It offers a boundless variety for selecting favorite topics and pursuing personal interests. It deals with real people and events, not abstractions.

History's special appeal, however, comes from its distinctive subject matter, the human past. Other liberal arts and science disciplines can legitimately make a similar claim: by studying them students also learn how to learn, although each accomplishes this in a different way. By studying the past, including primary evidence in seminars and honors research, undergraduate majors learn to think with rigor, to write with clarity and precision, to organize and assess evidence, to analyze problems and interpret complex events. Why? Here are four reasons.įirst, as one of the core disciplines of the liberal arts, history provides a classic mode of learning. Thematic Interests and Areas of ExcellenceĪt the nation's leading universities and liberal arts colleges, History departments are often among the largest on campus, and the history major has remained popular despite increasing vocational pressures for students to concentrate on job training.

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