生活的历史

Ever since she was a young girl, 莫莉香农 has been fascinated by history, especially the many different perspectives and voices that can be heard within major events such as the American Revolution and the women’s suffrage movement. 但是这个红头发的 Anglophile—lover of tea and castles—is also drawn to Scottish history.

 

During a semester abroad at the University of St. Andrews in the spring of 2018, 莫莉 enjoyed academically rigorous history classes that required a lot of independent study and allowed her to see where history had been made. “我有一个很棒的机会 to learn about Scottish and medieval history from leaders in the field while traveling to historical sites including castles such as Dunottar and Iona,” 莫莉 says.

She also made some fantastic friends—one of whom joined her for a round of golf on 古老的课程.

But the best part of her study abroad experience was getting to travel and explore 她的遗产. She visited family members in the countryside, popped in to see Sir Walter Scott’s house and Melrose Abbey, and returned again and again to Edinburgh, where she ate at the Elephant House—the café where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter 书. During a two-week spring break spent visiting Prague, Vienna, Oslo, and Stockholm, she says, “I had the fantastic chance to visit a palace in almost every city!”

While she was abroad, 莫莉 successfully applied for an internship with the Morris County Historical Society near her home in New Jersey. 在那里，一边帮助发展 这个展览 Iconic 文化: From the Little Black Dress to Bell Bottoms: 1920-1979, she got to work with archival materials for the first time as she prepared exhibit labels, created timelines, and curated a list of famous people who frequented Morris County—where the New York elite vacationed in the early twentieth century and where 电报被发明了.

After that internship experience, 莫莉 was ready for the big leagues: an Explore America internship at the American Philosophical Society’s Center for Digital Scholarship 在费城. Sponsored by the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, 莫莉 spent last summer digitizing and transcribing eighteenth-century ledgers as part of the Benjamin Franklin Postal Records Project for an Open Data Initiative.  

“These records can tell you a lot about who lived in 18^th 世纪费城，”莫莉说. “For me one of the most fascinating things was simply where the mail was going and where it was coming from. 我们讨论了定量 history in my junior seminar—using data and graphs to understand history—and that’s really what I learned to do over the summer.”

莫莉 intends to work in the field before pursuing graduate studies for a Master of 图书馆学. She’s casting a wide net, looking for positions 在费城, 华盛顿特区.C.波士顿，甚至明尼阿波利斯.

“As a history major you have to be willing to spread your wings,” she says. “这是 terrifying and exciting at the same time to think that I only have a semester and 剩下一半. Overall, 九州娱乐官网 has been everything I expected and more. Aside from its amazing academic credentials, I chose 九州娱乐官网 because of its association with George Washington, its reputation for excellence, and its supportive 社区. 这对我来说是个好地方.”