October 24, 2025 • 22 mins
We've probably all heard the saying, "If we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it." But is that really true? And besides preventing doom, how does studying history help students in their present-day lives?
This week, Dr. Ross and student producer Ashley Worley continue their series highlighting inside stories and college prep practicalities from UT Tyler's History department. Department chair Dr. Colin Snider and senior History major Nixon Gorka join the discussion to share what's really happening in history classes. If you're choosing your degree, preparing for college life, or just curious about other experiences in higher ed, this series is for you.
Have more questions about life inside a History department? Email us at ADRquestions@gmail.com or leave a comment below. We'd love to hear from you!
Want to learn more or connect with UT Tyler's Department of History? Click the link below!
-Department webpage: https://www.uttyler.edu/academics/colleges-schools/arts-sciences/departments/biology/
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
So, as you all have probably figured out, one of the
goals of this podcast is toeducate folks about what goes on
at universities.
And the central college in mostuniversities was the College of
Arts and Sciences.
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
For this series, we're going to be introducing
each of our wonderfuldepartments in the College of
Arts and Sciences by bringingyou a top professor in that
department and one of the topstudents as well.
We hope that this is veryhelpful to you as you're
choosing your major or justwanting to learn more about what
to expect from college life ingeneral.
Thank you for listening and wehope you enjoy.
SPEAKER_01 (00:48):
His research focuses on a variety of social and
political issues that revolvearound military dictatorships
and democratic regimes in LatinAmerica, focusing especially on
Brazil.
The first question I wanted toask you is what do you teach in
college history classes?
SPEAKER_03 (01:06):
We sort of teach two different things, I would say,
in two different levels.
For our incoming freshmen andfor sophomores who are taking
those core curriculum courses,whether it's the US History One
or Two courses or the WorldCivilizations courses.
It's largely a means to sort ofget students to reconsider what
history is and how it pertainsto their lives and how it tells
us about different peoples,cultures, moments, the sort of
the cliche line there, the pastis a foreign country.
(01:29):
For the freshman courses andthose core curriculum courses, a
lot of students come in notnecessarily knowing exactly what
history is.
That I will regularly ask whohates history and just they'll
hesitantly raise their hands andI'm not mad.
I say, I don't know you.
Go ahead.
And I ask why, and I can mouthalong with them because they say
it's a bunch of names and dates,and that's absolutely not what
history is.
History is a way ofunderstanding the past, of
thinking about change over time,sort of identifying patterns in
(01:50):
history and the ways that thepast has shaped the present or
in ways that we can draw onlessons from the past.
So I'll tell them, if I if itwere just names and dates, I
wouldn't have notes in front ofme.
I dump those names and dates onthe papers.
That's not what's cluttering myhead.
It's a way of thinking about thepast rather than data collection
necessarily or justmemorization.
And so largely it's trying toget students to both understand
this other kind of thinking thatgoes beyond what they're
(02:12):
typically expected of in highschool, and also to get them to
reconsider what the stories ofthe past tell us about the past
and the present.
And then at the upper divisionlevel, it's sort of magnifying
those efforts.
We're trying to get students todo deeper dives into subject
areas they may not know or evensubject areas they're familiar
with.
You regularly get studentssaying, Oh, we have to study the
past or else we're doomed torepeat it, which is not true.
(02:34):
The past doesn't repeat, but thebetter quote is Mark Twain,
right?
The past doesn't repeat, but itoften rhymes.
So helping students identifythose rhymes and really trying
to doubly equip them to think ashistorians, but also to figure
out how to use those broaderskills beyond the classroom so
that it's not, you know,students often come in thinking,
I have to teach.
Like you don't have to teach.
There's any number of careersyou can build out of these
skills.
It's a field much like English,where you're not sort of
(02:56):
bottlenecked into one particulartype of job.
You have lots you can do.
And so we're trying to give themthe skills that allow them to do
the widest range while findingthe things they enjoy.
SPEAKER_01 (03:03):
Yeah.
And we're going to talk aboutthe possible professional uses
of all of the departmentteachings.
So our other guest is NixonGorka.
And you've been a history majorfor how long now, Nixon?
Two years.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit about what you think history
is?
SPEAKER_02 (03:19):
Well, I think you did a wonderful job explaining
it, but it informs the presentin ways that a lot of people
don't understand.
And being a history major, youlook into that and you learn
about how it can help you rightnow and help you with just
interpersonal things orpolitics, everything.
It also helps with just beingable to read documents, be able
(03:42):
to read them correctly andunderstand that people sometimes
don't have the best motives,whether or not they're speaking
to you or you're reading whatthey say or you're seeing it on
the news.
And it helps you definitely knowhow to write.
You write a lot and you getbetter at it.
So, what courses in history haveyou taken so far?
At UT Tyler, I took Dr.
Snyder's Cold War course.
(04:04):
That was my first one here.
I am currently in the methodscourse, which is research and
methods.
You had to write the paper, youhad to do the thing.
It's very exciting.
I love it, but it can bedifficult.
SPEAKER_01 (04:15):
Were your high school courses exciting so that
that's where you started yourinterest in history?
SPEAKER_02 (04:20):
Yes, definitely.
I had the privilege of havingsome very, very good history
teachers.
They all had advanced degrees inhistory, and it was all AP tests
and AP classes, and they wentvery in-depth, and it really
did, I guess, stir within me theinterest.
SPEAKER_01 (04:36):
And I think that's important.
One of the things that I'venoticed over the years is that
when you have a good teacher inthe junior and senior level
years, then that gets you reallyready to hop into a more
collegiate level.
Because there is a bigdifference, isn't there?
So, Dr.
Snyder, are there differenttracks of history?
Do students study world history,American history, Latin American
(05:00):
history?
Can they do that?
Or do you plan a kind of widesmorgasbord?
SPEAKER_03 (05:04):
So it's a bit of both, really, in addition to the
required U.S.
history one and two courses.
