Student Spotlight: Emily Needham

Emily is a double major in History and Philosophy, Politics & Economics. Her hometown is Kirtland, Ohio.

What do you love most about history? 
I have always been interested in history! Growing up, history was my favorite subject in school because I enjoyed learning about the “stories” of the past and felt that I could most easily relate what I was learning in my history classes to my own life. Now that I am in college, I love the complexity of history and that every event in the past can be viewed from so many different perspectives. My other major is Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) and I love that when I am learning about political or economic theories and models in my PPE courses, history provides the missing human context behind how or why these models were developed and how policy changes have affected people's lives. 

Why did you choose to be a history major?  
When I started at OSU I was unsure of what I wanted to study and I had many different interests. During my freshman year I became very involved in OSU’s Model United Nations (MUN) team and enjoyed attending MUN conferences. I liked the challenge of  working to find solutions to international issues and crises. When I attended these conferences, I became more interested in understanding the circumstances or policies that created the crises in the first place. I found that it was only through my history courses that I was able to gain the experience and knowledge necessary to begin to understand how contemporary politics arrived at their current state. This led me to develop an interest in political history and is why I chose to become a history major. I feel that my history courses are the only classes I have taken at OSU that really gave me the context necessary to understand why and how contemporary crises or conflicts have developed. 

What are the favorite history courses you have taken?
U.S. Diplomatic History 1920-Present, Professor Dragostinova’s Global Migration Seminar, and Modern Intelligence History. 

Do you have a favorite professor or professors? Who are they and why?
Professor Dragostinova and Professor Parrott are two of my favorite history professors. Professor Parrot’s U.S. Diplomacy 1920-Present class was the first history course that I enrolled in at OSU and I was only a freshman when I took this course.  He always encouraged the class to ask questions which helped me gain confidence to speak up in class. 

I first took a class with Professor Dragostinova last spring. It was my first seminar course and I felt really nervous about contributing to class discussion and taking on a research seminar paper. However, Professor Dragostinova encouraged me to pursue a research question that pushed me outside of my comfort zone and this paper has actually inspired me to write an undergraduate thesis in history. 

What’s one thing you wish every Buckeye knew about the past (and/or about the history department)?
I think many Buckeyes assume history courses teach students to memorize facts or dates and many have a very clear cut understanding of the past. I wish other undergraduates understood how nuanced the past is and how history courses teach you to use analysis to understand different aspects of the human experience in history.