2020 Undergraduate Commencement: Special Events Archive: News + Events: Department of History: Indiana University Bloomington

Maria Alamo: My name is Maria Alamo, I was born and raised in Hobart, IN or better known as The Region. I’m proud to say that I’m a first-generation college student. I’m the oldest of 6 kids. I majored in history because I love it! I always knew I wanted to study history even when I was little. Studying history has really taught me to never be complacent. In the future I want to attend law school to study immigration law. I want to make a difference in my community.

Sarah Ayer: I am from Nashville, TN. I have always been interested in History! The first book I checked out from the library when I was 7 was on Children and the Great Depression. But my desire to study history was cemented on my 12th birthday. I was taken to an exhibit at a local museum and the experience was so extraordinary that I remember thinking that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. For my HIST-J400 course, we were exploring diaries as a primary source and I stumbled upon the most fascinating account of a British nurse during the Second World War. Her relatability and unique perspective made the diary one of the most amazing source I have ever come across. My four years as a history major have been some of the best of my life! The professors I have had an opportunity to meet, have been so inspiring and helpful and for that I will be forever grateful!

Alejandro Barrett López: I am a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and of Mexico. Though I was born in England, I consider myself equally Mexican and English. My interest in history has always been quite flighty. I knew I wanted to study something historical from quite a young age. My first real historical infatuation with the Borgias, particularly Cesare and Rodrigo Borgia. I desperately wanted, and to a degree still want, to write an unreasonably Gibbonesque multi-volume history of the Papacy. If there could be a ‘genre’ of primary source, my favourite would undoubtedly be letters. When I studied Latin in school, my teacher was very fond of using Cicero’s letters for exercises – and I always found them so sardonic and witty. When I was conducting research at the National Archives in London, I was able to read a lot of Lord Palmerston and Lord Salisbury’s unpublished letters – and it’s almost always an endearing exercise. You learn the inside-jokes they have, their worries, and you just become closer to them as a person. I read three volumes of Sir James Brooke’s letters for my thesis, and I was routinely simply referring to Brooke by his first name – he’d become so familiar to me. So much so that, when I had the opportunity to visit his grave in Devon, I found it quite an emotional experience.

Tsolmon Batgerel: I was born in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, but grew up here in Bloomington, Indiana. I entered Indiana University as a Secondary Social Studies Education major, but officially changed my major to History at the end of my sophomore year. I chose Social Studies Education because I loved history and wanted to teach, but then realized that I was more passionate about researching than teaching. Declaring my History major was the best decision of my undergraduate career. I have taken many courses that I greatly enjoyed, and I have learned so much from all of my History professors. If I had to pick a favorite course, I would pick East European History taught by Professor Padraic Kenney. This course required close work with different types of primary sources and pushed me to learn how to interact with different mediums. I would have never become comfortable with accessing microform if not for this class!

Mark Birmingham: I am from Riverside, Illinois, a tiny suburb about 10 miles west of Chicago, where our motto is "More Trees Than People." I think Riverside itself helped inspire my love of history because I was surrounded by it every day. The house I live in today was built in the 1880s, just a few years after the town itself was officially established by Frederick Law Olmstead in 1875. Our town is filled to the brim with history, from the train station that was hit by a freight train once in the early 1900s, to our swinging bridge built just before World War II, to our massive water tower that has stood over the town for more than a century. Each day I spend within the neighborhood, I seem to learn something new about its people, its places, and its history. I am a very recent entrant to the history major: I only switched to it in my senior year, although I had experience with IU's excellent historical classes as electives during my first three years as an undergraduate. The summer before I came back to campus for my last year, I knew I wasn't in the right major, and also knew that I would enjoy studying history full time. My advisor and the whole History department made it easy to make the switch despite a serious time crunch, and I'm especially thankful for their diligent and thoughtful approach towards one of the most difficult times of my undergraduate experience. I can confidently say that I made the right decision back then, and I'm proud to represent the program in the future. It's very difficult to pick a favorite class or project; there were so many great ones! I loved working on my final class's paper, written on the effects that drugs and alcohol had the railroad industry; it allowed me to hone in on a personal interest of mine that I never really had the chance to write about in other classes. For favorite courses, I loved the courses I took with Professor Ed Linenthal. His courses really made me consider history in a context I had never imagined before, and he opened my eyes on how to apply empathy, sympathy, and logic to topics that turned the conventional way of looking at them on their heads.

