Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science in History

With its flexibility and huge choice of majors, the Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science provides you with a background in both the humanities and the sciences, and gives you useful skills that will make you highly valued by potential employers in jobs across the market. From writing and presenting to thinking ethically and critically, the BLAS degree is your preparation for life beyond the classroom. This is a course designed for the student who is fascinated by the world and wants to learn as much about it as they can. With a BLAS degree, you can indulge your interests in both the arts and sciences without restricting yourself to just one specialist area of study. Over the three-year degree, you choose either an arts or a science major. With over 40 arts majors and 30 science majors, that adds up to almost 80 choices, from Philosophy to Physics to Political Economy. You will then complement your major by choosing subjects from the other area, ensuring you leave with the well-rounded knowledge base that defines graduates of liberal arts degrees. But the BLAS degree is about much more than what facts and figures you learn. It's about getting skills that can be used in life beyond the classroom. A special Liberal Studies stream has been built into the BLAS degree to boost your communication and analytical skills, which potential employers have told us time and time again are the skills that they look for in recruits.

The History major equips you to understand change, to look at things from different perspectives, and to assess diverse kinds of information. At the heart of your first year is The History Workshop. You will join a small-group class that takes a particular time and place as the starting point for the examination of social, cultural, political, or economic change. This class introduces you to historical thinking and teaches you disciplinary skills in an intensive but informal learning environment. The History Workshop is complemented by units on world history over the past 1000 years that will provide you with a broad framework for understanding change and making comparisons. In your second and third years, you will explore a variety of subjects - from sexuality and war to politics and culture, from the history of ideas to the history of food - in a range of times and places - spanning from the Middle Ages to the present, from Australia and China to the United States and Europe. You will have the freedom to choose which times and places you wish to focus on. As the largest history major in Australia, the University of Sydney offers a wide range of options. The major culminates in a capstone unit that, depending on your interests, explores the theory of history, gives you the opportunity to do extensive research on a topic you choose yourself, or enables you to work with community groups and other organisations to apply your history skills beyond the classroom.

Our graduates enter a wide range of careers. Examples include: Archives management, Academic or researcher, Communications specialist, Museum or gallery curator, Public service officer, Editor, Heritage consultant, Historian, Librarian, Publisher or literary agent, Journalist and Teacher (with further study).

A secondary education qualification such as the NSW Higher School Certificate (including national and international equivalents), OR approved higher education study, including approved preparation courses.
IB Diploma - 24
IELTS - A minimum result of 6.5 overall and a minimum result of 6.0 in each band
TOEFL IBT - A minimum result of 85 overall including a minimum result of 17 in Reading, Listening and Speaking and 19 in Writing