Phi Alpha Theta Conference Audience Experience

The Phi Alpha Theta Conference is a conference in which history students and professionals are able to meet and share their research with one another, in doing so, challenging arguments and providing critical feedback and support to enable continued development within the field.

This year the regional conference was held at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. It lasted from around 8:00 AM in the morning until about 4:00 PM in the evening and included a number of different panels where papers were presented, key note speaker addresses and time to interact with other students. One of the things I enjoyed most about the conference was the ability it gave me to listen to other people’s research in topics I haven’t necessarily learnt about before. One topic that I found particularly interesting was that about the Salem witch trials as this is not something I knew about much before hand. Not only did this spark my interest in new periods of history and in new geographic locations, it also gave me insight into how other people conduct and write their research papers. For example, I didn’t think to include methodology in my own paper, however, after having heard a number of people do this in theirs, I think in future that it would be a good idea and would help to provide some background to the topic at hand.

I also enjoyed listening to the keynote address because it showed me a new dimension of history. Whilst I have always understood that history is extremely interdisciplinary, I had never thought about applying in the context that the speaker did: looking at addiction historically and how it has progressed in terms of psychology. This was something I found interesting and is another avenue that I would like to explore further during my time here at Rollins.