Humanities
History Degree Program
A major in History provides students with the skills necessary to succeed in a wide variety of professions.
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Mission
The mission of the TLU History Program is to invite and equip students
- to connect with the varied people of different places, times, and societies
- to develop nuanced thinking in a complex world
- to pursue honesty and zeal in the stories we tell of the past
Degree Specializations
The TLU History Department offers four degree plans:
- Pre-law (though this degree is not required to get into law school, it is designed to provide foundations for it)
- Public History (for those interested in a career in museums or similar institutions; a graduate degree is almost always needed; this degree is not required to get into graduate school, but it is designed to provide foundations for it )
- History 7-12 (for those preparing for a career as middle-school or high school teachers)
- Liberal Arts (a general, overall history degree that is a good foundation for a variety of jobs in many fields including publishing, nonprofit and social activism, government intelligence, tech development, etc.)
Why Study History?
Pursuing a humanities degree is more important now than it has ever been, because never before has “being human” been under such wide-ranging examination and debate.
Of all the related humanities disciplines, history focuses on the messiness of human experience; on how the legacies of the past form identity in the present in unforeseen ways; on complex causality and shifting contexts and unexpected consequences. Historians are lifelong students in this quest for understanding.
Studying history means investigating both the direct causes and the deep roots of the present. How have human beings across eras navigated difference, complexity and intrusion? How have they thrived—and failed? What have they learned—and what have they extinguished? What did people say, and what are they trying to say, and what do they not want to say? We did mention it was messy.
It also means evaluating the ways that present-day voices invoke the past: learning to tell the difference between historical narratives that show clumsy thinking or misinformation and those that thoughtfully wrestle with the information sources and tools we have to work with.
Studying history means learning a set of mental tools
- to sift through information for new or neglected perspectives
- to illuminate the complex ways that historical and social context matters
- to communicate compelling new paradigms for understanding a situation
- and to become dangerously difficult to deceive
Our Goals for Students
College is not just about making a better living. It’s about making a better life—a life of joy and depth and meaning. But a history degree can help you build the capacity to do both. Employers in a wide range of careers, such as STEM, business and tech sectors, value the skills that the TLU History Program helps you to develop:
- Design projects to tackle complex historical problems
- Find the right sources of information to answer questions
- Develop literacy in different kinds of digital, printed and visual documents
- Analyze information to arrive at innovative insights that incorporate human factors and the perspective of larger context
- Produce high-quality content in a variety of formats that connects with different audiences
Studying history can help you to develop the skills to deal with complicated situations and evaluate multiple perspectives without being overwhelmed. That is a useful skill whether it’s at work or when you find that life gets messy. It can also help you to connect with the people of the past: with their uncertainties and struggles, but also with their hopes and their hard-won achievements.
Why History at TLU?
Major in History for a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree.