History with Foundation Year, BA

We look forward to you joining us for the first time during Welcome Week.

​​Welcome Week is an important part of the Foundation Year. It is your chance to settle in, meet staff and fellow students, and feel confident about the year ahead. 

​​The foundation year covers a range of practical and academic skills which will help prepare you the rest of your undergraduate degree. Some of the modules in the foundation year are focused on History, some will encompass a broader approach. 

Your Course​​

Semester 1 is designed to help you settle into university, build your confidence, and develop the skills you’ll use throughout the year. 

During Semester 1 you will study the following modules:

The Big Picture

The Big Picture helps you find your place in university and the wider world. Through lectures, seminars, and guided online learning, you’ll see how university differs from school and workplace training, and how your subject and other ones, too, connect to real issues. The aim is disciplined curiosity and growing confidence across university disciplines.

Lectures are delivered each teaching week to create an event‑style experience for you. Seminars run in subject clusters. The ones after the lectures link the talk to your discipline and move on your assessment preparation. The one-hour seminar is a chance to reflect and seek support as well as work on the assessment.

Fearless Learner

This module will help you reframe challenges, cultivate curiosity, and develop the mindset to thrive at university. You’ll engage with key perspectives—such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, and theory—and explore how they apply within diverse cultural, social, and political contexts

This will enable you to develop your academic skills through analysing and evaluating research. You will be able to draw upon your own educational experiences.

In Semester 2 you will then go on to study:

• The Power of Arts, Humanities and Education
• Canterbury in the World
• Success Modules – 3 x 5 credit modules

Personal Academic Tutor

You will also be allocated a Personal Academic Tutor (PAT). Your PAT will be able to support your educational journey. PATS can support you academically, support your career aspirations and signpost you appropriately to the University central services.​

​Blackboard (your online learning space)

​Alongside on-campus teaching, you will use Blackboard as your main online learning environment. It will be where you find:

• ​ lecture slides and learning resources
• ​ announcements and key updates
• ​ links to support and any guided online learning
• ​ submission points and feedback

To help you prepare

We run an Instagram account which might help you connect with current and former students. There is also a student-run History Society!

There are no pre-arrival tasks for you to complete – but there are things that you can do to prepare.

• Visit the Learning Hub, an online platform packed with resources to help you develop key academic skills. The hub has been developed by Learning Developers and Learning & Research Librarians with your needs in mind. Here you will find a range of modules with tips to help you develop your study, academic and research skills.
• Watch some historical programmes or read some history books, on any topic, and think about how the argument is being made.
• You could also read some historical fiction as a way of thinking about the past in different ways – one of my favourites of recent years is "Circe", a retelling of a series of powerful Greek myths from the perspective of the enchantress. It comments in fascinating ways on concepts of honour and gender in ancient Greek society too.

​​All required reading during the course will be provided to you through Blackboard or the University library. If you want to get a head start on some of the major issues you’ll be dealing with, John Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2000) is a great place to start!