Hello,
I'm a history student, i've almost finished my second year (i'm french so I don't really know how does it work in other countries) but next year I will have to look for a master. I am thinking of taking a research one to then maybe continue into that field. But I have multiple apprehensions, one of them being: Which speciality would I pick ? There are a bunch of subjects or periods that interest me more than others, but i can't really imagine myself studying these for so long. For example I really like to learn about the period right after the first world war, but after a few months I feel like I'm already kinda "full" if i can put it like that. I know the work that historians do is completely different than how i personally learn, I'm mainly reading and taking notes, when historians do that but also investigate. But i don't feel like there are any subject as large or as specific as it can be that would suit me for a very long period of time, even one that would interest me long enough to write a thesis.
So i wanted to know how did you find the subject that you're currently working on ? Is it a subject you always knew you wanted to work on? Or is it something you found out about later? How long do you think you can study and work on one subject ?
Of course I know that I still have a lot of time before having to choose anything, and thanks to the french system I can easily try things, so I'm asking by curiosity more than by necessity.
I hope this post fits this sub, I'm sure I already saw someone posting a similar question but unfortunately i didn't find it back. And of course I'm not a native english speaker I hope I didn't butcher this language too much.
Thanks in advance
I think at the stage you are at, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
The first is there is usually some measure of serendipity or accident about how a scholar comes to be interested in a particular field. You start to study something and it grabs you somehow. You have a single experience of research and it draws you in. You read an interesting work of scholarship and the scholar discusses difficult or unresolved problems in that field and you find those compelling.
The second is that you get pulled into a particular field by a compelling teacher or by peers (which also often involves serendipity).
There are more practical considerations. Some fields of historical study absolutely require specific prior training in one or more languages unless there's a huge body of translated primary documents in your language (and even then, you'd need to learn the other language to go beyond undergraduate work). You can't take a strong interest in medieval European history if you're not interested in acquiring Latin.
Some fields of historical study are just plain difficult in technical terms. Some you either love for themselves or you develop an elaborate narrative about how they relate to contemporary concerns.
Sometimes you pick a field because you have privileged or immediate access to archives. If I were in school near Aix-au-Provence, choosing to focus on French imperialism between 1850 and 1970 would be irresistable just for that reason.
Sometimes you work backwards from something you're engaged by in the present. Interested in prison reform? The politics of immigration? The challenges of European integration? Changing ideas about gender? Trends in literature? Think about their histories.
Firstly, I recommend that you have an idea of what you'd like to do - even if that is broad (i.e. early modern, medieval, modern history) - before embarking on postgrad study and that there is something you'd be able to study for a year. Some history courses (at least in the UK) are period-specific, e.g. medieval history exclusively. This is not to say you have to be 100% locked into a thesis proposal for your masters but if by the end of your undergraduate degree you don't feel you can concentrate, or enjoy, a specific period of time, even, you may want to reconsider further study in history. Hopefully coming up with a thesis topic in your final year will help with this and you will find a period/place etc. that you like researching for an extended period of time.
As for my own research interests, I developed them in my second year of undergrad. My university had a 30 credit module designed as a "mini dissertation", so to speak, consisting of an extended historiography essay and an essay purely based on independent source analysis. I extended the topic of this project into my undergraduate thesis (which was allowed by the faculty) and I am now moving into postgrad study in this area of research. As for my own plans, I hope to do a PhD in this research area and - with some luck - go into academia professionally. So personally, I feel like this area of research is for me and I can't wait to spend more time researching it which is ideal...
I suggest trying to read a bit more widely in areas that interest you - or different areas of history, including time periods or places or events you may not have considered before. Something that was of help to me in finalising my thesis choice was finding a type of source I'd never encountered before and researching the answers to my own questions. If you have been allocated a supervisor for any projects yet, perhaps their area of specialty is also of some interest to you.
Alternatively, seeing as you mentioned a modern example (post-WWI), you could take a comparative, thematic approach to history and investigate notions of nationhood, war, identity, gender, class or other such ideas across time/geographic space seeing as the effects of WWI were international. There are many different types of history: economic, political, social, religious (and these are just large classifications) and I'm sure you can find something that interests you!
Best of luck!