What can I do with a Degree in History?

Our graduates have gone on to successful careers in business, higher education, law, journalism, teaching, politics, marketing, non-profit organizations, and many, many other fields.

If you love the study of history, you will find the program in history at the College of Wooster to be an excellent preparation for your future. To begin with, the study of history provides a high vantage point upon world events, social and economic transformations, and intellectual trends. More than this, the study of history at Wooster provides rigorous training in the skills necessary for success in an uncertain world.

According to experts in Career Planning, the average college graduate will change careers-not just jobs-three to four times after they leave Wooster. The liberal arts education-and a degree in history-is the broad preparation that will help you thrive in this work environment. As a history major, you will graduate from the College knowing: how to write well, how to analyze complicated problems, how to present your ideas persuasively, how to work independently. These are precisely the skills that employers are looking for today.

A few signs of the value of a history degree:

• History is the most popular major among Forbes 500 C.E.O.'s.
• Nationally, history majors have a higher rate of success gaining acceptance to medical schools than chemistry or biology majors.
• Nationally, history majors (and political science majors) are more frequently accepted to law school than majors in any other fields.
  

Recent Wooster history majors have gone on to graduate programs in law, journalism, education, public health, and history at prestigious universities such as New York University, Cornell University, the University of Michigan, the University of California, Indiana University.

The program in history is rigorous and flexible. We encourage our students to explore courses in outside fields that will help them develop skills and experience that will be useful to their professional ambitions. We also encourage our students to study abroad, where they can see a wider world for themselves and observe the way in which the past shapes the present in places such as Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Nairobi, Tokyo.

The culmination of the history program at Wooster is the Senior Independent Study. For many of our majors, the accomplishments of their Independent Study has helped them to launch their professional careers.

• Stephen Palmer did his senior I.S. on the legal reforms of two medieval English kings and is now a practicing attorney.
• Anne Bryant explored the history of relations between government agencies, corporations, and grass-roots environmental groups in her I.S. and then found employment in an environmental consulting firm after graduation.
  

The connection between Independent Study in history and one's career path is not always as clear as in the cases cited above. Nonetheless, our graduates will attest that the connection exists.

• Jane Hillier's I.S. on irony in medieval tales of courtly love might not seem obviously related to her later employment as an intern in a development office for a major university, but her supervisor recognized the analytical and research skills Jane demonstrated in her thesis and was happy to hire her.
  
• Peter Newman's thesis on fifty years of Hollywood images of Native Americans attracted the attention of employers in law firms and museums.