Master of Arts in History - Public History Track

Acquire the analytical tools, research skills, and critical thinking abilities you need to succeed in the historical fields.
UMass Boston's Master of Arts Program in History offers you a rigorous yet flexible program of study in the field of history. Rather than being merely a collection of courses, the History MA program requires intense commitment to historical scholarship and practice. The MA serves as a terminal degree for you to seek exposure to historical study before entering a variety of careers, or a PhD program at another institution. The History MA program is designed to enhance your research, writing, and analytical skills, as well as provide a broad and advanced background in history content.

Our location in Boston offers you access to a variety of archives, libraries, museums, and historical sites. Plus, the University is located next to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, the Massachusetts State Archives, and the Commonwealth Museum.

Courses are taught by full-time History faculty, and are generally in the late afternoon and early evening to accommodate working students and those with other obligations. Classes are taught as small seminars with no more than 15 students per class. Courses cover U.S., European, and non-Western topics, allowing you to sample a range of historical topics.

Public historians study the way we remember and interpret the past. They use historical methodologies to preserve, collect, present, and interpret history with and for public audiences. Public historians work with historic landscapes, sites, parks and monuments, in museums and historic buildings, on film and the internet, and with community groups and organizations, families, and institutions.

They study public awareness and consciousness of the past and how various actors, including public intellectuals and public interest groups, seek to raise historical consciousness and nurture historical thinking.

Training in historical methodology is a crucial foundation for practicing public historians. That is reflected in the structure of this programpublic history students earn an MA in History rather than a specialized MA in Public History. Public History students need to gain strong subject-area knowledge and research skills, as well as an introduction to the theory and methods of public history. This model provides a cross-disciplinary approach that benefits professional training for public history students.

Graduate Record Examination GRE scores are recommended
Applicants will normally be expected to have majored in history as undergraduates and maintained a 30 cumulative average in the major Applicants who did not major in history as undergraduates may be asked to pursue a program of coursework designed to remedy deficiencies in their preparation for graduate study
IELTS - 6.5, TOEFL - 90
PBT - 600
Duolingo - 110