Many students profit greatly from spending part or all of their junior year abroad. For information on the available programs, visit the Office of International Programs located in Hovey House. At CIPP, you can obtain information on the steps for applying for study abroad and begin researching programs according to your academic and geographic areas of interest. As you follow the steps in applying, you may be required to meet with the History Director of Undergraduate Studies. If so, your progress in the major will be reviewed, looking ahead to see what history courses you will need to take in your senior to complete the major.
It is not always possible to know what courses will be available when you actually arrive at the foreign study program; the course listings you have are generally tentative and subject to change. This is no cause for alarm. As a rule, any course which you take in an approved foreign study program and which is labeled "history" can count toward your major.
As many as four foreign studies courses can be accepted toward major requirements (as long as six of the ten courses required for the major are taken at Boston College during the regular academic year). Normally foreign study courses are accepted for major elective (not upper-division) credit. If you are only seeking major elective credit, you may fill out the Course Waiver/Substitution course approval forms (available from Student Services) and, after obtaining approval from the Undergraduate Director, you can leave these forms with Student Services. They will keep them in your file until they receive your overseas transcript from CIPP.
If you believe that a course you are taking abroad is as challenging as one of our upper-division electives (i.e., it has substantial reading and writing assignments), you should compile evidence to support this. Save everything, especially the course syllabus and the paper(s) you write! After you return, you can try to persuade the Undergraduate Director to count the course as an upper-division elective. (This must be done after you get back to BC; there is no point in trying to pin it down via faxes or e-mail messages from abroad unless you are only seeking major elective credit.) No more than two foreign study courses can be counted as upper-division electives. In spite of all of these limitations, be assured that students who have gotten a good start on core and major requirements before leaving for study abroad should have no trouble completing them, even if they spend an entire year abroad.
It is sometimes possible to find a course on non-Western history abroad. Remember that this requirement applies to courses on the history of areas outside of the USA and Europe. It is rarely possible to find American Civilization courses in a foreign study program, and the department always expects you to take HS 300, the Study and Writing of History, at Boston College; so it is best to complete these requirements (HS 181-182, American Civilization, and HS 300, The Study and Writing of History) before studying abroad.
Students who are contemplating a senior honors thesis and who will be abroad during the normal application process in the spring of their junior year are strongly urged to plan ahead. They should try to establish a thesis topic and to identify a faculty member willing to supervise their work before departing, and verify that they will be able to be in email contact with their thesis advisor while abroad. They should be aware that the deadline for submission of applications is April 1 of their junior year. For additional information, they should consult with the director of the History Honors Program early in the semester prior to their departure for study abroad.
When you return to the United States, CIPP will process your transcript shortly after they receive it from the host institution and will forward it to Student Services for posting on your BC transcript (which may take several weeks). If Course Waiver/Substitution forms have not previously been filed with Student Services indicating that a course is accepted for major elective credit of if you are seeking upper-division credit, you will need to see the History Director of Undergraduate Studies at this point to have your foreign study courses applied to specific major requirements.
For additional information on the history major, please click on the specific topics listed on the left.