Zachary Brown: I am from Fishers, IN. I began college as a biochemistry major, but quickly concluded that that was not my passion after a single semester. Upon this realization, I temporarily declared history as my major. I figured that I had loved history growing up and that it would be fun to study while I figured out what I actually wanted to study. However, after taking several history classes at IU and realizing that history would actually be an immensely useful and practical major for my career as an Army officer, I decided to stick with it. I have not once regretted this decision. While I have enjoyed many history classes at IU, my favorite would have to be Early Medieval Western European History with Dr. Deliyannis. Though considerably far removed from my primary area of interest, modern military history, the class was terribly interesting and completely reshaped my perception of the Early Medieval period. Additionally, the challenging paper assignments, as dreadful at the time, drastically improved both my writing and historical analysis abilities.

Megan Chapman: My name is Megan Chapman. I am from Carmel, Indiana and I am the first person in my family to graduate from college. There were always signs that I would major in History, even as a child. I have always loved historical fiction, biographies, and biopics. Throughout primary and secondary school, I fell more in love with History with each class that I took. As a History student at IU, my favorite primary source was the journal of Gareth Jones, the Welsh journalist who exposed Stalin’s famine-genocide in Ukraine and was later murdered by the NKVD as a result. My favorite class I took was History of Genocide with Professor Roseman. Since I studied both International Law and History at IU, his class covered both of my passions: genocide history and international human rights law. I love each and every paper that I have ever worked on, but my two favorites are “Fake News: Gareth Jones, Walter Duranty, and Discrepancies in Reporting the Holodomor”, written for Professor Roseman’s genocide class, and “Calls for Extermination: The History and Difficulties Surrounding the Crime of Incitement to Commit Genocide from 1946-Present”, written for my History Capstone Seminar. I favor and am most proud of these two papers not only because they cover two niche areas of history, but also because I had the most fun writing them.

Margarita Chavez: I’m from New Albany, Indiana but would often travel to Michoacán, Mexico to spend time with family there. I decided to major in History because it was always a subject that I found interesting in grade school, I figured I would be happy in it because I enjoyed learning about why things happened and the response to issues. It was really nice to see how people overcame obstacles they faced and were agents of change in their respective eras and I wanted to continue to learn about more people and cases where this happened. I think my favorite class I have taken was the Modern Mexico course I took with some of my friends. I was able to really connect with the content in the course and it made me feel like I was learning about a new side of my culture I had not thought about before.

Gretchen Creekbaum: I grew up in the country outside of Terre Haute, IN. I come from a small family and I am the youngest of three siblings. I am really close with my family and they have always supported me in all of my various projects over the course of my undergraduate career. I am grateful for the love and support of my family and friends. I have always had an interest in history since I was young. I developed a passion for going to museums as a child and loved learning about the past. I majored in history so I could learn all I could about the past and share this passion and knowledge with others. In the summer of 2019, I had the opportunity to travel around the world and gain experience with three educational technology projects. First, I traveled to the Museum of London to user test a web app I designed and created for them. Second, I traveled to Rome and worked for a VR company called Rome Reborn. I designed and created interactive experiences for their users to learn about Roman Architecture. Finally, I traveled to New York to help the IU Egyptology department digitizes the Brooklyn Museum's Egyptian collection. I am extremely grateful for the amazing experiences I was able to have last summer. I was scared to travel alone and network with people, but I did it and came out of the summer a new person. I developed a deep passion for my work and I'm excited to continue working with educational technology after graduating.

Emma Getz: I am from Fishers, Indiana, and I am the daughter of two elementary school teachers. I have loved studying history ever since I had a wonderful APUSH teacher in high school who instilled this particular passion in me. I have loved all of my history classes, though my personal favorite was Cities on the Edge of War with Eric Robinson--it was a unique, engaging experience that I wouldn't have been able to find anywhere else. Over the past four years, I have had the privilege to study more eras of history than I ever thought possible, with all kinds of different faculty that brought their intelligence and passion to the classroom every day. I will cherish that opportunity forever.

