Attention History Buffs! Check Out the Best Colleges for History Majors

February 23, 2022

By Eric Eng

Attention History Buffs! Check Out the Best Colleges for History Majors

History is one of the most important subjects for any person to learn as it explains how the current circumstances unfolded, provides important information about potential developments in the future, and tells so much about human interaction. If you want to pursue a degree in this field, consider attending these best colleges for history.

1. University of California – Berkeley

The University of California’s Department of History offers a program of instruction extending broadly over the ancient record of human experience, making it one of the best colleges for history buffs.

The geographical, chronological, and topical range offer suppleness to learners pushing toward degrees in history majors and those who desire to pump historical angles into the training in other fields. History is a highly flexible major at the University of California – Berkley, allowing learners to chase their dreams.

The major also lace deep values on original learner’s research, with all scholars concluding capstone tasks on units they select in consultation with the faculty members.

After concluding three letter-graded courses within the History Department, a student can declare a major with a 2.0 grade-point average (GPA) or more. It must also entail at minimum two lower-division courses.

2. Princeton University

When you decide to pursue a history degree program at Princeton, you select an experience that provides you with unrivaled learning opportunities.

Princeton’s huge flexible history department, which makes it rank among the best colleges for history buffs, presents you with an opportunity to explore your desires within this vast field of study.

The Department’s alumni take many different paths, but all have put to good use the time they spent in Princeton. History majors must take ten courses in the Department from the main four departmental concentrators: Power and Conflict, Race and Difference, Knowledge and Belief, and Pre-modern.

Additionally, learners are expected to take two courses centered on Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. However, the units to achieve the thematic and geographical requirements may overlap.

3. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor

When you think about the history department at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, three words come to mind: Global, multidimensional, and interdisciplinary.

Frequently considered among the best colleges for history buffs, the University of Michigan’s history department blends world-class research with groundbreaking teaching and a promise to embrace all past diversity.

Whether you seek to study about your people or some distant place, this college’s history department can assist you in sharpening your skills and deepening your understanding, as they always inspire learners to search for what lies beneath the surface.

A history major demands a total of ten history courses. And five of them must be studied in residence at the college. And at a minimum, five of the courses should be at the 300-level or above.

4. Yale University

According to Yale’s History Department, the history major is for learners who understand that determining the future demands an understanding of the past. The programs offered by the college explore years of human research and resourcefulness, from the personal level to the world scale.

History majors are taught to be effective tellers of stories and analysts and develop arguments that pull from various historical theories and use practical skills of historians. Scholars all use library resources to do original research projects.

History is one of Yale’s most intellectually diverse majors because it covers nearly every area and period of the world’s past, ranking the university among the best colleges for history buffs.

To major in History, learners must take five courses in six regions: the US, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, or the Middle East. And the five courses must be in five different areas.

5. Columbia University

Columbia University’s History curriculum covers many parts of the world and most historical periods. It motivates learners to develop historical understanding in the most incredible sense: a deep empirical understanding with analytical skills and authentic historical responsiveness.

This is accomplished in two types of courses: seminars and lectures. Seminars allow learners to work more closely with historical sources within small groups and do more complex written tasks.

On the other hand, lectures hail from comprehensive surveys of the History of a place to more thematically inclined units. Since history units typically have no fundamentals, there is no predetermined series to stick to. However, scholars of History are asked to pursue a suitable lecture course in preparation for a seminar.

Majors desiring to pursue a more rigorous program are asked to register in a historiography course and embark on a senior thesis project. Traditionally, majors have chased careers in various sectors, including law, media, academia, and medicine.

6. Stanford University

Stanford University, one of the best colleges for history buffs, has a history department that believes that the past shapes humans. And to make sense of the past, we must relate to people who once thought very differently than we do in modern days.

We must know how to view bygone lives on their terms, to make the bizarre readable and the unacquainted understandable. As a discipline, History imparts the interpretive, analytical, and expressive skills mandatory to learn the past and to understand social transformation as time goes by.

Completion of the major needs preparation. History concentrators should meet their departmental advisors twice a year, once in winter and autumn.

And the meetings should be carried out within the first three weeks of the quarter, before the final study deadline. Lastly, to be awarded a degree in history, you must ensure you complete a minimum of 63 units.

7. University of California – Los Angeles

The History Department is a distinctly hospitable home in the University of California – Los Angeles; hence, it ranks among the best colleges for history buffs. The college’s globally famous faculty comprises excellent professors and prize-winning learners. Also, the Department presents advising at all stages of undergraduate education.

The department courses cover a vast range of periods and geographic contexts, from early China to twenty-first-century Africa. They analyze a wide assortment of themes and challenges, including regional and global History, diaspora and ethnicity, war, class and culture, and visual culture.

Scholars at the UCLA get an in-depth understanding of the world, aiding them to be involved citizens and knowledgeable humans.

They are taught to read, write, and speak critically and to become superb at gathering evidence. A major in History is great preparation for a number of careers, including journalism, education, law, arts, and medicine.

8. University of Chicago

History is a rewarding major at the University of Chicago. The university offers more than 70 undergraduate courses annually, ranging from introductory lectures to seminars dedicated to the rigorous study of a certain historical moment.

History concentrators have the alternative of doing the BA, the colloquium track, the thesis track, or the capstone track. Every track allows you to get skills in a certain historical time, place, or theme by describing a major field and presenting you with a chance to complete an original study project.

For the colloquium track, you will pen down a new and fresh research paper of roughly 15 pages, while in the research track, you will pursue – as the name suggests – a research project. With the capstone track, you are at liberty to choose how to showcase your study.

9. Harvard University

The Department of History at Harvard University believes the strength of the History major lies in the diversity of paths, which historical reviews allow you to follow. And that, a rigorous, shared methodology brings together historians no matter the subject they research on.

