|
Our entire faculty spends the great
majority of its teaching hours in the undergraduate classroom. Many of
us teach in the College Core Curriculum; all of us teach undergraduate
lecture courses and seminars; most of us regularly
supervise senior theses and independent studies. Teaching Columbia and Barnard undergraduates is among our greatest privileges.
Our undergraduate curriculum covers most areas of the world and most
periods of written history. Our courses employ many different
approaches to the past. We emphasize no particular brand of history,
no single interpretive model, and we encourage our students to
experiment with a wide range of ideas. Our principal goal in the
undergraduate classroom is to develop the intellectual breadth and
analytical skills of our students. To that end, our courses emphasize
working with both primary and secondary sources and developing acuity in critical
writing.
The
heart of our undergraduate curriculum is the seminar – small,
intensive courses taught, as are all our courses, by members of the
faculty. They are normally limited to fifteen students each and involve reading, discussion, and writing. Every undergraduate major is
required to take at least two seminars.
Students who wish to be considered for departmental honors in history
must also
write a senior thesis. There are two avenues for writing the thesis. One is the
senior thesis seminar, a two-semester course that engages a group of
students in the process of producing a serious work of research while offering guidance and collaboration. The other method of writing a
thesis is to work directly with a member of the faculty for one or two semesters while receiving credit for an independent study. Approximately 40
percent of our students write senior essays in any given year.
Some of our undergraduate majors pursue careers in academia, but most
do not. We believe that the study of history offers a sound background
for various professional opportunities and, perhaps more importantly, valuable preparation for
becoming a knowledgeable and engaged citizen.
|
