What is History - Medieval Really?

By Emily

In theory what is it?

History is all about learning to tease apart various views of events, people, eras, etc. by reading primary sources, archaeological research and whatever else you can get your hands on.

What is it used for?

History can directly contribute to careers like: curator at a museum, tour guide, historical novelist, academic author, popular history author, etc. Indirectly it's useful in just about everything, since it teaches you to think carefully and logically about anything.

What does the major actually entail - work-wise?

Lots and lots of reading and writing. That's about it. There are many 10-12 or 20-30 page papers, in which you have to synthesize whatever sources you're given or find into a coherent answer to a given question. A final thesis tends to be expected, which is essentially a first stab at a real academic article that could (with revision) be published in a journal.

What kind of jobs do you get with it?

See the answer about the use of the major - I ended up as a publicist at a PR firm.

What are the fellow students like (personalitywise) in it?

There were three medievalists in my class, and I'm great friends with all of them. More broadly, historians tend to be a fun bunch. We're very social, and usually more collaborative in nature than some others (scientists, I'm looking at you).

Common Misconceptions

We're not in the humanities, people. This is a social science, not a silly English degree. We work with real historical data, we don't just make up stories. And we're not all crazy cat people (though I do love my cats).