Master's Program Handbook

These requirements apply for all MA students. 

Students need 30 credits (10 courses) to graduate. Full-time students generally take three seminars (500- or 600- level courses) per semester, for a total of 9 credits. In order to reach the SUNY requirement of 12 credits for full-time status, students may add HIS 599. In lieu of HIS 599, you might take a language course, for example, but be aware that the Department of History considers 3 graduate seminars to be a full course load.

Please visit the UB Graduate Course Catalog to view all required and available courses for the Master’s program in the Department of History.

• Historical Inquiry. This course provides a foundation for graduate level historical analysis.
• Core seminars during your first year corresponding to your area of specialty
  • For specialists of U.S., Latin American, and European history, the core is a two semester sequence. The Asian and Atlantic World cores are usually single semester courses, so students in those specialties must select an additional semester of a core seminar in another field. 
• One research (600- level) seminar. Please note that we generally offer just one research seminar at a time and all students work on whatever scholarship they want to focus on during the course, regardless of the subject matter.
• Four additional 500- level seminars of your choosing

HIS 599 is not required and it does not count toward your degree. You can enroll in HIS 599 for 3 credits, enabling you to reach full-time (12-credit) status with the normal load of three 3-credit seminars. To receive credit, students must attend four (4) events related to the intellectual life of the university or, in certain cases, of the community. These are generally scholarly lectures or conferences. You can find out about such events on the following websites:

You may also find another academic event outside of UB. Since one of the goals of HIS 599 is to encourage your participation in the UB intellectual community, no more than one (1) report on an event outside of UB will be counted towards your grade. If unsure whether a certain event will be acceptable, you may contact the instructor on record for 599, which will be a faculty member of the Department.

Alternately, attending all six meetings of the 700-level course Pro-seminar on Teaching also fulfills the requirements for HIS 599.

All MA students must fulfill a distribution requirement by taking at least one course in each of three major areas: 1) U.S. and Canada; 2) Europe; and 3) Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

In the case of transnational, thematic, or world history courses, students should consult with the DGS about whether it can fulfill the requirement for a particular area, and if so, ask to have a statement to that effect put in their file.

In addition to seminar coursework, students must also complete a Master’s Project. The project is an article-length paper of roughly 30-60 pages, based on primary research, placed within a historiographical framework, and executed under the guidance of a faculty member. If based on a previous seminar paper, it must be significantly reworked and/or expanded. 

To complete the Master’s Project, you will need an advisor who will guide, evaluate, and ultimately grade your work. You should approach a faculty member about advising your project as soon as you have an idea of your research topic. You should choose an advisor who agrees to work with you no later than the end of your second semester. Typically, you will choose a faculty member who specializes in a relevant field (geography, time, approach, etc.) and with whom you have established some kind of connection (e.g., you have taken a class from them and/or visited their office hours, etc.).  In some cases, the best faculty member for your project may not have offered a course at the right time for you. You should take the initiative to visit their office hours and find out whether they would be a suitable advisor for your project. If you are having trouble finding an advisor, or are concerned about any aspect of the process, contact the DGS for assistance.

The following is a typical course of study (N.B.:  if you begin in the Spring rather than the Fall there will be some alterations to this sequence; please contact the DGS briefly as you enroll each semester to make sure all requirements are met):

If you are planning to switch between full-time and part-time status, graduate, take a leave of absence, or otherwise change your status as a UB student, speak with the Graduate Coordinator as soon as possible. Paperwork often needs to be filed with the Graduate School well in advance.

Graduate students in the Department are expected to submit any required forms directly to the Graduate School (grad@buffalo.edu). When submitting your forms to the Graduate School, please copy both the DGS and the Coordinator. You must send forms to the DGS, your advisors, and thesis readers for the required signatures prior to submitting the forms to the Graduate School. If you are uncertain about how to complete a particular form, please reach out to either the DGS or the Coordinator for assistance.

