History Major Looking for College

TheGreyKing
Wed, 19 May 2021 16:06:03 +0000

Well, you said you’d like a city, so I don’t know if you’d like Williams College. But Williams has a truly outstanding history department.

It also does extremely well in admissions to T14 law schools.

You can major in absolutely anything in college and go on to law school. But the very top law schools often explicitly voice (right on their websites!) a preference for intellectually oriented majors (think liberal arts) as opposed to pre-professional types of majors.

Here is a quote from Harvard’s website: “Harvard Law School considers applications from all undergraduate majors. There are no fixed requirements with respect to the content of pre-legal education. The nature of a candidate’s college work, as well as the quality of academic performance, are reviewed in the selection process. However, in preparing for law school, a broad college education is usually preferable to one that is narrowly specialized. The Admissions Committee looks for a showing of thorough learning in a field of your choice, such as history, economics, government, philosophy, mathematics, science, literature or the classics (and many others), rather than a concentration in courses given primarily as vocational training.”

Also, you asked if an undergrad college “matters.” If you love learning and the life of the mind, it matters immensely… for those four years can be a magical and mind-expanding experience in and of themselves, not just as a hoop to jump en route to a career.

Yes, history departments will vary school to school. Explore not only your department’s offerings and professor’s research backgrounds, and whether these match your interests, but the general strength of the college. Will you be in classes that work with primary sources and have engaged students discussing the material actively, and engaged professors meeting with you to discuss it and providing extensive feedback on your papers? Or will you sit in large lectures, read mostly secondary sources, complete tests without much feedback beyond the grade? All that will affect your experience as a history major.

Good luck!