History Degree

[freeloader]

This is a bit outside the scope of your original question but sometimes, people who get Bachelors degrees in History have an eye toward grad school.  If there's any truth to that in your case then I'd only advise that you be sure to get in as many upper level History credits as possible as some grad programs count these as an admission criteria.  You might get the minimum for BA graduation but not a sufficient number for grad admissions.  This probably doesn't apply to MEd admissions (if you're thinking about a K-12 teaching job).  Best of luck

I find that advice a little odd. I have gone through the grad school admissions process for history twice, had multiple grad school interviews, and been admitted to some fairly prestigious graduate programs in history. I have never heard this. In fact, a fair number of people at both of the universities I attended for grad school didn’t even have history degrees. 

If you want to go to grad school in history, I would say make sure you take at least one class that is related to your graduate level research interest (assuming you are doing a thesis-option MA or a PhD). I would also say take courses that require you to do a lot of writing, because that’s what you will do in grad school.  With the the exception of 2 grad-level history classes (out of around 20), the expectation was that you write a substantial research or historiographical paper, 15-30 pages was typical. Multiply that by 3 courses, and you can see that you will be doing a lot of writing.  Taking a bunch of undergrad courses that only require an exam, especially if the exam is mainly multiple choice/fill in the blank/short answer, will not prepare you at all for a history grad program. 

Now, if you need more history courses to prepare you, get your writing up to snuff, etc, then take more!  But don’t feel like you need to take extra courses just for the sake of it, particularly if they aren’t relevant to your research interests, graduate course of study, etc.