BA Modern Languages and History
About this course
Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages and History, a Modern Languages and History degree combining linguistic proficiency with historical study. Core topics include Research Methods and Global & Comparative Perspective. The fourth year includes a dissertation. The first year covers foundational subjects through Discover: Personal, Academic and Professional Development in Modern Languages, History and Heritage, Practising History: Skills in History, and The Making of the Contemporary World: 1800 to the Present. The second year introduces specialized study through modules such as Topics in History, French Lang 2(Intermediate), German Language 2 (Advanced), and Spanish Language 2 (Intermediate). Optional modules allow students to explore diverse thematic areas and regional histories. The final year concludes with advanced independent study through the Dissertation and the Final Year Extended Independent Study Module in Modern Languages.
Written by AI from the university's course page and module list. It can get details wrong, so check the official course page before you rely on it.
Entry requirements
A Level: AAB See below for full information.. IB: 6,6,5 including 32 points total. See below for full information.. BTEC: BTEC Extended Diploma: DDM, plus a B at A level in the required subject/s. See below for full information.
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What students say
Based on about 9 final-year students who answered (a small group: a rough guide only)
- Teaching on my course: 98%
- Learning opportunities: 92%
- Assessment and feedback: 82%
- Academic support: 75%
- Organisation and management: 85%
- Learning resources: 100%
- Student voice: 77%
Do students stay on the course?
Based on about 10 students who started (a small group: a rough guide only)
- Continued on course: 100%
What graduates do next
Based on about 57 graduates who answered, across similar courses at this university
- Working: 73%
- Working and studying: 10%
- Further study: 5%
- Unemployed: 4%
Most common jobs
- Business and public service associate professionals: 15%
- Teaching Professionals: 15%
- Elementary occupations: 5%
- Administrative occupations: 5%
- Teaching and Childcare Support Occupation: 5%
- Find their work meaningful: 83%
- Feel on track for their future plans: 65%
- Use what they learnt on the course: 49%
Where graduates work (5 years on)
Based on about 335 graduates, across similar courses at this university
- North West: 6%
- Yorkshire and the Humber: 5%
- East Midlands: 5%
- West Midlands: 27%
- East of England: 9%
- London: 26%
- South East: 13%
- South West: 6%
- Wales: 1%
Who gets in
Based on about 200 students who started, across similar courses at this university
- A levels: 97%
- Baccalaureate: 1%
- Other HE qualification: 1%
- Other qualifications: 2%
Accreditation & quality ratings
TEF 2023 (whole university): Silver overall, Bronze for student experience, Gold for student outcomes.
Modules
- Discover: Personal, Academic and Professional Development in Modern Languages
- History and Heritage
- Practising History: Skills in History
- The Making of the Contemporary World: 1800 to the Present
- The Making of the Early Modern World, 1500-1800.
- The History of Africa in Global Context
- The Making of the Medieval World, 500- 1050
- Exploring Identities in the French and Francophone world
- French Language 1 (Advanced)
- French Language 1 (Beginners)
- LC Nation, Democracy, Diversity in the German-speaking world
- German Language 1 (Advanced)
- German Language 1 (Beginners)
- Introduction to Hispanic Cultures
- Spanish Language 1 (Advanced)
- Spanish Language 1 (Beginners)
- Topics in History
- French Lang 2(Intermediate)
- French Language 2 (Advanced)
- German Language 2 (Advanced)
- German Language 2 (Intermediate)
- Spanish Language 2 (Advanced)
- Spanish Language 2 (Intermediate)
- Global French: Communities, Politics and International Relations
- Sources of Inspiration: Creativity and Adaptation through French Texts
- Cultures of Protest and Terror in West Germany, 1967-1977
- Ideals and Ideas: The Making of Modern Germany
- Obedience and Autonomy in German Culture and Thought
- Digital Media and Spanish Youth Culture
- Histories of the Excluded: Inquisition and the Birth of Human Rights
- Icons of the Hispanic World
- Mexican and Chicano Art in the Twentieth Century: Revolution and Beyond
- Reading the World in Contemporary Spanish American Fiction
