Category: Learning in Focus

Learning in Focus

  • ‘Step outside of your comfort zone’: How to get the best out of your second year at university

    ‘Step outside of your comfort zone’: How to get the best out of your second year at university

    Are you just about to start your second year studying History? This blog, written by Eleanor Doyle, President of the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union History Society, offers great advice on how to get the most out of your second year of studies. Eleanor is just about to start her final year.

    My best piece of advice for second year is to be brave and have the confidence to step outside of your comfort zone. My second year at Portsmouth University flew by and although it might feel as though your summer was gone in a blink, second year goes by even faster.

    One of the most exciting parts of second year is that you have the opportunity to choose the units you study and so you can tailor your degree to your interests. For me, this meant I spent most of my time flitting between crime and punishment in early modern England and social relations in London’s urban slums in the 18th and 19th century. While this might not be everyone’s idea of a great year, I really enjoyed the variety that came with these units. However, random chance meant I also spent my time studying post-war Germany. This was well and truly out of my comfort zone! I felt quite daunted at the prospect of studying a unit I knew nothing about, especially when I was aware most of my friends had a head start from their A-levels.  However, I am very happy to say that this unit turned out to be fascinating and I had some of my best results ever! My experience in this unit makes me convinced that stepping outside your confidence zone is one of the best things you can do in your second year.

    When it begins, second year can feel a bit like a limbo between the nerves of first year and getting stuck into your dissertation in third year. However, second year is great in its own right! By the time you start your second year, you feel more comfortable with how seminars work, the way you work best and the types of things that interest you. (Although, don’t worry if you haven’t figured all this out yet, as you go through second year your skills and confidence will grow and you’ll realise you were better than you thought.) Also, the type of work and assessments you do in your second year give you a fantastic opportunity to get really stuck into topics that fascinate you. I wrote a blog post on Jane Austen using the surviving letters she sent to her sister, Cassandra, to look at how Jane understood herself and her world. Attempting something like this was certainly out of my comfort zone when I started my second year, but I can confidently say it was one of the most enjoyable pieces of work I’ve ever written.

    Second year is also a perfect time to try something new or develop your extra-curricular skills by taking up some of the great opportunities around. I enjoyed being one of the University’s student ambassadors at our last Open Day and I had the chance to take over the department’s Twitter page to have a chat about my experience at university. I also took a big step and became History Society President and I can’t wait for the year ahead. However, there are also a huge number of opportunities outside the University that you can make the most of during your second year. I took on new roles in my job at the Mary Rose and took up rock climbing as a hobby! These completely different things really helped me in my second year because they made sure I took time to step away from my work and focus on something else.

    Finally, second year is also the time when people start thinking about their dissertations. I found this rather daunting at the start of the year but I now know I was definitely not alone! I would strongly advise you to approach all the reading you do for your seminars and essays with an open mind, even if you think you don’t find the topic interesting. For me, this mind-set helped me decide to write my dissertation on gin palaces in 18th and 19th century London. This was certainly not an option I had even considered before my second year!  You never know what might inspire you and the earlier you start being open to new ideas, the easier it is to decide what you really like.

    Overall, second year is wonderful. Like anything, it has its stresses and its deadlines but having the confidence to take it on and get as much as you can out of it means your second year is one you’ll never forget. My experiences across my two years at Portsmouth University have prepared me well for my next challenge: third year! Now I can’t wait to get started.

    Good luck to everyone starting their second year – I hope you’re brave and bold and get as much out of it as you can!

  • ‘You will get out of the course what you put in’: Being a first year History student

    ‘You will get out of the course what you put in’: Being a first year History student

    Are you just about to start your first year as a History student and wonder what it will be like? Then read this blog written by one of last year’s ‘freshers’, Amelia Boddice. In the blog Amelia reflects on her experience when starting this whole new chapter in her life, from how to prepare for class to enjoying life both inside and outside the lecture room. Amelia is just about to start her second year of studies.

    What to expect?

    In terms of the gap between A-level and doing an undergraduate degree you can expect a big difference in the workload. There is an increase in the amount of preparation you must do for class, any written assignments and your participation in group work. You should do the core reading as a minimum but if you find you have some spare time I would suggest doing some further reading as this will show your enthusiasm and help to get your marks up for the portion of your final grade which is composed of seminar participation marks. This works in concordance with the lecture material to help consolidate your background knowledge on any given topic. Doing this will also help you to prepare 2/8 core readings needed for essays so you will be ahead.

