Religious Studies Leiden University

Overview

The MA Religious Studies at Leiden University is designed to equip students with the tools and knowledge required for studying, interpreting, and analysing religion as a diverse (human) phenomenon. With its world-class scholars and access to exceptional research collections, the programme offers the opportunity to explore a broad spectrum of religions and their manifestations from a comparative, multidisciplinary perspective.

Religion permeates our world and remains highly influential across all domains of human society, including politics, culture, and economics. Religion also plays a critical role in everyday life as it provides meaning, motivation, and social support for billions of people. Despite trends of secularisation in some areas, on a global level religious identification is actually growing and a majority of people around the world continue to be affiliated with religious organisations and communities. It is not a stretch to claim that no matter the region, the issue, or the historical period, knowledge of religion is essential for understanding the world.

What you will learn

Future employers are interested not only in the subject-related knowledge that you acquired during your study programme, but also in the ‘transferable skills’. These include cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, reasoning and argumentation and innovation; intrapersonal skills, such as flexibility, initiative, appreciating diversity and metacognition; and interpersonal skills, such as communication, accountability and conflict resolution. In short, they are skills that all professionals need in order to perform well.
It is therefore important that during your study programme you not only acquire as much knowledge as possible about your subject, but also are aware of the skills you have gained and the further skills you still want to learn. The course descriptions in the e-Prospectus of Religious Studies include, in addition to the courses’ learning objectives, a list of the skills that they aim to develop.
The skills you may encounter in the various courses are:

• Research
• Self-directed learning
• Creative thinking
• Collaboration
• Persuasion

Career prospects

Our graduates have pursued successful careers in research and in the public, private and non-profit sectors as editors, journalists, policy advisors, counsellors, and teachers of religion or philosophy. The MA programme in Religious Studies offers excellent preparation for students seeking a profession that requires advanced analytical skills and specialised knowledge of religion and its cultural, geographic, and historic context.

Examples of the diverse roles of our graduates include:

• Teacher of religion and society at a secondary school
• PhD candidate at an international university
• Political party officer
• Consultant at McKinsey & Company
• Member of staff at the Dutch Ministry of Defence
• Traineeship for the Municipality of The Hague
• Policy officer in Diversity and Inclusion

If you are interested in a career in the educational sector or if you want to work with communication or knowledge utilisation in relation to religion, you may want to consider the two-year variant of our programme, the MA Religie en Levensbeschouwing.

Accreditation

Accredited by NVAO, the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders.