Leiden university

[Brutus]

I'm not entirely certain which direction I'll be heading in yet, since I haven't actually had history lessons for some three years. Early modern history holds quite some appeal, alongside medieval history and ancient history. How long would it usually take for some sort of specialisation to emerge in a student at Leiden, or is a more specific direction expected from the outset?

I'm not completely familiar with the Ba/Ma-system, as I'm still going to be an old-fashioned doctorandus, but I think this is still more or less the same as it used to be: In your first year (propedeuse) you will get courses on most general fields, meaning on Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern/Modern, Social-Economic and Dutch History, as well as general historical theory. That's why it also isn't necessary to follow history in middle school. From these experiences with these subjects (and subsequently, related methods, teachers, etc.) you will be expected to chose a number of subjects (used to be 3) as your main courses for the next year. After that, depending on the field you wish to finish your study with, you can specialize as much as you want.
Take a look at the studiegids for next year, if you haven't seen it.

It's not necessarily well-known teachers I'm looking for, although I guess it does help if the teacher is charismatic and clearly a specialist in his/her field. One of the reasons I stopped following history at school was because of the lacklustre teaching, both in presentation and content. But I gather in general you think that's not a problem at Leiden?

As I said, it really depends on the teacher. Many can be quite pleasing when teaching courses, but others really aren't. Most of them are fine, I reckon. I don't think that in general you will be better or worse off at Leiden than anywhere else.