History MA
Program Learning Outcomes for the History MA program
- All graduate students will learn to apply a variety of ideas and concepts.continuity change over time context causation and corroboration.in order to understand how change in societies systems of knowledge and belief technologies and cultures contribute to understanding the common features of the human experience.
- All graduate students will learn to analyze the culturally and politically constructed nature of individual and group identities in specific historical contexts with particular attention given to the idea of change over time.
- All graduate students will learn to evaluate the role individuals play in shaping history along with the role played by broader forces of change (e.g. social intellectual and ideological movements cultural developments and economic trends) and to appreciate the interrelationship between such factors and historical change.
- All graduate students will engage in analyzing history across multiple centuries and major geographical regions and learn to apply such analysis comparatively when appropriate.
- All graduate students will learn to conceptualize research and write papers using primary and secondary sources. Appropriate citation form will be used. emphasis will be placed on cogently framing questions critically evaluating evidence composing an effective thesis statement constructing a persuasive argument and including pertinent historical content in the body of the paper.
- MA students will continue to hone their ability to work with primary and secondary sources and will produce an article.length (10000 words) piece of original historical scholarship. To this end students will work closely with a faculty adviser in their final two classes. an independent study preparatory course. and a thesis.writing course. Together these two classes will focus on framing an appropriate historical question developing a research agenda conducting research and organizing research material and finally on planning and writing the MA thesis in clear and coherent prose. The adviser (a full.time member of the department) and a second reader (from inside or outside the department) must approve the thesis.