"What are you going to do with that?" The HCA Degree and Employability

The challenges of employability for students with a degree in Classics, History or Archaeology (HCA)

Team Members :  Esther Mijers, Craig Phillips

Abstract

This project aims to investigate the challenges of employability for students with a degree in Classics, History or Archaeology (HCA).  While degrees in HCA at Edinburgh are extremely popular with students, largely due to the University’s excellent academic reputation, there is a seeming tension between the appeal of a degree from an outstanding Russell Group, University and the needs and demands of the work place outside academia:  HCA graduates are less successful in the job market than they ought to be.  Over the last four years, the graduate level employment figures for HCA have been consistently lower than those of peer schools within the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (such as PPLS, SPS, LLC) and are below the University School average.  We are applying to PTAS support to help us in our work to better understand and address the causes of this and why there is an apparent gap between the academically excellent degrees in HCA and the School’s disappointing employability figures.  Our project will research the various needs and demands of both students and employers in order to produce a better alignment between the HCA degree, research evidence from education and the workplace, and HE poicy.  It will be used to contextualize the University of Edinburgh’s Graduate Attributes Framework (GAF) as well as to further develop our School strategy of working with employers and other stakeholders.

Final project report

Download the project report (PDF)