Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Erik: How has your Duke education history degree helped you be more open and accepting
of foreign cultures?
Courtney: My experience at Duke was incredibly positive, it was a community that was very
supportive of students, of big ideas, crazy ideas, dedicated themselves really to I think
providing a holistic collegiate experience for their undergraduates. Every year that
goes by I am more and more thankful for that opportunity. Particularly within the history
department it was very... it was again like, everything that I had known, you know all
of my education in American history, world history growing up I just had to sort of throw
out of the window because I got there and I was taking Russian history and Intro to
Latin American history and the African American Slave Trade and really things that were opening
my eyes to the world was not as how I thought it had been, the history that I had built
up in my head of 'this is how the world worked' wasn't necessarily true and learning that
within the framework of studying history you -- there are different versions or different
theories of historical study, so you can view history through a feminist lens you can, you
know and seeing that -- appreciating that there are so many different lenses through
which we tell the story of our world and our community and our time. It really has impacted
me in the way that I go about my job because again I may think the situation in Northern
Thailand is one thing but when I get there and you're on the ground, it's completely
different and it's not necessarily better or worse, it's just not what you thought and
so being open that and not being scared by that I think is an important thing that I've
taken away.