Literature and History with a Placement Year

Literature and history are natural companions in the study of the human past and its creative expression. History gives you the tools to analyse how events unfolded, how societies changed, and what forces shaped the experiences of people in the past, using primary sources, historiographical traditions, and careful argumentation to reconstruct and interpret what happened. Literature invites you to read with close attention the works that those same periods and societies produced, understanding texts not just as objects of aesthetic interest but as evidence of the values, anxieties, and imaginative resources of their time.

Together, the two disciplines produce graduates who can read critically, think historically, and argue with precision across both evidence-based and interpretive modes.

At the University of East Anglia, this four-year programme includes a placement year, giving you the chance to spend time in a professional environment, whether in archives, libraries, museums, publishing, journalism, the civil service, or the charitable sector, before completing your degree. That professional experience feeds directly back into your final year of study, and many students find it sharpens both their academic motivation and their sense of how they want to use their degree after graduation. UEA has long-standing strengths in both literary studies and history, and the programme draws on its research culture in both areas.

Graduates pursue careers in a wide range of fields where analytical thinking, research, and strong communication are valued. The cultural sector, including museums, archives, libraries, and heritage organisations, is a natural destination. Publishing, journalism, content creation, and the media attract graduates whose literary and historical knowledge gives them depth as communicators.

Education, law, the civil service, charities, and general management training schemes are also well-established paths. Many graduates pursue postgraduate study in history, literary studies, archival science, or journalism, deepening their expertise before entering competitive professional fields.