Research
LMU History students have a wide array of opportunities to undertake historical research – in their classes, as an independent study, for a History Thesis project, or through LMU's undergraduate research programs. Your professors and the LMU Library are the best first stops as you consider developing a research project. The AHA also has a list of useful resources for historical researchers.
Financial support for faculty-mentored undergraduate research is provided through the Independent Undergraduate Research Program and the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP).
History students are encouraged to present their research at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Presentation formats include paper presentations, panel/roundtable discussions, poster sessions, and creative works.
The BCLA Dean's Office also has funds to support undergraduate students' participation in academic conferences by helping to cover the costs of transportation and lodging for a conference or workshop. You can apply for funding here. Phi Alpha Theta, the national History Honors Society, runs several regional conferences. The AHA also sponsors an Undergraduate Poster Session at its annual meeting.
There are also a number of journals and blogs that publish undergraduate research, including:
- Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History
- Columbia Undergraduate Journal of History
- Georgetown Journal of History
- History Matters: An Undergraduate Journal of Historical Research
- Journal of Undergraduate International Studies
- Michigan Journal of History
- Penn History Review: Journal for Undergraduate Historians
- Vanderbilt Historical Review
- Yale Historical Review
You can find a more complete list of undergraduate journals at the Council on Undergraduate Research website.
For more about the benefits of undergraduate research, read "Research, Reflection, and the Road to Grad School" by Rhiannon Koehler, LMU 2012, who earned her Ph.D. in history from UCLA in 2018, on the blog Undergraduate Research in German and European Studies.
Internships
Los Angeles – with its multitude of museums, historical societies, historical sites, and archives and libraries – offers a variety of internship opportunities, both paid and unpaid. Featured internships include:
- Getty Foundation Multicultural Undergraduate Internships offer students substantive, full-time work opportunities to undergraduates, exposing them to potential careers in arts and cultural organizations. Positions are available at the Getty Center, the Getty Villa, and around 70 other organizations across L.A. (click here for a list of positions).
- The Wende Museum, a Culver City museum devoted to the preservation of Cold War artifacts and the history of communism in Eastern Europe, offers Collections Internships for enrolled undergraduate and graduate students, including part-time, unpaid, and for-academic-credit positions.
- The Simon Wiesenthal Center offers the Jack Voorzanger Archival Internship, which enables a student to gain hands-on experience with the SWC archival collections.
- The Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum offers unpaid and class credit internships, as well as service learning hours.
- Internship with Senator Dianne Feinstein
Please click here for a list of internships, volunteering, and part-time work opportunities with local organizations. Offices and organizations wishing to advertise internship and work opportunities with us should email us at historydepartment@lmu.edu.
History Work-Study Program: Be a History Teaching Assistant!
"The TAs" are the heart of the history department, forming a fun and friendly community of students. Any student with work-study dollars is eligible, but we especially encourage History majors and minors to apply. Teaching Assistants work on a variety of different tasks for faculty, including photocopying, scanning articles, returning books or audio-visual materials to the library, social media content, and running errands. Based on a rotation schedule, students are typically on duty for four to eight hours a week in the work study office.
Rains Research Assistants
Students interested in helping faculty members with their research are encouraged to contact a full-time faculty member in spring semester (for the following summer and/or academic year) to serve as their Rains research assistant. The maximum annual Rains award is $1750. More information here.