Katie Gillen: I am from Rockville Centre, NY which a great place to be from because it’s so close to the city and the beach. I’m the oldest of four. This year I was lucky enough to study abroad in Dublin! I have always been interest in history, winning distinguished awards at both my middle school and high school. When I first came to Indiana, I minored in History, but changed my major after taking World War II: The Peoples with Professor Linenthal my freshman year. In my H270 course, I created a proposal for the difference in memory and experience of the 900 day Siege of Leningrad from 1941-1944. One of the most daunting parts of that project was reading The War Within: Diaries from the Siege of Leningrad by Alexis Peri. The book analysed diary entries and reading about this experience absolutely broke me, in the best way possible. There were so many history classes that I was lucky enough to enjoy at IU, thanks to the amazing history staff. My biggest recommendation to any future history students is to take courses that are outside of your comfort zone. IU has such an amazing array of different areas of history that there is no excuse to restrict yourself to one region or time period. Many of my favorite classes were the ones that I had no background in!

Mara Gordon: I am from Buffalo, New York but I moved to Fishers, Indiana when I was younger. I had always loved museums and books growing up so majoring in History just felt like a perfect fit for my interests. My favorite classes of my senior year was my HIST-W300 Working in Archives and ANTH-P407 Archaeological Curation because they both were intrinsically tied to cultural institutions like museums and libraries and I went on many tours and saw lots of amazing objects and collections on the IU Bloomington campus.

Walter Guardino: Bloomington is my hometown. I was born here, and I’ve lived here nearly all my life, except for a year I lived in Mexico. Bloomington’s status as a relatively international city had great effects on my childhood that are too complex to summarize here. Unlike most people, I didn’t end moving away from my hometown in order to go to college. Of course, once I went to IU, I ended up majoring in history. The short of how I came to do so is that I liked studying history, and I was good at it. There’s more to this story, but it’s not a very interesting one, so I’ll hold my tongue. The most interesting sources I’ve studied are 19th century American newspapers. The striking thing about them is the sheer variety of things they would print, from all sorts of different sources, as they struggled to fill their pages. These newspapers are very clearly products of a very literate print culture full of many controversies.

Noble Guyon: I am from Louisville, Kentucky. I grew up on a small piece of land outside of Louisville for most of my life with several dogs and lots of woods to romp in. History is one of the few subjects I never failed to struggle with or have a lack of motivation in. I didn’t declare as a major until my last year when I realized that I had taken enough classes to qualify as I normally took a history class each semester for fun. In addition to this I am a photojournalist and I am of the camp that one needs to know history and the history of people if one wants to report and tell stories in the present. "Study people, not photography." You can learn the technical side easily enough, but you have to know people if you want to make meaningful pictures. Robert Frank’s photo-book The Americans published in 1958. It’s one of the most important bodies of work in the history of photography and art. I was able to work it into my capstone research project where I analyzed and studied photographers and photos from the 1940s-60s to argue and support that this period was a golden age of documentary photography in the United States. This was my favorite project during my time as a student at IU due to me being able to combine history and photography to research an important, and meaningful topic. (At least to me).

Jack Imbur: I was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, but also spent much of my childhood in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I chose to pursue a History BA after several positive experiences with my history teachers throughout high school. I initially wanted to follow in their footsteps; despite my plans changing a bit, I'm still very grateful they led me down this path. The most intriguing primary sources I came across in my academic career were issues of the Black Panther party magazine from the 1960s-1980s while researching for Professor Jakobi Williams' "History of the Black Panther Party". The combination of art and prose within gave me a brand new perspective on one of the most important political organizations in US history. My favorite course was Fei-Hsien Wang's "Modern China". Not only was the topic one I had been eager to learn about for some time, but Professor Wang's engaging pedagogy allowed for an exciting class every session. The project I am most proud of is my paper on the varying memorialization of Northern Ireland's Troubles throughout the British Isles, written for Jonathan Schlesinger's J400 class last Spring. It was my first effort at a longer, more professional research paper and made me feel very accomplished given the surprising amount of original research I produced.

Eleftheria Ioannides: Hello! My name is Eleftheria Ioannides or Ellie for short! I am a native Hoosier from Crown Point, Indiana and a fun fact about me is that I am an only child! I began studying History at IU during the spring semester of my freshman year, after I realized that my current major at the time was not the one I wanted to continue to pursue. I have always loved history and it is a subject that has challenged me in so many ways throughout my four years here! I have learned about a variety of interesting subjects and have had the opportunity to have worked with several wonderful professors. Being a history major has also provided me with critical research, analytical, and writing skills that are necessary in any career field!