They have to take nine hours ofU.S.
history, six hours of Europeanhistory, and six hours of world
history.
But what they do within that isentirely up to them.
So if you like, oh I I don'tlike the new history, I like old
stuff, then I want to do nothingafter the Renaissance.
Well then you can take ancientRome or medieval Europe or
Renaissance Europe.
But if you're like, I hate theold stuff, give me all the new
(05:25):
things, and you can take 20thcentury Europe and World War II,
and saying with world history orwith US history, that we sort of
have probably anywhere fromeight to ten courses at least in
each of those three sub-areas sothat students really can get the
most out of what interests themwhile we ensure that they're
getting as wide a range ofhistorical content and knowledge
as possible.
SPEAKER_02 (05:44):
So, Nixon, how many courses have you taken now?
I took Cold War, modern Americandiplomacy, history of African
Americans, history of theBritish Empire, and I think
that's a I could be missing one.
SPEAKER_01 (05:57):
Well, I'm gonna have to ask you about your history of
the British Empire, becausethat's my area.
So can you tell me a little bitabout what you did in that
class?
I think what we're trying to dohere is to help folks who might
be interested in doing thesecourses to find out from someone
who's done it what was it like.
SPEAKER_02 (06:12):
Yeah, well, that one was amazing.
It was taught by Dr.
Link, so it was a completelyvirtual class, and it really
does open up an accessibilityfor students who don't really
have the time to be able to cometo campus.
So I was very happy to take thatbecause I could still learn the
content while also being at homeand watching the lectures and
(06:33):
doing all of that.
She does a wonderful jobsparking interest within her
students.
It's a little bit hard with acompletely asynchronous course
to do that, but she haswonderful stories that are
integrated into her lectures.
And then also the reading isalways amazing.
So even if you are notnecessarily interested in what
(06:54):
the course is talking about, youwalk away interested.
unknown (06:57):
Dr.
SPEAKER_01 (06:58):
Snyder, what is it that you love about teaching
history?
SPEAKER_03 (07:01):
Originally it was just a passion for the content
and wanting to share that withothers.
That's sort of how I got intohistory in the first place, is
just I really liked doing this.
Just learning about the past andthe wild stories there are and
the ways it often sounds alittle familiar in places you
wouldn't expect, and sort ofpassing that along and pretty
quickly learned that high schoolwas not going to be for me in
terms of teaching, and was givengood advice on going to graduate
(07:22):
school and teaching at theuniversity level instead.
And along the way, as its sortof career developed through
graduate school and whatnot, Igot to see how many students
really weren't exposed to thekind of quality critical
analysis and thinking in highschool that makes this stuff so
interesting.
So, in some ways, a reward alsothen became like that, even if
they still hated history andnever took another history
class, they could at least walkout of there having a sense of
(07:43):
kinds of questions they couldask about the world around them
and sort of thinking about thesethings in a slightly critical,
non-linear, non-sort of mathscience-y way of one plus one
equals two, but just sort ofbroadening their understanding.
And you often see that in theirfaces really like, wait, what?
SPEAKER_01 (07:58):
Did that really happen?
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
Yeah, what else have I not been told about?
And so I think it became anavenue to provide my own small
way of contributing to helpingpeople be more well-rounded in
how they think about the worldaround them.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
Now, Nixon is nodding sagely as you say that.
Has that been your experiencewith your history classes?
SPEAKER_02 (08:18):
Yeah, I fully agree.
I think it makes you a betterglobal citizen just in the sense
that you have a largerunderstanding for the world
around you and why people arethe way that they are.
You understand humanity in adifferent way from history than
you can really get from anyother discipline.
SPEAKER_01 (08:36):
Well, you know, I teach British literature, but I
always teach the history alongwith it, because I don't think
you can understand theliterature if you don't
understand what was going on intheir world and what were their
cultural pressures and what wasgoing on economically and all of
those things.
Do you study much about theeconomic history in any of your
courses, Dr.
Snyder?
SPEAKER_03 (08:56):
Reluctantly I will tell students that I'm the first
to say that no historian likesall forms of history across the
board.
And I don't like ancienthistory, I'm just couldn't not
care less about the RomanEmpire.
And I don't have the head foreconomic history, but that
doesn't make it avoidable.
You know, like I dodictatorships.
We talk about what neoliberalismis and what neoliberal economic
policies are and their impact.
So I do touch on economictypically more through a social
(09:19):
lens of, you know, growthdoesn't necessarily equal
development.
And what do we mean by those twothings?
That if a metric is measuringgrowth, okay, great, the
country's per capita income isskyrocketed, but if 90% of that
wealth is going to 10% of thepopulation, you're not
developing the country even ifit's growing.
So largely when it comes toeconomics, it's more like how
does this affect everyday livesrather than the more social
science-y economic model.
SPEAKER_01 (09:40):
Are there schools of thought about how history is
taught?
SPEAKER_03 (09:43):
Aaron Ross Powell There are schools and theories
of how to do this, but I thinkit largely hinges more on how do
you approach this subjectmatter, right?
That some people sort of pull onthis von Rank notion of history
is telling things as theyactually occurred.
So that's sort of where thepostmodern linguistic turn in
the 60s and 70s pops in, wherethey basically say, okay, but
who's doing the telling?
What are the documents thatyou're looking at?
Whose voices are included, butwhose voices are excluded.
(10:06):
So I think really at theundergraduate level that you can
spot differences in people'steaching, but it's not along
anything ideology-based.
It's really contingent upon whatinterests them.
So that I do more social historyand political history, so it's
sort of blending those twothings together.
So things like social movements,fighting for human rights in the
world, the Cold War and itsgeopolitics.
Dr.
Link, her specialty is Irishhistory and World War I and
(10:28):
World War II.
So she does on the more socialside, but on warfare, right?
Dr.
