The Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree emphasizes greater specialization in history, either in public history or in a minor field outside of history, and a course in statistics. These programs are designed for students interested in either public history or in quantitative analysis and the mastery of social science models and methods. Students who plan to go to graduate school in history should consider the possibility of taking language courses as electives since most graduate programs continue to require foreign language competence.
Many history majors are double majors. Most work in adjacent fields and programs including education, international affairs, sociology, political science, journalism, art, and architecture. The B.S. also has an optional concentration in public history.
The History Department has identified five learning outcomes we consider essential to our History majors at the undergraduate level.
1) Students will apply an array of historical methodologies and critical tools to construct evidence and/or data-based understandings of the past in order to provide historical dimension to present and future developments.
2) Students will clearly and competently communicate the results of historical research orally, digitally, and in writing.
3) Students will demonstrate a mastery over a particular region or theme.
4) Students will connect mastery over a regional or thematic focus to the larger global historical context.
5) Students will develop intersectional competencies focusing on how history and historical analysis have been shaped by inequality based on race, class, ethnicity, gender, and other forms of difference.