    This increase in workload, I have found, may increase the pressure you feel to succeed but the lecture/seminar format of this course helps to reduce this to a degree. This dual system is very different to the A-level system, but I have found it more effective for consolidating knowledge and you must understand lecturers do not have enough time to teach us everything about every topic so attending both will aid in your general understanding. I would always recommend emailing or asking tutors for essay specific readings to help make your essay more succinct and to show your dedication to the piece. There is always an area for you to succeed in and this system will allow you to do well regardless of what your strengths are, whether they are essay writing or giving a sustained verbal argument with evidence. Seminars are broken down into four tasks: presenting, primary sources (historical documents to be analysed which can be found in your handbook), secondary sources (which is the general background reading) and the blog. These tasks alternate with each seminar and all your marks go towards your final grade – so do not worry if you find essays difficult, if you have succeeded in seminars your overall grade will rise as a result.

    My experience:

    I found that I spent an awful lot of time in the library as the staff were friendly and the atmosphere was brilliant for studying. However, you can do a lot of the reading online at home so if you are not staying on campus there is no need to worry as you will be able to do it remotely. By doing this I could do work in advance and therefore not feel any huge pressure when facing upcoming deadlines, so I would suggest finding a place you love to study.

    Everyone on the course, including the tutors, are very friendly and there to help. As much as you might have been told everyone is in the same boat, it really is the case! If you are open to making new friends and working in an environment you may have previously found uncomfortable, such as presenting, you will find the course very rewarding. If you meet your presentation group in advance and do your part, there is really no need to worry. Then once the presentation has been completed you will feel very rewarded and may have overcome a fear in the process.

    Listening closely to the advice given by tutors about written assignments you may not have previously encountered, such as document commentaries, really helps! There are also essay writing guides on Moodle under ‘Learning Development.’ Use it, it has been put there for your benefit. Also remember lecturers have office hours which you can use for any essay specific queries. In addition to this take note of tutors’ email addresses for any questions you may have.

    This course will allow you to build your confidence and experience opportunities you may not have been able to before. For example, in my first year I volunteered for the Ministry of Defence at the National Museum of the Royal Navy reconstructing RAF packs from the Second World War! Take all the opportunities that come your way.

    How to prepare and general advice:

    The general reading lists are always a good place to start. Either read the introduction or a chapter you think may be helpful to give you an insight on the module.

    Be willing to make new friends.

    Practice referencing. Although you will do this in the course ‘History At University’, it may be beneficial to just give it a go.

    Remember:

    • Find time for yourself. Your mental health and wellbeing come first.
    • It is possible to balance coursework, work and any social activities you may want to be a part of. For example, being a part of a sports team is made much easier as Wednesday afternoons are free of all classes for all university students because that time is dedicated to sports fixtures.
    • You will get out of the course what you put in.
    • The first year of university is kind of like a practice as it does not count towards your final grade; use it as a practice but try your hardest. It is comforting to know that whatever assignments you do you will have a second chance to improve your grade.

    Good luck!

     

  • (Un)safe heritage?

    (Un)safe heritage?

    In this post, the third in our series of blogs looking at sites of historical interest in Portsmouth, Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History at Portsmouth, explores what might be learnt from an apparently unexceptional piece of the city’s built environment. Mike’s research and teaching focus on the everyday, including ideas about mobility and accidents in modern Britain.

    Not far from my office, there’s yet another mundane object that for most of the time, most people don’t notice – for 140 years it was part of the background to life around Burnaby Road. For a week or so earlier this year, however, it became very noticeable – particularly its absence, which left a hole in the eyeline. And then, once replaced and the shock of the new subsided, it has once again become a part of the background.

    This post is about a bridge. To be precise, the railway bridge over Burnaby Road, on the final trundle from Portsmouth & Southsea station to the Harbour station. Erected by the London & South Western Railway in 1876, the bridge was certainly functional – yet also not without a faded decorative element, at least by the time of its removal. I like these everyday things; if we stop and notice them, they tell us all sorts about the societies that produced them and the society of the present moment.

    The bridge was life-expired. It looked a little the worse for wear if one remembered to look up whilst walking underneath (not advised when it was raining!). It was also in need of strengthening, as age and changing technology had taken their toll on the original design – not unreasonable given it was carrying well over 100,000 trains a year. It might have been a relatively straightforward decision to remove the bridge and replace it with a plain girder bridge. But this isn’t quite the way it worked out.

