Purpose
The purpose of the combined BS/BA/MA program in history is to enable qualified undergraduate students to advance from a Bachelor's degree to a Master's degree with one additional year of study beyond the 4-year Bachelor's degree. Students may pursue either a BA/MA or a BS/MA in Public History.
Admission
Advanced students may be invited to apply to the program in their Middler or Junior year upon satisfactory completion of the following required courses in the undergraduate history major. These include: The History Colloquium (HST U201); The History Seminar with Historical Writing (HST U301 and 302); two introductory 100-level courses; two intermediate or advanced courses at the 200 level and beyond; and a four course concentration. BA majors are required to complete a two-course language requirement. Students must apply through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences using their Online Application.
Admission Requirements
Students are required to have a cumulative QPA of 3.33 in all courses taken to date and a QPA of 3.5 in the required courses in the History major, without any C grades in the required History courses.
The Program
Once accepted into the program, students begin to take graduate courses in their senior year, carrying a normal four-course load. Students are then required to complete a minimum of three of the eight MA core courses during the senior year, for a total of 12 semester hours of graduate credit. All BA/MA students will complete Method and Theory I, and two other graduate courses: one, a global history course, and the other an area graduate course. BS/MA students in the Public History Certificate Program will take Method and Theory I and two graduate courses in Public History. Each course carries 4 semester hours of credit. Two of these courses may be open electives for the undergraduate degree; Method and Theory I is a required course. Students will then have four or five additional courses to complete for the 32 credits for the MA (these must include a graduate research seminar, an additional graduate history course with a global focus, and three additional graduate area courses). Students pursuing a BS/MA with a concentration in Public History are required to take a one Fieldwork (HST G410) and three public history courses.
Co-op/Internship
Students admitted to the program can obtain a co-op position or an internship directly related to history during either their junior or senior years, or immediately prior to starting full-time graduate studies. The Department of Cooperative Education and the Department of History will assist students in their placements. Public History students will be encouraged to register for a four credit Fieldwork or Experiential Directed Study as they fulfill this requirement. In addition to workplace supervision, these courses are overseen by History faculty and are evaluated based on workplace performance and an analytic project or paper related to the experience and evaluated by History faculty. Students enrolled in the joint BA/MA degree program with a certificate in Public History are required to take Method and Theory 1. In addition, they take a graduate research seminar, three public history graduate courses and a public history internship which can be satisfied by a public history cooperative education experience, and two graduate history courses, one of which is global in focus. Both the BA/MA or BS/MA degrees are awarded at the same commencement.
Both degrees will be awarded at the same commencement.