My Academic Plans (MAPs) are designed by faculty to better guide you in retention and completion. It is highly encouraged that you complete courses in the recommended order provided below in the notes section. You should work with an academic advisor to adjust your plan based on your scheduling needs.
My Academic Plan
Program Mission & Description
The FRCC history program offers a wide variety of history courses, each of which focuses on a different historical subject. While differing in content, each FRCC history course teaches you the skills historians use in their work. A history course teaches you to understand events that happened in the past, but you also learn why people behave as they do today. This is the two-sided value of studying history. Students of history learn not only why things happened, but therefore, better understand why things are happening today. The utility of studying history is to be able to understand the context of how humans have lived, and do live, in their various historical periods, and apply that understanding to our lives today.
At FRCC, you can take history courses at all three campuses, at the Brighton Center, and online. All courses are taught by historians with a Masters degree or PhD in history. Our historians are passionate about teaching, they enjoy demonstrating how to apply the study of history, and they love to expose students to the wonderful world and ways of understanding the past.
If the following things resonate with you, then you might enjoy and excel in the History program:
- You are interested in learning more about the way the world has worked, and learning about the structures and principles of how people have and do live.
- You like to understand both how people in the past lived, and how people in other nations, ethnicities, and religions developed and behaved. You think about what it would have been like to live in another era.
- You often ask questions such as:
• “Why do Americans act in certain ways? Why does our government do the things it does?”
• “Why are the values of certain cultures so very different from our own?”
• “What was is like to live in the ancient or medieval world? Why did those people act and believe the way they did? Were they like us, or very different from us?”
- There are thousands of such questions that we could ourselves, and history is the field that helps us to answer them. We understand the present by first understanding what happened in the past. That might seem counterintuitive at first, but people act and behave based on the values, beliefs, practices and behaviors we learned from our parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents, and so on. Only by understanding the past, can we truly understand the present; this enables us to live better in the future. As the Roman philosopher, Cicero said: “To understand only your own generation is to remain always a child.”
- Today, more than ever, it is important for people to be able to distinguish truth from falsehood.
• We are all aware of the prevalence of fake news, unreliable and biased reporting, misleading and manipulative information, and outright lies and distortions of all kinds of information. How are we to be able to distinguish truth from falsehood? The answer to this is to see information through the lens of an historian.
• The discipline of history, as a social science, began in the late 19th century in order to make better sense of the past. Historians have since developed particular skills, methods, and approaches to understanding information. We call this source reliability. Historians constantly judge and evaluate sources to determine their reliability, and then reach reliable conclusions using that information. The study of history provides you valuable tools that enable you to become more discerning, wiser, and more successful in life.
Learn more about gainful employment
Career Opportunities
A Bachelor's degree in History opens the door to:
- Teaching (secondary, and college level)
- Historian for a Museum
- Historian for a Government Agency
- Attend Law School (after achieving a four-year degree)
You can earn an Associate of Arts degree at FRCC and transfer to any public four-year college or university in Colorado for History.
As a liberal arts major, of course, the world is your oyster and you can consider a multitude of careers.
Among the jobs you can consider are: advertising executive, analyst, archivist, broadcaster, campaign worker, consultant, congressional aide, editor, foreign service officer, foundation staffer, information specialist, intelligence agent, journalist, legal assistant, lobbyist, personnel manager, public relations staffer, researcher, teacher . . . the list can be almost endless.
More specifically, though, by transferring to a four-year institution and completing a Bachelor's degree in History you can be an educator, researcher, communicator or editor, information manager, advocate, or even a businessperson.
Below is a brief list of the career opportunities available to the undergraduate history major. The links will take you to more good information at the American Historical Association, which is a preeminent professional organization for historians.
History majors at FRCC who plan to attain an Associate of Arts degree and are intending to pursue an advanced degree in history should read the excellent guide, Careers for Students of History, also at the American Historical Association site.
Historians as Educators
Elementary Schools
Secondary Schools
Postsecondary Education
Historic Sites & Museums
Historians as Researchers
Museums & Historical Organizations
Cultural Resources Management & Historic Preservation
Historians as Communicators
Writers & Editors
Documentary Editors
Producers of Multimedia Material
Historians as Information Managers
Archivists
Records Managers
Librarians
Information Managers
Historians as Advocates
Lawyers and Paralegals
Litigation Support
Legislative Staff Work
Foundations
Historians in Businesses & Associations
Historians in Corporations
Contract Historians
Historians and Nonprofit Associations
AA in History
First Semester
Courses should be completed in the order listed below. If you are unable to complete the entire semester list, complete as many courses in this sequence as your schedule allows.
| ENG- REQ | English: ___________ | 3 |
| GT- MA1 | Mathematics (GT-MA1): ___________ | 3-4 |
| GT- SS | Social & Behavioral Sciences (GT-SS3): ___________ | 3 |
| HIS 121 | U.S. History to Reconstruction | 3 |
| GT- AH | Arts & Humanities (GT-AH): ___________ | 3 |
| Total Credit Hours: | 15-16 |
Second Semester
Courses should be completed in the order listed below. If you are unable to complete the entire semester list, complete as many courses in this sequence as your schedule allows.
| ENG- REQ | English: ___________ | 3 |
| ELC- LST | Approved Elective List: __________ | 3 |
| GT- SC1 | Natural & Physical Sciences (GT-SC1): ___________ | 4 |
| GT- SS | Social & Behavioral Sciences (GT-SS3): ___________ | 3 |
| GT- AH | Arts & Humanities (GT-AH): ___________ | 3 |
| Total Credit Hours: | 16 |
Third Semester
Courses should be completed in the order listed below. If you are unable to complete the entire semester list, complete as many courses in this sequence as your schedule allows.
| HIS 122 | U.S. History Since the Civil War | 3 |
| HIS- REQ | History: ___________ | 3 |
| COM- REQ | Communication: __________ | 3 |
| GT- SC1 | Natural & Physical Sciences (GT-SC1 and GT-SC2): ___________ | 3 |
| ELC- LST | Approved Elective List: __________ | 3 |
| Total Credit Hours: | 15 |
Fourth Semester
Courses should be completed in the order listed below. If you are unable to complete the entire semester list, complete as many courses in this sequence as your schedule allows. Semester Four elective credits may vary depending on prior semester completion. You must have a minimum of 60 credits to complete your degree. You should not exceed 62 credits. You may want to check with your advisor to monitor your completion progress.
| GT- AH | Arts & Humanities (GT-AH): ___________ | 3 |
| HIS- REQ | History: ___________ | 3 |
| GT- HI1 | History (GT-HI1): __________ | 3 |
| ELC- LST | Approved Elective List: __________ | 3 |
| ELC- LS1 | Approved Elective List: __________ | 2 |
| Total Credit Hours: | 14 |