“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. ”Mohandas Gandhi
About the Undergraduate Program
In an ever-changing world, understanding our history becomes all the more necessary. It brings us a sense of the complexity and contingency of events. It provides us with rich and diverse perspectives. It informs us about the prevalence of unintended consequences. The History major provides our students with strong critical skills which are valuable to informed citizenship and for a variety of careers.
The History Department is a diverse group of scholars covering many areas of specialization. We pride ourselves on outstanding teaching. We offer small classes that allow a great deal of individual attention. In addition, our faculty advisors offer close contact and personal attention to each student. The History major is a place to get a "small college" education in a big state university.
The department of thirty-two professors has about three hundred fifty majors in three undergraduate programs--the Bachelor of Arts, the Bachelor of Arts with a Teacher Education Concentration, and the Bachelor of Sciences. All programs offer a great deal of student choice in courses and electives, allowing the pursuit of either a broad educational experience or a focused study. To all our majors, we offer small classes, and special fifteen-person seminars as both an introduction to history and as a senior capstone experience. Students with better than a 3.25 GPA are invited to pursue guided research for Honors in History.
Within the History major, you have much room for personal choice of advanced courses. If you have a particular interest, you might find that we also offer a good selection of courses in that area. For example, if you are interested in law school, you might want to concentrate your upper-level History courses in the area of Law & Society. Perhaps as a transfer from Engineering, you might want to focus on the History of Science and Technology, with an eye to a career in the technology sector. Your advisor can help you explore how you might build a thematic interest into your course selection.
