Undergraduate
Students decide to become History majors for many different reasons. Maybe you are curious about the Revolutionary War because of Hamilton. Or maybe you grew up in Alabama and want to know more about the state or Birmingham. Perhaps you saw a TV show about how aliens built the pyramids (they didn’t, btw), or you find gladiators or Nazis fascinating. Or, maybe you just want skills that employers are looking for. In the History Department, we teach all these things and so much more.
One of the best things about a major in History is that the degree is flexible and can be tailored to your interests. Once you’ve finished two introductory sequences (U.S. history and either World History or Western Civ.), the majority of your classes are going to be courses that you want to take and fit into your schedule. The only other required course is HY 497 (the capstone) which you will take in your senior year.
Program Requirements
All program requirements and courses are outlined in the UAB Undergraduate Catalog. You can also look at a proposed four-year program of study for History majors. You can download the Undergraduate Program Handbook for a brief synopsis of the program.
Ready to Apply?
All the information you need to apply can be found on UAB's Undergraduate Admissions site.
The History Honors Program is designed for outstanding history majors at UAB. It helps prepare you for graduate work in the field or post-graduate studies in areas such as law, theology, and medicine. If accepted, you will have access to advanced classes, enjoy one-on-one interaction with faculty, and will write an honor’s thesis based on original research. Faculty-led independent research for the senior thesis provides you with experience in applying historical methods and analytical writing techniques.
Members of the program are invited to join Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honors organization. Members of UAB's Chi Omicron chapter of Phi Alpha Theta publish the Vulcan Historical Review annually.
Eligibility
You must complete at least 60 semester hours while at UAB, with a minimum 3.0 overall GPA and a minimum 3.5 GPA in history courses. You must complete at least 24 hours in the history major before you can be accepted into the program.
Interested students must apply for the program. Before you apply you will need to find a History Department faculty member who will direct your honors thesis. They can help you with the application process, and they will need to sign your honors application form. If you are accepted into the program, you and your thesis director will choose two additional faculty members to make up your thesis committee. This committee will determine whether your completed thesis qualifies for honors.
Requirements
A complete list of honors requirements and courses are available in the UAB Undergraduate Catalog.
Contact
For additional information on the History Honors Program, contact the Department of History at
Whether you are planning a future in education, law, museum curation, business, healthcare, publishing, or politics, we have the program and tools to help you get where you want to go. Along the way, you will discover what our students tell us time and again: history is fun. The history major offers an endless array of fascinating topics—and dynamic classroom teaching—that will bring the past to life.
We invite you to learn about the many offerings for History majors. For example, we give you the opportunity to work closely with faculty in small classes, publish your work in a journal, join the History honors society, and get course credit for an internship at many excellent sites around Birmingham.
![Link to Instagram video featuring student experiences](/cas/history/images/photos/inline/History_your-place-is-here.jpg)
What Can You Do with a History Degree?
History teaches the research, writing, and persuasive arguing skills that are so essential to every professional field. Some of our former students are curators of historical sites, such as Sloss Furnaces or Rickwood Field (the oldest baseball park in the country). Others are archivists, IT experts, military officers, directors of schools and banks around the world, and non-profit professionals.
We're Here for You
We are a hands-on department, made up of professors and instructors who are committed to teaching in many different styles—from lectures, to small discussion groups, to historical reenactments. At UAB, our goal is to make sure you have access to academic and student experiences that will launch you toward a lifelong love of history and into a rewarding career.
Fall 2024: Special Topics Courses
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HY 200-1E: Disease in the American South (Fulfills Blazer Core: City as Classroom)
Instructor: Hunter
This course will provide an analysis of diseases affecting the American South, including hookworm, polio, malaria, pellagra, and yellow fever. Each of these diseases, as well as others, will be discussed and researched using primary and secondary sources. Emphasis will be placed on how these diseases affected social, economic, psychological, and educational changes.
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HY 201-QL: Nazi Germany (Fulfills Blazer Core: Humans & Their Society)
Instructor: Wiesen
Over seventy-five years after the collapse of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship still poses powerful questions to historians:
- Why did Germans turn to a fascist leader to solve their social and economic problems?
- To what extent did the average citizen support Hitler’s brutal and racist policies?
- How did German society and culture change under National Socialism?
- How did the Nazis justify starting a second world war and carrying out the Holocaust?
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HY 201-2E: History of Religion (Fulfills Blazer Core: Humans & Their Society)
Instructor: Rodrick
This course is an introduction to the origins, central doctrines, and historical development of the world’s major religious traditions from prehistory to today and their impact on the societies in which they appear, along with an overview of various minor traditions as well.
Major religions examined include Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, along with many other faiths, philosophies, and schools of thought including Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Manichaeism, Shinto, syncretistic practices, magic, agnosticism, atheism, and critical perspectives.
We will examine themes such as:
- Doctrine, ritual, scripture, mysticism, pilgrimage, and myth across various religious traditions
- Discuss methodological approaches to the comparative study of religion