The best history research universities are those with rich histories of influence, proven through the work produced by the program’s faculty and alumni. Beyond demonstrating scholarly impact in the field, the best history degree programs maximize your opportunities to interact with outstanding history faculty.
A bachelor’s degree in history is an excellent starting point for a career in education, government consultation, journalism, and a host of other stimulating fields. As a history major, you’ll study philosophy, literature, language, and a number of other related fields. Your history degree will incorporate an array of humanities as well as foundational courses in the history of Western and Eastern Civilizations, ancient history, and contemporary history. The best schools for history are those which are regionally accredited, which offer a full array of history concentrations, and which give you the chance to work with the best and most influential professors and classmates.
Degree popularity: History bachelor’s degrees are the 39th most popular undergraduate degrees across all student demographics, ranking much higher for men at 24th. It’s most popular among white and Hispanic men, for whom it ranks 18th and 26th respectively, according to the number of degree earners reported by the National Center for Educational Statistics.
A history major can provide you with the essential skills to succeed in a wide range of professional settings. As a history major, you will learn how to conduct research, cite your sources, and report on your findings. These are essential skills for finding and verifying information in life and work.
Moreover, the way we read and interpret history has a direct consequence on our everyday lives, from the way it informs behavior and policy to the way we preserve traditions and practice rituals.This means that those who tell history have enormous influence over the present day. Today, top influencers in history are exploring the connections between the environment and folk traditions [Link to https://academicinfluence.com/people/simon-schama]; the scope of human history through a macro-historical lens [Link to https://academicinfluence.com/people/yuval-noah-harari], what historian David Christian calls “Big History,” and much more.
History feels like a particularly excellent major during these times of social and political upheaval. When dramatic events like wars, natural disasters, and pandemics alter our way of life, the changes can be shocking and difficult to navigate. But those with a deeper understanding of history recognize the patterns that have played out across generations. History majors often have a better sense of preparedness for such events, and a willingness to adapt as changes inevitably occur. During a time when our economic, labor market, and society are in major flux, those with a degree in history are in a unique position to understand the events around us, and make informed professional and personal choices based on this specialized insight.
Once you’ve declared your major in history, you will likely be required to complete a set of core courses in a number of related subject areas. While your concentration will give you a chance to choose from a wide range of highly-specialized history electives, there are a several common courses that most history majors will be required to take, including:
History majors not only qualify for highly specialized roles in education, publishing and academia, but majoring in history will provide you with a number of valuable workplace skills. As such, your history major can lead to a wide range of career opportunities, including these top jobs:
In pursuing a bachelor’s degree, you will need to choose between three kinds of schools: research universities, liberal arts colleges, and online colleges.
Research universities are colleges and universities whose faculty are active in research and publishing. These schools offer a wide array of doctoral programs, especially in the sciences. They tend to be big, with tens of thousands of students.
Do you prefer a larger university setting, such as largest public university in your state? Research universities are typically big, offering degrees in many different disciplines. Is a big high-powered research environment the thing for you. If not, you should think about a liberal arts college. In deciding on an undergraduate institution, ask yourself what sort of environment will best help you to be happy and excel.
Often referred to as “teaching colleges” liberal arts colleges put a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree.
Online colleges are typically the same colleges and universities you could attend in-person, but for certain degree programs the college or unviersity has made the degree programs available to be completed online. For over 5 million students, online degree programs allow students to earn their degrees in the most flexible format available. Online degrees are as respected as the on-campus degress you could earn from the same schools. There’s usually no disctinction between the two degrees, and your degree and transcript will not say that the degree was earned online. Online degree programs are offered by a vast majority of colleges and universities, and the number of offering continues to grow. Whehter you are searching for an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate, there’s a good chance you can earn your degree online from a respectable online college.
If you interested in an online bachelor’s degree, check out what the best online colleges offer, or search our online degrees for the exact program that interests you. In either case, you will find well respected colleges and universities that offer online degrees.
If you think a liberal arts college may be a better fit for you, see our ranking of the best liberal arts colleges for a bachelor’s in history.
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why we rank the best colleges and universities based on what we call “Influence”.
The influence of a college or university is based on the schools’ top academic influencers related to the discipline in this ranking. We track the influence of faculty and alumni affialiate with these school counting not only the publicaitons and citations of the school’s affiliated people, but we also consider the overall web presense of the faculty and alumni. The greater the citations, authority of web links, web searches, and pageviews, the greater the individuals’ influence. Those combined make up the departments’ influence in the field of study. We believe tracking the academic influence of the people affiliated with a school is the best indicator of academic excellence.
If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching, and whether their graduates themselves are advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence. Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and misuesed performance metrics. Influence, as measured by our InfluenceRanking engine, provides a ranking that is more insulated from manipulation, and more reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
5%
Graduation
98%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1515/34
View profile
Harvard University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
96%
Student body
16K
Median SAT/ACT
1515/34
View profile
Yale University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
96%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
View profile
Columbia University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
5%
Graduation
95%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/33
View profile
Stanford University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$49K
Acceptance
6%
Graduation
98%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1515/34
View profile
Princeton University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
96%
Student body
13K
Median SAT/ACT
1535/34
View profile
University of Chicago’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
17%
Graduation
92%
Student body
43K
Median SAT/ACT
1430/33
View profile
University of California, Berkeley’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
96%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
View profile
University of Pennsylvania’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
26%
Graduation
93%
Student body
45K
Median SAT/ACT
1435/32
View profile
University of Michigan’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
11%
Graduation
95%
Student body
26K
Median SAT/ACT
1480/33
View profile
Cornell University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
8%
Graduation
95%
Student body
10K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
View profile
Brown University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
8%
Graduation
96%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1525/34
View profile
Duke University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
96%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1540/35
View profile
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
14%
Graduation
91%
Student body
45K
Median SAT/ACT
1415/32
View profile
University of California, Los Angeles’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
21%
Graduation
88%
Student body
49K
Median SAT/ACT
1440/32
View profile
New York University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
11%
Graduation
94%
Student body
26K
Median SAT/ACT
1510/34
View profile
Johns Hopkins University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
17%
Graduation
94%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1465/33
View profile
Georgetown University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
95%
Student body
19K
Median SAT/ACT
1495/34
View profile
Northwestern University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
19%
Graduation
97%
Student body
13K
Median SAT/ACT
1475/33
View profile
University of Notre Dame’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
16%
Graduation
92%
Student body
40K
Median SAT/ACT
1445/32
View profile
University of Southern California’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$19K
Acceptance
23%
Graduation
94%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1430/32
View profile
University of Virginia’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
31%
Graduation
89%
Student body
47K
Median SAT/ACT
1390/30
View profile
University of Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
95%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1500/33
View profile
Dartmouth College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
32%
Graduation
88%
Student body
44K
Median SAT/ACT
1355/30
View profile
University of Texas at Austin’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
25%
Graduation
91%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1405/30
View profile
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
If you want to know more about history, then check out our related content:
What are Custom College Rankings?
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