Wrapping Up the Course– Opening Up the Future

 

I suppose the better question would be, what haven’t I learned in this course? That would make a response much more challenging. This course helped me evolve my ideas, methods, writing practices, and theories. The way I view history is now much more complicated. It’s embarrassing to admit that I didn’t actually realize just how many aspects one has to consider when researching. My view of research and topics was very black and white before this course. I now realize that there is so much more than who, what, when, where and why. There are so many factors that contribute to the outcomes of events, the feelings of cultures, and the actions of people. In particular, the quantitative and qualitative lesson was extremely eye opening. I honestly had never heard of or considered those types of history. While it may take me a long time to learn, I would love to use it as much as I could in the future! It really helps with the comparison and contrast of different elements surrender one particular topic. In my opinion, these methods could be used at the beginning of researching a topic, solely to get an idea of what categories one could focus on to most effectively argue their idea. Also, the idea of what a tertiary source really is has helped me immensely. No longer will I ever look at a book as a primary source. I have come to realize that a primary source is very few and far between. This has helped me look at documents, books, and online archives so much differently. Honestly, so much has changed for me after taking this course. I was going to say the one thing that hasn’t changed is my appreciation for history, but even that has changed. My curiosity and appreciation has increased so much! This course helped broaded my horizons and helped me put history into perspective. The lessons we learned will help me in the future, for writing papers, doing research, using Chicago style format, and even my practices for when I become a teacher.

 

–Thank you again for a wonderful semester!