• Your one stop for college news and resources!
Which Colleges are Best for History?

Which Colleges are Best for History?

If you want to study everything us human have done in the past, individually and collectively, then make sure you go through this article as we look at the concept of the subject as well as list which colleges are the best for history.

What is History?

A basic definition of the subject is that it is study of events and happenings of the past. Many who are keen on researching specific events will attempt to acquire evidence to get a better understanding to why people done what they did at that time. The subject is great at unveiling different cultures, societies and beliefs from many different nations across the world leaving us with a clearer idea on how they have been shaped into the country they are in the present world. This makes it one of the most interesting subjects to delve into.

Jobs

Job prospects after completing a History major includes roles in politics, journalism, academia, law and business.

Ranked

Listed below are 10 of the best U.S. colleges to study History according to the QS World University Rankings 2021.

1: Harvard University

  • History is one of the most prestigious departments at Harvard and has always remained as one of the premier institutions for the subject across the world. They have 50 faculty members with an extensive variety of specialties ranging from ‘Power and Civilization: China’ to ‘The History of Energy’. For more information about their history department, click here.

2: Yale University

  • The history department at Yale has existed since 1919 and since then has been a distinguished department. The department’s faculty is known for being of the most illustrious in the world researching and teaching histories from various parts of the world. For more information about their history department, click here.

3: Columbia University

  • Similar to Harvard and Yale, the history department at Columbia is also one of the leader centers of historical scholarship. From courses ranging from ‘Immigrant New York’ to Failed Empire: Sweden in the Early Modern World’ the department offers everything. In their own words, their program “offers a broad education in most areas of historical scholarship and attempts to train students for a discipline and a profession in the midst of considerable change”. For more information about their history department, click here.

4: Stanford University

  • The history department at Stanford is known for its world-renowned faculty and its variety of courses it offers. Numerous members of the faculty release books each year which receive various awards and fellowships therefore increasing the esteemed nature of the institutions. For more information about their history department, click here.

5: University of California – Berkeley

  • The History department at Berkeley have a proud heritage on their engagement with Asian history. The department have a put together very interesting and ambitious programs regarding the study of Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia, as well as compiling course relating to modern and ancient history. For more information of their history department, click here.

6: Princeton University

  • The history department at Princeton also provide a wide range of course but provide real strength in pre-modern European history. Reputation of the institutions has grown due to expertise in the history of the US, East/South/Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Near East and the History of Science. For more information about their history department, click here.

7: University of California – Los Angeles

  • UCLA provides students with a world-renowned faculty, composed with prize-winning scholars and teachers in addition to the department providing a wide array of periods and geographics contexts. For more information about their history department, click here.

8: University of Chicago

  • The University of Chicago history department boast twenty winners of the Quantrell Prize, the institutions’ highest honor of teaching. For more information about their history, click here.

9: University of Michigan

  • Despite the University of Michigan not being known as one of the most prestigious institutions around, it can certainly be proud of its top-quality history department. They department embraces the diversity of the past along with its innovative research and teaching. For more information about their history department, click here.

10: Cornell University

  • Cornell University’s department of History “thrives on its close relationship with many other departments, centers and area studies programs in the humanities and social sciences at Cornell”. For more information about their history department, click here.

History is a subject where you can provide your own conclusions from the various patterns in human history you manage to identify. From Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang and Julius Caesar, history is one of the widest-ranging subjects of them all.

SEE ALSO: Which Colleges are Best for Business Studies?

We Need to Talk About Zac Efron’s Ted Bundy Movie

We Need to Talk About Zac Efron’s Ted Bundy Movie

If you haven’t already heard, Zac Efron is starring in a new and highly-anticipated Ted Bundy biopic called Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

For us true crime fanatics and OG High School Musical fans, this sounds unmissable, right? Well, that’s up for debate.

