Ancient History/Religious Studies
UCAS Code: VVQ1
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
Excluding General Studies and Critical Thinking
Extended Project
For applicants taking the EPQ qualification, an A in the EPQ can be recognised to lower the entry requirements by a single grade. For example an AAB offer would be “AAB from 3 A levels or ABB from 3 A levels and a grade A in the EPQ”. Please note that any subject specific requirements must be met.
GCSE/National 4/National 5
GCSE English Language Grade C or 4, IGCSE English First Language grade C, IGCSE English as a Second Language grade C
Achieve the IB Diploma with 655 in 3 HL subjects with 6 in HL History, Classics or Ancient History
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
in Humanities or Social Science subjects. Any other BTEC subject if combined with an A-Level excluding General Studies and Critical Thinking.
Scottish Advanced Higher
Excluding General Studies and Critical Thinking
The Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge Certificate will be accepted in lieu of one A Level at the A Level grades specified, excluding any subject specific requirements.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
This joint honours BA in Religious Studies and Ancient History will ensure a developed understanding of the relationship between religion and the historical world, whilst additionally providing a range of important transferable skills useful for entry into the graduate job market.
The degree aims to develop your knowledge and critical understanding of the religious, political, social, and cultural structures of past societies and give you the opportunity to explore some of the fundamental questions of existence, in a flourishing centre of research.
Ancient History courses at Cardiff University cover the period from the Aegean Bronze Age to the fall of the Roman Empire in the west and its survival in the east as the Byzantine Empire. There is a balance between modules covering specific historical periods and those that examine broad social and cultural topics, such as warfare, gender, religion, art, medicine and science.
Religion has been part of human experience from the earliest traces of human existence up to the present day. It has been the way most cultures have sought to express their understanding of the purpose of life and the foundation of personal and social behaviour. Your lecturers are active researchers in their fields, bringing the latest research into teaching.
The course aims to cultivate intellectual skills such as the ability to assess evidence critically, to evaluate different interpretations of the evidence, to construct arguments on the basis of evidence and to express opinions cogently.
Distinctive features
The joint honours degree in Religious Studies and Ancient History allows you to specialise equally in two degree subjects. It provides the training necessary for students who wish to study either discipline at postgraduate level, and a valuable range of intellectual and transferable skills for students who wish to enter other professions.
As a joint honours student, you will find that often there are complementary issues and perspectives as well as skills that link subjects, be they critical analysis, historical contexts or recent research.
Tuition fees
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Extra funding
Cardiff University has many scholarships on offer to our prospective students. Please see our website at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/funding/scholarships for further information.
The Uni
Main Site - Cardiff
School of History, Archaeology and Religion

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We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
History
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Theology and religious studies
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
History
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What do graduate employment figures really tell you?History is a very popular subject (although numbers have fallen of late) — in 2015, over 10,000 UK students graduated in a history-related course. Obviously, there aren't 11,000 jobs as historians available every year, but history is a good, flexible degree that allows graduates to go into a wide range of different jobs, and consequently history graduates have an unemployment rate comparable to the national graduate average. Many — probably most — jobs for graduates don't ask for a particular degree to go into them and history graduates are well set to take advantage. That's why so many go into jobs in the finance industry, human resources, marketing, PR and events management, as well as the more obvious roles in education, welfare and the arts. Around one in five history graduates went into further study last year. History and teaching were the most popular further study subjects for history graduates, but law, journalism, and politics were also popular postgraduate courses.
Theology and religious studies
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What do graduate employment figures really tell you?Theology can actually be a very vocational subject —by far the most common move for theology graduates is to go into the clergy and at the moment we have a serious shortage of people willing to go into what is one of the oldest graduate careers. If you want to study theology but don't want to follow a religious career, then there are plenty of options available. 2015 graduates went into all sorts of jobs requiring a degree, from education and community work, to marketing, HR and financial analysis. Postgraduate study is also popular — a lot of theology graduates train as teachers, or go into Masters or even doctoral study - where philosophy and law are very popular postgraduate subjects of study.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Ancient history
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£18k
£25k
£27k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Theology and religious studies
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£18k
£25k
£27k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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