Welcome to our new Student Spotlight feature, where Brock students share their experiences with the humanities in their own words.
Today we’re introducing you to one of our history students. Emily Byrne is in her fourth year of a honors co-op in history. She is particularly interested in how the past is represented in popular culture. She has spent the past two summers working at Fort George National Historic Site. We asked her to tell us a bit about her experience and how her history degree helps her.
This summer is my second summer working at Fort George as a historical interpreter. It is a truly amazing job where I not only get to speak to all types of people from across the world and share my passion for history with them, but I also get to dress up in period clothing and participate in amazing events and activities I never thought I could do!
As a historical interpreter at the Fort, my responsibilities are to provide guided tours around the historic Fort and to provide information in each of the period buildings.
Some of the particularly amazing things I got to do with my job are participating in re-enactments, celebrating special events such as Canada Day and Celtic Festivals, and portraying the lives of people 200 years ago on a day to day basis.
The classes I have taken in humanities have really improved my knowledge of Canadian and British History; this has proven to be extremely helpful to me for my job at the Fort as I teach Canadians, Americans, and tourists from around the world about Canada and the War of 1812.
I also love that humanities has also taught me an appreciation for discussion and learning more by always asking questions.
I think that the history program really prepared me for this position. History is a very interdisciplinary and complex field, with many interconnecting themes. This makes it an easy field to thrive in because so much of what you learn from one class can pertain to other. I can apply much of what I learn in my job, which makes studying humanities even more rewarding.
