Final Thoughts On Public History Class

What a semester! Practically living in downtown Lansing's libraries wasn't the worst way to finish out my undergraduate history classes. I had a good time working with everyone on the group project, and I think what we ended up producing was something to be proud of.

This class also contributed to something of a career-path crisis; I liked doing research for this class and for my honors thesis last year so much that I was having pretty significant second thoughts about doing a student teaching internship next year. However, my four hours a week at Lansing Eastern High was a reminder of how much I do look forward to being a teacher, probably still more than going to grad school. I guess I'll never know for sure.

Audience-awareness was another thing that really affected me from this class. I wrote a 60 page paper last semester, but I didn't really think about an audience. I was almost just writing it for my advisor; that seems like a lot of work for one person to read it.

My final project lost a little steam when I ran out of sources just short of what I wanted; the inevitable pressures of the end of a term also contributed to this. I still enjoyed the process of trying to create a little public history.

Lastly, I'll hearken back to my first blog post, in which I discuss blogging. It turns out that I kind of like it. So, while this is probably my last post on this blog, I fully intend to make one chronicling my student teaching internship next fall. It's possible that only my dad will read it; I'll still write it for a wider audience because I like to stay optimistic.