Hello! My name is Molly Foster and I am a first-year graduate student in the Public History program. I grew up in Sebastopol, California, about an hour north of San Francisco, and received my Bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. I majored in English Composition and History and minored in Spanish, Classics, and Dance while also competing on Gonzaga’s cross country and track and field teams. I have a lot of interests, seeing as I couldn’t make up my mind about what to study, but I ultimately decided that I am most passionate about history and about teaching accurate and honest history to others.
Down the road, I hope to get accepted into a Ph.D. program for history, preferably in California, and then find a teaching position at a university in California. I really appreciate everything that I have been learning in the public history program so far, and I think having a public history background might even make me a more well-rounded candidate for a Ph.D. This has been my goal for a while, so I’m not entirely sure yet what I might do if I choose to forgo the Ph.D., but I have some time before I need to figure that out.
As for this class, I am really excited about the challenges it will bring. I am usually grateful for technology, but I also tend to stay in my technology bubble. The most advanced thing I have ever figured out how to use successfully is Adobe Lightroom, but I suppose that counts for something. So much of my history education has focused on paper and ink, texts and journals and articles that I could hold with my hands, but I am aware that so much more history takes place digitally, and that has great value as well. I know that the technology aspect of history will be hard for me to wrap my head around, but I am going into this experience with an open mind, and I am eager to begin this learning journey.