Hello everybody! My name is Bryce Thomas, and I am a first year graduate student pursuing my MA in Public History at American University. I was born and raised in the great State of Illinois, and it was there that I received my BA in history from the University of Illinois at Springfield. I now currently reside in Gaithersburg, MD and I hope to learn skills that will help me make history more engaging to the public.
All my life I have loved history, but it wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that I snapped out of my poly sci phase and realized that history is the field where I was meant to be. At present, I would love to go on to do historic interpretation as a character at a historic site, and I am open to finding the perfect site to do this. My hope is that I could inspire just one kid to follow there love of history just as I was inspired by people when I interned at Colonial Williamsburg in 2018. It was there that I realized that character interpretation had the potential to reach the public in ways that schools never could. And a pursuit of this path has led me to the wonderful program of public history at American university that I am a part of today.
If I had to narrow down one broad field of study that I am interested in I would say it is American colonial history from the years 1760-1800, but I am also interested in the period directly before these years. My other interests are legal, African-American, and political history just to name a few. One thing that I love about this program is that I am able to connect with people who bring unique experiences and interests to the field, and I am happy to say that the people I know in my program are some of the smartest, kindest, and hardworking people that I have ever had the pleasure of attending school with. I am proud that I will get to work in the field with each and every one of you.
When it comes to this class I must confess that I am not really good with technology, nor do I know much about it. One thing that I hope to get out this class is tools that I could use in the future that could make sites better as our world becomes more digital. Another thing I hope to learn is how has history already changed from the use of technology.
