Honors Reflection

The honors program also required us students to participate in community service and group activities. I did not mention this before but I was a very shy, quiet child which led to me not easily making friends later in life. I don’t think I spoke to anyone during the semester I spent at the university in Texas and probably only a few people the entire time at the community college. The honors program basically forces students to interact with each other and with the community and the group projects require everyone to take initiative and organize projects and events. I only joined the honors program to participate in its honors only study abroad program but gained so much from the experience that changed the course of my life. After organizing
I never imagined that I would like teaching simply because I am shy and have a difficult time talking in front of groups. In my first semester of graduate school, I did grade an undergraduate course which taught me that there is value in understanding how students process information. Grading assignments for over fifty students opened my eyes to the wealth of variety in learning. I did not previously understand that so many students can take the same information but produce vastly different papers. The same principle applies in all areas of life but, most importantly for me, in public history. For a public historian, it is important to make your papers, exhibits, and projects accessible for the widest audience possible. I took my newfound knowledge from course grading with me into my next classes and assignments with the understanding that my audience will be just as varied as the students in the course I
While reading and writing papers is beneficial it is much easier for me to grasp a concept through projects. In the two semesters I have been in graduate school, I have completed mock exhibits, grant applications, collections management policies, and social media marketing plans. I have also been interning in an archive learning about collection processing, preservation, and grant applications. These assignments forced me to explore financial documents, preservation guides, exhibits guides, and business management tools. Through courses and internships I have learned more through hands-on work than I could ever have in a classroom