Distance Education
MSU History
A Variety of Opportunities Via Distance Learning.
The BA in History Degree
History is the study of the lived human experience, as told to us in papyrus scrolls, slave ship manifests, literature, monuments and family photo albums. By studying history online at Mississippi State University, you'll gain the perspective that comes with seeing the world from a different point of view. There's a saying: “The past is a foreign country.” Visiting the past through our courses will leave you fluent in its many languages and better equipped to understand the workings of the world today.
Program highlights:
Completely online - no campus visits required
Flexible - not a set program of study
Same faculty as main campus history courses
Hone research, writing and analytical thinking skills
What are some potential careers?
What can you do with an undergraduate history degree? Anything! Graduates from our major enjoy a wide variety of career opportunities. Of course, it's a great start for a teaching career* in history or social studies, and it's the perfect option if you’re looking to work in library and archival fields, public history or museums and historical preservation. You may want to follow many of our former students into graduate programs in history, education, library science or archival studies. We also have graduates who are entrepreneurs, who have worked in federal law enforcement or have become physicians.
*The BA in History does not offer courses to prepare classroom teachers. Visit with your advisor to explore additional options if you want to pursue a career in education.
Who should pursue this degree?
If you’re someone who’s interested in teaching history or social studies or working in a library or archival fields, our online history degree will prepare you.
Bachelor of Applied Science With a History Emphasis
Looking for a condensed, accelerated pathway to earn a bachelor’s degree? Our Bachelor of Applied Science can help, whether you’re a community college student considering your next step or a working professional looking to move to the next rung on the career ladder. Once you complete your Applied Associate degree through an accredited community college, you may transfer up to 60 hours of community college coursework to MSU (15 hours of general education core and 45 hours of technical credit).
Program highlights:
You can transfer up to 45 hours of technical credit from an A.A.S. degree.
We partner with the U.S. Air Force’s Air University Associate-to-Baccalaureate Cooperative program.
Take 30 hours of upper-level emphasis classes through MSU online in History and two other of the following fields:
Communication, Criminology, Cybersecurity, Educational Psychology, General Business, General Technology, Geosciences, Health Promotion, Kinesiology, Manufacturing Fundamentals, Operations Management Engineering, Psychology, Veterans' Certificate, Social Work and Sociology
Who should pursue this degree?
The B.A.S. degree was created as a pathway for students who have completed an associate degree in Applied Science. It will allow you to utilize the most previously earned technical credit toward a bachelor’s degree.
Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies
Some students have jobs, families, or other reasons that prevent them from completing a four-year degree on a university campus. With the Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies (BSIS) degree program, you can earn the final years of your degree at Mississippi State University completely online.
How does it work? It's simple!
Complete your freshman and/or sophomore year requirements through MSU online, at an accredited community college, or at any other accredited four-year institution. Students may transfer up to 61 hours of community college course work to MSU.
What's next?
Take 36 hours of MSU upper-level emphasis classes through online education from two or three of the following fields:
Animal and Dairy Sciences
Communication
Criminology
Educational Psychology
General Business
General Technology
Geosciences
Health Promotion
History
Kinesiology
Manufacturing Fundamentals
Psychology
Social Work
Sociology
Veterans’ Certificate
You will finish your 122-hour degree with electives. Everything is ONLINE!
Graduate Diversity Certificate Program
In today’s business environment, managers constantly encounter persons of diverse backgrounds. Misunderstandings, structural and unintended bias, and discrimination hamper business professionals from achieving corporate and personal goals. Success in the workplace often depends on possessing the multicultural knowledge and skills necessary to navigate among these distinctive traditions and perspectives. Providing this knowledge is the objective of this Diversity Certificate Program.
At the heart of this post-baccalaureate program is the demand that students learn and think critically about race, race relations, ethnicity, social class and inequality, religion, and gender. This requirement will produce employees who have the necessary sensitivity and understanding to accept important leadership challenges and to advance themselves and their workplace.
Its methods are straightforward. Each student seeking a certificate must take at least one of two courses from each of four distinct fields: History, Sociology, Gender Studies and African American Studies. While we would welcome students to take more than the minimum number of courses, it is our professional judgment that an intense immersion in one course from each of these areas will enhance understanding sufficient for business persons to achieve objectives most sensibly and expeditiously.
The choice of these four fields is deliberate and precise. History will enable students to learn the various forces, activities and trends that led to the world of the present day; history grants perspective. Sociology will explore and explain the interactions among and between diverse peoples in the present day; it explores social dynamics. Both African American and Gender Studies offer a more multivariate approach. Borrowing from a number of disciplines and specialties, they offer an interdisciplinary, multicultural perspective, revealing numerous, tangible intersections among institutional sexism and racism, power relationships, economic allocation and self and group actualization.
Together, these four fields create a tightly woven package that will make a true difference both in the students who take the courses and the workplaces in which they operate. Each of the courses has a similar approach. It uses classic writings, great thinkers and pertinent events as well as analysis and understanding of those whose voices in social settings remain obscured. Each utilizes the most recent information and insight to fashion an acute demonstration of how multicultural knowledge and understanding is essential to successful functioning in all aspects of the modern world.
For further information, please see the graduate school.
History Courses offered online
Every semester, Hi 1063 and Hi 1073—the two halves of the United State Survey—and Hi 1213 and Hi 1223—the first and second halves of the Western Civilization sequence—are offered.
At least once a year history offers online:
- HI 3333- Mississippi History
- HI 3903- History and Historiocal Methodology
- HI 4193- U. S. Environmental History
- HI 4273- Women in American History
- HI 4303- The Old South
- HI 4313- The New South
- HI 4363- African American History & Culture
- Hi 4533- History of the Cold War
- HI 4653- History of Science & Technology
- HI 4683- Europe: World War I to Hitler
- On a less regular basis we offer HI 4133-History of the Civil War and HI 4263- America's Vietnam War
- We teach HI 8783-Issues in African American History and HI 8773-Issues in Women's History as is necessary