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What majors do

In recent years, graduates from our program have become business executives, museum curators, librarians, elementary and secondary school teachers, consultants, and civil servants, while many others have gone on to graduate programs at UNLV and elswehere.

Where we are located


The Department of History is located on the third floor of Wright Hall. Find us on the map of UNLV.

Why should I be a history major?

First of all, if your goal is to someday hold an important job you will need to function in a much larger world than you are currently in. History will provide you with the broader education you will need to interact with other educated people at this level. You will need to know about important people, ordinary people and all types of events in the past. History affects everyone because it's everywhere in American culture. Just think about all the films and TV shows that are based on history, including biography. History is everywhere in our entertainment - just think about popular movies that take place in the past or the popularity of the History Channel. It's understandable that fantasy writer Katherine Kurtz has an M.A. in History and that Terry Jones and Michael Palin of the comedy troup Monty Python have History backgrounds.

Secondly, history shapes all of our lives, from our own personal histories (what we did yesterday, as well as our families' roots) to the larger forces that impact our lives. One cannot be an informed citizen without understanding our history. Analyzing past decisions and their results helps us to make better decisions today.

But, how will a major in History help my career?

Above all, History will give you a set of skills that can be applied to almost any career. The most general of these are reading, writing and listening. In history classes you will learn how to read a document or listen to a lecture analytically, to pick out the central points and distinguish them from less important material. You will learn research skills by which you can uncover diverse kinds of data and organize it into a coherent pattern. History more than any other of the liberal arts is interdisciplinary, investigating and combining material from a wide range of fields. Finally, you will improve your writing style, so you can clearly articulate your ideas and present information in a persuasive manner. These basic skills are crucial for advancement beyond the entry level in any career. They might not be necessary to work on the assembly line at Chrysler Motor Company, Sony America or Hewlett-Packard, but the heads of these three corporations (Lee Iacocca, Howard Springer and Carly Forina) were History majors.

In addition to these general skills, are there careers for which history is specifically useful?

In addition to teaching history at all different levels from elementary school to college, there are a number of other careers for which history prepares one. Majoring in history is a useful prerequisite for studying law. American law is based on precedent, on how past cases have been decided; it is very much historical. Each year America's law schools admit thousands of history majors who, upon graduation, use their skills to research public and private archives, analyze past judicial decisions, collect oral histories for depositions, and cull through evidence to buttress arguments for use in court. Not all lawyers work for law firms or in their own practice. Many serve in government agencies, corporations and other organizations. In addition, law provides an entrée into public service. U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush were all History majors, as were Nevada's senior U.S. Senator Harry Reid, W.E.B. DuBois (the co-founder of the NAACP), Rep. Newt Gingrich and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Another option for which a history degree will qualify you is a career in publishing. The training one gets in writing and analysis prepares one for jobs in editing and copyediting as well as in evaluating manuscripts and devising marketing strategies. A related field is journalism where reporters and magazine writers, besides having to write well, must also research historical records and use oral history techniques to interview sources for stories. The number of employers who need such people is vast; in addition to newspapers, there are literally thousands of magazines, news, professional and trade journals as well as thousands of companies, foundations, and grant-funded projects seeking employees who can draft reports and executive summaries or they need technical writers who can translate papers written in clinical, theoretical, or otherwise complex language into plain English for evaluators, government officials, and the public. Chris Berman of ESPN said: "I majored in history. It's a great background for what I do. I advise youngsters that they don't have to study communications. They must be able to communicate. Study political science, English or history, subjects in which you need to express yourself verbally and in writing. Other journalists who were history majors include Bryant Gumbel and Wolf Blitzer from CNN.

In short, a history degree prepares students for numerous careers. In addition to teaching, law, publishing and journalism, these jobs include information managers, records analysts, policy analysts, and policy makers in banks, insurance companies, and many different kinds of businesses. In a manufacturing or investment company, for instance, a History major could use their skills to analyze market performance and financial structures, write public relations material or handle corporate communications between offices. Utility firms that sell gas, power, water and other services, regularly hire History majors to review issues of public interest and write reports identifying major concerns and suggesting policy responses. There are no limits to what you can do with a history degree. Did you know that Joe Namath, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Katharine Hepburn, Conan O'Brien, Ellen Barkin, Jimmy Buffet and Lauryn Hill were all history majors, and that Sting once taught history?