Wrap Up

This is the last blog post I'll post for my public history class this semester. It's been a new experience to be immersed within the field and academic side of public history, and I'm thankful for the hands-on nature of this class. Throughout the semester, I've learned many different things about what goes into local history and the importance of it. Before taking this class, I didn't really consider the value of small town history. I also appreciate the opportunity to learn about Goshen, Indiana because it is a place that I consider a partway home, but know very little about because most of my time is spent on my college campus. It's great to begin to understand the complications and issues that arise in Goshen and also the small marks of beauty that local history can show.

My favorite part of this class was exploring the Indiana Room in the Goshen Public Library. It was a lot of work to do the initial research, but after a while I found joy in the repetition of looking through the old books and directories that offered their information to me. To some degree, I also enjoyed researching my house and synthesizing the information that arose.

I learned a lot about archives, collections, and ownership rights of artifacts. I actually enjoyed the 'Nearby History' book because it outlined great ways not only to display history, but to do it as well. I wish we could have talked more about public history professions and had a more realistic idea of what it means to apply and work in a  public history sphere outside of a typical museum setting. We could have practiced cover letters, resumes and how to find out about those types of jobs and internships because ultimately in public history, experience is the real teacher.

I really think that this class could be an awesome May Term class because then it would allow time to travel to more museums and experience archives. I'm a little curious why we didn't spend more time in the Mennonite Church USA archives because they are on campus. As an off campus May Term class, more field trips with more opportunity for research and different kind of exhibits could be explored. I would have loved to go to the Natural History museum in Chicago and I think it would have been more beneficial than Conner Prairie for a field trip. As we've stated before, this class would be a great class for a May term or even a fall term.

I took public history because I'm considering interpretation work for a career, although it will be more of a natural history/environmental education path. Overall, I thought the class was helpful, but did not change my mind either way in terms of what kind of career I'd like to do. I do think it will help on a resume though. I learned a lot and am generally happy I took the class.