THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENT EXPERIENCE IN HISTORY
To help students acquire these necessary skills and to gain insight into the meaning and matter of history, UVM's department of history offers a wide variety of courses aimed at the first-year student, all of which require analysis and writing in some form. The department recommends that incoming first-year students take any of its introductory courses, numbered 09 through 096, all of which assume no previous university-level work in history. Students should select the introductory course or course sequence that seems closest to their current interests. First-year students should not take any 100-level history courses without first consulting the instructor, and normally no first-year student will be allowed into a 100-level course without AP credits or their equivalent.
New requirements for AY 2023-24 (PDF)
Our students acquire mastery not only of content but also of historical methodology. Students are expected to research and write well in our program and, to achieve this goal, faculty routinely assign a range of innovative assignments that are thoroughly assessed. Faculty members provide substantive comments on papers and regularly work with students on research methodologies and rough drafts. Faculty explicitly outline course objectives in their syllabi so that students are aware of what will be expected of them and what they may hope to achieve in any given class.
Students who complete the BA with major in history should:
- Have acquired an understanding of the key themes and processes of history as they unfold in specific contexts, in a way that displays an appreciation for the roles that diverse factors (including political, economic, environmental, cultural, religious, and race-, ethnicity- and gender-based ones) play in shaping them.
- Be able to analyze and evaluate primary and secondary historical sources in ways that reflect knowledge of the complexities of the past and the nature of historical interpretation.
- Be able to frame and pursue research on historical questions using appropriate research techniques.
- Be able to evaluate the quality and reliability of historical arguments, whether encountered in the classroom or in other arenas.
- Be able to write persuasive historical prose in proper academic form.
