"Armor Up, Knights!" Week 1 (8/24-8/28)

 "Armor Up, Knights" 

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to drastically affect the world and the United States with the fear of catching the virus. It has thrown many students off balance and leaves them with numerous different experiences that hopefully this internship can present to future students and professors. I've noticed a few things upon my return to the University of Central Florida on the first week. 

"Armor Up, Knights" is a phrase that the university uses to remind students to wear masks on campus. Sometimes I forget that I need a mask, but I have always wore it on campus. 

The first thing that one will notice if they are a previous faculty or student is the parking situation. Previously, the university struggled with providing apt parking spots for visitors. For example, Garage B was at full capacity roughly around noon. However, this is not the case in the Fall Semester of 2020. Upon my entry to attend Dr. Murphree's class, I was struck with the lack of cars parked in the garages. 

I parked in Garage D on the second floor which was completely empty that Tuesday morning. For three years as an undergraduate, I had never experienced a stress free parking experience. On Thursday, it was the same situation.

Another experience at the college is the empty space when walking around. Normally, the first week of class would see an abundance of clubs, organizations, and gatherings of students trying to recruit new people into their social circles. When I arrived and walked around on both Tuesday and Thursday, I saw empty spaces and dispersed students attending their classes. The first week, normally a parade on campus, was essentially a ghost town. 

Zoom and digital technology has challenged professors to become more educated in this aspect. Both my undergraduate and graduate experiences this week has shown me that the need to properly utilize these things is critical for a historian in a post-COVID world. How can we properly convey history to students if we cannot organize a Zoom meeting for students?

I have not yet seen any signs of an outbreak of the virus at the University of Central Florida as of writing this on Thursday (8/27/2020). 

The pandemic has drastically affected our first semester at UCF, yet we, as both students and faculty, continue to not let this hurdle trip up our journey.

HIS 6942 Week 1 Blog (8/24-8/28)

Hello to everyone who is viewing this blog.

My name is Scott Galloway and I am a graduate student at the University of Central Florida pursuing my Master’s Degree in Public History. Dr. Daniel Murphree provided me with the opportunity to serve as an intern within his Professionalizing History Majors course in the Fall of 2020. Previously, I had undertaken the course in my last year of undergraduate work. The course was useful in understanding my history degree and providing me with a number of opportunities including graduate studies. This introductory blog post should outline my goals in the class, the assigned project, and serve as a perspective of a graduate engaging with undergraduates.

Within Dr. Murphree’s course as an undergraduate, I lacked understanding on what I would be doing with my bachelor’s degree. My coursework only seemed to point me towards going to graduate school or pursuing a career teaching. The class taught me that the history profession is diverse across the job market. It instilled in me what being a history major entails and how to properly articulate that to employers. I voiced my praise of the course to Dr. Murphree during the few weeks left of the Spring 2019 semester and wanted to be involved in aiding future undergraduates in their endeavors. All history majors, at one point, question their major and express doubts of their choice, but I wanted to assuage their fears.

My goal for taking this course is to properly give a perspective of a previous undergraduate and graduate student to the class. The internship project allows me to further aid students in knowing what a history degree can do for them along with personally providing them opportunities to enhance their education at the University of Central Florida. In addition, I shall be assisting Dr. Murphree in teaching and providing discussion regarding complex historical debates. My identification as a student liaison can be useful from students being more comfortable confiding in me as a former classmate.

 The internship project also involves being a project coordinator working with the Special Collections and University Archives within UCF’s library. Dr. Murphree was aware that I had volunteered at the SCUA with Mary Rubin and I (along with others) attempted to work on a collaboration between his class and SCUA. Dr. Murphree had organized a COVID-19 Memory Project where students would work with the SCUA department to document the perception of UCF students on the COVID-19 pandemic. This week I had already provided an example of an Oral Interview for the class to understand what an oral history is. I will be organizing the students and being a manager in their work towards contributing to the collection to the library for future students that are interested in UCF students’ experiences.

The skills I hope to gain from this interview include advancing my leadership and teaching abilities. My leadership role seems to be relegated to small undergraduate projects instead of leading a classroom discussion. This internship can provide me with familiarizing the role of a teacher by observing Dr. Murphree’s teaching and interacting with students both in and out of class. The COVID-19 project will strengthen my leadership abilities and teach me how to properly give oral interviews. Another skill is teaching in a post-COVID college course as restrictions may provide both hindrances and opportunities that past history courses never experienced. After my initial report, I will provide some insights on the university's response and details regarding the course in a secondary blog post from this one. 

This internship means a great deal to me as a previous student in this course. This course continues to show prowess when providing students the ability to professionalize themselves and orientate themselves towards success post-graduation.

 I look forward to this internship.

Scott Galloway