In my opinion, King’s has one of the best selections of modules for a History degree. What I liked the most was that during my first year I got to study various historical periods, from Medieval history to the Early Modern period, and from the Modern period to Contemporary History. This gave me the opportunity to receive a general overview of the different fields of History and to understand what I liked to study the most about this discipline. Plus, I found very interesting to explore parts of History that I had already studied at school, but from a global and non-Eurocentric perspective. This completely challenged my views and opened my eyes on aspects that I hadn’t perceived before on History and the world in general. Not just that, but in first year there is a compulsory course specifically set to train students on how to use the different tools of historians and on how to write successful academic essays, which I found particularly useful and that has helped me a lot in assessment periods.
During first year you will have 7 hours of class per week, both lectures (in a big theatre, with one professor talking and dozens of students listening and taking notes) as well as seminars (small classes of 15-20 students and one seminar leader steering group discussions on the readings for the week). I loved the fact that I had a lot of free time to organise my tasks as it suited me best so to make time for visiting London and meeting up with new friends. To be fair, at first I did feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of reading that was due each week, but eventually I learned the right method to keep up with it and everything went smoothly. Assessments mainly involve essay-writing at home, with two final in person-exams at the end of the academic year.
I must confess that one of my major worries before coming to university was the fear of not making any friends, but after my first few days at King’s I realised how wrong I was! There is a wide range of societies and sports clubs that organise multiple events throughout the year, and the university itself makes available a lot of extracurricular activities which are great for meeting new people and try something different: there’s always something going on, and there’s something for everyone. Such a huge array of opportunities is possible also because we are in London, a truly international city which offers many opportunities to have fun, relax and discover something new every day.
After my first-year experience, I can safely say that becoming a History student at King’s College London has been one of the best decisions I ever made. I loved learning more about History from new perspectives, and it has been amazing to meet so many people from diverse cultural backgrounds: it positively challenged my preconceptions on university and on the world around me.