Personal Statement
My initial desire to complete a master’s in history was for salary advancement. Rather than take easy classes that would have been a fraction of the cost, I wanted to get those last 30 units I needed in something I felt was worthwhile. Further, I wanted to be qualified to teach at the community college level if I chose to. I found the University of Nebraska at Kearney’s program in a Google search and that was good enough for me. I did not know at the time how challenging this program would be, but I would say in the first few weeks of classes in the fall of 2017 I soon had no doubt.
As a political science major at UCLA, I did not have to take many history classes and so this was a new experience for me. I knew how to read and write papers, but the pace was demanding. I spent nearly every spare moment I had working on classwork. The program soon consumed most of my life. However, Dr. Carol Lilly and Dr. Linda Van Ingen were able to build me up in that first semester and helped me realize I could tackle these challenging assignments. As I continued through that first semester I was reading material that challenged my prior knowledge and offered me new perspectives on the history of my high school days and even since I started teaching history at the high school level.
That theme of challenging history continued throughout my program as the more I read, the more the traditional tropes were replaced by new and varied perspectives. I was encouraged and refreshed to know that discovering these new perspectives were not a threat to my own history, but simply more accurate reflections of our past. With this newfound knowledge, I feel it is easier to avoid the mistakes of the past and I do not feel threatened to acknowledge the wrongs of our forefathers. Now my goal is to pass that knowledge on to my students and help them learn what was often missing from the history I was taught when I was their age.
Goals Statement
Now that my challenging master’s program is complete, I would like to put that education to work educating community college students either through adjunct or full time work. Understanding how assigning project work to my current students often brings me new sources and understandings of history, I feel I would benefit from working with older students in the same way. Additionally teaching new classes will challenge me to know the material more than I do now. In regards to my current assignment of teaching US History at the high school level, my participation in the Advanced Placement curriculum is also an academic challenge. Once I am afforded some respite from my program at UNK, I might then start considering whether a doctorate is something I ultimately wish to pursue. Until then, I plan on continuing to travel and discover historic sites and attain knowledge in that most fascinating and direct way.