Stith is interested inenvironmental history, and so
that's really reflected in a lotof his coursework.
So we all have our own areas ofinterest, and I think that
actually that diversity acrossany department is a reward for
the students because it allowsthem to get sort of the full
sample platter rather than justhaving a bunch of professors who
all do the same approach andthey only know about that one
(10:50):
approach even if indirectly.
SPEAKER_01 (10:52):
So it sounds to me like history professors in this
university tell a lot of goodstories, tell them in a way that
does not focus on dates andnames, but rather trends and
attitudes and things like that.
When you think about your ownstudies right now, Nixon, are
you thinking about going tograduate school in history?
(11:13):
Yes, I am.
SPEAKER_02 (11:14):
I actually applied for the program here for
masters.
Well, it really just helps youunderstand how and why people
have done things.
You learn, at least during yourundergraduate years, all of this
(11:37):
history and you learn about allof these historians and what
they say.
But that I feel likehistoriography will hopefully
make everything make sense atthat point, or it at least give
you more questions, but it willkind of connect the dots and
like why things are the way theyare.
Now, Dr.
SPEAKER_01 (11:55):
Snyder got a big grin on his face when you said
that.
You want to tell us what you'resmiling about, Dr.
Snyder?
SPEAKER_03 (12:01):
The graduate historiography class I teach,
I'm fully comfortable saying isit's everyone's nightmare.
It's the one they dread becauseit's the most abstract.
That's where we do get into someof those more boring debates.
I tell the students right offthe bat, you're not going to
know what's going on, and that'sokay.
Some weeks will do better thanothers, and it'll vary for each
person.
But apparently my colleaguesreferred to it as a class that
tears you down so that you canbe built back up.
And I think that's fair becausewhat it really is, is it's
(12:22):
getting people to think aboutthe philosophy of history.
Like what exactly does this meanas a human enterprise?
What are the various ways we canthink about all these types of
questions?
So we go really through, likeabout since the Enlightenment, a
good chunk of different ways tothink about human interactions,
ways to interrogate the past.
What are the archives and how dowe understand them?
How do we write?
What what is global history?
(12:42):
What is the power of everydaypeople in everyday lives versus
political history in the livesof the elites?
So it's it's a lot oftheoretical discussion.
So the undergraduate methodsclass is sort of here's how to
do research and write a bigpaper for the first time in your
life, probably.
SPEAKER_01 (12:55):
What's a big paper?
How big is it?
SPEAKER_03 (12:57):
25 to 30 pages.
SPEAKER_01 (12:58):
Oh my goodness.
Have you done one already?
I'm currently doing it.
And what is it on?
SPEAKER_02 (13:03):
It's going to be on spy scandals in the 1960s.
SPEAKER_01 (13:06):
Spy scandals.
Oh, that sounds like fun.
So 25 pages is a lot.
SPEAKER_02 (13:11):
Yeah, well, I will admit there has been some
setbacks.
The British thankfully have apretty good archival system, at
least online, but not all ofthose archives are accessible to
people not willing to pay forthem.
So that has been a setback.
But I have fortunately been ableto find a few things, few
documents, either in the BritishNational Archives or the British
(13:32):
National Newspaper Archives thathave helped me along the way.
SPEAKER_01 (13:36):
Yeah, learning how to get into those databases is a
big part of the project, isn'tit?
But we have wonderful librarianshere, research librarians, who
can help you find that.
Do you have students andclassmates, Nixon, that say, oh,
history and give you a hard timeabout it?
SPEAKER_02 (13:51):
Or your family give you a hard time about it?
I think the hardest time thatI've been given was when I
decided to go into history.
The Woodlands is a veryoil-based town.
So everybody I know was goinginto pre-med engineering or
business administration.
And although those are, youknow, great things, a lot of
people going into that don'treally understand.
(14:12):
Oh, why do you want to go intohistory?
What are you gonna do with that?
SPEAKER_01 (14:15):
Yeah, that's always the next question.
What will you do with it?
And I think what Dr.
Snyder said to us is that youcan do a lot with it.
SPEAKER_00 (14:24):
So I'm a mass communications student, and
honestly, I don't have a ton ofexposure to history other than
random things I research whenI'm working on a book.
So past learning about it inhigh school, like that's my only
exposure to it.
And I imagine maybe that's thesituation for some of these
other students who don't go intothese types of fields.
(14:46):
So from that angle, what aresome of the applications that
you think make history soimportant to study at a
collegiate level, outside ofbeing professor and having, you
know, generally an informedpopulace?
SPEAKER_03 (14:59):
Aaron Powell It certainly exposes students and
anybody really to differentsocieties, different cultures,
and even within our own country,right?
The the cultures of the past aredifferent than they are now in
some ways.
We can identify theirprogression, but they they're
different.
So I think in some ways the mereact of learning about different
peoples and different culturesand different moments allows us
to better appreciate the commonqualities of humanity and to
(15:22):
also be more empathetic towardsdifference and willing to
understand and respectdifference.
I also think there's nothingquite like history, and
admittedly I'm a little biased,but I think the reward of the
humanities more generally isthey they provide you with a
kind of intellectual flexibilityand a wide variety of skills
like writing, communication, etcetera, that are applicable
across a variety of fields.
But the one place I would, in myown defense, say history has the
(15:42):
leg up is ours are real people.
And I think because of itsreality as just lived
experiences, it's also a prettyimpressive school for teaching
and guiding you in finding yourown path for your own ethics,
values, and sort of approach tothe world because of all of the
horrific events in the pastwhere you can say, well, what
would I have done in thosesituations?
Or the heroic examples, right?
(16:03):
It equips you to deal withambiguity and context and
complexity in practical sensesin ways that I think a lot of
other fields do not.
SPEAKER_01 (16:10):
Aaron Ross Powell Now, Colin, is there any
particular person from historyor period of history that you
just totally geek out on?
