Bachelor of Arts [B.A] [History] From Georgetown University

Students of history learn about individuals, groups, communities, nations, or empires from every perspective, employing a variety of approaches and techniques to raise questions and search for answers. The study of history is thus one of the best ways to challenge our ideas and assumptions about the world, because it leads us to question the simplified accounts of the world and of its problems that we all encounter in our daily lives. Because of the integrative approach that is at the core of historical study, knowledge of history moreover expands our ability to engage with complex causal analysis and gives us the opportunity to explore changes and continuities in all spheres of human endeavor, and to understand the human experience as a process of dynamic evolution. In doing so, history also teaches us empathy (a value of special importance within Georgetown's Jesuit educational and spiritual tradition) and global understanding. Thus, knowledge of history is central to becoming an engaged and informed citizen, attuned to the complexities of the modern world and prepared to play a constructive role in it.

Moreover, the effective study of history necessitates awareness of the limits and challenges of our evidence and of all knowledge claims. History as a discipline is fundamentally committed to dialogue and to skepticism about dogmatic or authoritarian interpretations. Thus, the study of history is inherently linked with the development of one's democratic sensibility and intellectual humility.