Visiting York

Getting started

Choosing to study at another university is an exciting but sometimes a daunting experience. This guide to studying history at York will help you decide if York History is right for you, and will help you through the application process. If you can't find the answer to your question below, click here.

A couple of things to start with:

  • At York, as with most British universities, undergraduate students usually study just one subject – Politics, Chemistry, History, and so on. If you’re coming from North America or from another university system that allows you to study many subjects, this can be a culture shock! Course allocations are handled by each department, which means that you’ll need to deal with those departments directly as you look for your course choices.
  • At York, we call "courses" modules. Don’t ask why! But in the rest of this guide, when you see the word "module," it means "course."

Study options for visiting students

Visiting students are usually in the middle of their studies when they consider York. Consequently, we steer them towards our second-year modules and advanced first-year modules. Here are the modules that we’d usually ask you to consider when you make your choices:

Histories and Contexts modules (20 credits each) run in the Autumn Term, and cover a wide variety of topics from the medieval period to the present. 

Explorations modules (30 credits each) run through the Spring and Summer Terms, burrowing into a broad range of historical topics in more depth. Please note that these modules require you to be at York for the Spring and Summer Terms.

Thinking Through History I (2 x 10 credits) offers a series of lectures and seminars introducing you to some of the most important concepts, problems and challenges facing historians from the classical period to the present. Again, you need to be at York for both the Spring and Summer Terms to take these modules.

York’s standard course load is 120 credits per year, divided into roughly 40 credits a term. As a visiting student, your course choices will depend on when you come to study with us. Here are some typical loads:

Full academic year (120 credits) 

Autumn: 2 x Histories and Contexts

Spring and Summer:2 x Explorations plus Thinking Through History Parts 1 and 2

Autumn Term only (40 credits) 

2 x Histories and Contexts

Spring and Summer Terms (80 credits) 

2 x Explorations plus Thinking Through History Parts 1 and 2 

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Further information

If you have any further questions, please e-mail our Undergraduate Admissions Administrator at: history-ug-admissions@york.ac.uk