Prospective Students

We’re so glad you found the History Department at UNC Charlotte. When you choose to study history, you choose an undergraduate experience that prepares you to be a thoughtful scholar. As a large, diverse department, we offer you the opportunity to explore your interests and develop your skills. The paths our alumni take are many, but all have benefitted from their time spent studying history. Below we list some of the opportunities the department offers to undergraduate students, whether freshmen, transfers, or declaring from another major. Click here for information on Graduate Studies.

Students Share their Stories

Life as a History Major

The History Major at UNC Charlotte is centered around 3 small, capped-enrollment seminar classes. These courses cover material from diverse times and places, such as Ancient Rome, the Civil War, or even the 2020 election. You can pick the topics that interest you. We have 30 full-time faculty members in addition to numerous part-time specialists, so there is something for everyone. In addition to our courses on the US and Europe, you can choose to study Latin America, Africa, Asia, or the Middle East. On top of that, you can pair history with Licensure for Secondary Education, writing an honors thesis, and entering the early MA program to double-count classes toward your undergraduate and graduate degrees. The history major is only 30 hours, so we encourage students to add to their studies by mastering a foreign language or adding a second major whether in a related field like International Studies or Political Science or a different skills set such as Computer Science or Business.

Why Choose UNC Charlotte History

Students often ask, what careers does a major in History lead to? Our students go into education, law, government, non-profits, banking, marketing, and sales among other things. Some of the places alumni have gone on to work at include:
• United States Secret Service
• Wells Fargo
• Bank of American
• Levine Museum of the New South
• U.S. House of Representatives
• London Stock Exchange
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
• The Hartford
• Atrium Health
• Duke Energy
• Charlotte City Government
• International Law Firms

One of our strengths is that we do not track for a single career. Instead history majors acquire skills of research, analysis, and effective communication. These skills provide students the necessary tools for a changing world. Computer codes, business models, and styles will change, but the ability to find, process, and clearly communicate information will always be needed. For this reason, History majors have higher average earnings after ten years than other humanities majors and similar to majors in business, psychology, and biology.

Freshman Learning Community

The History Learning Community is is one of the oldest freshmen programs on campus. Its focus is on “Children in war and conflict” and through two semesters offers students the chance to consider how children have suffered and developed through events such as the Holocaust, or Rwandan genocide among other events. The History Learning Community (HLC) program is for all majors and undecided freshmen with an interest in history or its pre-professional foci in business, law/justice, public history, education, military, diplomacy, and advocacy. This one-year program offers small-scale learning in a large university and is designed to accelerate and enhance academic performance with hands-on experiences in history.

The curriculum is centered around two dedicated major courses which students take together, with opportunities for field work, career orientation, excursions, and job shadowing. HLC members may opt to live together, commute; or select housing elsewhere on campus. The HLC is required for entering history freshmen; all other majors or undecided freshmen are welcome. As the freshman cohort learns, explores, lives, and studies together under dedicated year-long mentorship, HLC members report higher satisfaction in their course and learning experience, outscore their peers on GPA and time to completion data, are more likely to pursue honors and less likely to drop out of college; and form close friendships that carry through the remaining college years and beyond.

History changed my perspective and made me a better global citizen. The learning community gave me a space to interact with people in the same major outside of our class time. The class sizes were also reduced, allowing us to get more involved with topics and discussions.

Andrew Olson ’16
Peace Corps, Zambia

My favorite thing about the program is the variety of history coursework available at Charlotte, and the wonderful faculty who teach these classes. This major grants the freedom to study anything that piques your interest and equips you with skills that you will take with you forever.

Kellie Giordano, ’21
History Honors Scholar

The learning community was awesome. The best part of the program I think was the wide variety of courses and the high quality of the professors who taught them.

Chris Haverstrom ’15
Attorney at DeLoatch & Hinston

Other Opportunities

The History Department offers its students numerous opportunities for professional and personal development beyond the classroom. These include:

Declaring the Major

If you are an incoming Freshman or transfer student, you can contact admissions to declare History.

If you are a current student at UNC Charlotte, you can declare a major or minor here.