SPEAKER_03 (16:21):
Oh yeah, it's definitely and this is such a
depressing sentence, it's LatinAmerican dictatorships.
It was definitely the source ofabout a semester-long
existential crisis when I was ingrad school.
We're just dealing with atrocityOlympics now and silver and
bronze medalists.
So it took some wrestling withwhy am I so interested in this.
But I think what it really camedown to was horror.
The horror that people could letthemselves get to such a place
(16:41):
mentally where this was entirelyacceptable behavior, and trying
to understand how and why.
It's not just a sort of paradeof pointless atrocities, but it
you also get highlights ofhumanity at their best, right?
That this is also when the humanrights movement really becomes
an international thing.
So it's both, I think, a sort ofa microcosm of humanity at both
its worst and its best, andunderstanding how our own
(17:03):
choices can get us to either ofthose two roads.
And we talk about this in classlaws, like the need for students
to have their own sense ofhistorical conscience, by which
we simply mean that you're awarethat you are yourself a
historical actor, that thethings you do now will be in the
history books in the future.
Not that your name will benecessarily, but that if they
say, you know, the publicoverwhelmingly supported this
person or the public voted forthat person or whomever, that if
(17:23):
you did either of those things,you're in the history book.
So sort of how do you want to beremembered historically as well
as Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:30):
Well, Nixon, do you geek out on any particular part
of the history?
SPEAKER_02 (17:34):
I will say I feel like a lot of history majors do
have the crisis of being like,oh my gosh, why do I like such
horrible things?
So as you mentioned, SecondWorld War is just very
interesting.
I think to a lot of people andmyself included, just like, how
did these things happen?
(17:55):
And how do people get away withit afterwards?
At least that's what I've foundinteresting about that period of
history.
I like to focus specifically onintelligence history.
So when you graduate, are youplanning to be a professor as
well, or did you have somethingelse in mind?
I would love to do that.
We'll see where life takes me.
But I think being able to sharehistory and to write about it
(18:17):
and to learn more about itthroughout your entire life is a
privilege that I would love tohave.
SPEAKER_00 (18:22):
That's awesome.
And so, in regard to like jobs,do you have any classmates or do
you know of students who likewhat were their career options
outside of being a professor?
Because you mentioned there'skind of this assumption that
that's the only option forhistory majors, but it's not
really.
SPEAKER_03 (18:38):
Yeah, we've had students end up in any number of
fields, and some of them aremore obviously linearly
connected to history.
So we have one who's now thehead of an archival system in
Colorado.
We've had other students go intothe library sciences, but
really, and this comes back tosomething we mentioned earlier
about it's giving you a widerange of skills.
So we've had plenty of studentsmake a career in the private
sector or even running smallbusiness, but basically they
(19:00):
have these kinds ofdecision-making skills and they
can gather a lot of data andcontextualize it fairly quickly.
I think some fields they're solike whether it's pre-med or
nursing or engineering, right?
It's just that's going to bewhat you're going to go do now.
And some students are thrilledabout that, but I think a lot of
times folks don't realize, like,what if I hate it in eight
years?
And with a degree in thehumanities or the social
sciences, even, I think you havethat chance where you can go do
(19:22):
a job.
And if you hate it in eightyears, you've got skills where
you can go do a different joband you don't have to go back to
school.
Whereas in nursing, let's justsay, you know, if burnout gets
you in six years and you'relike, well, now what?
Like, well, I know how to nurse.
Well, what else do you know howto do?
That's it.
That's the list.
So yeah, I think part of it isjust we have students go out all
over the place.
Obviously, a lot of go into highschool teaching and want to,
(19:42):
right?
That that's sort of what they'veentered into the field for.
But I think it's largely thenwe're really working at getting
students to think about what areyou learning more, not just
content-wise, but what skillsare you learning so that when
you go out there, you canidentify what interests you in
ways that tap into these skillsthat even if it's not
immediately visibly a historian.
Like I've had friends who'veended up with PhDs in history,
(20:02):
but they're in editing work.
Or I've had a friend who endedup working in immigration
services where their job isbasically identifying human
rights violators who are hereillegally that we should be
getting out because of the humanrights violation part, or
they're here even legally, butbasically the terms of like,
well, you lied on yourapplication because you were
tied to these horrors.
So working on the legal cases onthat area, or I have a colleague
(20:24):
from grad school who ended upbeing the historian of the
National Forestry Service with aPhD in history, right?
So you can do any number ofthings.
So when like what do I do withthat?
It sort of becomes what do youwant to do with it?
As opposed to other fields whereit's like, well, what do I do
with that?
You do this.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
You know, that's always the big question about
college.
You know, what are you gonna dowith it?
And sometimes we can answer it,and sometimes only the student
can answer it.
I think you all have really donea good job of helping us to see
that studying history is abouttoday as well as the past.
It gives you a perspective.
And that may be the biggestthing that I imagine that comes
(21:00):
from historical training.
So is there any last thing youwant to say to folks out there
who are thinking about studyinghistory?
I mean, obviously just do it.
SPEAKER_02 (21:09):
Just do it.
I had so many people tell me notto.
And obviously I'm speaking as anundergraduate student.
I don't know where I'll be, butI'm extremely lucky that I did.
It derives from a love forhistory.
So a lot of people will say, Oh,well, like I only like to read
Wikipedia articles at 2 a.m.
Well, that also can be a lovefor history that you get a
(21:32):
degree in.
You can move that elsewhere andalso have a livelihood like off
of that.
Or just like YouTube videos orvideo essays, just very niche
things that you enjoy, you canactually further that.
SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
Well, Professor Snyder, is there anything you
want to say?
One last thing that you wishfolks could hear?
SPEAKER_03 (21:52):
Yeah, I would say I guess it's okay if you don't
like history because nothing isfor everybody.
But I would let yourself learnit from the professionals first
before you decide if you reallydon't like it.
