I LOVE learning about history and I want to be a history major. I’m wondering if there’s any specific school (preferably in NY) thats heavily focused on history.
You can go to the web pages of the history departments of various schools to see how many faculty there are and how many different courses there are. Also consider what particular areas of history are represented, and how frequently each course is offered (in the class schedule).
You can go to virtually any college or university and study history. I concur with @ucbalumnus that you might want to browse the webpages and course catalogs of colleges that you are interested in to see the breadth of history courses they offer and in what areas - history is very broad. While I think you should remember that you are not specializing, it might be worthwhile to see - for instance - if a college has at least a few courses on African history or history of science or whatnot if you are interested in something special like that.
Agree with above but you may also want to look at the US’s oldest colleges, they are historical on their own.
Literally any well respected school will have a terrific history department (with a few exceptions like Caltech, Harvey Mudd, & the like. But not MIT, whose history department is outstanding!).
I think you’d like a college with an open curriculum. The college you attend will not necessarily need to be “heavily focused on history,” but an open curriculum will give you greater flexibility to responsibly create your own focus.
However, there are not too many open curriculum (no general education requirements) colleges like Amherst, Brown, and Evergreen State.
At a college with a typical amount of general education requirements, you may have to use 20-30% of your courses on general education (though some schools require more, e.g. nearly 50% at MIT), 35% or so on a history major, and have the rest as free electives, within which you can take additional history courses or courses in any other subject you like (some other subjects like political science, economics, sociology, and statistics can be useful supporting subjects for a history major).
Gettysburg College has a large faculty for the size of the school and is known to be very strong in History. The location is ideal for the history buff.
In addition to the usual ivy league suspects, most of which have top-ranked history programs, William and Mary has an exceptionally good history department.
I don’t see a college with a non open curriculum as being bad for a history major. Most schools have fairly open gen eds. So say a college requires math, foreign language, science, English, social science, and maybe the visual and performing arts. All of these, including math (statistics anyone?), can compliment the education of a history major. Want to study the perceptions of the American Civil Rights movement in Spain? Well gosh, an understanding of the Spanish language and culture would sure be useful. How science shaped policy throughout the ages? Hmm, sounds like a job for environmental science or perhaps biology, geology, etc. English’s practicality should be fairly self explanatory. Certainly there are numerous examples of renowned historians, as well as majors who translated their education into other fields, who came from non open curriculum schools.
Agreed. You’ve affirmed the importance of the responsible selection of courses, ideally under expert guidance from an academic advisor. My main concern regarding non-open curricula in general is that under some structures they can create wasteful redundancies for students who have applied themselves in high school. This particular student loves history. Essentially retaking an introductory biology course, for example, would add little value to their education.
How many hs curricula include breadth and depth in history? This OP needs to consider what history it is. Many colleges with “big” history depts barely glanced at the periods my kid was interested in. So it’s wise to do as Ucb says- check the courses, who teaches them, those profs’ real interest areas and so on. Gettysburg, eg, is strong in US and some others, but not all.
We ran into schools where a course may be taught by a non-specialist, depending on who was available, if they had not hired an area specialist- eg, at one school, some Mediterranean course was taught by a religion prof.
My kids had complex requirement for cores and breadth- but the sci could be any lab course, from geology to astronomy. Nothing says a kid has to retake bio, unless it is that school’s mandate. They usually have some leeway. And maybe even those interesting classes for non-majors that add new perspectives/applications.
So the OP wouldn’t “like a college with an open curriculum?” (My words.) I didn’t suggest that colleges of this type should be the only ones @FreeSAMple1 should consider.
What you’ve written about colleges with distribution requirements is not universal. At Reed, for example, I think a student would be required to take a class in biology, chemistry or physics. This could force a student to take either a redundant class or a more advanced class that may be both outside of their interests and superfluous.
If you are interested in esoteric or highly-specific subjects, your best bet would either be a large research university where you could enroll in graduate-level courses, and have access to extensive resources, or a small, flexible college where you could design your own curriculum. Otherwise, most colleges have solid History departments. You might want to consider other ancillary subjects, especially if you think you’re interested in post-graduate work in the area. Those would include foreign languages (including classical and extinct ones), availability of primary sources, Anthropology and Archaeology classes, and opportunity for remote and foreign study.
However, most schools have considerable choice in what courses are allowed for general education requirements, so a student who has completed AP biology in high school may have plenty of other useful or interesting choices to fulfill a biological science requirement. Choice may be more limited at schools where the general education requirements are or resemble a core curriculum (e.g. MIT).
Right. Reed (why are we fixated on them?) says bio, chem or physics, but there is variety and these are not high school classes. They also offer credit for scores of 4 and 5 on the biology and environmental science exams.
But OP asked about history. Over time, lots of kids like something about their hs classes and ask about a history major. And so often, can’t describe what in history it is. Or why. Give OP a chance to answer, before we tell him what education format he wants.
OP, what are your stats?
Will you need good need-based aid or will you merit aid?
Are you the kind of person who’d love to go to Kenyon or Hamilton? Should you be living in a “historical” area like Philadelphia or Boston?
Eventually I read the OP’s other thread. Some stats and other considerations are over there. Turns out that the New York mentioned in this thread refers to a preference for New York City.
Columbia would obviously be a good match regarding history dept quality then, but the odds of getting in there are slim. As said in the very first post, find schools with history majors you are interested in and then browse the department website/course catalogs etc. Usually the website will feature what the department is involved with and what current students/alumni have done.