The biggest difference between university work in history and the kind of work in history that is done at pre-university levels is that pre-university history is often treated as a memorization game, and university-and-beyond is about being a good reader, writer, and researcher.

Being a good reader means, in part, learning to ask the questions that the text doesn't address, and seeing how the whole thing is put together. The question I always ask my students to search for is, "what are the stakes?" Every article or book must have some stakes if it is to be worth reading — there has to be a consequence if their vision of the past is the correct one. If there are no stakes, then it is not much of an argument. If you can articulate the stakes, you will always be on top of things.

Being a good writer means being organized, and seeing each paper as sort of a big logical puzzle where ultimately you have to introduce an idea, provide evidence for it, and conclude in a way which indicates you know the stakes of your own argument. Starting early always helps — the worst papers are the ones written at the last minute. (And I know this from painful experience of my own writing.)

Good research means being adept at your university library, and being clever about searching out answers. The Internet has also radically changed the situation — when I was an undergrad in the early 2000s practically nothing was online. Today you can find so many things online that it can drown you. (Availability varies by university library subscriptions at times, but you should always bug your librarians if there are online resources that you think you ought to have access to but cannot access. It also varies by time period — modern topics are very well-represented online.)

As for your seminars — my experience was that there is little group work in history, but that probably varies by school and professor. There is much group discussion though. If this is an underdeveloped skill, work on developing it: you will need to talk to people in groups in your future career, whatever it is, and this is a skill that can be improved like any other. Consider your seminars a safe space to try to learn how to be a better group participant; you have little to lose.

Do the designated reading. I'll be honest if you enjoy it and are quite good at it you will find it easy enough.

Also on any essay questions set, read what your lecturer/seminar leader has written on it.

I did my BA in the UK between 2011-2014, so I might be able to help. I wouldn't worry too much about seminar work. My classes often began with simple questions like "What did everyone feel about X's conclusions?" or something similar, so you should do fine as long as you are have some basic thoughts on what you've read. This is especially true as a first-year student, since everyone will be just as nervous as you about taking part, so it's okay to make mistakes during a discussion. Over time you will become more confident and get used to seminars (as opposed to the very different way history classes are taught at sixth-forms), and by the end I definitely enjoyed talking to people about history far more than just listening to lectures.

As for other tips, I'm not so sure. For history, I think it's important to talk to people who can help you, especially your lecturers and librarians, as they are in the best position to help you with any problem you have with work. Others have noted that the job situation may be a bit scary, but I'm gonna be blindly optimistic here and say that if you put the work in and start thinking about what you want to do early enough, life won't be that apocalyptic! The people in my year are now in all sorts of careers, whether in further study, teaching, civil service, law etc, so I really think that history is a useful degree. I can't think of anything else right now, so let me know if you have any more questions and I'll try to help.

So I'm currently doing a history degree at york, just about to go into my second year.

As has been mentioned, it is a change from how you we taught to approach history at GCSE/A level. Dates and facts aren't important as much, you'll probably only need to know them for essays and then it is just to demonstrate your argument. This is really important because it affects the way you take notes. I am awful for writing down tons when I note take and this just takes too much time which, when you have an awful lot to read, just isn't sustainable. Really you just need to be looking for arguments, making sure you understand them and noting down page numbers for facts to go back to when you need your evidence.

Referencing is super important, it's good to have a system when you write notes so you can easily reference later. Make sure you put down who wrote what and page numbers. You also have to reference lecturers and seminar leaders if they may an argument that you want to use, this can be tricky however because they may not be experts in that field so use with caution and ask someone in your department how to go about it.

Being prepared for seminars is good, both because it is good for you to get involved and practice arguing your point and because it can provide answers to questions you have and help when it comes to writing essays. Also a quiet seminar is a boring one and if they are boring they will feel like a chore. But don't get too stressed if you haven't done all the reading, there will probably be someone that has done less than you and the stress isn't worth it, as long as you've done a bit. Especially in the first year it is important to be socialising and getting settled in, this is why first year marks don't count towards final grade.

History is generally really independent so being self motivated to do the reading is important and you may find it worthwhile to give yourself a schedule for when you are going to certain parts of it.

Be aware that there are often too few of certain books in the library for all the students that need them so it pays to get in there early.

Being a history and economics student puts you in a great position to do economic history, not my cup of tea but you'd be well placed for it when it comes to projects and eventually dissertations.

If you need any insight on the economics side, my boyfriend whose just finished his final year is sitting right next to me so I'm sure he could answer any questions you have.

Most of all just enjoy it, in second and third year especially you'll get to pick more of the stuff you are interested in and that can be great fun.

Not sure how it works in the States, but here in Ireland the method for citing your sources is very particular. For instance any title of power such as King, Queen, Baron or Bishop must be written without a capital letter in a history essay. No idea why. But my point is that citing your sources properly will earn you extra marks from your lecturer.

Learn how to do it right in first year and consult your lecturer if you are unsure, because you will probably have to write essay's that you won't have much interest in, for me it was the economic history of Ireland before and after the famine, I knew my paper was not great, but every thing was cited correctly which may make a difference between a C1 or a B3 grade.

Below is an example of just two ways of citing a source, one is from a text on a website, the next if from a compiled book with many different authors. You can see the major difference's between the two, and it's completely different again if citing from a book, with one author, or an article.

Richard Bagwell, ‘Ireland under the Tudors: with a succinct account of the earlier history’, (London, 1885). Accessed: 22/5/2013 https://archive.org/details/irelandundertudo03bagwiala

Bartlett, Thomas, and Keith Jeffery (ed.), A military history of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996)

It is not the same for everyone, but I found my degree easier than my A-Levels. I could devote all my time to one subject instead of 4 subjects and a part time job.

Assuming you took History at A-Level, then the closest thing to uni level work that you do at A-Level is the coursework unit in year 13. The one where you have to write an essay and provide referenced sources. This is basically what you do at uni, but you get access to a fully stocked specialist library and online resources like journals, which makes it 10 times easier to research. The biggest thing I learnt to do at uni in terms of essays was to research the sources and then write the essay. At A-Level I wrote my essay from textbook knowledge and then found some sources to back up my argument.

Anyway, don't worry about the step up, they guide you through it in the first year (which does not count towards your final degree anyway). The best thing you can do at uni is go see your professor and talk to them about the essay question you are going to write about. Most of them will be happy to discuss why they chose that question and the sort of direction they would expect you to take to answer it. Seeing as they are the ones marking it, pay attention to what they say!!

Lastly, don't forget to enjoy yourself!!

I feel like I should ask you the same question I ask all my history major friends. What do you plan to do with your degree? What job/field are you trying to get into?

This has to be asked because jobs that a history degree applies to are limited.