Public and Applied History Minor

Page Content

Interested in a career in Public and Applied History?  Want to work for a museum, historic site or park, cultural center, historical society, special archive and library, or some other historical-focused institution?  Then completing a Minor in Public and Applied History (PAH) is just what you need.

Museums and other public history organizations employ over 725,000 people in the United States.  A career in public history can be a rewarding way to focus on the historical past, help educate the public, and earn a good living at the same time.  The National Coalition for Public History maintains an extremely useful webpage for Public History students which includes a free, current job listing of career opportunities, which may give you a sense of the types of jobs that are available in the field. 

 

Why Minor in Public History? 

The Public and Applied History Minor at Southern Miss can enhance your courses, improve graduate school applications, and bolster your ability to get a job and start your career.  In particular, the PAH minor will:

• provide a valuable credential for employment in public history institutions like museums, libraries, historic sites and parks, government, and private industry
• enable students from the Humanities and other majors to create or contribute to public history projects that serve their communities
• provide opportunities for students to put their research skills and intellectual interests into practice in the field of public history

 

What Will I Learn in the PAH Minor? 

While working towards the PAH minor, students will:

• learn about the varied career paths in public history
• learn about the history of oral history and the essential value of preserving community stories
• learn about digital history and the benefits and limitations of technology in public history spaces
• learn about different types of collections of historical materials and documents, the process of collecting artifacts, and the challenges of historic preservation
• learn about how history, memory, and memorialization influence and transform communities
• learn about the industry through hands-on experiences gained through a required internship with a museum or historical institution that builds job skills and adds to your professional portfolio, which can help you find a job in the field after graduation.  Our students have interned at some great Public History organizations, including

• • Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of American History, Washington, DC
  • GRAMMY Museum Mississippi, Cleveland, Mississippi
  • African-American Military History Museum, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
  • Mississippi Department of Archives & History, Jackson, Mississippi
  • Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage, The University of Southern Mississippi
  • The National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center, Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia
  • Mississippi Armed Forces Museum, Camp Shelby, Mississippi
  • Veterans Memorial Museum, Laurel, Mississippi
  • Vicksburg National Military Park, National Park Service, Vicksburg, Mississippi
  • National WWII Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana
  • McCain Archives and Special Collections, The University of Southern Mississippi
•  

Minor Degree Plan:

Any student at USM may add the PAH Minor to their degree plan.  History majors are allowed to minor in PAH, and two of the core PAH classes can count as credit toward both the History major and the PAH minor.  For more information, see the Undergraduate Bulletin page on the PAH Minor.

The four (4) core courses of the eighteen (18) credit-hour minor include:

• HIS 350: Public History in Theory and Practice
• HIS 306: History in the Digital Age
• HIS 352: Oral History Methods
• HIS 399: Internship in Public and Applied History

For the final courses, students will choose two (2) courses from a list of interdisciplinary course offerings:

• ANT 331 - Survey of Archaeological Methods
• ANT 434 - Historical Archaeology
• ANT 437 - Heritage Resources and Public Policy
• COM 310 - Digital and Social Media
• HIS 399 - Internship in Public and Applied History*
• HRM 472 - Human Resources Management in Governmental and Nonprofit Organizations
• HTM 340 - Global Tourism
• HUM 402 - Digital Humanities Practicum
• ID 325 - History of Interior Furnishings and Decorative Arts
• LIS 440 - Information Ethics
• LIS 465 - Introduction to Museums and Archives
• MCJ 329 - Introduction to Strategic Communication
• MCJ 424 - Public Opinion, Mass Communication and Society
• MKT 478 - Social Media Marketing and Merchandising
• NPS 406 - Nonprofit Resource Development and Fundraising
• NPS 407 - Nonprofit Board and Volunteer Development
• PS 370 - Introduction to Public Administration
• SOC 405 - Nonprofits and Social Change

*Students may choose to do a second internship in lieu of one of the non-core courses for the minor. 

For information on how to add the PAH Minor to your degree plan, see your academic advisor or click here for a tutorial on how to declare a minor in SOAR.

To speak to a History advisor about the Public and Applied History Minor, email HistoryFREEMississippi