And if you like it, but like,but what am I going to do with
that?
Again, I think the answer iswhat do you want to do with it?
It can be professional, but italso can be personal, right?
That there's plenty of personallearning you can do about
yourself and how you see theworld and how you approach
(22:13):
situations that I think historyis not solely, but is uniquely
equipped to prepare you for.
SPEAKER_01 (22:20):
Thank you for coming.
So, as you all have probably figured out, one of the
goals of this podcast is toeducate folks about what goes on
at universities.
And the central college in mostuniversities was the College of
Arts and Sciences.
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
For this series, we're going to be introducing
each of our wonderfuldepartments in the College of
Arts and Sciences by bringingyou a top professor in that
department and one of the topstudents as well.
We hope that this is veryhelpful to you as you're
choosing your major or justwanting to learn more about what
to expect from college life ingeneral.
Thank you for listening and wehope you enjoy.
SPEAKER_01 (00:48):
His research focuses on a variety of social and
political issues that revolvearound military dictatorships
and democratic regimes in LatinAmerica, focusing especially on
Brazil.
The first question I wanted toask you is what do you teach in
college history classes?
SPEAKER_03 (01:06):
We sort of teach two different things, I would say,
in two different levels.
For our incoming freshmen andfor sophomores who are taking
those core curriculum courses,whether it's the US History One
or Two courses or the WorldCivilizations courses.
It's largely a means to sort ofget students to reconsider what
history is and how it pertainsto their lives and how it tells
us about different peoples,cultures, moments, the sort of
the cliche line there, the pastis a foreign country.
(01:29):
For the freshman courses andthose core curriculum courses, a
lot of students come in notnecessarily knowing exactly what
history is.
That I will regularly ask whohates history and just they'll
hesitantly raise their hands andI'm not mad.
I say, I don't know you.
Go ahead.
And I ask why, and I can mouthalong with them because they say
it's a bunch of names and dates,and that's absolutely not what
history is.
History is a way ofunderstanding the past, of
thinking about change over time,sort of identifying patterns in
(01:50):
history and the ways that thepast has shaped the present or
in ways that we can draw onlessons from the past.
So I'll tell them, if I if itwere just names and dates, I
wouldn't have notes in front ofme.
I dump those names and dates onthe papers.
That's not what's cluttering myhead.
It's a way of thinking about thepast rather than data collection
necessarily or justmemorization.
And so largely it's trying toget students to both understand
this other kind of thinking thatgoes beyond what they're
(02:12):
typically expected of in highschool, and also to get them to
reconsider what the stories ofthe past tell us about the past
and the present.
And then at the upper divisionlevel, it's sort of magnifying
those efforts.
We're trying to get students todo deeper dives into subject
areas they may not know or evensubject areas they're familiar
with.
You regularly get studentssaying, Oh, we have to study the
past or else we're doomed torepeat it, which is not true.
(02:34):
The past doesn't repeat, but thebetter quote is Mark Twain,
right?
The past doesn't repeat, but itoften rhymes.
So helping students identifythose rhymes and really trying
to doubly equip them to think ashistorians, but also to figure
out how to use those broaderskills beyond the classroom so
that it's not, you know,students often come in thinking,
I have to teach.
Like you don't have to teach.
There's any number of careersyou can build out of these
skills.
It's a field much like English,where you're not sort of
(02:56):
bottlenecked into one particulartype of job.
You have lots you can do.
And so we're trying to give themthe skills that allow them to do
the widest range while findingthe things they enjoy.
SPEAKER_01 (03:03):
Yeah.
And we're going to talk aboutthe possible professional uses
of all of the departmentteachings.
So our other guest is NixonGorka.
And you've been a history majorfor how long now, Nixon?
Two years.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit about what you think history
is?
SPEAKER_02 (03:19):
Well, I think you did a wonderful job explaining
it, but it informs the presentin ways that a lot of people
don't understand.
And being a history major, youlook into that and you learn
about how it can help you rightnow and help you with just
interpersonal things orpolitics, everything.
It also helps with just beingable to read documents, be able
(03:42):
to read them correctly andunderstand that people sometimes
don't have the best motives,whether or not they're speaking
to you or you're reading whatthey say or you're seeing it on
the news.
And it helps you definitely knowhow to write.
You write a lot and you getbetter at it.
So, what courses in history haveyou taken so far?
At UT Tyler, I took Dr.
Snyder's Cold War course.
(04:04):
That was my first one here.
I am currently in the methodscourse, which is research and
methods.
You had to write the paper, youhad to do the thing.
It's very exciting.
I love it, but it can bedifficult.
SPEAKER_01 (04:15):
Were your high school courses exciting so that
that's where you started yourinterest in history?
SPEAKER_02 (04:20):
Yes, definitely.
I had the privilege of havingsome very, very good history
teachers.
They all had advanced degrees inhistory, and it was all AP tests
and AP classes, and they wentvery in-depth, and it really
did, I guess, stir within me theinterest.
SPEAKER_01 (04:36):
And I think that's important.
One of the things that I'venoticed over the years is that
when you have a good teacher inthe junior and senior level
years, then that gets you reallyready to hop into a more
collegiate level.
Because there is a bigdifference, isn't there?
So, Dr.
Snyder, are there differenttracks of history?
Do students study world history,American history, Latin American
(05:00):
history?
Can they do that?
Or do you plan a kind of widesmorgasbord?
SPEAKER_03 (05:04):
So it's a bit of both, really, in addition to the
required U.S.
history one and two courses.
They have to take nine hours ofU.S.
history, six hours of Europeanhistory, and six hours of world
history.
But what they do within that isentirely up to them.
So if you like, oh I I don'tlike the new history, I like old
stuff, then I want to do nothingafter the Renaissance.
Well then you can take ancientRome or medieval Europe or
Renaissance Europe.
