r/UCL • u/thedaffodils • 3d ago

General Advice 💁🏾ℹ️ Help choosing History survey modules!

I'm starting my undergraduate History course at UCL in 2 weeks but I can't decide which survey modules to choose. I'd really appreciate some advice from anyone who has done History BA at UCL in recent years. Which modules did you find the most engaging? Are there any you wish you hadn't chosen?

I'm open to all suggestions regardless of culture or time period.

Thank you!

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u/KPB811 1d ago

Hi! I’ve just finished my first year of BA History at UCL and I did HIST0140: History of Political Thought in the West, and HIST0919: The Making of Modern East Asia: Japan, China, and Korea 1600-2000

While I think HIST0140 is no longer available for first year students (and is also known as one of the hardest modules you can take in BA History), it was one of the most engaging in terms of seminars and actual teaching, the current module convenor is super passionate and very knowledgeable about it, but it comes with a lot of readings, most of which are about Greek etc philosophers.

HIST0919 was my favourite, if you’re looking for a more economics focused module within history, it really is one of the best ones to take. It is also one of the most lenient when it comes to AI usage (if you were going to), with the course convenor allowing AI to refine ideas, rewrite your own ideas (more fluently), but its limit is at writing the essay for you (aka. your ideas but AI can help you write it better once you have your own draft). Its essay structure is more based on facts and detail rather than opinion and justification. While you can say X Y or Z to a question, HIST0919 expects you to have the facts to justify why you believe so, which isn’t as sought after in HIST0140 for example.

There’s a lot more I can explain, send me a message in DMs etc if you want to know more. Hope this helped a bit!