The scholars and I have been working increasingly hard over the past week. There have been many days spent on the second floor of the library working and many nights spent in Glatfelter Hall….working. From uploading images to writing metadata, we all agree that we have a lot of work still to do on our projects. It can sometimes feel overwhelming, the more I think about what I have to do in order to finish my project. But will the project that I present this summer be the final project? Most likely not. And I think almost all of the fellows believe that our projects to not end with the summer. We all have ideas of expanding our projects and furthering our research.
My meeting with the working group this past week has helped me see what I can and cannot accomplish this summer. I believe that I can accomplish what I set out to do, build a digital project that shows women’s experience during the 1950s at Gettysburg College. But there is no limit to how in-depth I go with my research. Right now, I know how deep I want to go into my research. But there are a plethora of other statistics, topics, and women I can research as well. The beauty about researching a topic of your choosing is that there are no boundaries to how far you want to go with it.
In the workshops and sessions, we talk a lot about the direction of our projects and what is the ending going to be for them. I believe that what I have and am going to accomplish this summer is not the end of my project but just the foundation and beginning.
Glad to hear you are thinking beyond the summer, and see this as a beginning.