In the fall of 2018, the Department of History suspended its terminal master’s (A.M.) degree program. The History A.M. program is still offered for three different kinds of programs internal to Brown: 1) Participants in the Open Graduate Education program, coming from outside of the Department; 2) Participants in the Fifth Year Master’s Degree Program; 3) Participants in the Concurrent Master’s Program. Application to these three A.M. degree programs is done through the Graduate School and/or the School of Professional Studies. Admission into the program is at the discretion of the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) and the Graduate Committee in conjunction with the Department Chair and potential faculty advisors. 

The A.M. program is designed to be intellectually rigorous yet also flexible enough to permit students to adapt it to a variety of professional contexts and goals. The intellectual rigor is achieved through advanced undergraduate seminars (1000 level) and Ph.D. seminars (2000 level). The flexibility is achieved through a choice of one of two tracks: 

• The Professional Track incorporates two “skills” courses (for example, in writing, language, computer science, design, or public history) that will help students meet individual professional goals. 
• The Academic Track is designed to prepare students to continue work at the Ph.D. level. It replaces one of the “skills” courses with a research credit in the spring for which the student will produce an article-length research paper. In choosing the other “skills” course, a student on this track might select a language course or another Ph.D. seminar, as appropriate. 

The A.M. degree program requires eight courses to graduate. Fifth Year and Concurrent Master’s A.M. students may apply up to two undergraduate courses toward this curriculum (for Fifth Year students, these two courses are usually ones they have taken previously). Open Graduate Education students may “double count” up to two courses from other degree programs (such as their Ph.D. program from their home department). A.M. students may take the Ph.D. Colloquium each fall by special petition to the DGS. 

The Fifth Year A.M. is designed to be completed in one year. Open Graduate Education A.M. and Concurrent A.M. degrees can be pursued more gradually. Each student will plan an individual curriculum in consultation with the DGS and an assigned faculty advisor. Students are advised to take seminars with a variety of faculty members.  All courses must be completed with grades of B or better for the students to receive graduate credit. There is no language requirement for the A.M. degree, and therefore no funding for language study.. 

Master’s students are eligible to use the Open Fund one time during their program; they are also able to apply for conference travel funds from the Graduate School. 

Any questions about the fifth year masters program should be directed to the School of Professional Studies. You can visit their website here.