Why do History?
All people make sense of the world around them by referring to the past. Otherwise it would be an even more confusing place than it is! A systematic study of history develops this understanding in ways that add to our understanding of ourselves. In studying societies distant from us in time, place and culture, we are developing a wider understanding of why people behave as they do, now and in the past.
You will have your own reasons for taking a course in History. Perhaps it is just that you find the study of a different, past society interesting for its own sake; because History offers such a rich variety of contrasts with our own culture. Maybe it’s just that you like History. Others of you may be motivated by a desire to understand how the contemporary world was made. Perhaps you want to understand the present through study of the past in order to change the future?
We believe that History also has a strong vocational value, and the skills that you acquire are applicable to many rewarding forms of employment and self-employment. In today’s fast-changing workforce, the person who has broad-based skills in acquiring and analysing information, in comprehension and communication, has the best foundation for a career. History offers a particularly good way of developing these skills. History graduates have found positions for themselves in education, publishing, entertainment, tourism, writing, libraries, archives, museums, information technology, planning, journalism, and many other areas. There is no job that you seek for which History will not improve your qualifications.
Above all, we in the History program are committed to our discipline because it fires our imagination. Our aim as historians is to communicate to you the excitement we feel about the societies we study.