Best Practices

Responding to the increasing need for trained public history professionals, many academic university departments created graduate certificate programs in public history. Certificate programs are often a part of advanced degree programs, usually out of a history department. In many cases, students can opt to pursue just the certificate or the entire master’s degree associated with the certificate. The programs run the gamut from broadly-based general certificates in public or applied history, where students take a variety of courses in the field, to certificate programs that are focused on specialized topics within the field of public history, such as historic preservation or museum studies.