What in the world do you do with a history degree?

Chris Storey '06, '09 looks at life after receiving his master's degree in history as a smorgasbord of opportunities. The Dallas, TX native began college for 2 1/2 years in bustling Atlanta, but found life in sprawling capital city a challenge. Looking for a smaller town in which to complete school, he chose Savannah and Armstrong Atlantic State University.

While attending AASU, he took history, philosophy, and German and exercised two opportunities to study abroad. Inasmuch as his interests were in Eastern European studies, he made a month-long AASU-sponsored trip to Tallinn, Estonia where he took classes on the transition from Soviet government, the European Union, and Estonian history. On the same trip he had the opportunity to travel to Finland and Russia.

Traveling on his own, Chris returned to Estonia in the spring of 2008 for a full semester at Tartu University. There, he became involved with the international student body for which classes were taught in English. “I had flat mates from Belgium and Germany,” he recalled. In addition, he mixed with other students from Turkey, Poland, China, and many other countries. He was pleased to find that his courses in the Russian language and twentieth century Baltic history were all transferable into his master’s program at AASU.

Chris has been able to tailor his master’s to emphasize East European and Russian history.

With graduation fast approaching, Chris says, “With a history degree, I have a lot of options to look at.” These include going for a Ph.D. in European history at an American or European university, teaching in an American high school, or perhaps entering the Peace Corps or Foreign Service where he could sharpen his German and Russian language skills.