Careers: Goal 3

I want to learn more about career paths that

can make a difference in the world.

Goal

Since I'm a junior in high school, I'm starting to think about colleges and my future. I liked working with computers and graphic design, so making another website for History Day will help me learn more about how I can use a website to communicate my ideas. I also want to explore more about how people can make a difference in the world and what experience someone needs to have before they can make a difference. I would also like to explore how I can connect my love of history to this type of career.

One of the things that has really inspired me is seeing this video about a student at Montpelier High School, Lily Fournier, who did an internship with the Vermont Division of Historic Preservation. It has really made me think about how I can connect what I am interested in to a meaningful career.

Expectations

These expectations are aligned with the Vermont Portrait of a Graduate:

Learner Agency Students take ownership and drive their own learning.

1. Take purposeful initiative to make a positive difference for self and others.

Global Citizenship

Students recognize that our world is an increasingly complex web of connections and interdependencies.
1. Understand that choices and actions impact people and communities locally, nationally, and internationally.

Well-Being

Students use social-awareness and interpersonal skills to establish and maintain positive relationships.
1. Understand and respond to the needs of others.
Students are internally motivated and resilient.
1. Set goals and prioritize tasks.
2. Believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.

Action Steps

Explore the stories of people who have made a difference by learning about some famous people: https://www.biographyonline.net/people/people-who-made-a-difference.html
Explore current and future careers that can make a difference and are also connected to my interest in history.
Look at the resources in VSAC's Explore Your Career Options web pages.
Together with my schools Work Based Learning Coordinator investigate a Job shadow experience that I could do next year.
Complete two job shadows or career information interviews: https://www.vsac.org/sites/default/files/2016-11/60Render.pdf
Explore colleges that offer majors that could lead to these careers.

Achievement of Action Steps

Historians Who Have Made a Difference

These historians have made a difference to the world through their work in the field of history.

Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn was an American historian, author, playwright, and social activist. He was a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote more than 20 books, including his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States. He wrote extensively about the civil rights and anti-war movements, and labor history of the United States.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

The Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He is also an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder. Gates has written 17 books and created 14 documentary films, including Wonders of the African World, African American Lives, Black in Latin America, and Finding Your Roots.

Joe Medicine Crow

Joe Medicine Crow was a war chief, author, and historian of the Crow Nation of Native Americans. His writings on Native American history and reservation culture are considered seminal works, but he is best known for his writings and lectures concerning the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. He received the Bronze Star Medal and the Légion d'honneur for service during World War II, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Spencer Crew

Director, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

In 1994 Spencer Crew became the first African American appointed as director of the National Museum of American History, where he and his fellow museum staff reached an audience of more than five million visitors a year. In 2001 he left the museum to head up Cincinnati’s National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

Betty K. Koed

Assistant Historian, U.S. Senate Historical Office

“As a public historian working for the U.S. Senate, I have not left teaching behind. Rather, I am teaching in new ways to an ever-growing audience. I am in daily contact with students, teachers, constituents, Senate staffers, and senators—in person, on the phone, and over the Internet—opening up new avenues of teaching political history and expanding the institutional knowledge of the U.S. Senate."

Nadine Ishitani Hata

El Camino College, Torrance, California

“The network of community colleges that span the nation is a uniquely American phenomenon, reflecting the noble notion that access to educational opportunities is at the heart and core of a truly participatory democracy. More than any other dimension of American higher education, two-year colleges serve the diverse educational needs of their communities.”

VSAC Explore Career Options

VSAC Career Self-Assessment

Know what you enjoy
Know what's important to you
Know what you are good at
Know who you are as a person

Current Career Fields for History Majors

I explored some of this information on a separate page in this PLP.

Work-Based Learning Investigation

I talked with my teacher about some ideas for a history-related WBL experience next year. We came up with a list of organizations to contact:

The Vermont Historical Society

The Vermont Division for Historic Preservation

Shelburne Museum

The Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing

Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum

Vermont Granite Museum

Lake Champlain Maritime Museum

Another good idea is to talk to my local Historical Society. These are sometimes run on tight budgets and might need help.

I also got the paperwork that would be needed to do a WBL experience. You can find that here.

Reflection

I think doing all of these activities - or small investigations - has been a good step to take in thinking about planning for next year and my future. It was really interesting for me to read about the various types of work having a history degree can lead too, but what I really liked was reading the biographies of famous historians and how they used their research and knowledge to improve the world. I had never heard of Joe Medicine Crow before doing this research, and learning about his life was inspiring. My parents also told me about Henry Louis Gates' t.v. show Finding Your Roots, so we've started watching episodes together. The show is really interesting, but also opens up another connection - history and science/medicine. I'm a little nervous about reaching out to different organizations about a job shadow or internship, so I will have to practice what I am going to say when that time comes.

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