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Get involved with History

Welcome from the Chair of the History Department

We encourage you to study history at Trinity! The history department is made up of thirteen faculty members and a growing number of majors, double-majors, minors, and hundreds of students who take a class or join a project. Historians are:

  • problem-finders and problem-solvers
  • analytical and artful writers
  • effective and engaging public speakers
  • skilled debaters and leaders of conversation
  • methodical and creative scholars
  • rigorous and flexible thinkers

Studying history at Trinity provides unique and compelling opportunities:

  • our courses explore urban and planetary themes, with faculty expertise spanning the globe
  • our department offers history travel funding, summer research fellowships, and opportunities for Hartford community engagement
  • our campus allows for archival research at the Watkinson Library, a rare book library inside the main library
  • our curriculum facilitates and supports double majors with the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities
  • our students study abroad around the world for one or two semesters
  • our alumni work in medicine, law, technology, education, and many other professional fields

Major, Double-Major, Minor, or another path?

Our flexible requirements encourage History majors to take a broad range of classes, developing their own thematic concentration as they learn. You can find the major checklist here and the cover sheet for the concentration here. Students are encouraged to declare the History major as soon as their first year, so that they can begin to receive advising within the major. The college deadline to declare is spring of the second year. But for students who declare another major in their first or second year, there is still time to declare a double-major in history during the junior year.

Prospective history minors are encourage to declare in the fall of their junior year, but some seniors declare once they realize that they have taken enough courses just out of passion for history and decide to complete the minor.

Here are some quick numbers:

  • 10 courses for the major or double major, 2 of which may be taken abroad
  • 12 courses for honors, with 2 pathways, the portfolio or the thesis
  • 6 courses for the minor, which is easily converted into the 10 course major

To recap, prospective majors are encouraged to:

  • take any courses at the 100 or 200-level during their first year
  • begin exploring 300-level courses in their second or third year
  • declare the major any time in their first or second year after completing at least one class
  • explore a double-major in history in their third year after declaring another major
  • begin with minor if considering the double-major
  • meet with the chair!

Professor Thomas Wickman
Chair of History Department
[email protected]