Wesley Knott: I am from Indianapolis, Indiana. I majored in history because it had always been my favorite subject in school growing up. I was originally in another major with a minor in history but decided to follow my passion and switch to studying history full-time and I do not regret it. My favorite primary source is a letter set written by two brothers during World War II, one being a conscientious objector and the other being a soldier deployed overseas. It was a fascinating read that chronicles how different one perceives the war based on their inner beliefs. My favorite class was A379 "The Bomb in American Life" with Ed Linenthal. The class revealed so much about American society and culture in the nuclear age and the horrors that so many had to live through. My favorite paper was for my class on the history of the Holocaust which detailed "Operation Paperclip," the U.S. government program that brought Nazi scientists to America after the war. It is a fascinating portion of history to me and opened my eyes to the morals of the government in the Cold War.

Kayden Mathers: I grew up in Eminence, Indiana, an incredibly small town. I've always been obsessed with history and figuring out how things came to be. I think that is what ultimately drove me to study history, to better understand today's world through looking at the past. The project I had the most fun with was the final paper in my J400 class. I worked with the diary of Alvah Bessie, an American that fought in the Spanish Civil War as my primary source. The ability to focus on a single primary source and explore it through multiple lenses and perspectives was really different and I enjoyed it a lot.

Jess McPherson: I was born in Indianapolis, but I got to move around growing up. Beyond Indiana, I also got to live in Gainesville, Virginia, and Kinsale, Ireland. Being in such historic regions of the world certainly helped to foster my own love of history growing up. Going into my Freshman year, I thought I would do something in psychology or sociology, but upon taking my first ever psychology class as a senior in high school, I realized that was far from what I wanted to do. I felt lost, I didn't have a back up plan, I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. After contemplating the matter, I realized the one class I had enjoyed throughout my 12 years of schooling--no matter what--was always history. I knew that if I followed my passion, success would follow, and I'm so glad I was right. The paper that I will always be proud of is my undergraduate thesis that I completed this semester. The project covered the female adornment of Ancient Rome and the sociological reasons behind their choices, and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. I put more work into this paper than I have done with any other project (educational or otherwise) in my life. I loved learning about the women who came before me and the daily rituals that were important to them--even if their contemporary (and modern) patriarchy deems adornment frivolous and wasteful.

Lauren Meadows: I grew up in Fishers, Indiana, so I'm a proud Hoosier! Majoring in history was an easy decision for me, as I've always been interested in the subject and took loads of history courses in high school. I walked onto campus as a freshman with a declared history major and never looked back. One of my all-time favorite courses was Civil War and Reconstruction (HIST-A 348), taught by Stephen Andrews. Professor Andrews is such a compelling lecturer and storyteller, and I remember being excited for that class every day, even at 9:00 am in the dead of winter!

Ellyn Mendenhall: I am from Indianapolis, IN and attended Lawrence North High School. I added a History major at the end of my freshman year, after taking Professor Linenthal's "What is History?" and loving every second of it. I have to also credit my mother, who is a high school history teacher, for instilling an early love of history by giving me a childhood full of museum tours and luxurious spring break vacations to Colonial Williamsburg. It is difficult to pick a single favorite primary source, but I would say anything that had to do with Herman B. Wells. I was able to use materials from his archives for two different projects and it felt like I was able to get a more intimate view of the most admired man on campus. My favorite course was the Honors Research Seminar, which improved my historical writing skills but also brought really great friendships. My favorite project was the blackface paper that came out of that course; it was the first paper where completing research felt like an exciting passion and not homework. Content-wise, my favorite courses were The Bomb in American Life and U.S. Interventions in Latin America. I found that my favorite area of history was Latin America during the Cold War, and was lucky enough to attend a university with plenty of courses and professors who covered that subject in some way. Justin Monroe I am from Columbus, Indiana and am an only child. 2) I majored in History because my interests align with this major. I became a history major after my first history class where the professor kept asking if I was a history major, due to the fact that I was doing extremely well in the class, and I am glad that I did. I can't really pick a favorite history class as I enjoyed almost all of them.

Justin Monroe: I am from Columbus, Indiana and am an only child.2) I majored in History because my interests align with this major. I became a history major after my first history class where the professor kept asking if I was a history major, due to the fact that I was doing extremely well in the class, and I am glad that I did.I can't really pick a favorite history class as I enjoyed almost all of them.

