Navigating a History Degree at Queen's

By Kathleen Ferns

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Hey everyone, I’m Kathleen! I’m a member of the History DSC and I’m one of the peer advisors with PATH, which is the Peer Advising Team in History. Today I want to write a short overview of how to navigate a history degree. I hope you find this useful!

Majors, Medials, Minors – What’s the Difference?

If you want to study History at Queen’s, there are 3 different options you can choose from. First, many students will choose to major in history. A major means that approximately half of all the courses you take during your undergrad would be in history, which would leave room for an optional minor and many electives. A second option, if you like history but also really want to study another subject, is a medial. A medial is where you take less courses than a major, but more than a minor, so that you can take the same number of courses in two different subjects. Last, you can also minor in history. A minor is a plan with the fewest amount of courses and it must be accompanied by a major in another subject.

Different Types of Courses in History

100-Level Courses – These courses are lectures typically taken by first years before they choose their degree plan. 100-level courses in history often cover a fairly broad subject and help introduce students both to big ideas in history and to some historical methods. All 3 plans (major, medial and minor) require you to take 6.0 units (1 full-year or 2 half-year courses) at the 100-level.

200-Level Courses – These are slightly smaller, single-semester lectures that focus on a specific topic or period in history while remaining fairly broad. They’re required for majors, medials and minors.

2nd Year Core Seminar – Core seminars can be confusing because their numbers are from 300-330, even though they have to be taken in second year. This is a full-year class of about 20 students that is based around discussing readings as a group. It typically has a graded participation component as well as a couple larger final papers.

Core seminars are required for second-year History majors and medials but can’t be taken by students studying a history minor. That’s why I recommend undecided students start in a medial – if you’re in a minor and decide you want to be in a medial, you will have to figure out how to fit a core seminar into your schedule if you want to be able to take upper-level seminars in 3rd and 4th year. Which brings me to…

Upper-Level Seminar – These courses are taken by 3rd and 4th year History majorsand medials. They are similar to a core seminar, but they focus on a very specific topic, have a heavier reading load, and generally require students to write a fairly long final paper (anywhere from 10-20 pages).

Extra Tidbits

Canadian Courses – All History majors, medials and minors must take 6.0 units of Canadian history.

Substitutions – History majors and medialshave the option to put a maximum of 6.0 units of courses from a specific list of other related subject areas (e.g. Classics, Art History) toward their history degree. Make sure you check that a course is on the list before you use it as a substitution!

Putting it All Together

Here’s a handy table I put together to summarize what different history degree options might look like year-to year. I hope this blog post was helpful!