Course Handbook - Faculty of History - University of Cambridge

Senior Secretary, History Degree
Committee
Miss S M Willson – tel. 335305 email:
degree-committee@hist.cam.ac.uk
The Degree Committee Office deals with all matters relating to postgraduate funding (both PhD and
MPhil) therefore, queries and questions about funding for MPhil and PhD courses should be
addressed to the Degree Committee Office: History Faculty Building, West Road, Cambridge, CB3
9EF.
1.5 How the administration works for the MPhil in Economic and Social History; whom to contact
about what and when
Normally, you are expected first to approach your supervisor about matters relating to your
academic work at Cambridge. If you have not already done so, you should contact your supervisor
to arrange a meeting as soon as possible. The supervisor’s responsibility is to work closely with you
to prepare you for writing your MPhil dissertation.
Non-academic questions should be addressed to the Graduate Tutor of your College, who will
normally be the best person to approach about visa and passport problems, dealings with grant
awarding bodies, and housing and financial problems in general. The Degree Committee does not
deal with these sorts of issues.
Queries about the Faculty’s Graduate Training Course should be addressed to the Faculty’s Director
of Graduate Training, Dr C Watkins (graduate-studies@hist.cam.ac.uk).
The administration of the MPhil in Economic and Social History is managed by the MPhil Sub-
Committee, but under the general oversight of the History Faculty Degree Committee, which has
responsibility for all the Faculty’s postgraduate programmes. As Academic Secretary for the MPhil,
Dr Natalia Mora-Sitja handles the day-to-day administrative work of the programme, and there may
be occasions during your time here when an informal conversation with the Academic Secretary of
the MPhil may lead to the quick solution of some of the problems affecting your work. The
Academic Secretary is here to give you advice about your work in addition to assistance available to
you from the academic personnel with whom you are in direct contact. However, many important
items of business such as a change of supervisor, approving dissertation titles, leave to continue to
the PhD, appointing examiners and scrutinizing examination results are formal, and must be handled
by the MPhil Sub-Committee and/or the Degree Committee. Because Sub-Committee meetings
take place only two or three times a term, it is important for you to deal with administrative
requests in a timely manner.
Other questions about Faculty matters can be addressed to Miss T Blackman, the Administrative
Secretary in the MPhil Office who will be happy to try to answer questions. Please e-mail her with
your questions in the first instance on ecsoc@hist.cam.ac.uk. If you do not yet have access to e-mail
(although all research students are allocated an e-mail address and expected to use it), the office’s
telephone number is 748152 (or 48152 if you are using the university telephone network). Finally, in
some delicate cases you might wish to seek the help of an Ombudsperson, see the General Graduate
Handbook for information.
2 THE COURSE
2.1 Residence Requirements
The academical year in Cambridge is divided into three terms, Michaelmas, Lent and Easter; in each
term, the teaching takes place only in the nine-week period known as ‘Full Term’. The dates for the
current year are Michaelmas Term: Tuesday 5 October - Friday 3 December 2010; Lent Term:
Tuesday 18 January - Friday 18 March 2011; Easter Term: Tuesday 26 April - Friday 17 June 2011.
The University requires that all students ‘keep’ three terms of residence before they can be awarded
a degree.
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