Having graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History from Haverford College, I look forward to the potential opportunity to share what I have learned in the field with students. The research that I have conducted in history has taught me several lessons helpful in tutoring others. One is that history is, first and foremost, a narrative. In other words, it constitutes a story or a group of stories that can genuinely captivate a student. Memorized facts and dates need only supplement this narrative. Another lesson is that studying history requires discipline and patience. When I have pieced together the primary and secondary materials and the arguments for any given project, I have had to exhibit considerable patience with myself. It is a similar type of attitude that I believe I could employ with each student. In accordance with the student's pace of learning, I would guide him or her through his or her class notes, textbooks, and other sources so that he or she could understand and be able to describe the concept(s) at hand.
I have been exposed to history in a professional setting. As a visitors' services volunteer at Valley Forge National Historical Park, I distributed brochures and directed guests to different sites at the park. Viewing the museum exhibitions and observing the tours given by guides and park rangers, I became aware of the presentation of history as a narrative rather than a discipline limited strictly to rote memorization. My research skills were developed at the Philadelphia Archives, where I completed an internship last summer. I studied City Council journals from the nineteenth century to evaluate the life of African-Americans in Philadelphia after the Civil War. An annotated bibliography for the Archive's future use resulted from my ten weeks of work. I learned about the student-mentor relationship in this post, as well. I collaborated with the Archive's public historian and being instructed about how to locate sources, to interpret them, and to report on (not editorialize) my findings. Finally, I served for three years as an assistant in Haverford College's library in the Special Collections division. Working with the digital and book collections, I gained expertise in using the Dewey Decimal System and in taking inventory of documents. Imparting that experience to students, I could illuminate for students the study options they have beyond just their textbooks and their notes.
Confident in my qualifications, I look forward to the opportunity to serve WyzAnt and whatever students seek my services.
back to top