Bachelor of Arts [B.A] [History] From Virginia Commonwealth University

Historical training at the undergraduate level leads to personal and social awareness within the rich tradition of the liberal arts. It also provides students an ideal preparation for a wide range of careers and further professional study.

Students in the program can take advantage of a wide range of courses with thematic, topical, national or chronological emphases to fulfill requirements and electives. Students should consult with their advisers each semester to design a program that meets these requirements and suits their interests and career objectives.

Learning outcomes:

• The various types of sources historians employ in their research and work.

• The need for skepticism and informed judgment in historical studies, and of the role of biases and frames of reference in historical research.

• How and why historians often reach different conclusions with reference to issues of fact, causation, interpretation and significance.

• How to summarize, analyze and evaluate scholarly and/or popular works dealing with the historical past, and will also demonstrate such critical, analytical and evaluative skills both orally and in writing.

• The procedures of library research, awareness of the significance of varying methodologies of historical research (such as historical archaeology, oral history, quantitative methods) and will demonstrate the ability to understand and interpret historical evidence when presented in the form of documents, maps, graphs and statistical tables.

• The basic skills and aptitudes in the investigation of a historical topic/issue and in the presentation of his/her findings in a literate, documented, logically argued and coherently organized research paper.

• Finally, students will demonstrate:

• An appreciation of the forces of change and continuity, or the appropriateness (or inappropriateness) of analogies between one set of historical experiences/circumstances and another, and of the extent to which historical experience and knowledge can (or should) serve as a guide for current action.