As history majors, we make up a small percent of the student body. Sure, there are a lot of majors in the humanities, but when it comes down to the weeks of research and reading it takes to call yourself a history major, a lot of people would prefer to do something else.
A lot of people find our major boring because they think that history is just regurgitating facts and dates that you memorized for a test. A lot of people think that it is easy, and you can't do anything with it. A lot of people think only men are interested in history and research.
Let me be the first to tell you that all of these misconceptions are wrong. History is a difficult major -- with all the research papers and book reviews and analysis--but I love every every second of it, and I can't imagine investing my education and my career in any other subject. Below are some history major problems that every history major can relate to.
1. Always reading, researching and writing.
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Welcome to the life of a history major. It's a cycle of reading, researching, and writing. And it never stops. We are always writing book reviews, research papers, and short identifications (which turn out to be essays with as much as we love to write). If you can't find me, chances are I'm in my room surrounded by piles of books and huddled in a blanket with my laptop on my lap, typing away at another paper that's due tomorrow (that I just started today).
It never ends. Of course we complain -- we are lazy college students who procrastinate just as much as the next guy, but we would much rather write an essay and research than solve a 10-page long math problem.
2. Procrastination!
We are the absolute worst about procrastination. We will write 10 to 20- page research papers the day before. Don't doubt our power. That's just the way we are. Writing comes naturally to us, especially if we know what we're talking about. We may gripe and complain and lay on the floor unresponsive, covered in books, but we secretly love it. Maybe not the process of researching, but the outcome of having an intelligent paper with your own arguments and original research is impressive.
For us, it's actually easier to write a 10-page paper rather than two pages because we can expand more on our ideas. While it might be a struggle getting started and stretching to get to the page minimum requirement, luckily we have Turabian as bae. Luckily, we can sometimes use courier font sometimes and we always double space!
3. Chicago style.
Chicago style. That's all that needs to be said. But for real, Chicago is tough. There is a reason you learn MLA in high school; it's a lot easier. With Chicago, you have to learn footnotes and bibliographic entries, and if you dare miss a comma, you risk losing ten points off of your research paper or getting a zero because plagiarism.
Chicago isn't all that bad. The footnotes take up a lot of space to make it look like you wrote more, and you definitely get a sense of pride when you make your first little footnote in your paper. Plus, one you get it, you just get it, and any other form of writing is way too easy.
4. Essay tests.
We hate it when we hear everyone complaining about taking multiple choice tests. When they complain, all we are thinking is, I have two tests back to back and each of them I have to write four essays in 50 minutes. So, please -- tell me about your struggle answering 30 multiple choice questions in 50 minutes.
Our hands are killing us once it's over, and sometimes our minds can't form words together if you try to speak to us because we have been writing for a long time, but believe us when we say we would much rather write essays for our exams than take a multiple choice test. At least with essays, we can write everything we know about a subject and at least get partial credit.
5. Everything you know about history is wrong!
If you have ever taken a college history class, the first thing the professor will tell you is that everything you have learned about history so far is wrong. Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas and the Crusades did not happen initially because of religious reasons. History is simplified in form to make it easy to understand when you are younger. They don't want to shock you to explain how awful people have been in the past.
6. Going on vacation and wanting to stop at all the museums and historical sites.
If you travel with a history major, you can be assured that on the way to reaching your destination, they will see signs for a museum or a historical site and beg you to stop there. This may not be fun for you, but believe us, going to museums and historical sites are like a field trip to us. We love learning more and seeing our subject expressed physically (which is another reason we love visiting historical reenactments).
7. Incorporating random facts in normal conversation.
Sorry, not sorry. We just love our subject and something that we learned in class or that we read (for fun) we want to share because it's interesting to us. We know you don't care, but regardless, we will continue sharing the knowledge because we are bursting bundles of random facts. (Our random knowledge is also helpful in writing essays when we need an extra source, or need to take up more space in a paper).
