Associate of Arts - History

The History Program provides students with a large variety of courses that span most of the World from ancient times to the 21st century. The courses range from area surveys to more specialized thematic topics. The program goes far beyond an emphasis on content and coverage; each course is designed to teach students to think like historians. History is both an art and a science. While it is deeply interpretive and involves storytelling, it is also an evidence-based discipline. Students will learn how to ask important questions about the past, collect, analyze, and contextualize a variety of sources and write persuasive arguments and narratives. Students will examine multiple and often contrasting or competing points of view, an activity that sharpens the ability to evaluate truth claims. This program, therefore, not only provides students the opportunity to study the human past in all of its diversity, it teaches highly transferable skills that will serve students well in other areas of study and in other career fields. After completing this program, students will be prepared to transfer to a four-year institution and succeed in upper division courses. Additionally, sixteen of the seventeen courses carry General Education designations. This means that this program is also a vehicle for students to broaden their perspectives and deepen their understandings of the world around them.