The school year at Rowan University seemed to come out of nowhere for me. It feels like just last week I was stressing over my capstone Senior Seminar paper which I still believe is the best paper that I’ve ever written. “A Monster of their Own Making: American and Western Influences on Japan’s Meiji Restoration”, was almost initially almost fifty pages, to which of course Dr. Hague said I needed to get it down to at least thirty since there was far too much extra information, so I painstakingly cut parts of my paper and was very satisfied with what my grade was. However, the process took all semester, and it feels like it was only a few days ago I was stressing over it. It was just as I finally felt the weight of that, plus four other papers last semester off my shoulders, that the Fall Semester hit me like a brick. I am not afraid to admit I was completely and utterly unprepared coming into week 1 to the point I was pretty cranky and frustrated.
As usual, however, the moment I stepped back into classes things got easier. I worked a total of three jobs over the summer to save money for a spring study abroad trip, the shift from constant work for my jobs to school work has been quite tough, but luckily this is my fifth year of college. “You’ve done this plenty of times before, this is just another first day’ is what I told myself, and between taking a few deep breaths, meditating, reading a few good books, budgeting my time and getting settled, I’ve finally after two weeks gotten on track. Two of my five classes are online, and after this spring I’ll finally walk to graduate with my Bachelors, and be halfway through my MA program, this is in addition to being excited for my exciting Study Abroad trip to Japan this summer. Now after a week, I finally feel ready to take on this semester which should be my last ‘difficult’ one.
Another of the things that worked to get me back on track and excited for the semester, was learning that now, I can get a Digital Humanities COG, and I’ll finally get a chance to learn how to create some of the digital projects I’ve always dreamed of. I used to always say, that in the future if I could simply talk about things I’m passionate about like history, fiction and fantasy books, anime and manga, Japanese culture etc, then I’ll take it. However, I have gravitated much more towards history as the years went on, to where in addition to some traditional jobs, I’ve always wanted to try and make my own passion for history into a career I can be happy about, and that could be achieved through Digital Projects, and learning more about DH in this seminar and COG program. Dr. Hague my amazing Professor for Seminar last semester said that I ‘taught him more about Japan then he ever knew’ through my paper, and I hope to do what more with other people. This class will help me.
To me, this is what Digital Humanities is all about. How we can improve our ability to teach history through the amazing digital technology we have now. I feel extremely lucky that so much amazing information is right at my fingertips, and how we can improve our ability to use it to teach others is something I am extremely fascinated in. I know that we can use digital projects and tech to foster a love of history like it was fostered in me, whether that is from academic podcasts or the latest Assassins Creed game, it doesn’t matter, that person now loves history because of it. It happened to me, and I know it can happen to other people. This is why I find Digital Humanities to be such an important field to study, and while every blog post is going to have a different definition of Digital Humanities, I feel my own can stand true for most of them. That being, Digital History is about how we can better use digital tools to teach and foster a love of history in people who previously may not have been able to have it happen to them.
If this class goes well, perhaps I’ll eventually pay for WordPress Pro in order to make this blog a true history blog. However, for now, this introductory post will have to do. I am finally getting excited for this upcoming semester, however, I’m also excited to finally, FINALLY get my undergrad degree this spring to truly, truly be an MA student and start my career. A new year means a new journey, and as the catchphrase of my favorite fantasy series The Stormlight Archive goes, ‘Journey Before Destination.’
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