History has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. Throughout my entire academic life, it was my favourite subject, from primary school right up until now as I go into my final year of an English and History degree at the University of Warwick.
The history of people has always been pivotal to my fondness of the discipline, the lives they lived and the world they inhabited. It is when you dive into the seemingly mundane aspects of an ‘ordinary’, menial person that the true grit of history really shines through; learning how they once walked the earth that I, too, walk is humbling but also empowering. History is inevitable, the past will always exist, but it is the work of the historian that brings it back to life. That is what drew me to Institutional History.
I finished my second year of university very unconventionally – living back at home and not allowed to leave my house due to government restrictions provoked by the outbreak of a global pandemic. It hit me how sincerely I was living in a truly monumental time, that decades from now will be taught in the very classrooms where my own passion was planted. I had a daunting amount of free time and very little that I could do with it from the four walls of my bedroom, what better time to delve into someone else’s reality?
The work I have done so far for Institutional History has been extremely rewarding, uncovering the past is a job that will never feel like a chore to me and knowing that I am contributing to such an innovative research project fills me with excitement.
As implied by my degree title, outside of my interest in history I am usually found with a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. Much like history, my love for reading is fuelled by the vast and unique experiences you can live through other characters and what better time to be doing so than now?