I know it’s been forever since I wrote in here…but it’s been an awesomely busy time for me! This summer was absolutely packed with great opportunities.
I was lucky enough to spend a week at NYU with the Gilder Lehrman Summer Scholars program, where we combined plenty of sightseeing and socializing with the chance to meet and talk with history scholars from all around the US! The topic for this year was the abolition of the international slave trade in 1808 — something which I knew absolutely nothing about. So I got the chance to exercise my listening skills and broaden my knowledge base, not to mention that we toured all sorts of fabulous museums and archives. There was a really excellent exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York about American volunteers’ involvement in the Spanish Civil War — again, I had no clue about this part of our nation’s history! But the letters, diaries and memorabilia from volunteer soldiers and nurses really made it come alive for me.
In short, I would totally recommend that anyone interested in American history apply for the program next year: it was an all-expense paid, unforgettable week.
For the rest of the summer, though, I was working at the archives of the PA House of Representatives. Note: this does NOT mean that I was schmoozing with the reps! Far from it — generally we were working with committee papers down in the basement. The closest that we ever came to the reps was when we got introduced on the House floor, or maybe in line at the Capitol cafeteria.
But I couldn’t have picked a better summer to be in Harrisburg – the budget debates were particularly intense this summer, as anyone whose parents work for the state would know. We actually got to sit in on a press conference with Governor Rendell! And although sometimes our committee records were a little dry, reading the legislative documents from the past really enhanced our understanding of what was going on right in front of us. Again, I would totally recommend this internship for anyone interested in American history…or archival sciences…or government…or political science…or law…etc!
Anyway, I hope to be able to use some of that archival experience this year. I have at least two classes that are going to require a lengthy research paper, one of which is my first graduate class. Not to mention my honors thesis, which will be my constant companion this year.
More on all of this later (not to mention the awesome experience that was the revamped SHC mentoring program for orientation week!) – but how are all of you?
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