Undergraduate Course Information

link to Courses for Concentration Requirements by Term                                                         
These course lists are organized for current, past, and upcoming terms according to which history concentration requirements are satisfied.

Course descriptions and schedules can be found at these websites:

                  Course Guide -- course descriptions for current and upcoming terms

                  Wolverine Access - Individual course descriptions on the Public Course Catalog

                  LSA Bulletin-- list of active History courses

Wait List Policy
Students are strongly encouraged to use the waitlist for any closed History course.  Students should register on the waitlist according to their preferred section AND attend the first two classes. Overrides will be issued automatically, in waitlist order, up to the first day of class by the department as space becomes available. Students are notified by email and given two days to use the override; the seat may go to an alternate student on the waitlist if the override is allowed to expire. Students should remember that for cross-listed courses, their waitlist position as seen on Wolverine Access is relative to the unit under which they are enrolled. Unused overrides may result in the student being removed from the waitlist completely. No overrides will be issued automatically after the first day of classes; students (waitlisted or not) must attend the first two class sessions and obtain an override from the instructor or GSI.

Course Numbers
100-level courses are introductory and broad in nature and assume no background in the topic.

200-level courses, most of which are lecture courses, are equally suitable for first-year students, but are not restricted to them.

300 and 400 level courses are more focused topics and require substantially more demanding workloads. These are designed for juniors and seniors, but not restricted to them. Students with strong backgrounds in history may take upper-level courses in their first two years. Most history courses carry no prerequisite requirements.

Course Scheduling   
The History Department has a large number of active courses, although not all are offered on a regular basis.  In addition to those listed on this page, other courses may be offered as one-time "topics" courses or meet-together courses with other University departments. Several courses are offered during the spring and summer half terms, typically including at least one introductory survey course and a colloquium, but fewer than during the full term.

Course scheduling is affected by faculty leaves, sabbaticals, retirements, and administrative assignments. Visiting faculty may teach an established course, but some courses are unique to an individual professor and are not offered during his or her absence.

Courses for First-Year Students   

First-Year Writing Courses
All LSA students take a First-Year Writing course to satisfy the LSA writing requirement. If you have an interest in history, History 195, “The Writing of History,” is designed to allow you to develop your college-level writing skills in the context of history. Section topics change each term, taught by advanced graduate students in the final stage of degree completion.  Classes are limited to 18 to allow individual attention and student participation.

History 195 may not be included in a History concentration

First-Year Seminars (History 196 and 197) provide an opportunity to begin your college study of history in a small seminar setting. These courses are taught by history professors who choose stimulating topics in the area of their expertise to engage their students in the historical discipline. Students are active participants in discussion and develop a strong background college-level history critical thinking, reading, and writing.

History First-Year Seminars satisfy LSA area distribution for non-concentrators (History 196 = Social Science; History 197 = Humanities).

First-Year Seminars may not be included in a History concentration.

Introductory Survey Sequences
Electing a course from one of the six history concentration Introductory Survey Sequences is a good way to sample the department’s offerings and get an early start toward history concentration.  For students who do not plan to follow a history program, these 100- and 200-level courses satisfy either the social science or humanities LSA college requirements.