    The process of removing the bridge and installing the new one required extensive planning, preparation and a road closure for a week. The new bridge was assembled nearby and moved into place – no mean feat given the physical constraints around the site and the need to move the 88-tonne structure around 200 metres. Over the course of a week in February the old bridge came down and the new one went in.

    A decision was taken – and I don’t know where or by whom – that the replacement bridge show mirror the aesthetic of the original. So, whilst never particularly ornate, the look of the bridge – including its new paintwork – at least referred back to its predecessor. This bridge wasn’t a heritage asset in the way that say the nearby Mary Rose or HMS Victory might be. But it was a part of the working heritage of the area. That was reflected in the colour scheme used on the new bridge, which referred to Portsmouth’s city colours. This was a relatively subtle marker of civic belonging, a means of siting the bridge in its locale.

    So clearly the bridge might not be ‘just’ a bridge: it can be used in particular ways. This raises questions pertinent to transport museums and the preservation movement more widely: how do you retain the essence of things that are functional? Did the original bridge have some sort of intrinsic worth or value ‘just’ because of its age? Remove it from its context and purpose and does the bridge retain that value? Just like trains that are preserved in museums, as static exhibits: they were designed to move, so when still have they lost their raison d’etre? Or has the value and meaning changed? What values do we, as a society, place upon these mundane artefacts – particularly infrastructure, like the bridge – without which our world would be very different, but for most of the time we don’t notice because they function smoothly?

    There’s another element to the story, which ties in with my research: safety. A quick glance at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ images flags up some prominent differences between the old and new bridges. There’s the yellow and black hazard warning bar and the height limit notice, obscuring some of the paintwork replicating the original but designed to deter bridge strikes (a major problem on the rail network). Of greater interest to me, for my work on the history of workplace safety & accidents (particularly in the rail industry), there was additional consideration: safe access across the bridge for railway workers.

    The old bridge was narrow, without adequate provision for workers to cross at track level. This meant they had to watch carefully and squeeze past when there were no trains coming: hardly safe in anyone’s imagination. Indeed, some of the cases of railway worker accidents coming out of the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project I co-lead with the National Railway Museum are of exactly this scenario: narrow bridges and workers being struck by passing trains, sometimes with fatal results. This was either the original engineers being blind to the workers, who were not high up in their considerations especially when weighed against extra cost, or a deliberate decision to put worker lives at risk. This might (hopefully!) seem shocking by today’s standards but it was not surprising for the 19th century.

    In a sign of how times have changed, proper access routes were built into the new bridge, seen in the walkway (including safety rail) on either side of the bridge, away from the moving trains. It changes the look of the bridge, certainly, but this again relates to the discussions about how far built heritage can or should be adapted for modern standards. Given this was a new installation the debate was, hopefully, minimal; it would have been a much easier proposition than trying to adapt an original structure. Thankfully we have a higher regard for safety now than 140 years ago – which isn’t to suggest that things are perfect today, but to acknowledge that priorities and who is valued have shifted.

    So, via a number of routes, an initially unpromising structure can be interrogated to reveal interesting glimpse of the values of the societies which both produced the original and the replacement bridges. If we look closely at such objects we can see where particular concepts and values are built into the fabric of any mundane item.

  • Going to the cinema? The changing uses of Portsmouth’s cinema buildings

    Going to the cinema? The changing uses of Portsmouth’s cinema buildings

    In this blog, the second in a series of posts looking at sites of historical interest in Portsmouth, Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, discusses the changing uses of the city’s cinema buildings. Rob specialises in researching society’s leisure activities and teaches a number of units on film and the cinema, including, as part of the Problems and Perspectives unit, ‘History at the Movies’ in the first year, ‘The Way to the Stars: Film and cinema-going in Britain, c. 1900-c. 2000’ option in the second year, and a Special Subject on ‘Cinema-going in Wartime Britain, 1939-1945’ in the third year.

    Going to the cinema was an important leisure pastime in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. Millions of the country’s citizens flocked to the cinema on a weekly basis, leading one prominent historian to refer to the activity as the ‘social habit of the age’. [1]

    In order to respond to the growing number of people going to the cinema, thousands of new venues were built across the country. On top of this, many existing buildings were converted into cinema halls. Here in Portsmouth, for example, a tobacco factory located in Queens Street, Portsea was modified, opening as the Queens Cinema in 1914 with enough space to accommodate over 500 patrons. [2] What was once a site of labour, became a site for relaxation.