- Structures and Varieties of the Modern Hispanic Languages
- Cultural Industries: Creativity in Change
- Beginners Catalan Language A
- Beginners Catalan Language B
- Intermediate Catalan Language A
- Intermediate Catalan Language B
- Artistic and Literary Representations of Barcelona
- Gender, New Media and Cultural Identity
- Option: 1619 and the Making of America: A 400 Year History
- Option: American Empire: The United States and the World
- Option: Confronting Colonialism: Histories of Empire in India and Ireland
- Option: In Search of Wealth and Power: China since 1800
- Option: Mass Culture and the Modern United States, 1877-1939
- Option: Pandora’s Box: Europe and the First World War, 1900-1930
- Option: Revolution, Nation, and the Global South
- Option: Society in the Viking World c.800-c.1100
- Option: State and Empire in the Early Modern World, 1400-1800
- Option: Tudor Terrors: inner worlds, hidden worlds, new worlds
- Option: Before Globalization?: Afro-Eurasian World History 500-1800
- Option: Crusading Societies in Medieval Europe
- Option: Modern Britain from the Margins
- Option: Radical Pieties: Militants, Martyrs and Mystics in Medieval Christianity and Islam
- Option: Rebellious Women and the Latin American Nation
- Option: The Global Cold War
- Sources in History: Memorials
- Sources in History: Money
- Sources in History: News
- Sources in History: Official Documents
- Sources in History: Personal Documents
- Sources in History: Possessions
- Sources in History: Protest Documents
- Sources in History: Testimonies
- Sources in History: Texts and Tales
- Innovations in History
- Translation in the Workplace
- Cross-Cultural Cinema: Film Adaptation beyond the Nation-State
- Cross-Cultural Cinema: Migration and Displacement
- Global Enterprise Project
- Health and Disease in Africa
- Language and power
- Recovering Africa's Past: oralities in the digital age
- Teaching and Learning (languages) in the 21st century
- Work, The Future and You
- Media in Practice
- Dissertation
- Final Year Extended Independent Study Module in Modern Languages
- Joint Honours Link Dissertation
- French Language Final Year
- German Language Final Year
- Spanish Language Final Year
- Interpreting A
- Interpreting B
- Adapting Nineteenth-Century France
- Breaking New Ground: Innovative French Writing and Visual Culture
- Colonial and Postcolonial Cultures in the Francophone Worlds
- Discourses, Disciplines and Dissidence: The Construction of Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century France
- Franco-African Relations from de Gaulle to Macron (1944 to the present)
- Francophone Caribbean Literature and Film
- From Princesses to Poisoners: Gender, Identity and Society in Seventeenth-century French texts
- The Algerian War
- Seeing Differently: German-Language Cinema since 1960
- Sex, Seduction and Submission: Gender in German Literature from 1900 to Today
- War in Peace: Writing the First World War in Germany, 1918-1939
- Imagining the Truth: Latin American Culture in a Post-truth World
- Performing Gender/Translating Performance
- Social and Political Processes in Contemporary Latin America
- Spanish Exile Culture
- The Digital Past
- The Spanish Caribbean: History and Literature
- US Latinx Cultures: Spanish Caribbean
- Thinking Otherwise: Decolonial Approaches to Contemporary Thought and Culture
- Intermediate Catalan Language A
- Intermediate Catalan Language B
- Back to the Future – Hidden Histories and Utopian Possibilities, 1800-present
- Contemporary representations of the body: literature, theory and art
- Echoes of Colonialism and Imperialism Across Cultures
- From Text to Tech: Digital Approaches to Languages and Cultures
- Language, Culture and Communication: Digging into the text
- The Romance languages: structure, variation and change
- Translation and Creativity in the Digital Age I
- Translation and Creativity in the Digital Age II
- Uniformity and diversity in the Iberian-Romance speaking world
- Advanced Option: America at War: From the Civil War to the War on Terror
- Advanced Option: Before Globalization?: Afro-Eurasian World History 500-1800
- Advanced Option: Britain’s Wars of Colonisation and Decolonisation
- Advanced Option: Capital Lives: Experiencing the City in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain
- Advanced Option: China in Revolution: China under Mao (1949-1976)
- Advanced Option: Conflict in the Modern Middle East
- Advanced Option: Experts, Scholars, and Spies: the Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe
