Program Overview

Economics and History Program

The economics and history major gives students access to two of Vanderbilts most popular faculties. Students build strong foundations in economic and historical analysis, leveraging both of these skill sets in course work in an economic history core.

Program Overview

Students learn to think with rigor, write with clarity, and analyze complex evidence with confidence. Working with award-winning professors in seminars and lecture courses, they acquire skills critical to career success in the global economy, while studying a subject in which they excel.

Courses

Economics and history majors take courses across both the Department of Economics and the Department of History. Students take six economics courses, six history courses, and a set of core courses. Examples of courses include:

• Inventing the Modern Economy
• American Capitalism
• Chinese Economic History
• Commodities and Conflict in Africa
• Capital, Labor, and Democracy in the United States
• Religion, Culture, and Commerce

Honors Program

Economics and history majors can participate in the History departments rigorous three-semester Honors program, which leads to the undergraduate Honors thesis in history and a B.A. with Honors or Highest Honors in History. Qualifying students work with individual professors and take special seminars with other Honors students. Graduates of the program have gone on to successful careers in law, medicine, business, teaching, and university academics.

Special Opportunities

• Independent study courses allow time to read and write on a topic of interest with a professor.
• Numerous study abroad programs let majors gain an international perspective.
• An internship program gives degree credit for history-related work experience.
• Students can participate in the editing of the prestigious Vanderbilt History Review, an undergraduate-run, peer-reviewed research journal that annually publishes articles from student-scholars at Vanderbilt and other top-tier universities.
• Special research opportunities are available to everyone: all majors complete a faculty-guided course sequence in which they do original research using primary sources.

Career Paths

The large majority of economics and history majors successfully enter professional schools (business, law, medicine, public policy, social work) and careers in both the public and private sectors. Leaders throughout the United States are intensifying their call for university graduates with a wide-ranging, transferrable skillset and broad horizons necessary to work in a shifting, increasingly global society. Economics and history majors at Vanderbilt study change. They understand how the past becomes the present. They also acquire the intellectual talents to read, write, reason, and speak at levels of accomplishment that make them attractive candidates for professional and managerial careers.

Recent Alumni Career Paths

• Henry Mayer, Analyst, Scopia Capital Management
• Alex Livingstone, MBA candidate, Harvard Business School
• Kesean Tyler, Senior Strategist, BCG Brighthouse
• Sephora Leon, MA Candidate, HEC Paris Business School
• Lilley Salmon, Associate, JP Morgan

Faculty

Students work with faculty at two of the top departments at Vanderbilt: Economics and History. The Economics faculty includes world-renowned scholars at the cutting edge of economics research. The History faculty is internationally recognized for their scholarship, and many of the departments faculty have received awards for outstanding achievement in the classroom. Professors in both departments are committed to teaching in ways that both challenge and interest undergraduates.