专业描述

Studying the subject of history is an ideal form of liberal arts education that leads to almost any career you can imagine. The proof lies in the lives of our many graduates from this Department during the past ten years. Some of them go on to law school, and report back to us that they found our intellectual training a perfect preparation for the rigors of legal education. A small number go on to become history teachers in secondary schools, and we offer an excellent dual major program with our Department of Education for that purpose. But most of our History-major graduates go on to careers in business, government, non-profit foundations and the like, and take paths too numerous and diverse to summarize simply. The History major at CUA can lead in so many directions because it is both an education in the "what" of history and a training in logic, research, and writing. How do you seek out and weigh the evidence of the past in all the forms it offers? How do you pose questions about it and arrive at some answers? And how do you learn to write and speak analytically about the results? In recent years, the discipline of history has exploded in all directions, and historians now involve themselves with questions that extend into the realms of art, literature, politics and economics. Our aim is to give you a rich, deep, and critical knowledge of the past and how to think about it. We pride ourselves in offering a friendly, lively atmosphere of approachability and open doors for our students. As a CUA History major you'll engage in lively discussions in small classes: our upper-level undergraduate courses typically number well below twenty students in each class. Unlike the situation at many universities, full faculty members do the teaching, and our students value the close contact and open exchanges they can have with professors, both in the classroom and outside. You'll be challenged to read carefully, to think, speak and write clearly, and to master basic research techniques. History students can get course credit toward the major through internships in Washington. We also strongly encourage study abroad, most typically in Europe or in Latin America. Catholic University has a number of programs for study abroad, including opportunities to work as Parliamentary aides in London and Dublin, and all these offer course credits, including the chance to study another country's history while living in its midst.