Stacy Cunningham, a 2022-23 scholarship recipient, on why she chose to major in history.
I chose to study history because I wanted to put the past together like a puzzle. I learned that putting the picture together sometimes requires you to figure out how to put fragmented puzzle pieces back together, sometimes requires you to alter your perspective to realize how a piece fits together with another, sometimes requires you to restore pieces that have been painted over with other images, sometimes requires you to look for pieces in places you would never expect, and sometimes requires you to realize that there are some pieces that cannot be recovered. There is no picture on the box to guide you, just the voices of the past and the wisdom of the historians here in the UTC History Department. The reward of studying history is not completing the image but appreciating every hard-won detail of the past lives depicted and feeling, at times, like the image you are carefully building is not an image of some elusive yesterday but today.
To say that I couldn’t be where I am today without the direction and encouragement of the UTC History Department is an understatement. The faculty here do not just love what they do, they love elevating their students so that their students can experience all the wonders of their discipline, too. Studying history at UTC has changed the world as I knew it, and has given me the tools that I need to continue putting the picture of the past back together.