History Graduate Programs
Our graduate programs in history encompass a wide array of research interests, collaborations, and approaches. Our graduates are expected to become successful university scholars and teachers, leading figures in the governmental and private sectors, and successful professionals in a host of other fields in the United States and abroad.
We offer a traditional Master of Arts in History, with an integrated Bachelor's of Arts/Master of Arts degree program option (Accelerated Master of Arts in History). You also have the option to choose 10 hours of courses in art history, filmmaking, museum studies, or education to count toward your History M.A. as well as options to choose a semester-abroad track or summer intensive program.
History master's degree options
Traditional Master of Arts in History
The traditional Master of Arts in History is a 30-hour program designed to be completed in two or three terms if you enroll full-time. Part-time students are equally welcome. Most classes are offered in the evenings and meet once a week in three-hour slots. You'll work closely with a faculty advisor in your historical field to craft a unique course of study, and there are possibilities for significant interdisciplinary work in cognate fields.
Accelerated Master of Arts in History
The Accelerated Masters’ Degree Program (AMDP) allows you to advance your academic career by taking graduate course work toward the traditional Master of Arts degree simultaneously with your undergraduate course work. By taking up to 12 credit hours of history graduate course work, you'll need only to complete sufficient additional course work to meet the requirements for the MA degree. Read the Accelerated Master of Arts tip sheet for more information.
Semester-Abroad Track in the History M.A.
Spend a semester in Toulouse, France, or Bochum, Germany, studying history at a world-class, European university, while acquiring a strong foundation in German or French.
Summer Intensive Program
The Summer Intensive program allows you to complete your master's degree in history in as little as two to three summers. During each six-week session, you'll be in classes taught by highly accomplished professors.
Study Abroad Summer Sequence (SASS)
Spend a summer in Europe and earn up to a semester's worth of credit over the summer (12 undergraduate or 9 graduate credits) by taking one, two or all three faculty-led, study-abroad courses through our Study Abroad Summer Sequence (SASS) in History.
Application deadlines
- Traditional MA in History: Rolling
- Joint MA in History: Rolling
- Accelerated MA in History: Semester preceding the semester when student would begin taking graduate courses for graduate credit. (Students must meet the requirements for admission to the Master of Arts in History degree and must be admitted to the graduate program prior to completing any of these courses.)
Graduate courses
For an up-to-date list of graduate courses offered by the history department, including course descriptions, please consult the course descriptions page page of the latest Graduate Bulletin.
- 500-level classes are designed for advanced undergraduates as well as graduate students. Graduate students must meet higher standards than undergraduates, usually including longer papers, additional readings and assignments.
- 600-level Colloquia are restricted to students admitted to the graduate program and are limited in size. These courses typically involve a substantial amount of reading in a specific field, often one or two books a week as well as additional articles. The class format is discussion based. Additional assignments may include short papers or reviews and longer historiographical essays.
- 700-level Research Seminars focus on the production of a major scholarly paper based substantially on primary sources and grounded in the historical literature. In content and scope the model for seminar papers is the professional journal article. Graduate students must complete a minimum of either two seminars (Plan B) or a seminar and a thesis (Plan A). Occasionally, graduate seminars are combined with their undergraduate equivalent (HST 496), with different expectations and requirements in each case.
- Required Courses vary depending on the program in which a student is enrolled. All graduate students must complete HST 600 Historiography and are encouraged to do so early in their program, as this is a foundational course on which other courses build. Joint MA students are also required to take HST 601 Transnational and Comparative History. The actual topic of this course varies. Recent offerings have included European Borderlands, Colonialism/Imperialism and Global Indigeneity. Finally, funded students must take HST 700 Teaching Practicum, a course that prepares them for classroom teaching.
For information on other special courses in the curriculum (e.g., HST695, HST 700), students should consult their advisor or the director of graduate studies.