But if you're like, I hate theold stuff, give me all the new
(05:25):
things, and you can take 20thcentury Europe and World War II,
and saying with world history orwith US history, that we sort of
have probably anywhere fromeight to ten courses at least in
each of those three sub-areas sothat students really can get the
most out of what interests themwhile we ensure that they're
getting as wide a range ofhistorical content and knowledge
as possible.
SPEAKER_02 (05:44):
So, Nixon, how many courses have you taken now?
I took Cold War, modern Americandiplomacy, history of African
Americans, history of theBritish Empire, and I think
that's a I could be missing one.
SPEAKER_01 (05:57):
Well, I'm gonna have to ask you about your history of
the British Empire, becausethat's my area.
So can you tell me a little bitabout what you did in that
class?
I think what we're trying to dohere is to help folks who might
be interested in doing thesecourses to find out from someone
who's done it what was it like.
SPEAKER_02 (06:12):
Yeah, well, that one was amazing.
It was taught by Dr.
Link, so it was a completelyvirtual class, and it really
does open up an accessibilityfor students who don't really
have the time to be able to cometo campus.
So I was very happy to take thatbecause I could still learn the
content while also being at homeand watching the lectures and
(06:33):
doing all of that.
She does a wonderful jobsparking interest within her
students.
It's a little bit hard with acompletely asynchronous course
to do that, but she haswonderful stories that are
integrated into her lectures.
And then also the reading isalways amazing.
So even if you are notnecessarily interested in what
(06:54):
the course is talking about, youwalk away interested.
unknown (06:57):
Dr.
SPEAKER_01 (06:58):
Snyder, what is it that you love about teaching
history?
SPEAKER_03 (07:01):
Originally it was just a passion for the content
and wanting to share that withothers.
That's sort of how I got intohistory in the first place, is
just I really liked doing this.
Just learning about the past andthe wild stories there are and
the ways it often sounds alittle familiar in places you
wouldn't expect, and sort ofpassing that along and pretty
quickly learned that high schoolwas not going to be for me in
terms of teaching, and was givengood advice on going to graduate
(07:22):
school and teaching at theuniversity level instead.
And along the way, as its sortof career developed through
graduate school and whatnot, Igot to see how many students
really weren't exposed to thekind of quality critical
analysis and thinking in highschool that makes this stuff so
interesting.
So, in some ways, a reward alsothen became like that, even if
they still hated history andnever took another history
class, they could at least walkout of there having a sense of
(07:43):
kinds of questions they couldask about the world around them
and sort of thinking about thesethings in a slightly critical,
non-linear, non-sort of mathscience-y way of one plus one
equals two, but just sort ofbroadening their understanding.
And you often see that in theirfaces really like, wait, what?
SPEAKER_01 (07:58):
Did that really happen?
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
Yeah, what else have I not been told about?
And so I think it became anavenue to provide my own small
way of contributing to helpingpeople be more well-rounded in
how they think about the worldaround them.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
Now, Nixon is nodding sagely as you say that.
Has that been your experiencewith your history classes?
SPEAKER_02 (08:18):
Yeah, I fully agree.
I think it makes you a betterglobal citizen just in the sense
that you have a largerunderstanding for the world
around you and why people arethe way that they are.
You understand humanity in adifferent way from history than
you can really get from anyother discipline.
SPEAKER_01 (08:36):
Well, you know, I teach British literature, but I
always teach the history alongwith it, because I don't think
you can understand theliterature if you don't
understand what was going on intheir world and what were their
cultural pressures and what wasgoing on economically and all of
those things.
Do you study much about theeconomic history in any of your
courses, Dr.
Snyder?
SPEAKER_03 (08:56):
Reluctantly I will tell students that I'm the first
to say that no historian likesall forms of history across the
board.
And I don't like ancienthistory, I'm just couldn't not
care less about the RomanEmpire.
And I don't have the head foreconomic history, but that
doesn't make it avoidable.
You know, like I dodictatorships.
We talk about what neoliberalismis and what neoliberal economic
policies are and their impact.
So I do touch on economictypically more through a social
(09:19):
lens of, you know, growthdoesn't necessarily equal
development.
And what do we mean by those twothings?
That if a metric is measuringgrowth, okay, great, the
country's per capita income isskyrocketed, but if 90% of that
wealth is going to 10% of thepopulation, you're not
developing the country even ifit's growing.
So largely when it comes toeconomics, it's more like how
does this affect everyday livesrather than the more social
science-y economic model.
SPEAKER_01 (09:40):
Are there schools of thought about how history is
taught?
SPEAKER_03 (09:43):
Aaron Ross Powell There are schools and theories
of how to do this, but I thinkit largely hinges more on how do
you approach this subjectmatter, right?
That some people sort of pull onthis von Rank notion of history
is telling things as theyactually occurred.
So that's sort of where thepostmodern linguistic turn in
the 60s and 70s pops in, wherethey basically say, okay, but
who's doing the telling?
What are the documents thatyou're looking at?
Whose voices are included, butwhose voices are excluded.
(10:06):
So I think really at theundergraduate level that you can
spot differences in people'steaching, but it's not along
anything ideology-based.
It's really contingent upon whatinterests them.
So that I do more social historyand political history, so it's
sort of blending those twothings together.
So things like social movements,fighting for human rights in the
world, the Cold War and itsgeopolitics.
Dr.
Link, her specialty is Irishhistory and World War I and
(10:28):
World War II.
So she does on the more socialside, but on warfare, right?
Dr.
Stith is interested inenvironmental history, and so
that's really reflected in a lotof his coursework.
So we all have our own areas ofinterest, and I think that
actually that diversity acrossany department is a reward for
the students because it allowsthem to get sort of the full
sample platter rather than justhaving a bunch of professors who
all do the same approach andthey only know about that one
(10:50):
approach even if indirectly.
