Academics
Undergraduate
History Major
Students with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History cultivate a broad understanding of human history across time and space and develop deep knowledge of a particular region of the world. At the same time, they learn how to ask transformative questions, develop their ability to answer them through effective research, and convey their ideas clearly and persuasively through strong communication skills.
Undergraduate
History Minor
Students whose major area of study is not history may nonetheless find that a minor in history makes an invaluable contribution to their studies.
Graduate
Doctoral Degree
The Ph.D. program in history has a global and transnational orientation, and emphasizes an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach to historical studies, encouraging innovative thinking about global historical processes. In consultation with their faculty advisors, Ph.D. students complete courses of study and original research that bring together their temporal, geographical and thematic or methodological interests.
Graduate
Master’s Degree
The Department of History offers an M.A. degree in history for those individuals who are interested in postgraduate work, but who are not planning to complete a Ph.D. It is a degree program that can fulfill in-service education requirements for current teachers as well as for future teachers earning a single-subject credential in social studies.
Faculty
The History faculty at UCSC includes influential scholars, prize winners, and recipients of major grants and fellowships. We have particular strengths in histories of colonialism and empire; gender; science, technology, and medicine; transnationalism; labor; and migration. We also emphasize public history, oral history, and the digital humanities, in addition to traditional archival research and academic writing.
Affiliated Programs
The History Department faculty are a diverse group of scholars whose research and teaching interests often span the divides between traditional academic disciplines. These faculty form collaborative working relationships with their colleagues campus wide, producing new and exciting interdisciplinary fields of study:
News
New book chronicles the life of an enslaved man on the run in the 1700s
David George was born enslaved in Virginia in 1742, but he never gave up on his fight for freedom. Running by night, fording rivers and crossing borders, George embarked on a decades-long odyssey in and out of captivity that carried him thousands of miles. Those repeated getaway form the heart of The Escapes of David George: An Odyssey of Slavery, Freedom, and the American Revolution (St. Martin’s Press), a forthcoming book by History Professor Gregory O’Malley.
PhD history student Linda Ulbrich helps bring Santa Cruz’s past to life in the city’s expanded online history page
Santa Cruz’s official government website now offers a brisk virtual tour through influential, intriguing, tragic and overlooked moments from the city’s past.
The updated and lavishly illustrated Santa Cruz history timeline is the handiwork of history Ph.D. candidate Linda Ulbrich, whose work encourages further exploration.
Humanities EXCEL Fellows build community through hands-on Internships
At UC Santa Cruz, the Humanities EXCEL Program is helping Humanities undergraduates discover new pathways to professional growth and connect to local communities through paid internships.