Small seminars provide ample opportunity for intellectual dialogues with professors and fellow students. Professors work closely with their students to ensure successful completion of the program and placement in teaching and research positions. At Penn State, you will discover a rigorous and stimulating graduate program in History. You will become acquainted with the methodology of historical research and the major trends in historical interpretation from ancient times to the present, as you acquire substantive expertise in the discipline. Students are strongly encouraged to develop competence in areas removed from their main field of specialization.
Diversification greatly enhances placement opportunities in today's job market.
Ph.D. candidates are expected to complete a research project that makes a publishable, significant original contribution to historical study. But the department's obligation to produce outstanding teachers is no less important than scholarship. The department makes every effort to provide each advanced Ph.D. candidate an opportunity for supervised teaching of his or her own course. This teaching experience and training has proved invaluable in placing graduates of the doctoral program in the limited number of openings available each year. The Department of History and its Program in Religious Studies have been drastically reconstituted since 1990.