    Queens Cinema, Portsea

     

    By the start of the Second World War there were 29 cinemas located across the town. Many of these were plush ‘picture palaces’, constructed as part of the boom period of cinema building in the 1920s and 30s, such as the Odeon and Regent (later Gaumont) cinemas in London Road, North End, the Plaza (later Gaumont) at Bradford Junction, Fratton, the Tivoli, in Copnor Road, Copnor, and the Palace in Commercial Street (now Guildhall Walk).

    Many of these buildings have long been lost. Not, as may be assumed, to enemy bombing during the war (only one cinema – the Princes Theatre in Lake Road – was completely demolished in the Blitz), but to the bulldozer after the Council began its post-war reconstruction programme. [3]

    Bomb damage to the Princes Theatre, Lake Road

     

    A good number of buildings survived the bulldozers, though. The Odeon in North End still stands, as does the Plaza/Gaumont in Fratton, and the Palace in Guildhall Walk. They are no longer cinemas, however, but serve other purposes. The Odeon is now a Sainsbury’s Local store, the Plaza/Gaumont was turned into a Bingo hall in the 1990s, and then became a mosque, while the Palace is now a nightclub – the Astoria – and a popular haunt for our students!

    Odeon cinema, North End
    The former Odeon cinema, now a Sainsbury’s Local supermarket
    Plaza/Gaumont cinema, Bradford Junction
    The former Plaza/Gaumont cinema, now Portsmouth Tami Mosque
    The Palace cinema, Commercial Street (now Guildhall Walk)
    The former Palace cinema, now the Astoria nightclub

     

    The changing uses of buildings is a fascinating history to uncover. As society’s leisure activities alter as the years go by, certain pastimes fall out of favour while others replace them, so the purposes of the buildings in which these activities took place changes too.

    Some buildings become redundant and are lost to the cityscape forever. But many remain; they just serve a different purpose. So the next time you are in the Astoria strutting your stuff, think about the generations of people before you who have whiled away their leisure hours in that space in the past. Think, too, about what may become of that venue in the future. Will other generations use the space for different purposes?

     

    Notes

    [1] Cited in Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain 1930-1939, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 11.

    [2] Robert James, ‘Cinema-going in a Port Town, 1914-1951: Film Booking patterns at the Queens Cinema, Portsmouth’, Urban History, 40.2, 2013, pp. 315-335, p. 317.

    [3] http://michaelcooper.org.uk/C/othervenues.htm

  • Enriching the learning experience: Exploring Tudor heritage in Southampton

    Enriching the learning experience: Exploring Tudor heritage in Southampton

    In this blog, Dr Katy Gibbons, Senior Lecturer in History at Portsmouth, reports on a field trip undertaken as part of her Special Subject Module, ‘Conflict, Conspiracy, Consensus: Religious Identities in Elizabethan England’.

    One of the challenges of researching a society that is several hundred years removed from our own is in understanding the physical and material aspects that seem so different – the places in which people lived and interacted with each other, the clothes they wore, the objects they owned, and the meanings that were invested in them. This might be particularly challenging when thinking our way into religion and religious experience, and grasping the ways in which religion (encompassing far more than attending church once a week) structured and influenced all aspects of life, in a number of complicated ways. One really useful way into this is to consider the material objects (large and small) that do survive, how they were put to use in religious activity, and what they suggest to us about contemporary approaches. This is something that students taking the final year Special Subject unit, ‘Conflict, Conspiracy, Consensus: Religious Identities in Elizabethan England’ got to grips with in a field trip. Seeing the physical remains of 16th century religion and society through the lens of a parish church and a ‘private’ house offered a fresh insight into a number of aspects of the unit, from the importance of parish identity to the role played by personal, familial and public display.

    A few weeks into the unit, the seminar group took a trip to Southampton, in order to visit two adjacent sites rich in Tudor heritage: the parish church of St Michael’s (the city’s oldest building), and the Tudor House Museum and Garden, which stands opposite. The trip was funded by the School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies, so free to students. We were lucky enough to benefit from the expertise and knowledge of church wardens and stewards in St Michael’s, and of a member of tour guide team at The Tudor House, who was an archaeologist and a key member of the team who restored the house and garden. We saw and thought about many aspects of life in the 16th century: here I will mention just a few examples.

    The tomb of Richard Lyster

     

    St Michael’s gave us a good sense of what changed within an urban parish church in the course of the Reformation, and subsequently. The interior of the church in the 21st century looks very different to the 16th century! But there were some key features to consider, most notably the very fine tomb of Richard Lyster, a notable figure in the civic life of Southampton and a man who held important ‘national’ office, as well as the inhabitant of the Tudor House across the square. This was a useful insight into attitudes towards burial and remembrance in the 1560s, as Protestantism was reintroduced as the official faith of England, and of the close physical and material, and also emotional ties that parishioners might have to their parish church. Other highlights in the church included being able to view copies of the church wardens’ accounts and the records of baptisms and burials: mentions of those who were not native to the city serving as a useful reminder of the shifting and varied population of a port town such as Southampton.

