Neuer Gedankengang!

Who I am

I should post in large size type since it helps me to read large size type.

Here is who I am -

I am on the cutting edge of the baby boomer generation, born in 1946, a few days short of nine months from when my father returned from the war in Europe. I graduated from high school in 1964. I went to a couple of years of junior college at a school related to my church and prepared for work as a support person in a congregation. I did that work for about four years, and then I got married -

I might have done other things - people told me I would do well in college - but getting married and having a family was what girls did then. I don't regret at all that I did that, but I always had it in the back of my mind that I would go back to school and maybe even get a degree. It took a long time, but I finally did that - after my son was grown and out of the house and some other obligations were met, I started college full time.

That was in 1998, and I was part of the Donaghey Scholars program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. And I totally loved it! I had started taking classes part time a few years before, and the more time I spent in the classroom, the less content I was in my bookkeeping job.

There is a lot to say about the time I spent as a full time student, but mostly this is an overview, so I will keep it short. I studied the German language and minored in history and was fortunate enough to spend a semester in Graz, Austria. Going back to the German again (I had studied it in high school, and my family is German) was a high point for me, and I became determined, and still am determined, to become and remain bilingual. That was part of the way that my world view broadened while I was in school; the other part was becoming close friends with people from all over the world. I couldn't help but change in many ways.

I finished the Bachelors degree in 2002 with a major in German studies and a minor in history. I moved right into a Public History masters program at UALR - I thought about other things, but anything else that really interested me would have meant moving, and that didn't make sense financially and wouldn't have been fair to David, my husband.

And as it has worked out, the choice was a good one. I wrote my thesis about German immigration into Arkansas, which was a help toward my goal of keeping the language, since I used a lot of German sources. I finished the thesis last December and now have the masters diploma on my wall. I love doing historical research, and I like writing about what I find out. And I've had my name in the paper a couple of times for knowing about Germans in the state. And that brings me up to what I wrote in my first post.

Besides my job with the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, I am active in the newly formed Donaghey Scholars Alumni chapter, and I am on the Coleman Creek Greenway committee at UALR. Plus I am exploring other ways to continue doing research.

And that is who I am - well, it is a tiny bit about who I am - there is a lot more. But those are the things that are most on my mind right now. In a way, since I just finished college, I am having to try to figure out what I'm going to do now! What I'm going to do when I grow up, so to speak!

That's all for today -

posted by Shirley Schuette @ 11:03 PM