Victoria Myhand: I have always had a passion for history. The summer before my freshman year at IU I participated in the Intensive Freshman Seminars program where I took a class about the history of Paris in the late 19th century with Professor David Pace. After that experience I knew that I had made the right decision in choosing to become a historian and that history is where I belong. I’ve had so many incredible experiences while studying history at IU. The first would be during my freshman year while I was in H270: What is History? with Prof. Edward Linenthal. For that class I completed a research project on King Henry VIII and his six wives. While working on that project I was lucky enough to study a document for the purchase of Anne Boleyn’s cloth of state signed by Henry himself in 1535. I’ll never forget holding that piece of paper in my hands; it was a very moving moment for me. Since then, Tudor England has become my historical concentration and what I will attend graduate school in England to study this coming fall. Two more of my favorite memories would have to be the summers I spent in Florence studying the Italian Renaissance in 2017 with Dr. Andrea Ciccarelli and then in Paris in 2018 studying 19th century Parisian history with Prof. David Pace in Paris. Finally, I spent my junior year abroad in Canterbury, England studying history, which has been the highlight of my life so far.

Robin Nokes: I am an in-state student at IU from Jeffersonville, IN. I'm the oldest of four children (my brother Matthew is a freshman at IU who is also a history major), and my father was also a history major when he was in college (his area of interest is medieval studies, though, whereas my focus is on the long 19th century). I decided to major in history after taking an amazing class called "British Sexual Histories" during my sophomore year. Before that, I had decided I would get a history minor simply because I had enough transfer credits from high school AP exams that I would not need to take that many additional credit hours, but that class helped me fall in love with the history department and really encouraged me to pursue my passion at a higher level! I wanted to dig more deeply into the material I was so fascinated by and wanted to do research of my own, producing academic work and adding my voice to the conversation. My favorite primary source that I have worked with in my time at IU has been the coded diaries of Anne Lister, a regency era landowner, world traveller, intellectual, and lesbian in a time where all of these things were quite unusual for a woman to be! It was so rewarding to be able to decode the words she wrote over a hundred years ago and to hear her speaking about her experiences in her own voice. Diaries are always so fascinating to look at, as you can sort of get into a person's head by reading them, and this one had the fun but rewarding added challenge of being partially in code!

Cameron J. Rachford: I’m from Crown Point, Indiana, a fairly small city that’s an equal distance between Chicago and more rural areas of Indiana. While I was always interested in history since my youth, it wasn’t until I decided to major in the humanities that I saw it as a viable college major. Having already decided on a Classical Civilization major with specialization in art and archaeology, it seemed only natural for me to bolster my knowledge of the Classical world by also majoring in History. During my time as an undergraduate History major, one of my favorite projects was a capstone research paper on women in Augustan Rome. This project was especially meaningful to me because it allowed me to bridge the gap between both of my majors and bring in archaeological evidence to support my arguments.

Haley Rogers: I'm from Sullivan, Indiana and I've lived here my entire life. It was definitely different moving from a small town to Bloomington and I grew to think of Bloomington as a second home. I majored in History at the beginning of my sophomore year as I was originally an anthropology major and I knew I loved learning about History ever since I was little, but my biggest influence was my high school history teacher, Mrs. Norris. She taught us to go with our guts and just follow our dreams and I knew that I wanted to work in a museum so I majored in History and did exactly that. My favorite history class I have taken at IU was Professor Andrews' Civil War and Reconstruction class in Fall 2019. Professor Andrews made learning about the Civil War fun and it was interesting to learn a lot that I hadn't known before, especially since I'm not the biggest fan of American History.

Nicholas Schaffer: I'm from Northwest Indiana, roughly an hour east of Chicago and only 12 or so minutes from Lake Michigan. It's pretty rural despite being fairly close to a major city, so I got to see all I wanted of rural, suburban, and urban America. I majored in history because I've always been passionate about the field, and I think people are mostly ignorant of it. History is critically important for understanding the world we live in today, and I hope that I can use my experience at Indiana University to teach others about the importance of history. I actually have two favorite papers that I've written, both being heavily related to the topic of the "counter-guerrilla" in Turkey. They were the most fun to research because I felt like a spy having to sleuth through CIA and state department documents. All totally legal, of course!

Henry Street: My name is Henry Street, I'm a senior from Bloomington, Indiana. I'm extremely proud to have lived here my whole life, and couldn't imagine going to school anywhere else. I majored in history because it's always been one of my biggest interests, I want to eventually be a history teacher, and I think it is extremely important. I don't know if I had a favorite primary source, but my favorite history classes were definitely "World War II: The Peoples" with Professor Linenthal and "The Civil War" with Professor Andrews. My paper that I'm the most proud of would be a paper I wrote on Indiana's views on slavery in the 1850's, because it gave me a chance to go in depth on a topic I didn't know a lot about, and because I got to learn a lot about the state that I grew up in.