    Exploring inside St Michael’s Church

     

    In exploring the Tudor house, we benefitted hugely from the guided tour, which highlighted aspects (including the lofts and the original Tudor kitchen in the basement) that we would otherwise not have had access to. Amongst other things, we talked about cultures of display for wealthy families in an urban context; the presence of ‘witch’s marks’ in some of the rooms and the persistence of traditional beliefs about evil spirits and liminal spaces in the building, and the range of graffiti on the walls of one of the upstairs chambers.

    The Tudor kitchen
    An example of ‘Witch’s marks’ in the church

     

    All in all, this was an enjoyable and rewarding field trip. It offered plenty of food for thought, gave us the opportunity to think about the physical and material aspects of some of what we had read, and even gave some of us the chance for some dressing up! It also provided some material for the individual research that students went on to conduct for their assessment.  Thank you to St Michael’s and the Tudor House and Gardens!

  • Forlorn remnant of a runaway King

    Forlorn remnant of a runaway King

    In this blog, the first in a series of posts by the History team looking at sites of historical interest in Portsmouth, David Andress, Professor in Modern History at Portsmouth, reveals the fascinating history of King James’s Gate, an almost-unique monument to a monarch who fled the country he ruled. Dave specialises in the history of the French Revolution, and of the social and cultural history of conflicts in Europe and the Atlantic world more generally in the period between the 1760s and 1840s. He teaches across the undergraduate degree, and currently delivers core teaching on methodologies, as well as contributing his specialist knowledge of eighteenth-century and revolutionary France to first- and third-year modules.

    Around a hundred metres from the home of University of Portsmouth’s History team, there stands an intriguing marker of historical change.

    King James’s Gate

    King James’s Gate is now little more than an ornament on the boundary of the United Services Sports Ground, but when it was erected in 1687, it was one of the principal entrances to Portsmouth’s state-of-the-art fortifications, and a symbol of resurgent absolutist monarchy.

    The gate crowned by weeds

    King James II had come to the throne in 1685, succeeding his brother Charles II, and seeing off a rebellion led by his illegitimate nephew the Duke of Monmouth. The fate of the rebels gave to English history the legend of the ‘Bloody Assizes‘ and the merciless ‘hanging judge’ Jeffreys, who was made Lord Chancellor after presiding over more than 300 executions and 800 deportations. Four years later, Jeffreys would die in the Tower of London, after King James had fled the country in the face of invading Dutch forces, invited by the Protestant political elite in what became known as the ‘Glorious Revolution’.

    James’s short and catastrophic reign, marked by fear of the imposition of Catholicism, left Portsmouth’s gate as an almost-unique relic of his rule. Inscribed in Latin ‘Jacobus Secundus Rex A Reg III A Domi 1687’ – King James II in the third year of his reign, the year of our lord 1687 – it formed part of the modernisation of Portsmouth’s defences as England’s foremost naval port, and literal gateway to a global empire.

    As Duke of York under his brother’s reign, James II had been a noted naval commander, serving as titular head of the navy as Lord High Admiral (and Governor of Portsmouth), and directing naval strategy through two Anglo-Dutch wars in the 1660s and 1670s. He was also a leading figure in the Royal African Company, a state-backed slave-trading enterprise.

    Naval campaigning in these wars united control over such activities with expansion of territory in the Americas, where the colony of New York was named in James’s honour after being captured, as New Netherland, from the Dutch. Under Charles II and James II, English settlements in the region were united into Viceroyalties under authoritarian governors, with the clear aim of expanding them as tightly-controlled subsidiaries of royal rule. The Glorious Revolution saw local settlers regain autonomy that they would continue to fight for down to the American Revolution – while also, of course, continuing to expand their slaveholding practices.

    The gate that now stands rather forlornly on Burnaby Road is thus an emblem of a different absolutist vision of British Empire, that would nonetheless have been held together by the strength of the Royal Navy just as the post-1689 one was. Its architecture became something of an embarrassment in the late nineteenth century, and it was dismantled in the 1860s and kept in storage for several decades before being re-erected on its current site.

    English Heritage information panel

    For more information on the gate’s history follow this link