Hello, welcome to Fairleigh Dickinson University. My name is Gary Darden. I'm an Associate Professor of History and Chair of the Department of Social Sciences in History. We have eight faculty on the Metro campus and 12 faculty on the Florham campus. One thing I take great pride in is nearly half of the faculty in our department have won the highest university awards for teaching, scholarship and leadership, and that reflects well in the classroom. The Department of Social Sciences in History offers a variety of undergraduate degree programs on both campuses. At the Florham campus, we offer a history degree, government politics, as well as sociology, a minor in each of them, but we also offer a minor in geography and anthropology. At the Metro campus, we offer a government politics degree, as well as a minor in history, and government. For those students that want to be future teachers, both campuses participate in the 4 Plus 1 program with the School of Education, where in five years, you will have earned your baccalaureate degree as well as a Master's in teaching and your certificate in education for the state of New Jersey. You can do this in a history degree at Florham, But you can also do a Social Studies degree at both campuses.
For students that choose the Florham campus were housed on an historic Gilded Age Estate that once belonged to the Vanderbilt-Trombley family from the 1890s. It's one of the largest houses ever built in the United States. And this estate provides a unique hub for residential experience for students in the arts and sciences and in business. The Metro campus is called that for a reason. It sits within close proximity to New York City and all of its assets. We have a unique tie with the United Nations, which involves ambassadors and leaders in the United Nations interacting with our faculty and our students. We take great pride in that.
I would say in terms of experiential learning the absolute number one thing you could do is do study abroad. And this could be a full semester or it could be short term over winter break and summer break. Since 1965, FDU has run Wroxton College in rural Oxfordshire, about an hour and a half outside of London. It is a 17th century Jacobean manor house in which students get to study with British faculty and visit British sights. If you're a government major, you go to Parliament. If you're a history major, you're going to go to various history museums around southern England. It's an incredible experience. I've been delighted to teach students over there every other summer, World War One and World War Two. We also have other opportunities in Chengdu, China and Bergamo, Italy. Pretty much anywhere you want to go in the world, the Study Abroad Office can find a way for you to go over there. And certainly every major in our department has opportunities to study abroad.
I think one of the biggest questions asked by parents and students is how does my degree prepare me for a job when I get out? I think one of the best things you can do would be an internship. A great example would be our Legal Studies Program, which is tied to the government politics major in which we interact with various law firms. We have Lunch in Law Days, students can intern at law firms. But also we have students that intern with history museums, students to intern in New York City with the likes of ESPN, or an ad firm. So working with your major department and the Career Studies Office, we try to make sure come junior senior year that we can begin to let you earn college credits. While you actually work with experts in the field.
We can't wait to meet you but we're also here to help you out when you arrive, you're going to have classes with full time faculty for the first year, not just adjuncts. If you ever need anyone, someone's in the office on both campuses five days a week. For more information you can go to our department's website at fdu.edu, The Department of Social Sciences in History at Becton College of Arts and Sciences. I'd be delighted to help you as would Chris Rasmussen, the Deputy Chair at Metro and Abigail Bellcastro who is our admin assistant. You can visit campus, you can tour either Metro or Florham. Better yet we can have you meet with the faculty either in person or on Zoom. And my best advice to you is to come to campus and actually attend a class.