Mal Strubing: I'm from Fort Wayne, IN, and I had a pretty average childhood growing up in the suburbs, going to public school. History was never really emphasized as an area of study at my schools--I think most of the history courses I took were only held because of education requirements, because most of the teachers didn't seem to care about it--but I've always been enthralled. It's one thing to read some sort of fantastic, out of this world adventure, but it's another entirely to know that it was real, that the people involved were real people who led real lives. And then I got interested in the human aspect of it, the everyday minutiae of life; it's why some of my favorite sources to work with have been diaries and letters. I think the source that I enjoyed working with the most were the letters of Harry Goodsir that I did my J400 paper (which I am still immensely proud of, and extremely gratified that others appreciate as well!) on because it was already connected to a topic I was interested in--polar exploration--but because it not only included his letters, but letters from his family as well, giving a wider context and a more complete image of what his life was like during that specific period of time.

Isaac Thuesen: I majored in history because I believe that understanding the past is one of the keys to creating a better future. During my time at IU, I have had the chance to study how the modern Middle East owes its present organization in part to the upheaval of World War I, and how the United States is still fighting battles over civil rights that date back to before the Civil War. I hope that as I move into a career of public policy, I can use the knowledge and critical thinking skills that I’ve accrued as a history major to create more just policies for all.

Liz Tully: I am from New Orleans, Louisiana, and I am the youngest of 3 siblings but the only Hoosier! I always knew I wanted to major in History ever since I was a child, but I really fell in love with my major during my sophomore year at IU thanks to my professors, research projects, and classes! I also majored in Germanic Studies, and so my historical interests have been shaped by my passion for the German language and culture. However, I took a wide range of history classes to learn all I could about the world! I have too many favorite history classes to name just one, but I loved the ones that got me working hands-on with primary sources! I gained something from every one of my classes. My professors have been really inspiring, motivating, and wonderful. I am most proud of my Senior History Honors Paper on the German Democratic Republic’s Palace of the Republic because I’m so passionate about the subject and had amazing guidance from my advisor and other professors.

Evan Weis: I'm from Northbrook IL, a suburb of Chicago. I've always loved learning about history, though I didn't originally major in it. After my freshman year, having taken a few history classes, I decided that if I wanted to be happy with my major, history would be it. I also saw it as a door to many different paths, and it has actually led me to go to law school. I simply love the research and writing aspects. I've loved many classes that I've taken, but a single primary source sticks out to me. Though I never worked with it in research, I learned of a book by a rich 15th-century German merchant named Jakub Fugger. The book is just a log with visuals of all of his favorite outfits and fashion pieces. I always found it so fun, it is so unlike other sources. Rather than being political or religious, it is just a log of a rich man's eccentric fashion choices. It was super fun to learn about. I also briefly wanted to write about my capstone paper, which I am rather proud of. I wrote it on the intersection of the Cold War and the National Park System. The paper, and my capstone class, really did feel like a summation of everything I have learned in my history classes. It felt like all these different skills coming together. Looking back, I do not at all regret majoring in history. It has made me into the person I am now.

Stephanie Whitlock: I'm from Indianapolis and lived there my entire childhood. I am the third of four children. I grew up playing sports and was in Girl Scouts for ten years. I was involved in a lot of activism and dream of working as a teacher or in politics. I majored in History because I've always loved learning about the past. I loved all of my social studies teachers in grade school and they inspired me. I love learning about people and their behavior and why they do what they do. I'd love to teach one day or work in a museum. My favorite class was a class I took freshman year that focused on Viking history. I'm not sure what excited me about Vikings so much but I've always been interested in the culture. They're so intent on the values of family and honor which I think is really cool. The project I had the most fun doing was my research on Mauna Kea in Hawaii for my Capstone. Polynesian culture is really interesting to me and I loved learning more about the mythology they follow. So much of my chosen research focused on activist movements in America. I love learning about the change people are able to accomplish through comradery and passion for helping others.

Department of History

2020 Undergraduate Commencement

Congratulations to our 2020 Graduates!

The College of Arts & Sciences

2020 Undergraduate Commencement

Congratulations to our 2020 Graduates!

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The College of Arts & Sciences