Master of Arts Program

The three major areas in the Master of Arts program and corresponding fields are:

  • European History – Medieval, Early Modern or Modern
  • United States History – Early U.S. or Modern U.S.
  • Global Studies 

MA Expectations

Candidates for the MA degree must demonstrate mastery of the two fields of study that they select for examination in the master's degree examinations. That field mastery must surpass the level of simple factual knowledge and must include familiarity with the salient issues of historical interpretation in the student's fields of study and a working knowledge of the secondary literature pertinent to those issues. In addition, all candidates for the degree must, in the context of their examinations and course work, give evidence of their ability to assess and employ the primary source material in their fields and their capacity to present, in coherent and well-written form, the results of their research in both seminar papers and the MA essay.

MA Requirements

All master’s students must complete 30 credit hours of course work, a master’s essay and a comprehensive examination. At least 18 credit hours must be in history courses numbered 6000 or above, and at least six of those credits must be in research seminars. There is no foreign language requirement, although students wanting to go on for a doctoral degree are encouraged to work on their linguistic skills. A typical sequence of classes for a full-time MA student will look something like what is shown in the table below.

  • First Semester
  • Second Semester
  • Third Semester
  •  Fourth  Semester
  • 6100: Art and Craft of History
  • Colloquium
  • Studies course or field-focused course; Public History
  • First seminar
  • Colloquium
  • Studies course or field-focused course; Applied History
  • Second seminar
  • Colloquium or readings course
  • (Optional third class)
  • Colloquium or readings course; Applied History
  • (Second class if only six classes taken in fall)
  • MA comprehensive exams

For an extensive history master's course work guide, please visit the Marquette Bulletin.

MA Resources

MA Essays

MA students complete a master's essay or public history project. This essay typically originates in one of the required seminar papers (HIST 6954) but is both revised and expanded beyond the original work, in historiographical and/or primary source analysis. MA essays must engage with the historiographical major fields, as appropriate for their topic (geographic, chronological, and thematic contexts). Historiographical depth should be built from coursework related to the fields of inquiry and through consultation with the major professor. HIST 6961 provides a structure for MA essay completion.

Essays should be at least thirty pages long (around 7500 words), exclusive of bibliographies and other end matter. Public History projects (usually related to work carried out as part of the process of earning the Public History minor) may be used in lieu of the MA Essay. Such projects also will include a written component that demonstrates engagement with the historiographical context, which should be at least 15 pages, exclusive of bibliographies and other end matter. 

A list of MA forms is available on the Graduate School's website.