<p>Does anybody have any feedback on the History program at Dartmouth? </p>
<p>I am interested in majoring or minoring in history as it is really of interest to me, but rarely do I see anything mentioned about the program. </p>
<p>I looked at the grad school rankings for history (I know they are fairly worthless) and I believe Dartmouth was in the 20s with Yale, Princeton, and Stanford at the top.</p>
<p>Any input?</p>
<p>Dartmouth is an undergrad focused college with very few grad students. To judge any department by grad school rankings is useless.</p>
<p>Greetings from another prospective history major!
I didn’t see the rankings, but I just know that it is one of the larger departments at Dartmouth. When I met the head of the department, she said every year about 100 people major in history.</p>
<p>Just shows how impressive Dartmouth is, considering they [don’t</a> even offer](‘<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gradstdy/programs/']don’t”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gradstdy/programs/’) a graduate degree in History!</p>
<p>Seriously, though, if the history department is like the others I’m familiar with at Dartmouth, you’ll be well-served, i.e. the chance to take small seminar classes as a freshman, do research with a professor, etc. The only challenge will be to make sure you take advantage of these opportunities.</p>
<p>whoops…maybe i was just seeing things. but yeah im leaning toward history or econ undergrad!</p>
<p>thanks everyone</p>
<p>Nate- I believe you saw that ranking! That’s why those lists are so unreliable, especially- as hmom pointed out- when they try and factor in some component of graduate focus. Dartmouth just doesn’t fit into that model.</p>
<p>I’m a history minor, and I think the department is fantastic. I don’t have any complaints about it at all, and I would encourage even non-majors to take a history class or two, if only to see how different it is from high school history. You also learn a lot from history profs about how to improve your writing and present a clearer argument. (But ok, I guess my only complaint might be that history profs have a tendency to assign a lot of readings.)</p>
<p>Thanks everyone…yeah john, I guess that is the way it is for us humanities-loving people. oh well…Just seeing how the dept. stacks up…not even sure history is what I want to do, but it is up their on the list right now. </p>
<p>I assume you still concentrate on a specific area (European, American, etc) even if you are a minor? If thats right, what is your focus?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>I’m a minor…and I think history more than any other department is hit or miss. There are some really great profs and classes and some really awful ones as well.</p>
<p>Agreed with tycosaurus:</p>
<p>Profs like Estabrook, Simons, Lagomarsino, Koop, Calloway, and Ericson are great. Profs like Padilla and Ermarth, not so much.</p>
<p>^Is Koop related to C. Everett Koop?</p>
<p>No</p>
<p>And another point…i think the American hist. professors are particularly strong in the program</p>
<p>By no you mean yes.</p>
<p>I am a history major that graduated last year. I think the strength of the department is in its professors (sure there are some not so good ones, and I actually wasn’t that big a fan of Lagomarsino, but overall most of the profs that I had were great).</p>
<p>Xanatos is right: Allen Koop is the son of C. Everett.</p>