About the course

This specialist one-year course offers a range of options in the history of science, medicine and technology. You may specialise in the history of science and technology or the history of medicine, although the boundaries between these areas are deliberately permeable.

The history of science, medicine, and technology is a long-established discipline in Oxford. R. T. Gunther and Charles Singer were among the pioneers of the subject early in the twentieth century, and since the 1920s the Museum of the History of Science has housed an outstanding collection of scientific instruments and a fine specialist library. In the early 1970s, the creation of the chair of the history of science and the establishment of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine gave the subject additional strength and allowed important new departures. The Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology (HSMT) was created in 2017 in order to build on the teaching and research capacity of the numerous historians working on HSMT subjects in Oxford-based projects and in various museums, colleges and faculties.

The expertise of scholars in Oxford covers most of the main areas and periods of the history of science, medicine, and technology. A varied programme of seminars, lectures, and conferences enables you to obtain knowledge of subjects beyond your chosen speciality and to meet visitors from elsewhere in Britain and abroad.

The course comprises.

• a course in Methods and Themes in HSMT, taught in classes during Michaelmas term, and reinforced by lectures on specific issues with formal assessment through a methodological essay of up to 4,000 words;
• two advanced papers, usually taught in small classes and mostly during Hilary Term - assessment is usually by two extended essays of 4,000 to 5,000 words each
• a dissertation on a topic of your choice, approved by your supervisor.

Assessment

The Methods and Themes course is assessed by a methodological essay of up to 4,000 words. You will usually write two extended essays of 4,000 to 5,000 words each related to the two advanced papers. Finally, the dissertation of no more than 15,000 words is submitted at the end of August.

Graduate destinations

About a quarter of master’s students proceed to doctoral work at Oxford; others continue academic study at other institutions. Other career destinations are as diverse as, but broadly in line with, undergraduate history career destinations. law, finance, management consultancy, civil service etc.