Foundation Studies Program (Standard) - Arts (X0F:1) (0100808) + Diploma of Arts - History (A1A) (0100746)

Program Description The Foundation Studies program is a direct academic pathway to first-year undergraduate degree study, or an equivalent. The program acts as a bridging course for international students who wish to study a university undergraduate degree course but who don’t yet meet academic requirements and/or have the English language skills for tertiary study.

To successfully complete the program, students must achieve a 50% pass in all units, including English.

Upon successful completion of the course, graduates can enter one of the University of Tasmania’s undergraduate degree courses.

Diploma of Arts - History (A1A):: The Diploma of Arts provides students with opportunities to interpret human culture and behaviour from different perspectives and periods. Their studies will explore today’s big questions. They will learn how to support the social and economic development of the human race and/or to be immersed in creativity, performance and innovation.

This award is designed to allow students to choose their path: it can be the first year of Bachelor of Arts study, or they may enroll in this degree to pursue their passion and undertake one of the majors in the Bachelor of Arts. The Diploma of Arts gives them the flexibility to choose from a wide range of subjects with over twenty named majors and minors, they can select subjects to build their knowledge, and electives to enhance skills.

The past is an extraordinary place. By studying history students will come to understand the whole world by understanding the long-term changes and continuities that shaped today. Historical knowledge is a vital component of cultural literacy, broadens their mind, fosters the capacity for empathy and equips them to be a global citizen. Historians are like very open-minded detectives: questioning, analysing and interpreting evidence from the past. When someone cries 'fake news', students will have the skills to find evidence from a range of sources to reconsider the claims of the present. They will also have the inexplicable joy of encountering the unexpected and the unknown. It has never been more urgent to understand the past so that we have the ability to make new futures.

Through the History major at the University of Tasmania students will gain a sophisticated sense of their location in time and place, and will become skilled in historical research, critical analysis and communication of ideas. They will develop skills in researching a variety of historical evidence that is becoming increasingly accessible in digital forms. Students will learn to analyse sources and issues, and fluently express their ideas in discussions, essays and other forms of communication. History is very present in University of Tasmania, with its many sites and markers of a deep and complex past linking the island to Australia and the world.