Undergraduate Handbook Preface Introduction Curriculum Major and Concentration Other Undergraduate Divisions What Counts as a History Course What Counts as a Seminar History Lab Advice & Information Procedures Study Abroad Departmental Honors Senior Thesis Prizes & Fellowships Guidelines for Papers Academic Honesty

Major and Concentration

This section lays out the requirements for the undergraduate major and concentration for students in Columbia College. If you are doing a double major, your major requirements for history do not change and must be completed fully.

Course Distribution Groups:

• Group A — Premodern (before ca. 1750)
• Group B — Modern Europe (including Russia)
• Group C — Africa, Asia, Middle East
• Group D — The Americas

Notes:

• Students fulfilling a Pre-medical concentration must complete a minimum of 15 points in history and have no distribution or seminar requirements.
• No more than 12 points of transfer credit or study-abroad credit will be accepted towards the major; no more than 9 will be accepted towards the concentration.
• The seminar requirement must be fulfilled at Columbia or Barnard.

The requirements of the undergraduate program encourage students to do two things:

1. Develop a deeper knowledge of the history of a particular time and/or place. Thus, students are required to complete a specialization by taking a number of courses in a single field of history of their own choosing. A specialization usually falls within one of the four groups by which the department organizes its undergraduate offerings, but is more specific than those groups and may be further defined by geographical, chronological, and/or thematic criteria. A student might choose to specialize, for example, in “Twentieth-Century U.S. History,” “European Diplomatic History,” “Roman History,” or “Korean and Japanese History.” A specialization does not appear on the student’s transcript but provides an organizing principle for the program the student assembles in consultation with the UNDED. (Cross-group specializations are also possible, and are described below.)
   
   
2. Take a broad range of courses to gain a sense of the full scope of history as a discipline. Students must therefore fulfill a breadth requirement by taking courses outside of the group within which their own specialization falls. Majors must take at least one course in each of the three groups that do not include their specialization; concentrators must take at least one course in two of those three groups. For example a student majoring in history and specializing in “Twentieth-Century U.S. History” (Group D: Americas) must take at least one course from each of the following groups: A, B, and C. A student majoring in history and specializing in “Ancient History” (Group A: Premodern) must take at least one course from groups B, C, and D.

Certain courses carry more than one group designation. Such courses are counted as inside your specialization if they carry the same “group” designation as your specialization, even if they carry another group designation as well. Thus, such courses do not fulfill the breadth requirement. Thus if you are specializing in “Twentieth-Century U.S. History” (Group D), World War II (Groups B, C, and D) will count as a Group D course, not as a Group B or a Group C course.

You may not use a single course to fulfill more than one part of the breadth requirement: thus, for example, Domestic Animals in Human History (Groups A, B, C, and D) could not be counted as both a Group B course and a Group C course. Courses on historical theory and method, such as The Historian’s Craft, carry the group designation ABCD. They count as inside your specialization, but not as outside.

The two-term senior thesis seminar may only be counted as one of the two required seminars, and normally as inside the specialization.

Cross-group Specializations. The UNDED may approve a specialization that transcends the boundaries of two or more of the four groups; breadth requirements will be adjusted accordingly. Below and on the next page you will find examples of programs of this sort. These are only examples and in no way exhaust the possibilities for specializations. Students are encouraged to work with UNDED to define specializations that meet their intellectual interests.

Women’s History

• Lecture: 3106 Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe (Group A)
• Lecture: 3328 Women in Modern Europe (Group B)
• Lecture: 3561 History of American Women, 1776–Present (Group D)
• Seminar: 4886 Gender, Passions, and Social Order in China (Group C)

To fulfill the breadth requirement, the UNDED might then suggest:

• Lecture: 3110 Renaissance, An Introduction (Group A)
• Lecture: 3478 U.S. Intellectual History, 1865–Present (Group D)
• Lecture: 3870 Japan in the 19th Century (Group C),
  

Students interested in Women’s History should also consult the course listings of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender.

Intellectual History

• Lecture: 3478 U.S. Intellectual History, 1865–Present (Group D)
• Lecture: 3311 Modern European Intellectual History II (Group B)
• Seminar: 4106 Subjects and Objects of Renaissance Knowledge (Group A)
• Seminar: 4384 Tocqueville (Group B)

To satisfy the breadth requirement, the UNDED might recommend that a student take:

• Lecture: 3004 The Mediterranean World after Alexander (Group A)
• Lecture: 3878 Who is the Samurai? (Group C)
• Lecture: 3222 The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union (Group B),

leaving one seminar and one lecture to complete the major.

Jewish History

• Lecture: 3611 Jews in Christian Spain (Group A)
• Lecture: 3628 History of the State of Israel, 1948–Present (Group C)
• Lecture: 3630 American Jewish History (Group D)
• Seminar: 4600 Jewish Rights and Political Emancipation (Group B)

To satisfy the breadth requirement, the UNDED might recommend that a student take:

• Lecture: 1020 The Romans, 754 BCE–565 CE (Group A)
• Lecture: 3804 History of Modern South Asia (Group C)
• Lecture: 3881 History of Modern China II (Group C),

leaving one seminar and one lecture to complete the major. The sequence 3624–3625 Modern Jewish History I–II is a particularly good focus for a specialization in Jewish History. Some graduate courses in Jewish History are open to undergraduates, although these require strong Hebrew language skills.

Comparative Empires

• Lecture: 3020 Roman Imperialism (Group A)
• Lecture: 3220 Imperial Russia (Groups ABC)
• Lecture: 3312 British History, 1760–1867 (Group B)
• Seminar: 4310 Europe and the End of Empires (Groups BCD)

To satisfy the breadth requirement, the UNDED might recommend that a student take:

• Lecture: 3567 American Women in the Twentieth Century (Group D)
• Lecture: 3112 The Scientific Revolution in Europe (Group A)
• Lecture: 3881 History of Modern China II (Group C),

leaving one seminar and one lecture to complete the major.