BA Art History and History (Including Foundation Year)

Our four-year BA Art History and History (including foundation year), will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the three-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills in order to support your academic performance.Our five-year version of this course enables you to study abroad during your fourth year of study.

This course includes a foundation year (Year Zero), followed by a further three or four years of study depending on whether you choose to study abroad for a year. During your Year Zero, you study three academic subjects relevant to your chosen course as well as a compulsory academic skills module, with additional English language for non-English speakers.

You are an Essex student from day one, a member of our global community based at the most internationally diverse campus university in the UK.

After successful completion of Year Zero in our Essex Pathways Department, you progress to complete your course with our School of Philosophy and Art History.

Our course promotes awareness of the interactions and differences between history and the visual arts in history and investigates the ways in which the two disciplines can be integrated. 'Histories' are a challenge and we encourage you to look beyond superficial ideas which offer works of art as merely a way of documenting a kind of 'truth'.

You can learn to understand the ways in which history, ideas and ideologies are manifested in images, and challenge the definitions and perceptions of what documentation and evidence might be. You study the disciplines of history and art history together in order to appreciate the relationships between them with a degree of critical awareness. In so doing, you are offered a unique approach to develop skills which are now vital in a society dominated by the visual image and visual forms of communication.

Meanwhile our department of history is known for it's expertise in social history.

• Our Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA) is the most comprehensive Latin American art research resource in the UK.
• Guarantee your place on your chosen course if you successfully complete your foundation year at Essex.
• Small class sizes allow you to work closely with your teachers and classmates.

Previous university/college study is required in addition to local high school qualifications for our Undergraduate Bachelor degree courses.

We accept a number of international qualifications, including the International Baccalaureate with the majority of our courses requiring a grade 30 or above or the SATR with the majority of our courses requiring a minimum of 1100 out of 1600 with 550 in each test.

Our BA Art History and History gives you many transferable skills so you can enter a wide variety of professions. By studying 'histories' you improve your ability to understand new ideas and gain skills in information gathering and critical analysis.

Our graduates are ideally prepared for roles in the media, advertising, museums and galleries, education, publishing, charities, fashion and public relations as well as more specialised roles such as conservators, auctioneers, antiques specialists and arts lawyers.

Our recent graduates have gone onto work for a wide range of organisations including:

• Momart Ltd
• National Portrait Gallery
• Victoria and Albert Museum

We also work with the university's Student Development Team to help you find out about further work experience, internships, placements, and voluntary opportunities.

UCAS

Applications to UCAS are open for 2023-24 entry. Applications are made online via the UCAS Apply and UCAS Hub, where you will be charged a small fee for processing your application. Here you will be able to fill out your details, upload your personal statement, choose the universities you would like to apply for, and track your application status.

It’s important that you complete your application fully to give us all the information we need to make a decisions as quickly as possible. A few key things that we will need are:

• Details of all qualifications, including those you may have not finished yet and any predicted grades
• Your personal statement (we have some tips for this)
• A suitable reference – if this is not provided or does not meet our requirements this may be a condition of any offer made and will be required before your place can be confirmed.

The UCAS code for Essex is ESSEX E70. Our individual campus codes for our Loughton and Southend campuses are ‘L’ and ‘S’ respectively. There is no campus code for Colchester – please leave this blank in your application.