History, MA

Graduate Program Director/Coordinator: M. Todd Bennett (Brewster 319-A; 252-328-1033; bennettm@ecu.edu)

The department offers five areas of concentration as follows: American history, Atlantic world history, European history, military history, and public history. The student is required to take a minimum of 24 s.h. in one of these areas to which the historiography course, the seminar, and the thesis will contribute 12 s.h. of credit. (The concentration in public history requires successful completion of an internship in lieu of the seminar.) The student must also take a total of 6 s.h. either in a related field of history outside of the major concentration or (at the recommendation of the advisor and director of graduate studies, and with the approval of the chairperson of the Department of History) outside the Department of History.

In addition to the 30 s.h. of course work described above, students must fulfill the department’s research skills requirement by: a) successful demonstration of reading knowledge in a foreign language (FORL 6000  satisfies this requirement); or b) successful completion of HIST 5950 , HIST 5951  (Introduction to Quantitative History/Directed Readings and Research in Quantitative History); or c) successful completion of CSCI 2600 (Introduction to Digital Computation). If HIST 5950 , HIST 5951  are used to satisfy the research skills requirement, they may not be counted toward the 30 s.h. requirement for the degree. Students who intend to pursue a PhD program are strongly advised to fulfill the foreign language requirement.

An oral comprehensive examination will be a component of the thesis defense. Candidates will be required to demonstrate their knowledge of their field of concentration as well as establish how their thesis contributes to that field of study.

Minimum degree requirement is 30 s.h. of credit as follows: