Kailey Freeman-DePelisi
Reflection of HIS 3600
This course was one of the most helpful and informative courses I have ever taken. In high school, they tell you to pick something and go to college, or trade school, or the military. They tell you to pick a major soon but don’t feel rushed about it. After all, that degree is expensive, and it will affect what you’re able to do and what your qualifications are. But they don’t help you pick that major. They don’t let you know your options. They encourage students to take out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and don’t guide them to a major or to a professional choice that will suit them.
I graduated high school with over 45 college credits thanks to dual enrolment. Because I was as far along in my degree as I was, I had to pick a major without really knowing what my major would do for me. I picked history simply because I liked it. My whole family was skeptical as to how that could benefit me, they asked, “Do you want to be a teacher?” or “Are you planning on going to law school after?” and when I answered not really, they of course said, “then what exactly is it that you want to do?”. I did not have a good answer for them because before this class I had not been provided with the resources to learn what it was I could do with a history degree. I was told it was flexible and it seemed like a more realistic choice than my other interests, and I knew I would be miserable in a science degree.
Early on, this class had me analyze the skills I was learning in my history classes and Dr. Beiler showed all of us how we could relate those skills to professions outside of the history discipline and how we could relate non-history skills to history professions. I had been contemplating pursuing a theatre minor since my previous semester but wasn’t sure that was smart. I kept thinking, should I really pick a theatre minor just because in the past I enjoyed theatre as a hobby? This class convinced me to take on that minor though.
Through the book “Being a Historian” by James M. Banner Jr. I realized how much of a show history professionals should put on to engage a general audience that wasn’t as familiar with history. Also, since this class was comprised completely of history majors, I learned almost as much from other students as from the professor. I realized from another student in the class that historians are often responsible for putting together exhibitions. I imagine that putting together an exhibition is not too different than putting together a set, something I have experience doing and something that I plan on learning about further in my theatre minor. In both cases, you’re putting up an illusion for an audience to make a “story” feel real.
This class not only introduced me to the plethora of fields within the history discipline, but it also showed me how to get involved with them. Dr. Beiler pulled in other professionals to give us realistic views of the job market and to show us how to take part and gain experience to pursue such work opportunities.
Admittedly, I believe that some of the chapters that we read caused us to stray off-topic a bit, but they also made me consider things I hadn’t before, especially when it came to picking my personal focus in history. In “Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History” by Margaret MacMillan she explained problems and altercations that historians had been in due to the governments they had to work with. As sad as it is, I realized that I wanted to avoid specializing in fields that focused on history from a country that currently has a very religious-based government because one discovery that upsets a worldview could get you death threats.
That is just something that I personally am not willing to deal with. I don’t like being delicate, I like barging into the truth even if it’s difficult to hear. I would strongly recommend anyone pursuing a history profession to take this class or a class similar. I wish that all majors that weren’t super specific offered a class similar.
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