General Requirements for the undergraduate major in History
Students who enter the degree program in history must complete 30 hours of graduate
study, at least 20 of which must be in history. Graduate students select a primary
and a secondary field. The secondary field shall consist of not less than six hours
and shall include at least one seminar in that field.
Required Courses
The graduate program requires that all students take two classes: HIST 5950: Introduction
to Historical Research and HIST 5940: Studies in Historiography . The Historical Research
class is offered in the Fall, and is taken by most students in their first semester
of graduate work. Historiography is offered in the Spring, and is generally taken
in the second semester of work.
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Understanding Your Major
Our curriculum offers our majors the opportunity to take a wide array of classes and to form a greater foundation of historical knowledge at the 3xxx level before entering into more in-depth study at the 4xxx level courses. The 3xxx level serves as advanced introductions to historical topics and periods. For that reason, we require our majors to complete one course in each of our geographic areas (U.S., Europe, and World) at the 3xxx level. While these classes will still include the type of writing, discussion, lecture, and other forms of learning you’d expect in an upper-level history course, the goal is to give you a broad understanding of a historical topic or period (e.g., The Renaissance, Modern Caribbean, or the American Revolution) before you move into more specific 4xxx level courses. In conjunction with the HIST 3410 Introduction to Historical Methods course, which is a prerequisite for our 4xxx level classes, our 3xxx level courses establish a diverse and strong background in historical study in your second and third years on campus. From there, you will be able to springboard into the more specific 4xxx level classes with a firm foundation in historical methods, research skills, and general background in American, European, and World history.
To help you complete your degree in four years, we strive to offer 9-10 3xxx level courses each semester, split as evenly as possible between the three geographic areas (US, European, and World). While this is our goal, please understand that faculty schedules sometimes change, and course offerings will be adjusted as needed. Still, our goal is to reliably offer geographically diverse courses at the 3xxx level each semester to help you complete your major in a timely manner. Four to six 4xxx level courses will also be offered each semester, but since geographic areas are not part of that requirement, you have considerable flexibility to pick topics that interest you.