History: History is a very practical subject, and during your degree you will develop various transferable skills that employers value highly. This programme aims to develop your knowledge and understanding of a wide range of human history. It encourages you to take an analytical approach to the past, so that you can understand and contribute to historical controversies, and can understand ways in which the past is at least partly constructed in the present. It therefore hopes to train you intellectually so you can explain the relevance of the past in the present, understand the problems of interpreting written and other evidence, and gain skills of research, analysis, problem-solving, construction of argument and communication. Graduates of this scheme enter a wide range of employment: especially fields which require skills of communication, analysing large quantities of information, and understanding human nature. These include teaching, management and administration, librarianship, accountancy, law, the heritage industry and retail. Many graduates enter higher education schemes-especially masters degrees in history. English Literature: This course offers students the opportunity to study texts and authors from an exceptionally wide range of English and American literature. During their degree these works are studied in a variety of ways, some emphasising, for example, the social or political context in which a text was produced; others are studied with a more linguistic or stylistic approach. The English Literature course aims to develop their skills in reading literature and to introduce them to new critical techniques and ways of studying literary texts. Through the study of English literature they will develop critical capacities and a range of invaluable intellectual and interpersonal skills: the ability to evaluate and interpret material and the capacity to explain it logically, orally or on paper, the ability to work independently and as a member of a group, to manage their own time and to work to deadlines set by themselves and others. These are skills which are sought by employers in many fields. With a good degree in History course, combining sound historical knowledge and a range of analytical and presentational skills, they will be able to tackle a variety of career options centring on administration and public leadership, for example, in personnel departments in privately owned industry, the civil service and local government as well as in a range of directly transferable vocations. Bangor History graduates have in recent years gained careers in commerce, law, teaching and the armed forces.