The Department does not process paper copies of forms. All forms must be completed and sent for signatures digitally. This will help the Department maintain a complete record of your documents and overall status in the program.

Students may find the required forms on The Graduate School’s Forms for Students webpage.

Many students find this to be the most challenging aspect of graduate study. There is no single strategy for how best to make it through the massive amounts of densely written material assigned in seminars. You will likely not retain every detail or point of information, so it is important to find the strategy that works for you and prioritize the reading that will best support your success in your coursework and your Master’s Project.

It is important to read actively. Rather than expect passively to absorb the gist of what is being discussed, get in the habit of always trying to discern what the author is attempting to argue, how they support this argument, and whether this is persuasive. When you take notes, think of your notes not as a summary of the information from the book, but as a representation of how the author has constructed their argument. As you get better at this, you will find that you will read faster and more effectively, and that you can often skim certain chapters without losing the major points.

The best starting point for research is the UB Libraries website. From there, you can access the university library catalog along with databases of scholarly articles (e.g., Historical Abstracts, EBSCO, J-Stor, or America: History and Life) and dissertations (Digital Dissertations), and the worldwide consortium of library catalogs (World Cat). If you identify a book or article that is not available locally, you can order it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL/Delivery +). The ILL service at UB is very reliable, but you still must begin your research in advance to be sure that the books and articles you need for a term paper arrive in time.

Dr. Michael Kicey (makicey@buffalo.edu) is the Associate Librarian for the Humanities. He is the liaison librarian assigned to our department and is a fantastic resource. Throughout the academic year, he sends notifications on new databases and other new resource materials. Feel free to contact him as you plan your research.

The Graduate program in the history department is writing intensive and requires students to write article-length papers (20-30 pages) for seminars and a final thesis (30-60 pages). There are several resources for graduate students who need support with their writing:

• GSA Editing Services
• Center for Writing Excellence (1-1 appointments and writing groups offered)
• Purdue Online Writing Lab Graduate Writing Guide

The Department attempts to support as many graduate students as possible during their graduate careers. The DGS will send an announcement each term when grading and other departmental positions for graduate students are available. Students must be in good academic standing and receive approval from their advisor in order to work as a course grader. There are also departmental and university-wide scholarships, awards, and other research opportunities. You can find more information about departmental and external funding at these websites:

• History Department Scholarships and Awards
• Internal and External Fellowships and Scholarships

This term refers to the scholarly literature on a given subject. It can be general, as in, “French medievalist historiography,” or quite specific, such as “the historiography on attitudes toward race during the Cuban wars of independence.” A standard seminar assignment is to write a historiographical review (sometimes called a review essay) of a given field. To do this, you choose several important and representative works by historians in that field, then critically review each one in a single essay. A good essay is one in which (1) the sources are well chosen and relevant; (2) the essay is greater than the sum of its parts, not stringing together critiques of each work one after the other but drawing out the overarching themes and trends in the overall corpus of literature; and (3) the essay is well organized and eloquently written. Many scholarly journals publish historiographical review essays, which can serve as good guides for learning a field and models for completing such an assignment. 

Primary research is research based on primary sources, or sources with direct historical significance. A primary source is anything created at the time being studied, whereas a secondary source is anything created after that time. Whereas a biography of George Washington might be a secondary source, Washington’s diaries would be a primary source. One imagines a primary source to be a dusty, crinkled document filed in an archive, but to continue with the present example, many of Washington’s diaries have been published and are available in libraries. And what if you were doing a research paper on representations of the Founding Fathers in American culture? In that case, that biography we otherwise regarded as a secondary source might become a primary source, suitable for comparison, say, with another example of the same genre published five decades before or after. A successful research paper, and, ultimately, your Master’s Project, will combine primary and secondary sources, research, and historiography.

Part of your graduate education is participating in the life of the department. This includes attending speaker series events whenever possible. The cohorts here are some of your best resources; take advantage of their expertise!