History Major at Penn?

Cue7
Tue, 08 Aug 2017 16:25:45 +0000

@“45 Percenter” - I’m a little confused by your post. If anything, I’ve been complimentary of Penn’s history dep’t and the experience it offers - I don’t mean to imply that the experience is any less rich or varied or vigorous than what’s found at other top schools- it’s just different. Further, within the narrow confines of the dep’t itself and classes offered, I think the academic experience is similar at virtually ALL of the top 20 or so schools - from Harvard and Yale to UPenn and Emory and Wash U. At any of these schools, you’ll get a fairly bright subset of students passionate about history, who all tend to take similar upper-level courses together.

What happens in the classroom in the upper-level courses, I’ve found, is actually just a small piece of what it means to major in a humanities field, and you are underselling the varied academic experience - related to their chosen field of study - most Penn history majors have by virtue of being part of a variegated undergrad. If the experience you and your child had as humanities majors at Penn mirrored the experience at Harvard or Duke, well, I’m sorry to say, you/yours didn’t maximize the experiential offerings present within this major at UPenn - it’s supposed to feel different - by structure and by design.

Yes, the narrow subset of upper-level classes taken for the major will be similar to what’s found at Harvard or Duke or Wash U, but at Penn the general experience in the major (at least from what I saw) is quite different. First, the faculty tend to be a more interdisciplinary, with joint appointments elsewhere (as I noted above). Second, in symposia that undergrads attend, and even in some of the higher-level classes, it’s more likely that those from vastly different fields (business, engineering, nursing, etc.) will attend and will engage in dialogue about the academic subject. Third, having pre-professional students in nursing or wharton is quite different than having a potential econ major/future i-banker in your intro US history class. They’re being trained differently, there’s more of an emphasis (especially in nursing) on the practical/clinical, and there’s more defined interest from a younger age. You’re mixing liberal arts students with literally pre-professional students from freshman year, and that’s a hallmark distinguishing factor for UPenn. Fourth, there’s broad departmental emphasis on interdisciplinary study - so history professors actively look to collaborate with those in other fields, and students will be exposed to that.

With the above in mind, why would Harvard, Duke, etc. be good comparators? The ethos’ of the schools are different and, even more than that, the literal components of the undergrad system are different. Yes, in a minor set of classes the experience will be similar, but the broad experience of history majors is - and should - be nigh incomparable.

When deciding between Penn or Duke or Emory, the threshold question is different - at Penn students have to be willing to immerse themselves in a school devoted to interdisciplinary study. Yes, you could block it all out and have an experience in the history dept that is similar to what’s found at Duke or Emory, but why would you want to do that? The school makes it hard TO block this experience out, and you’re blocking out exactly what makes UPenn distinctive. Otherwise, you could go to one of another 15-20 places that are basically just as good for history.