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Yael Yimam, BA Communication Science and Media Research (Major) and History (Minor)
The wide thematic range of history courses allows me—studying history as minor—to schedule my course plan according to my own interests and the contents of my major programme. The classes in small groups generate a warm environment and facilitate contact with fellow students.
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Jonathan Pärli, Assistant Modern History, University of Basel
My studies not only took place in auditoriums and seminar rooms, but also within the open spaces historical studies create. These spaces allow you to autonomously contemplate—alone or with others—questions that are relevant to you. The city of Zurich with its numerous cultural and political clubs, cafés, archives, and libraries is the perfect place to do so. Acquire historical thinking and form bands who read and take action!
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Chiara Jehle, BA History (Major) und German Literature and Linguistics (Minor)
Apart from the wide range of courses, I like the personal atmosphere. Thanks to the small seminar groups I could already establish many valuable contacts with other students.
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Dominik Dürst, Academic Archivist at docuteam
During my studies, I not only acquired historical knowledge, but I also learned how to work independently and solution-focused. I benefit from both in my work as an archivist. But studying history also shaped me personally: To ask deep questions and consider them from multiple angles as well to recognize how different yet also similar people lived in different places, makes social and political issues more accessible to me. Thus, my studies strengthened my curiosity about the world and enriches my live consistently.
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Nina Kunz, author at «Das Magazin»
The greatest thing about studying history was contemplating. During my time at the Department of History, I learned how to juggle different and contradicting thoughts. And the best thing about it: This precise way of thinking is not an overly intellectual fiddle. I need this tool every day in my job as an author in order to permeate subjects and reflect upon myself.
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Louis Widmer, MA History (Major) and Philosophy (Minor)
Within the course of studying history you come to the understanding that everything is inevitably more complicated than it seems. On this productive condition of self-inflicted uncertainty rests the historian’s craft which can be acquired rather comfortably in Zurich’s various archives, cafés, and libraries: to search specific information, to systematize and scrutinize in order to understand complex connections and expose them with all subtleties and thus uncover the historical traces of today’s matter of course.
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Drita Morina, MA History (Major) and Philosophy (Minor)
As a person with migrant background, I always dwelled on the question what has made me the person I am now. In the course of my historical studies I look into many different historical subjects. I acquire knowledge about the past which then allows me to better understand the present, myself, and others. And each semester, I get the chance to engage in new exiting topics together with committed teachers, to discuss and research, to contemplate and progress.
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Yael Kälin, MA History (Major) and Gender Studies (Minor)
The wide range of courses at the Department of History prompts you to find your own stand in the world of historical studies and beyond. Particularly exciting is a visit to the archives: When I did some research for a seminar paper, a source in the City Archives of Zurich lead me to the archives of the Federal Tribunal in Lausanne. To scour files safely kept in archive boxes, and, based on these findings, to reconstruct events and stories is an investigative challenge that can be addictive.
