Sheffield Hallam University has approximately 24,000 students (full-time and part-time).

The History Department is located on the leafy Collegiate Crescent Campus about 1.5 miles from the city centre. It has an annual intake of 60-65 students with a roughly 50%-50% male-female ratio.

• Nature and content of the degree – it is essentially a modern course, focussing on 19^th and 20^th century British, European and Imperial history. What this means is that we never lose sight of the contemporary relevance of historical study. We are also constantly rethinking the course and we intend to introduce new units at Level 2 and 3 which reflect our commitment to make history as relevant, exciting and dynamic as possible – Cold War, gender history, and 20^th century American history.

• Diversity of teaching methods - we believe we are innovative - our units are taught not only by the more traditional means of lectures and seminars assessed by individual essays and exams and with one-to-one feedback, but also by interactive workshops, drop-in sessions, formal and informal group work and presentations. Overall, then, we emphasise a pluralistic approach to the teaching and study of history; the aim is not to be overly prescriptive and didactic, but to encourage students to think critically and independently, to question the evidence in front of them, and to challenge stereotypes and conventional wisdom.

• Transferable skills - we place great store on the acquisition not just of academic skills, but skills which are highly valued by employers, known in the jargon as ‘transferable skills’: information technology and computer literacy, verbal and communication skills, ability to work in groups and teams, the compilation and evaluation of large amounts of material - you will develop all of these qualities here and they will serve you well when looking for jobs after your degree.

• Research record and interests - although we are a relatively small department - 10 full-time members of staff - we can boast several leading international experts in various sub-disciplines of the subject, notably the history of imperialism and the history of science and medicine; and we have specialists in all the main branches of historical study - political, social and cultural history, economic and business history, and history and computing; in addition, we were one of only three ex-polytechnics in the country to get a 4 rating in the 1996 RAE, which puts us on a par with such prestigious old universities as York, Nottingham and Essex. We intend to build on this 4 rating in future. How does this affect students? It directly feeds back into our teaching - in our courses we draw on the most up-to-date material and interpretations and give students the benefit of our own detailed archival research. To this extent, research and teaching go hand in hand.

• Staff-student relations - despite our excellence in research, we are human, not some old fuddy-duddy professors cooped up in our ivory towers, remote from the real world of student life! We even tell the odd joke in lectures, or occasionally go for a pint with the students. Approachability of staff and willingness to listen to students and their problems are important for us. No need to book appointments weeks in advance! We are busy people, of course, but within reason our doors are always open to students.