May blog: Thinking about university applications
Friday 26 May 2023
Well done to all IB history students who are graduating in June!
Preparing for university applications: Essay competitions
Many first year history students will now be thinking about applying to university.
Students planning to study history might want to consider entering an essay competition from a prestigious university or organisation. This gives them the opportunity to hone their research and essay skills with the added bonus that if they get short listed (or even win!) they can add this achievement to their university application forms.
Here are some History essay competitions with deadlines in next couple of months:
Julia Wood History Essay Competition (St Hugh's College)
Established in 1971, in memory of a St Hugh’s College historian, the Julia Wood Prize is an annual History essay competition open to Sixth Form pupils who have not been in the Sixth Form of any school or college for a period of more than two years.
ESSAY PRIZE (VERSUS HISTORY)
The Versus History Essay Prize is an annual essay competition for Year 11-13 (or equivalent) students across the world. The #VHEssayPrize aims to promote history as an academic...
Also see The John Locke Institute essay competition and the Fitzwilliam College (Cambridge University) history competition
Extended Essays
Many first year students at this time of year are also deciding on their topics for their Extended Essays.
We have some suggestions of how to guide students through the process of choosing a topic and a question on this page:
Students choosing their Extended Essay topics - as well as those applying to do History at university - might find it worthwhile to look through the previous monthly blogs on this site; we aim to highlight interesting and recently published books and new areas of research or controversy on the blogs. These publications might spark some ideas for research topics and also provide ideas for extra reading for university applications.
Some new books for this month:
Hitler's Aristocrats: The Secret Power Players in Britain and America Who Supported the Nazis, 1923–1941
'Highly readable drama of highborn traitors who enthusiastically aided the Nazi ascent to power'.
The Guardian reviews this book on W. E. B Du Blois in the First World War by Chad L Williams (The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War) as 'essential reading':
And just published for students of 19th Century European history- Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848-1849 by Christopher Clark,
Site update
We are continuing to update different sections on the site - changing the layout and adding more content and activities:
2. Theme 2 - Leaders and Nations (ATL)
This theme covers the following prescribed content:Note that the syllabus has changed between the 2017 and 2020 guide for the second bullet point; it is now OK to use USA and USSR as nations and the focus...
1. First World War: Causes
The First World War began in the Balkans in July 1914 and ended in November 1918; it involved more than 100 countries and resulted in 17 million dead and 20 million wounded. Historians have argued ever...
13: Europe and the First World War
This topic focuses on the breakdown of diplomacy in Europe that led to July Crisis and the outbreak of the First World War, the reasons for the Allied victory and the impact of this devastating war on...
Finally..
In an earlier blog we recommended Timothy Snyder's book 'On Tyranny' which linked events in the 1920s and 1930s to what was happening in the world during the Trump era - highlighting the lessons we should be learning from the earlier time period. Snyder has also written about Putin and Ukraine and this interesting article from The Guardian newspaper focuses on Synder's prediction of the war in Ukraine:
Putin, Trump, Ukraine: how Timothy Snyder became the leading interpreter of our dark times (the Guardian)
Historians aren’t supposed to make predictions, but Yale professor Timothy Snyder has become known for his dire warnings – and many of them have been proved correct