Orientation to a Career in History Provisional Syllabus

This resource was developed as part of the AHA’s Career Diversity for Historians initiative.

By Purnima Dhavan
Univ. of Washington

Using This Syllabus: This syllabus is designed to introduce graduate students in history to career diversity and life as a professional historian both within and outside academia. It covers topics including preparing for different kinds of job markets, finding support for successful on-time degree completion, and applying skills learned from academic training to a variety of professional settings. Informational interviews serve as the core of this professionalization course. Purnima Dhavan’s blog post on teaching this class can be found on Perspectives Daily.

Skills This Course Addresses: Communication, Intellectual Self-Confidence

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course introduces second and third year students in the Department of History to life as a professional historian both within and outside academia. Topics covered include preparing for different kinds of job markets, support for successfully completing the PhD on time, and using skills from your academic training in a variety of professional settings. All graduate students must take this 3-credit, ungraded course usually in the second year of graduate study in the History Department. The course meets on Mondays for planned curricular activities (discussion of readings, guest speakers, workshops).

Download complete syllabus as PDF