- Advanced Option: Faith and Fire: Religion and Rebellion in England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I
- Advanced Option: From the OSS to Snowden: A History of American Intelligence Agencies since 1945
- Advanced Option: Gross Indecency to Gay Marriage? Gender and Sexual Minorities 1885 to the Present
- Advanced Option: History of Technology and Culture in the United States
- Advanced Option: Indigenous and Settler Histories
- Advanced Option: Land, Law, and Violence in the American West
- Advanced Option: Practising Public History
- Advanced Option: Reason and Romance: The Cultural History of Nineteenth-Century Britain
- Advanced Option: Terrorism in the USA: From the Klan to Al Qaeda to White Power
- Advanced Option: The Making of the British Raj: Gender, Conquest and Race in early colonial India, c.1757-1885
- Advanced Option: Women Behaving Badly in Tudor and Stuart England
- Advanced Option: ‘A Holiday from Reality’: A History of Drugs and Drug Use in the Modern Era
- Advanced Option: ‘The Young Ones’: Youth, popular culture, and social change in twentieth century Britain
- Special Subject: Fighting Over Freedom: American Political Ideas from Revolution to Civil War A
- The United States South: From Plantations to NASCAR
- Gender and the Making of the Modern Britain, 1650-1832
- Special Subject: 1066, 1099: Chronicling Conquest on the Frontiers of Medieval Europe: A
- Special Subject: A History of the Tudors in 100 Objects A
- Special Subject: After Hitler: Politics and Society in (West) Germany during the Adenauer Era, 1945-1965 A
- Special Subject: Beauty, Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Body in Britain, c1680-1820: A
- Special Subject: Britain and the First World War A
- Special Subject: British Women and Internationalism since 1850 A
- Special Subject: Conflict, nationalism and genocide in East Central Europe, ca. 1880 – 1953 A
- Special Subject: Dossers: Homelessness in Modern Britain, 1900 to Present A
- Special Subject: Empire comes home: India in the making of Britain: A
- Special Subject: Games without Thrones? North Atlantic Societies in the wake of the Vikings, c.800-c.1200 A
- Special Subject: Global Cities and Urban Lives, 1690-1914 A
- Special Subject: Gross Indecency to Gay Marriage? Gender and Sexual Minorities in the British World A
- Special Subject: Gunpowder, Treason and Plot: England under Elizabeth I and James I A
- Special Subject: People of the Aftermath: British Culture in the 1920s and 1930s A
- Special Subject: Terrorising History: Terrorist Motivations, Methods, and Mayhem A
- Special Subject: The Revolting Right: Conservative Activism in Post-war Britain A
- Special Subject: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich A
- Special Subject: Where There Is Discord: Making Thatcher’s Britain A
- Special Subject: Women and Social Movements in Brazil: A
- Special Subject: A History of the Tudors in 100 Objects B
- Special Subject: Britain and the First World War B
- Special Subject: Global Cities and Urban Lives, 1690-1914 B
- Special Subject: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich B
- Special Subject: Women and Social Movements in Brazil: B
Questions about this course
How much do graduates of BA Modern Languages and History at University of Birmingham earn?
The median salary is £30,000 after 15 months, £26,000 after 3 years, £34,000 after 5 years. After five years the middle half of graduates earn between £26,500 and £42,500. The £34,000 median after five years is £1,000 more than the UK median for Language and area studies (other).
What do graduates of BA Modern Languages and History at University of Birmingham do next?
88% were in work or further study 15 months after finishing (Graduate Outcomes 2023-24).
Are students happy with the teaching on BA Modern Languages and History at University of Birmingham?
98% of final-year students were positive about the teaching in the National Student Survey 2025-26.
What grades do I need for BA Modern Languages and History at University of Birmingham?
The typical offer is AAB at A level, or 32 points in the IB. The average entrant had 140 UCAS points.
Does BA Modern Languages and History at University of Birmingham include a placement year or year abroad?
The course has a compulsory year abroad.
How many students continue on BA Modern Languages and History at University of Birmingham?
100% of students continued into their second year, and 0% left higher education.