Historians collect, organize, and explain complex data. With impressive skills in critical reading, research, analysis, writing, and public speaking, our majors are prepared for a wide range of professions. Wake Forest’s history majors pursue careers that range across entrepreneurship, education, government service, healthcare, public-interest foundations, publishing, consulting, journalism, and beyond. Our students also find their studies in history excellent preparation for graduate study in law, business, and the arts and sciences.

Our faculty’s research and teaching investigate the political, religious, social, cultural, and economic ideas and institutions that people have used to order their lives. Our curriculum introduces students to historical methodologies and the fundamentals of research and writing. We work together to understand history both as a scholarly discipline and as a framework for intellectual inquiry.

When Wake Forest students explore the past, they confront the diverse contexts in which people have lived and they analyze the choices and forces that have produced our world.

Divisional Credit

Only courses designated by a (D) receive divisional credit. Wake Forest students cannot receive divisional credit for history courses taken at other institutions or study abroad courses not designated by a (D) in the course list. History courses of students who are transferring to Wake Forest from other institutions will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Students with two AP courses (6 credit hours) in History may take any 200- or 300-level course for divisional credit, with the exception of courses numbered 390 and above.

Students contemplating graduate study should acquire a reading knowledge of one modern foreign language for the master of arts degree and two for the PhD.

Contact Information

Department of History
Tribble Hall B101, Box 7806
Phone 336-758-5501