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
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