SPEAKER_01 (10:52):
So it sounds to me like history professors in this
university tell a lot of goodstories, tell them in a way that
does not focus on dates andnames, but rather trends and
attitudes and things like that.
When you think about your ownstudies right now, Nixon, are
you thinking about going tograduate school in history?
(11:13):
Yes, I am.
SPEAKER_02 (11:14):
I actually applied for the program here for
masters.
Well, it really just helps youunderstand how and why people
have done things.
You learn, at least during yourundergraduate years, all of this
(11:37):
history and you learn about allof these historians and what
they say.
But that I feel likehistoriography will hopefully
make everything make sense atthat point, or it at least give
you more questions, but it willkind of connect the dots and
like why things are the way theyare.
Now, Dr.
SPEAKER_01 (11:55):
Snyder got a big grin on his face when you said
that.
You want to tell us what you'resmiling about, Dr.
Snyder?
SPEAKER_03 (12:01):
The graduate historiography class I teach,
I'm fully comfortable saying isit's everyone's nightmare.
It's the one they dread becauseit's the most abstract.
That's where we do get into someof those more boring debates.
I tell the students right offthe bat, you're not going to
know what's going on, and that'sokay.
Some weeks will do better thanothers, and it'll vary for each
person.
But apparently my colleaguesreferred to it as a class that
tears you down so that you canbe built back up.
And I think that's fair becausewhat it really is, is it's
(12:22):
getting people to think aboutthe philosophy of history.
Like what exactly does this meanas a human enterprise?
What are the various ways we canthink about all these types of
questions?
So we go really through, likeabout since the Enlightenment, a
good chunk of different ways tothink about human interactions,
ways to interrogate the past.
What are the archives and how dowe understand them?
How do we write?
What what is global history?
(12:42):
What is the power of everydaypeople in everyday lives versus
political history in the livesof the elites?
So it's it's a lot oftheoretical discussion.
So the undergraduate methodsclass is sort of here's how to
do research and write a bigpaper for the first time in your
life, probably.
SPEAKER_01 (12:55):
What's a big paper?
How big is it?
SPEAKER_03 (12:57):
25 to 30 pages.
SPEAKER_01 (12:58):
Oh my goodness.
Have you done one already?
I'm currently doing it.
And what is it on?
SPEAKER_02 (13:03):
It's going to be on spy scandals in the 1960s.
SPEAKER_01 (13:06):
Spy scandals.
Oh, that sounds like fun.
So 25 pages is a lot.
SPEAKER_02 (13:11):
Yeah, well, I will admit there has been some
setbacks.
The British thankfully have apretty good archival system, at
least online, but not all ofthose archives are accessible to
people not willing to pay forthem.
So that has been a setback.
But I have fortunately been ableto find a few things, few
documents, either in the BritishNational Archives or the British
(13:32):
National Newspaper Archives thathave helped me along the way.
SPEAKER_01 (13:36):
Yeah, learning how to get into those databases is a
big part of the project, isn'tit?
But we have wonderful librarianshere, research librarians, who
can help you find that.
Do you have students andclassmates, Nixon, that say, oh,
history and give you a hard timeabout it?
SPEAKER_02 (13:51):
Or your family give you a hard time about it?
I think the hardest time thatI've been given was when I
decided to go into history.
The Woodlands is a veryoil-based town.
So everybody I know was goinginto pre-med engineering or
business administration.
And although those are, youknow, great things, a lot of
people going into that don'treally understand.
(14:12):
Oh, why do you want to go intohistory?
What are you gonna do with that?
SPEAKER_01 (14:15):
Yeah, that's always the next question.
What will you do with it?
And I think what Dr.
Snyder said to us is that youcan do a lot with it.
SPEAKER_00 (14:24):
So I'm a mass communications student, and
honestly, I don't have a ton ofexposure to history other than
random things I research whenI'm working on a book.
So past learning about it inhigh school, like that's my only
exposure to it.
And I imagine maybe that's thesituation for some of these
other students who don't go intothese types of fields.
(14:46):
So from that angle, what aresome of the applications that
you think make history soimportant to study at a
collegiate level, outside ofbeing professor and having, you
know, generally an informedpopulace?
SPEAKER_03 (14:59):
Aaron Powell It certainly exposes students and
anybody really to differentsocieties, different cultures,
and even within our own country,right?
The the cultures of the past aredifferent than they are now in
some ways.
We can identify theirprogression, but they they're
different.
So I think in some ways the mereact of learning about different
peoples and different culturesand different moments allows us
to better appreciate the commonqualities of humanity and to
(15:22):
also be more empathetic towardsdifference and willing to
understand and respectdifference.
I also think there's nothingquite like history, and
admittedly I'm a little biased,but I think the reward of the
humanities more generally isthey they provide you with a
kind of intellectual flexibilityand a wide variety of skills
like writing, communication, etcetera, that are applicable
across a variety of fields.
But the one place I would, in myown defense, say history has the
(15:42):
leg up is ours are real people.
And I think because of itsreality as just lived
experiences, it's also a prettyimpressive school for teaching
and guiding you in finding yourown path for your own ethics,
values, and sort of approach tothe world because of all of the
horrific events in the pastwhere you can say, well, what
would I have done in thosesituations?
Or the heroic examples, right?
(16:03):
It equips you to deal withambiguity and context and
complexity in practical sensesin ways that I think a lot of
other fields do not.
SPEAKER_01 (16:10):
Aaron Ross Powell Now, Colin, is there any
particular person from historyor period of history that you
just totally geek out on?
SPEAKER_03 (16:21):
Oh yeah, it's definitely and this is such a
depressing sentence, it's LatinAmerican dictatorships.
It was definitely the source ofabout a semester-long
existential crisis when I was ingrad school.
We're just dealing with atrocityOlympics now and silver and
bronze medalists.
So it took some wrestling withwhy am I so interested in this.
But I think what it really camedown to was horror.
