I have been accepted to do an MA in Histroy at Manchester and am looking forward to it, however I've just got hold of a copy of an "illustrative" reading list for the 1st Semester's module (see below).

The first title alone is over 1,300 pages long so my question is: What percentage of a reading list would you actually be asked/expected to read? Don't get me wrong, i love reading and would be happy to read the lot, my fear is that i simply won't have time, especially given my other commitments.

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Norman Davies, Europe: A History
Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality
Mary Fulbrook, ed., National Histories and European History
Denis Hay, Europe: The Emergence of an Idea
Anthony Pagden (ed), The Idea of Europe: from Antiquity to the European Union
K Wilson & J van der Dussen (eds), The History of the Idea of Europe Larry Wolff,
Inventing Eastern Europe
Stuart Woolf, Napoleon’s Integration of Europe

Nations and Nationalism
Gopal Balakrishnan (ed), Mapping the Nation
Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor
Geoff Eley & Ronald Grigor Suny (eds),Becoming National: A Reader Eric Hobsbawm,
Nations and Nationalism since 1780
Caroline Ford, Creating the Nation in Provincial France
Ernest Gellner,Nations and Nationalism
Elie Kedourie, Nationalism

Modernity and Modernization
Z Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, pp. 83-116
M Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air. The Experience of Modernity
B Latour, We Have Never Been Modern
Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture
E Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France
H-U Wehler, The German Empire 1871-1918

Memory
Alon Confino, ‘Collective memory and cultural history: problems of method,’ American Historical Review 105 (1997), 1386-1403
Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory
M Halbwachs, On Collective Memory
Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition
P Hutton, ‘Collective memory and collective mentalities: the Halbwachs-Ariès connection’, Historical Reflections 15 (1988), pp. 311-22
Pieter Lagrou, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945-1965
Pierre Nora (ed), Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, 3 vols
Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History

meowfood,

the university ask for 2 references, preferably academic ones. I asked 2 lecturers and both said they would, unfortunately only 1 actually obliged (and that took 6 weeks!). The 2nd lecturer was not available when i tried to chase him up so i asked the Admissions department if they would accept a reference from my boss. They said yes and he submitted it within a few days.

My advice is:

* give your lecturers plenty of time to complete the references, especially if you're applying in summer when people are not always around
* don't rule out using a non-academic reference, though if you do, provide the referee with the guidelines (in the case of manchester it's the Referee Report Form) so they can tailor your reference for Academia
* send thank-you notes!

Thanks for all your comments. I applied, was successful and start in 6 weeks!

Thanks again for the advice.

Peter

BilboBaggins,

Thanks for your reply. I applied and was accepted on a part-time course at Manchester, looking forward to starting in 6 weeks.

thanks again for the advice.

I studied at Manchester and did a BSc in Computer Science (completed 2001). I'm now thinking of going back to do an MA in History. The uni have said that the fact my first degree was unrelated will not hold me back from applying for the MA.

What i'm wondering is if i complete the MA and want to go for a PHd (again in History) will the fact that my first degree was technical become an issue?

I should have mentioned, the course is 1-day per week, but i'm wondering about the amount of work required outside the 'classroom'.

I completed a BSc in Computer Science in 2001 and went to work for an IT company. Since then I've become interested in studying history and am now considering doing a part-time MA at Manchester.

I have 2 questions:

Will the fact that my first degree was in a technical discipline prevent me from being accepted on to a History Phd course? (assuming I complete the MA).

Does anyone have any experience of doing an MA part-time and balancing this with a job? If so, how did you find it and how many hours a week do you think I'd need to put in