What is it like being a history major?
What are common misconceptions about history majors?
What kind of internships and international experiences have majors had?
How will history majors save the world?
Why would anyone want to date a history major?
History is everything. Everything is history.
History is the analytical study of the past. It is the analysis of why and how things happened, and can be conducted on many levels: political, social, economic, geographic, ethnic, institutional, cultural, gender, societal, and global. Historians find evidence in primary and secondary written, visual, and oral sources and from this evidence, draw conclusions and create synthesized interpretations of what happened.
Two things every history major, past and present, will tell you are that history teaches you how to think and that history teaches you how to write.
Studying history is a state of mind, specifically an analytic state of mind. We have to collect and examine all of the available evidence in order to decipher the 'true' course of events. We do this by looking at specific people or incidents, but we must always remember the importance of those specifics in the big picture. We have to learn how to read a document on multiple levels at once to be able to pull out all of the important information. We have to be skeptical of our sources: as dependent as we are on people's words, we must also be careful about any biases they have. Sometimes they are easy to see, but sometimes they are not. We must be willing to distrust the established interpretation of events since often what passes for history is merely a myth. Therefore, it is the duty of the diligent historian to research and unveil historical truths.
Most of all, we must be ready to deal in all the shades of gray there are. Very rarely are things ever clearcut, and subtlety is necessary if we are to prevent ourselves from falling into our own set of biases. All of these are very important traits of analysis, which can be used in careers and subjects far outside of just the study of History itself.
Writing history is just as useful. Being able to put your thoughts down on paper in a clear and compelling way is invaluable. It is a skill we can take wherever we eventually decide to go.
Additionally, history enables us to expand our language skills by working with primary and secondary sources in foreign languages, if we choose to pursue that track.
What is it like being a History major?
In our junior year, we history majors write two Junior Papers (JPs). These JPs cannot focus on the same geographic area, in order for us to get a broader exposure to the subject. In the spring of sophomore year, new majors rank their top choices from a list of seminar topics that the department releases. The subject of the seminar will be the general topic of the JP. The department tries to create a seminar list that has a wide and interesting variety of topics, with each topic covering a large geographic area, a large time period, or both, in order to offer a wide range of possible JP topics. Over the course of the seminar, the instructor initially provides material that gives the students enough background from which to choose a good JP subject. After about mid-semester, the extent of content-related material lessens and the instructor focuses on helping students with issues encountered in the actual writing phase of the paper.
For the spring JP, each student picks a JP adviser from a list of available professors in the department. The student then must come up with a topic, begin research, and write the paper with as much guidance from the adviser as the student wants. Some want a lot of guidance; some don't. But your adviser will be the one to grade it, so you might want to listen to what he or she has to say.
Both JPs ought to be between 25 and 30 pages long, and they are intended to rely heavily on primary source material. Getting into primary sources that early and intensely helps for jumping into the thesis next year!
Students can pick their thesis adviser as soon as the professors are willing to be tied down. Some students do it before junior year ends, and some do it at the beginning of senior year. Either way, by October, you have to turn in a form stating that your adviser has agreed to advise you, otherwise the department will assign you one, trying to meet your preferences to the best of its abilities. Then, over the course of the rest of the year, the student works with the adviser to come up with an 80 to 100 page thesis, using primary and secondary sources to do in-depth, original research on a subject. There are some general recommendations for benchmarks, but specific requirements are up to the student and the adviser. The only fixed deadline is the day it's due: early April.
A professor has described the whole independent work process as like committing oneself to a long-term, very close relationship. It is a very fitting analogy; you get to know the topic almost personally, and it is a memory you take with you for the rest of your life, something that you can be proud of and that you will tell everyone who will listen about. The thesis is definitely a time-honored rite of passage at Princeton.
The last thing to turn in is your comprehensive exam, which is taken at the end of the spring semester. The subject in which you take your comprehensive exams is technically your concentration in the department, and it doesn't have to be the same concentration as your thesis (although for most people it is). Any student can take any comprehensive exam with no course prerequisites, with the exception of American history concentrators, who must have taken two courses in pre-20th century American history. It is given over a three day period, but there are maximum page limits to each question, so you don't have to go overboard on it. They are designed to make sure that you learned at least something from the department, both in terms of subject matter and writing ability.
We have to take 10 classes in the department plus independent work, and no more than 12 (University rules, not ours.) There are some general distribution requirements across concentrations, but they aren't terribly difficult to fulfill. To enter the department, sophomores need to have taken two history classes (one a 200-level) when they decide to declare themselves a history major at Princeton. If a sophomore has not fulfilled this requirement, they must meet with the Departmental Representative to try to join the department.
Being a history major is pretty fantastic. The professors are very nice and accommodating, and they are happy to talk with you during office hours, although there may be a line - there are a lot of us! The front office people are terrific, led by the Administrator Etta Recke. She makes everything work, and she is extremely kind, so knowing her is both helpful and delightful. And then the peer-elected Undergraduate Advisory Council of history majors is supposed to make sure that all majors are happy and also to bring student concerns to the department. This council organizes study breaks and various events for department majors to come together and talk history!
All of this leads to the conclusion that the History department is pretty awesome.
What are common misconceptions about HIS majors?
One huge misconception is that history majors don't have any practical training. I encourage you to check out our "What can you learn from it?" section again, and ask consulting firms, law schools, grad schools, law firms, business schools, government agencies, teachers, NGO's and the like if that isn't useful. Another is that we deal in hypotheticals. Asking "what if?" is really, really, really hard to do, and rarely helpful. Perhaps the most insidious misconception is that we spend all of our time in the library. This is totally unfair. Our research is mostly in books, so we have to spend time in a library, just like every humanities major and a lot of social sciences major. And at least we aren't stuck in labs all day. But quite frankly, this is college - where did you expect to do your work?
What kind of internships and international experiences have majors had?
History majors' internships vary as much as our interests in school do. Investment banking is a big draw, but so too are other businesses, consulting firms, NGO's, and government agencies.
When history majors go abroad, some do select to go to foreign countries that do not speak English. These students take foreign language and culture classes. But many history students choose to go abroad to English-speaking countries, and in doing so begin research for their junior and senior independent work. A program of particular note is the Oxford Exchange Program, in which Princeton history majors spend either their whole junior year (recommended) or a semester abroad at the University of Oxford.
How will history majors save the world?
The History department produces intelligent students who have great analytical and communicative skills and who have the ability to and the experience of looking towards prior examples to inform future actions. If anyone is going to save the world, they are going to need those qualities to both know the way forward and encourage and inspire others to do the same.
Why would anyone want to date a history major?
Indiana Jones was a history major. And Bruce Wayne would have been too, had he not dropped out to... do other things.