The horror that people could letthemselves get to such a place
(16:41):
mentally where this was entirelyacceptable behavior, and trying
to understand how and why.
It's not just a sort of paradeof pointless atrocities, but it
you also get highlights ofhumanity at their best, right?
That this is also when the humanrights movement really becomes
an international thing.
So it's both, I think, a sort ofa microcosm of humanity at both
its worst and its best, andunderstanding how our own
(17:03):
choices can get us to either ofthose two roads.
And we talk about this in classlaws, like the need for students
to have their own sense ofhistorical conscience, by which
we simply mean that you're awarethat you are yourself a
historical actor, that thethings you do now will be in the
history books in the future.
Not that your name will benecessarily, but that if they
say, you know, the publicoverwhelmingly supported this
person or the public voted forthat person or whomever, that if
(17:23):
you did either of those things,you're in the history book.
So sort of how do you want to beremembered historically as well
as Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:30):
Well, Nixon, do you geek out on any particular part
of the history?
SPEAKER_02 (17:34):
I will say I feel like a lot of history majors do
have the crisis of being like,oh my gosh, why do I like such
horrible things?
So as you mentioned, SecondWorld War is just very
interesting.
I think to a lot of people andmyself included, just like, how
did these things happen?
(17:55):
And how do people get away withit afterwards?
At least that's what I've foundinteresting about that period of
history.
I like to focus specifically onintelligence history.
So when you graduate, are youplanning to be a professor as
well, or did you have somethingelse in mind?
I would love to do that.
We'll see where life takes me.
But I think being able to sharehistory and to write about it
(18:17):
and to learn more about itthroughout your entire life is a
privilege that I would love tohave.
SPEAKER_00 (18:22):
That's awesome.
And so, in regard to like jobs,do you have any classmates or do
you know of students who likewhat were their career options
outside of being a professor?
Because you mentioned there'skind of this assumption that
that's the only option forhistory majors, but it's not
really.
SPEAKER_03 (18:38):
Yeah, we've had students end up in any number of
fields, and some of them aremore obviously linearly
connected to history.
So we have one who's now thehead of an archival system in
Colorado.
We've had other students go intothe library sciences, but
really, and this comes back tosomething we mentioned earlier
about it's giving you a widerange of skills.
So we've had plenty of studentsmake a career in the private
sector or even running smallbusiness, but basically they
(19:00):
have these kinds ofdecision-making skills and they
can gather a lot of data andcontextualize it fairly quickly.
I think some fields they're solike whether it's pre-med or
nursing or engineering, right?
It's just that's going to bewhat you're going to go do now.
And some students are thrilledabout that, but I think a lot of
times folks don't realize, like,what if I hate it in eight
years?
And with a degree in thehumanities or the social
sciences, even, I think you havethat chance where you can go do
(19:22):
a job.
And if you hate it in eightyears, you've got skills where
you can go do a different joband you don't have to go back to
school.
Whereas in nursing, let's justsay, you know, if burnout gets
you in six years and you'relike, well, now what?
Like, well, I know how to nurse.
Well, what else do you know howto do?
That's it.
That's the list.
So yeah, I think part of it isjust we have students go out all
over the place.
Obviously, a lot of go into highschool teaching and want to,
(19:42):
right?
That that's sort of what they'veentered into the field for.
But I think it's largely thenwe're really working at getting
students to think about what areyou learning more, not just
content-wise, but what skillsare you learning so that when
you go out there, you canidentify what interests you in
ways that tap into these skillsthat even if it's not
immediately visibly a historian.
Like I've had friends who'veended up with PhDs in history,
(20:02):
but they're in editing work.
Or I've had a friend who endedup working in immigration
services where their job isbasically identifying human
rights violators who are hereillegally that we should be
getting out because of the humanrights violation part, or
they're here even legally, butbasically the terms of like,
well, you lied on yourapplication because you were
tied to these horrors.
So working on the legal cases onthat area, or I have a colleague
(20:24):
from grad school who ended upbeing the historian of the
National Forestry Service with aPhD in history, right?
So you can do any number ofthings.
So when like what do I do withthat?
It sort of becomes what do youwant to do with it?
As opposed to other fields whereit's like, well, what do I do
with that?
You do this.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
You know, that's always the big question about
college.
You know, what are you gonna dowith it?
And sometimes we can answer it,and sometimes only the student
can answer it.
I think you all have really donea good job of helping us to see
that studying history is abouttoday as well as the past.
It gives you a perspective.
And that may be the biggestthing that I imagine that comes
(21:00):
from historical training.
So is there any last thing youwant to say to folks out there
who are thinking about studyinghistory?
I mean, obviously just do it.
SPEAKER_02 (21:09):
Just do it.
I had so many people tell me notto.
And obviously I'm speaking as anundergraduate student.
I don't know where I'll be, butI'm extremely lucky that I did.
It derives from a love forhistory.
So a lot of people will say, Oh,well, like I only like to read
Wikipedia articles at 2 a.m.
Well, that also can be a lovefor history that you get a
(21:32):
degree in.
You can move that elsewhere andalso have a livelihood like off
of that.
Or just like YouTube videos orvideo essays, just very niche
things that you enjoy, you canactually further that.
SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
Well, Professor Snyder, is there anything you
want to say?
One last thing that you wishfolks could hear?
SPEAKER_03 (21:52):
Yeah, I would say I guess it's okay if you don't
like history because nothing isfor everybody.
But I would let yourself learnit from the professionals first
before you decide if you reallydon't like it.
And if you like it, but like,but what am I going to do with
that?
Again, I think the answer iswhat do you want to do with it?
It can be professional, but italso can be personal, right?
That there's plenty of personallearning you can do about
yourself and how you see theworld and how you approach
(22:13):
situations that I think historyis not solely, but is uniquely
equipped to prepare you for.
SPEAKER_01 (22:20):
Thank you for coming.
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