ll explore different histories and perspectives from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, emerging as a well-rounded and confident historian, having specialised in what truly interests you. 

Academics who care about providing impactful research will lead your learning. Maybe you’ll even study under one of our professors who wrote and presented the BBC series, ‘Suffragettes Forever! The Story of Women and Power’.    

Studying in London 

Where better to study History than from a world city steeped in it? Key historical sites, museums, and archives are just a short tube journey away, and you’ll get to take full advantage of these. 

Our social groups such as the History Society and Public History Unit regularly invite speakers to campus and run trips to historical sites across London, bringing your learning to life and engaging you more deeply with the subject. 

As you’ll be part of the University of London, you can take history modules in other colleges and use Senate House and other libraries as well as our own.  

You are also encouraged to get involved with Queen Mary’s research centre, the Mile End Institute, which studies and discusses the major issues in British politics, policymaking, and public life. The Mile End Institute offers year-round events with high-profile guest speakers, such as Yvette Cooper MP and Sir Simon Schama.