The movie is directed by Joe Berlinger, whose documentary series Conversations With A Killer: The Bundy Tapes recently fascinated and disturbed Netflix viewers. Having premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this month, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile received mixed reviews, and those on Twitter are finding it much more difficult to agree about how Thursday’s trailer makes them feel.

With the film arriving in theatres later this year, here’s everything you need to know.

Ted Bundy who?

Ted Bundy is one of the country’s most infamous criminals—a serial killer who murdered, raped and assaulted numerous young women and girls as young as 12 in the 1970s. He was a necrophile, a kidnapper and confessed to 30 homicides after more than a decade of denials. His crimes took place on a huge scale and went unsolved for a long time, supposedly because Bundy was charismatic, educated and a genuinely liked member of society. He was executed for his crimes in 1989 after receiving three death sentences.

What’s the movie about?

In Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, Zac Efron plays Ted Bundy as told from the perspective of his long-term girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer. Played in the movie by British actress Lily Collins, Kloepfer used the pseudonym Liz Kendall to publish her memoirs, and this is the name used in the film. The movie follows Kloepfer’s seven-year relationship with the killer, instead of detailing the horrific acts of violence he committed.

Other casting choices include The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons, who portrays prosecutor Larry Simpson, and John Malkovich, who appears as judge Edward Cowart. Cowart famously called Bundy a “bright young man” and was known for being sympathetic towards the killer in court.

Kaya Scodelario, Haley Joel Osment and James Hetfield also appear in the movie. 

What’s being said?

Dramatizing real life events invites discussion about ethics, and in this case, some of Bundy’s victims and relatives are still living, making the conversation more significant.

While critics have commended Efron’s performance, many have been left unsettled by the movie’s general “glorification” and humanization of the serial killer and rapist.

A key issue here is the casting of Efron in the first place, with the argument being that it seems disturbing to associate a murderer of young women with a teenage heartthrob whose fans are mostly made up of young women themselves. On the other hand, in all references to Bundy at the time of his crimes, he is described as “charming”, “normal”, “attractive” or similar, and these traits undoubtedly played a part in making him an infamous monster.

In their review, The Playlist noted how the movie “can’t resist making Bundy look like a little bit of a rock star at times even though the movie purports to condemn him.”

This opinion has circulated in more ways than one, with many finding it hard to miss the upbeat “rock music” that appears in the trailer for the movie.

Fifth Harmony singer Lauren Jauregui shared the clip on Twitter, adding: “The romanticization of a serial killer is exactly why these sick f**** continue to do things like this to women. Notoriety. This is appalling.”

Many who caught the premiere of the movie at the Sundance Film Festival—for example, this writer from Cosmo—have promised that the trailer was not representative of the entire screening. “Never is there any doubt Bundy did what he was accused of.”

Amid the debate, is the voice of Kathy Kleiner Rubin, who survived an attack from Bundy in her sorority house at Florida State University in 1978.

Speaking with TMZ, she said: “I don’t have a problem with people looking at it, and as long as they understand that what they’re watching wasn’t a normal person. 

“I believe that in order to show him exactly the way he was, it’s not really glorifying him, but it’s showing him, and when they do say positive and wonderful things about him… that’s what they saw, that’s what Bundy wanted you to see.

“I think everyone should see it,” she concluded.

Serial killer’s are not hot

Perhaps proving that there is cause to worry is the vast number of people “swooning” over Bundy on social media.

Following Berlinger’s, Conversations With A Killer: The Bundy Tapes, viewers have been describing the murderer as “hot”, “attractive” and “a waste of a baby daddy”.

Netflix has had to step in to address the issue, tweeting: “I’ve seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service—almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers.” 

The comment comes after former Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley spoke out on a similar issue surrounding his new fictional Netflix show You, in which a serial killer uses social media to stalk and manipulate a young woman.

Badgley has replied to various tweets that express admiration and attraction for the character.

Further reading: Are Thrift Stores Really Getting More Donations Because of Marie Kondo?