This methodology includes the close analysis of primary sources in dialogue with current scholarship and current events and the give-and-take of ideas through several media.

Moreover, historians know that History is bigger than studies knowledge concerning the past. And this belief is what makes Harvard University rank among the best colleges for history buffs.

Suppose you wish to become part of Harvard’s History Department. In that case, you are encouraged to explore the institution’s series of Foundation Courses or set up a meeting with the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Also, note that all history majors are mandated to take ten courses. At the same time, learners who desire to write a senior thesis must also register for History 99a and 99b, which brings the requirements to 12 courses.

10. Johns Hopkins University

John Hopkins University classifies History as both a humanistic and a social scientific discipline. This perfectly harmonizes with the vast interpretive and explanatory approaches to the past. And they currently reign supreme within the History discipline.

One of the program’s main aims is to introduce scholars to these diverse methods. Although the Department presents sturdy preparation for learners who desire to major in a certain geographic and cultural area, History at Johns Hopkins is topic and issue-centered.

The college also focuses on growing the capacity to reason logically and deepen the scholar’s understanding of the world’s links between past and present cultures.

The Department presents courses, which hail from introductory classes to seminars, which promote rigorous interaction with lecturers and other scholars.

Past the introductions, most of the school’s courses are writing-intensive and encourage all learners’ critical reading skills and nurtures skills particular to the historian.

11. Cornell University

The attractiveness of History among Cornell scholars is pegged to its effectiveness as preparation for future careers, which demand good writing and critical thinking; teaching, and advising, and most of all, the cure love of the subject.

Hence, the university is recognized among the best colleges for history buffs. Cornell’s History Department is particularly strong in ancient, medieval, and contemporary European History; and African, American, Caribbean, and Asian History.

Requirements for History Major include 9 History courses, and three of the nine courses should be in History before 1800. Groups, which graduated in 2019, 2020, and 2021, four of the nine had to be courses classified as outside of US History.

12. University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

The History Department at the University of North Carolina ranks the school’s status among the best colleges for history buffs. The Department of History teaches scholars the past, instructing them to explore and discover many historical human experiences.

When you study History in this institution, you get furnished with priceless research, communication skills, and critical thinking necessary to make it in the present and prepare you for a huge assortment of careers and a life of knowledgeable citizenship.

The Department offers a major in History Major, BA and minors in History Minor, and another in Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) Minor.

13. University of Pennsylvania

At the University of Pennsylvania, to graduate with a BA in History, one must take twelve courses. And at least eight of those courses must be from the Pennsylvania University History Department.

For Geographic Distribution, a learner must take a course in four of the following areas: US, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, East Asia and South Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

When it comes to Chronological Distribution, all majors should take two pre-1800 courses. These courses must be undertaken within the History Department. On the other hand, a scholar majoring in History is demanded to take a minimum of two upper-level History seminars.

14. University of Texas – Austin

At the University of Texas – Austin, all scholars pursuing a BA degree in History must meet the University’s Core and flag needs as directed by in their catalogs. The catalog is typically established within their first semester of registering at the institution.

It would greatly help you seek advice from the faculty advisor regarding which catalog you should stick to. The history prospectus went through a major revision in 2018; hence, it is necessary to understand your catalog.

The institution’s major requirements are that you must have ten semester hours of History, including at least 15 hours of upper-division coursework and more than twenty hours in residence.

15. University of Wisconsin – Madison

The University of Wisconsin – Madison offers a supple major compliant to your heart desires. The curriculums are laced with rigorous professional and intellectual training, empowering scholars to link the past and the modern. The major accentuates research and communication; and comprehending modern challenges and stories that shaped their development.

Learners can declare the major at any time within their academic career; nonetheless, the earlier, the better. Declaring the major can be carried out in a planned advising appointment or walk-in advising.

But before you declare, you must understand the requirements. A minimum of 30 credits in History are needed to complete the major, including Geographic Breadth and Chronological Breadth.

16. New York University

Scholars at the New York University learn about the European wars, American culture, the Atlantic World, and the Indian Ocean. They know utopia and dystopias, medicine and magic, and slavery and revolution.

After all, History is as rich and diverse as the human experience, and the scholars pursue their heart wishes, grow capacity, and nurture relationships, which last forever. The History major assists learners in making the most of their time at New York University.

The institution welcomes double majors and history minors; hence, learners can couple their studies with other majors. In addition, the schools enable learners to follow their happiness through internships, seminars, and independent studies.

17. Northwestern University

The History major program at Northwestern University allows learners to widen their logical horizons as they learn people’s experiences in regions and times other than their own. Courses are made to grow the ability to think analytically, read insightfully, and write with elegance and meticulousness.

Scholars register in many history courses and develop a concentration area. All majors are given a faculty advisor to whom you are encouraged to talk.

Scholars focusing on History choose one of five areas and may organize to accentuate special fields in their major: Asian or Middle Eastern History, Americas’ History, African and Middle Eastern History, European History, or Worldwide History.

The major programs are made up of 12 graded courses in History, and none of them can be substituted by advanced placement credits.

18. Brown University

Brown University defines History as learning how societies and cultures across the world transform as time goes by. History scholars learn to think and write critically and understand challenges from various vantage points.

The Brown’s University History Department presents a collection of courses focused on transformations in human experience over time, hailing from the histories of Africa to the Greek and Roman civilizations, the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia.

While multiple courses explore special topics, others focus on the History of a certain country or period. By capitalizing on our specific system, scholars can develop a wide perspective on the past and the contemporary.

The primary requirement to become a part of Brown’s University History scholar you must have a minimum of 10 courses, and at least eight of them must be from Brown’s History Department.