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"For me, the most difficult part of being an American Studies major at Smith was taking enough courses outside the major! There were so many interesting courses offered in American Studies that I continued to take classes long after I'd fulfilled the requirements for the major. After writing an honors thesis and graduating with a B.A. in American Studies from Smith College, I went on to pursue a Ph.D. in U.S. History at UC-Davis. I applied for Ph.D. programs in both History and American Studies, and had a difficult time deciding which field to focus on. Although I picked history, I continued to approach the past in my studies from an interdisciplinary, cultural perspective, as I had learned in my American Studies training at Smith. I found my undergraduate training to be enormously helpful (particularly doing advanced research) as I embarked on a rigorous graduate program in history. I was already quite familiar with many books, theories, and approaches to studying the past that were a part of my graduate school training. I received my doctorate last year, and am currently applying for assistant professor positions at colleges and universities in History, American Studies, and Women's Studies. I have also just finished revisions on a book, based on my Ph.D. dissertation, to be published by University of California Press. I am living in Munich, Germany, right now, and found my way back into an American Studies Department; this time as a lecturer at the University of Munich teaching the history of sexuality. The small classroom setting reminded me of many of the American Studies classes I'd had at Smith, and I immensely enjoyed teaching there. Indeed, the interactive classroom setting of many American Studies classes at Smith offers a unique and valuable opportunity, I found, to articulate one's own thoughts and analyses of American culture. It certainly helped to prepare me to teach my own small classes and discussion groups, which I have in many ways tried to model on the examples I experienced at Smith." |
