History Beckons

Did you know the University of Bologna, which was established in 1088, has never been out of operation and is considered to be the oldest university in the world? Also, did you know Hitler faced rejection from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts? Struggling to make ends meet, he used to sell his artworks.

Studying history allows us to connect with our roots and identity. It tells the stories of our ancestors, their cultures, and their struggles. Studying history helps us to gain a deeper understanding of the world around us and aids in paving the future. In fact, this discipline helps in self-discovery, where you gain perspective, understand the past and thus empowering us to shape a more informed future.

Like the correspondent, many students dread history. They associate it with memorising countless dates, names, and events, which can become a chaotic mess during exams. But history isn’t just about memorisation. It’s a journey to understand our past, something that’s a part of us, and it offers insights for our future.

“The discipline of history has transformed immensely to move away from studying dynastic histories or histories of conquest where students studied facts and events without understanding the meanings and significance. Incorporating insights from studies of caste, race and gender, the field of history has moved to study social histories, histories of the everyday, histories of ordinary people, object and material histories and intellectual histories to name a few. The premise informing these shifts is that the past cannot only be understood through what happened among and between the powerful. Instead, we have to understand the unfolding of history as a process and that the ‘proper’ subjects of history should include ordinary individuals, material artifacts, and non-human entities. The focus then is on how to think historically and pedagogies and syllabi are focused on helping students develop this critical thinking ability,” said Dr Swathi Shivanand, assistant professor, Department of Liberal Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Bengaluru.

Those interested in the subject can go for undergraduate programmes in history post-completion of Plus Two. One can also enroll for master in history and even aim for PhD where the programme focuses on providing knowledge in advanced studies in history.

Given the wide scope of the subject, a candidate can pursue diploma in history, diploma in archaeology, diploma in epigraphy, diploma in museology, diploma in museum administration and museum modeling, postgraduate diploma in archaeology, ancient culture, and history, postgraduate diploma in archaeology and museology and a postgraduate diploma in archives keeping.

In Kolkata, Lady Brabourne College, Presidency University, St Xavier’s College and Jadavpur University are popular for their history courses. Other Indian colleges like St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, Fergusson College, Pune and Lady Shri Ram College for Women and Miranda House in New Delhi are sought-after study destinations for students interested in history.

“Academic careers in history and archaeology require students to have a PhD. However, right after an undergraduate programme, students acquire reading and writing skills, critical thinking skills, and technical skills, which open up a broad range of career options. Creative writing positions, such as content writing for academic researchers, publishing houses, script/screenplay writing, are good options. Computer coding, and data analysis, especially using spreadsheets and statistics, making maps and doing spatial analyses using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), are more technical skills that have wide applications in the service-oriented job market today. A recent trend among history-trained students is their skill in understanding what fashion and food mean to people from different times and different places enabling them to make sensitive and ethical choices in promoting foods and fashions today. This may take a range of forms such as writing sensitively about foods and fashions in the past, to retail startups in the food and fashion sectors. In short, a well-grounded education in how we know about our pasts, enables students to imagine and chart better individual and collective futures,” said Dr Hemanth Kadambi, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Department of History and Archaeology, Shiv Nadar University.

The field of education is one of the best career options if you have a history degree. Becoming a school teacher or a history professor is a reliable choice. Historians and researchers are also in demand, given their strong understanding of the past. However, with time, the field of history offers a wide array of career prospects, extending well beyond academia. It opens doors to careers in politics, journalism, law, and civil services, demonstrating its versatility and relevance in various professional domains.

“History prepares one to take on challenges of any career path that one might choose. It does so primarily by teaching a way of thought which questions stereotypes, fights prejudices and develops a habit of rational debate. Creative fields like writing, journalism, storytelling, script writing, and perhaps all the career options that involve working with people can be chosen with a solid grounding in history. Meanwhile, consultancy, research organisations, policy think tanks, voluntary service sectors, and non-governmental institutions are the areas that have thriving opportunities for people trained in historical methods,” said Apala Vatsa, Dean, School of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts, IILM University, Gurugram.

According to Dr Kadambi of Shiv Nadar University, trained historians and archaeologists are creating niches for themselves outside academia. “Film and TV industries are always looking for content writers who can also do authentic research. History students are in demand for not only researching the social, political and economic context of a film or TV script but also are consultants on costumes, locations and anything that may impact the representation of a particular period and place. Archaeologists and historians are also consultants in the video game industry, and in the last decade, there have been several video games based on Indian mythology as well,” he said.

Cambridge University Press mentioned how almost all aspects of the historian’s research workflow have been transformed by digital technology. It’s true that with the rapid advancement of digital technology, historians are equipped with powerful tools like keyword searches, and algorithms to streamline the research process. Today, a historian can store photographs, documents, and resources digitally and need not make arduous trips to the libraries. This digital transformation has not only made historical research more efficient but has also opened up new avenues for collaboration and the preservation of historical records.

“In countries such as India where archival material dating back centuries is present in government archives, the disintegration of archival material has been an extremely serious concern. The lack of proper cataloguing within archives has also meant that a study of the past encounters many logistical difficulties. In such a scenario, digitisation of archival material following best practices in archival management becomes extremely important. It also opens up the study of the past to anyone interested in the past and not only a professional historian,” said Dr Shivanand of