Have your parents ever asked you what you want to do with a history degree?

Toss them a couple of fields such as law, teaching, publishing, the foreign service and geneology.

A good piece of advice to follow is to tailor your resume to your chosen job target and to keep it to one page in length. When you're writing up your resume, remember to include the special skills history majors develop:

• sharpened sense of perspective
• advanced analytical skills
• ability to project outcomes
• heightened understanding of context
• firm handle on diversity issues
• experienced independent thinking

The Counseling and Career Services offers many resources to students to help them acquire internships and jobs including, but not restricted to internships on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

You can specialize your skills and increase your marketability with the minor you choose. Pretty much any minor, such as economics, communications, political science or religious studies, will help give you an edge over the other young graduates who will be jumping for the available jobs come Diploma Day. Don't underestimate the value of a history degree when seeking higher-paying jobs.

A history major's keen skills will also help him or her in graduate school or law school.

"Take a GRE review class. Ask professors to write recommendations well in advance of the deadlines. Be careful to select schools to apply to wisely by researching them on the Web, choosing schools that they realistically have a chance of being accepted to and to check with graduate directors to ensure that the professors they want to study with take on graduate students. Check the box on the application that ensures the confidentiality of the referree's letter."

-Dr. Mark Fernandez

"Do NOT be intimidated by other graduate students who flaunt extensive bibliographical citations and arcane theoretical ideas.  Usually the students who have the need to show off what they know are painfully insecure, andn don't really know that much."

- Dr. Nancy Anderson

"Investigate the department's success rate in terms of the number of students who have completed the program, as well as the number of students who have succeeded in finding employment in their field."

-Dr. Katherine Barbier

"Apart from the caveat of marketability, I would say that one should be cautious to select a department which has people in the area of your interest. . . .Also make sure that the department is stable."

-Fr. Robert Gerlich, S.J.

"Learn languages.  Go the the best school you can get into."

-Dr. Bernard Cook

Short of running an Internet background check, find out as much as possible about your prospective adviser; this person will be the Virgil to your Dante for quite some time."

-Dr. Mark Dupuy

"Students interested in graduate school should do as much work as they can with primary documents.  A good thesis based on primary documents will impress admissions committees."

-Dr. Michael Ross

Come visit us today!

Call for Papers

Don't let good papers die!  Boost your resume! Submit your best history research paper for possible publication in the 1999-2000 The Student Historical Journal.  Be sure to pick up last year's copy of the Journal!   See Dr. David Moore for details.

New Professor, Courses

Ms. Sarah Gualtieri, who is completing her Ph.D. in Middle East Studies at the University of Chicago, will teach a course on the Modern Middle East and join the history department faculty in Fall 2000.
Other courses to look for include:

Spring 2000 Events Calendar

Join Phi Alpha Theta

Pick up an application to join Phi Alpha Theta, the international honor society for history.  membership open to all students, regardless of major.  To be eligible, a student must have completed 12 hours of history courses at Loyola, must have a 3.0 GPA in all history courses, and must have a 3.0 GPA in 2/3 of all other courses.  The deadline for applicatios is March 23.

History Listserv

Get the latest news from the history department!
Share research tips!
Get answers!  Question people's answers!
Subscribe via e-mail to the history department listserv by sending a message to majordomo@loyno.edu.  The body of the message must read: subscribe histmajor.  To send a message to the list, email histmajor@loyno.edu.

New PAT Members

Congratulations to the new Phi Alpha Theta members who were inducted Fall 1999:

Renee Bourgogne, Susan Eccles, Kurt Gerwitz, Michael Purcell, Mary Slavich, Amy Styer, Dennis Thomson, Michael Tregle, Jr., Timothy Walker

PAT Keynote Speaker

Dr. Ralph Ketcham will be the keynote speaker at the Phi Alpha Theta induction ceremony on April 13.  It is mandatory for all PAT members to attend.

Nothing can beat good old-fashioned reading, yet students can supplement their research through taking advantage of reliable web sites. Here are a few sites recommended by some professors to help you with research for those inevitable term papers:

-access to all kinds of sources in the various Iberian countries of the world:  Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Argentina and even Cuba.

-primary resources on Western European history. (You can also visit http://www.apsny.org/home_pub.html for his history of Abkhazia)

-this 1,500 year old institution, sponsored by the Benedictine Monastery, has a large, comprehensive archive of Renaissance and medieval sources.

-the American Studies homepage at Georgetown University.

-this has specific sourcebooks on East Asian, Indian, Women's, Islamic European, Jewish and
other historical topics.

-this is devoted to the application of new technologies in humanities, social science teaching and research.

-a daily online version of the Sardinian newspaper, has new archaeological discoveries, publications, etc.

-called "The Making of America," it allows you to search hundreds of books and magazines from the nineteenth century.

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