This past August, I started my long road to my Ph.D. in History. The excitement that comes with starting a new degree also brings some anxiety over whether I have the ability to focus and excel at the level I expect of myself.  After completing my first semester, I have come to realize that I bring this anxiety onto myself. My first two actual Ph.D. courses resulted in solid A’s. HIST 820 – Teaching History Online was a really interesting course that dealt with the background of higher education with an emphasis on understanding the impact of higher education online. The final project saw students creating potential course documents for a class that they would like to teach both online and residentially one day. I, of course, stuck with my military history choosing to pursue it from the angle that had been first posed during my Thesis defense.

The second course HIST 711 Development of Western Freedoms, is more of a philosophy of ideas behind the theories that make up the American Freedom class. While philosophy is not my strong suit, surprisingly enough I managed a perfect grade in this course. The professors who taught the course (we had several who came in and gave lectures, but one main professor) are all well versed in their areas of expertise and made the class extremely enjoyable.

The other course I took this first semester was HIEU 597, now, this particular course is a Graduate level, however, since my MA focused on WWII I chose to take this course to bolster my MA. HIEU 597 focused on the Holocaust. I came away from this course with a deeper understanding of the various reasons behind the Holocaust, how seemingly ordinary men could turn into heartless killers, how neighbors could turn against neighbors and the fight against the evil that was Nazi Germany from the 1930s until 1945.  This was probably my hardest course, and in the end, resulted in an A- but I will gladly take it.

Spring semester starts on Monday and I will be focusing on Historiography and the Civil War. Two fun courses, one of which I am extremely looking forward to since it deals with my specialty.