More Than ‘Dates and Numbers,’ Emily is Future-Focused as a History Major

From a young age, Emily knew her future would involve history and teaching. In high school, she considered becoming a teacher, and after enrolling at UW-Green Bay, she took an interactive history class that included a ‘revolution’ simulation. She was inspired by this interactive way of learning history, knowing that most people view history as ‘boring.’ Emily decided to major in History and minor in Education with the goal of teaching social studies. Emily is focused on changing how students view history. “The reason that I am so passionate about teaching history is because I feel like a lot of people have the conception that history is just dates and numbers and that it’s super boring and it’s not. It’s really fun, actually.” Listen to Emily share her story, below.

Transcript: In fourth grade, I originally took a field trip to a local museum. I thought it was really cool, it was at an old schoolhouse. All of this cool stuff and I learned about local history. And then I came here and I took a class on history and we did this thing it was a revolution simulation and I was like that’s so cool we never did anything like this in my high school history classes. So getting to have an interactive history class and feel a difference in learning. Going into education, going into history, it’s kind of just been getting confirmed. My favorite history classes is here at UW-Green Bay, I’ve taken Contemporary European History. Seeing how Europe evolved in the modern day, it was like that is just so interesting. And I took a History of Wisconsin class, which was so so cool. And we were up in the Archives and getting to look at all of these different sources and I got to make this project on researching pardon trends. And I went to the professor and I said can I keep working on this, will you let me make an independent study and I just got to keep working on it the next semester. It was amazing, spectacular! I’m doing an internship at Green Bay Botanical Garden using my history degree and my research skills. I’m teaching kids about frogs, I’m teaching them about tree rings, Niagara escarpment. So many options and so many things that I didn’t think I would get to learn about. The reason that I am so passionate about teaching history after I’m done studying here at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay is because I feel like a lot of people have the conception that history is just dates and numbers and that it’s super boring and it’s not it’s really fun actually.