I had an awesome time at the PAT conference. I was able to meet other students and be around a room of people who enjoy researching history like I do. It was also really great to be around people of the history major and spend one on one time with Rollins students and faculty that I haven’t gotten to foster relationships with before. I was also able to meet and talk to a Holt school student and I was able to form a bond with another student and grow my network at Rollins.

During my presentation, I was nervous at first but about halfway through I found my rhythm and was confident with my presentation. It was a small audience, but it still helped me grow a lot because it was mostly people I did not know. After my presentation, there was a really great conversation with everyone in the room about my topic and I was able to discuss my research and develop some more questions that I could research further. My fellow presenter even asked me a question which was really cool! I was also able to listen to presentations from other students and ask them questions. That was another cool thing about this conference, it’s with a bunch of different students from different schools. It was a great environment to be around!

After my presentation, Dr. Strom and I spoke about my essay and research, and discussed how I may be able to work more on this research and paper and publish it, which would be a really awesome opportunity!