Are you a history major? Here are the program's three commandments and four suggestions.

Commandments

1. You will keep every paper you write in a history class with your instructor's comments. Disk/flash drive copies are distinctly inferior. These papers will be important for HIS 499: Capstone.

2. You will take HIS 311: Introduction to Historical Thinking and Research the Fall semester of your sophomore or junior year.

3. You will take HIS 499: Capstone your last Fall semester at MUW.

Suggestions

1. If you want to go to graduate school the Fall after you leave MUW, you should start work looking for schools the summer after your junior year. Be sure to consult your professors the beginning of your senior year to get the benefit of their guidance in the search and application process.

2. Thinking about what to do after graduating? Consult your professors and the department's page on careers.

3. Interested in public history? Internships? Archaeology? Consult the department's page on internships and archaeology.

4. Consider joining a learned society. Doing so is a great way to find out more about what is going on in a field. And you get on all sorts of mailing lists--including catalogs with big discounts on history books. There are many societies that focus on narrower fields within history; your professors can direct you to them depending on your interests. The United States has two organizations, however, that take in all areas of history.

• The larger and older is the American Historical Association. Membership brings a subscription to the American Historical Review and the association's newsletter, Perspectives. Student rates are $37.
• The upstart is The Historical Society. Membership brings a subscription to The Journal of the Historical Society and the rather lively bulletin of the society, Historically Speaking, which works to make history accessible and includes articles, debates, and interviews with historians.
• Also of interest, and free, is the History News Network, which seeks to include breaking news involving history and historians, and also includes blogs by historians.

Photo: M. Burger