For a complex degree like ours to be successful, it has to be coherent. This means that we have had to pay particular attention to the style and content of the teaching, the aims and ambitions for student attainment and the ways of reaching them. Course coherence and consistency in the BA International Studies is managed at several levels:

Coherence between teaching and research
The link between teaching and research is a crucial element in the International Studies degree, as it is in all degrees offered by the Faculty. This integration is represented by a symbiotic link between teaching and research method, in the initial stages, and developing to an organic link between teaching and research content in the specialist elective courses offered from the second semester of the second year onwards.  All the staff are specialists either in the disciplines represented in the degree or in the area of research, and often both.

Coherence between the disciplines
The disciplines represented in the degree are history, cultural studies, political science and economics. These are designed in such a way as to focus on those aspects directly relevant to the course content. The content of the disciplines and the order in which they are introduced are intended to contribute to a gradually more complex and more multi-facetted appreciation of the areas studied and their interaction in an international perspective.

Coherence between the foreign language and the disiplines
The disciplines are also introduced into the foreign language teaching. Even though language training may develop from a beginners level, the primary aim of the courses is to allow students to communicate when abroad. Thus much stress is places on oral communication and interaction, employing small class structures and electronic information and communication technologies.

Coherence between the areas
Coherence between the areas is essential to the degree, and that entails a shared concept of what culture, economics, history and politics implies for each area. For each disciplinary focus, the content of each of the areas is broadly synonymous. They each adopt broadly the same approach and, within each course, they are broadly synchronous in the order and depth in which each topic is covered. This allows for the maximum integration of the different disciplinary approaches.

Coherence between the areas and the comparative elements
The construction of the area courses allows the maximum degree of comparative work within the international/comparative courses that run in parallel with the area courses. These courses run with a backbone of lectures and small-scale tutorial groups (fortnightly sessions of maximum 12 students). The tutorial groups are deliberately mixed, bringing together students studying different areas and each meeting is prepared with a comparative/international assignment, obviously allowing students some link back to their area knowledge.

Coherence in the build-up of student competences
The structure of the course is also coherent in the build-up of competences. For most students English will not be their mother tongue and although, over three years, they will acquire a high degree of fluency the degree is structured so as not to place too great an emphasis on formal written exercises at the beginning:

• In the first semester, the emphasis is on many short written exercises
• In the second semester the dominant form is a (written) confrontation of two scientific articles
• In the third semester student writes short (formal) essays on the basis of a limited number of articles selected by the staff
• In the fourth semester students will find and select their own essay materials
• In the fifth semester students will research and write their BA theses (and write further essays)

These assignments all form the basis for class discussions.

Coherence in the balance of knowledge and assessment
The purpose of a university is not to pass courses, but to acquire knowledge and skills. But sometimes it seems as though universities have become exam-machines. Within the degree, we try to shift the focus  back to essentials. Therefore at the end of the teaching period every seminar, the staff and students celebrate with a Festival of Knowledge where students present, in whatever forms they choose, the results of their learning experience and staff present topics which fall outside the curriculum design – all supplemented by film, theatre, music and the occasional party. Of course you need exams, much as an athlete needs a trainer with a stop-watch, to measure the degree your progress through the course, and not solely focussed on pass and fail.

Coherence in the overall structure of the course
Students will also receive research training and guidance throughout the course. In the first semester the degree already introduces various skills in the context of broadly functional courses.  The ‘Configuring the World’ course teaches students source criticism, data-base management, data presentation and some elementary statistics and the ‘World History’ course introduces students to visual and written sources, and encourages their evaluation. In the second and third semesters students are introduced to scientific articles and taught how to read them -properly- for arguments, debate, evidence, criticism and rebuttals, and to present the results in an increasingly complex, academic essay form. The fourth semester forces students to undertake their own bibliographical searches and to employ various (electronic) tools and databases. At this stage, students also receive detailed guidance in the sources and methods required for their Bachelor thesis. This will also introduce students to concepts of project management and planning (starting with their own thesis).

The programme for the BA International Studies is coherent. The build-up of the course is coherent in terms of content, interdisiplinarity and student competences. It takes school-leavers with non-native tongue levels of English and trains them, within three years, to be fluent in academic English, to have a verbal competence in one other foreign language and to achieve the threshold of  post-graduate education or direct access to the labour market in the private or public sector.