FFSS Internship (Spring) Week 1

 Hello! 

My name is Samantha Froemming, and I am an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. For some who may have seen my previous semester's blog posts: I am back for another internship semester with the Florida France Soldier Stories project! For those who may be seeing this for the first time: welcome! This is where I share my progress in my internships at UCF, with weekly updates as required by the course advisor. 

I am very excited to continue working on this project, alongside familiar and new people, and I cannot wait to share all of the new and exciting things we will be taking on this semester! To start, I have begun this semester by working to help Dr. Lyons and our senior project manager decide which packets from last semester we will use for a new project in Dr. Lyons' EUH3451 course, as well as updating a presentation slideshow for the continuation of the source packet project in Dr. Lyons' HIS3600 course. 

This new project in EUH3451 involves students using the source packets from last semester's HIS3600 course and creating a historical narrative using secondary sources that will result in a podcast episode about World War II. To prepare for this upcoming project, we must make sure that the packets are in good shape for the students to utilize in their research, which means lots of editing! Over winter break, when I was not working on the project since my time in the semester had run out, Dr. Lyons and the project manager worked to edit one of the packets that we felt was in the best shape to begin this process. Once I started this semester (as of yesterday), I began to suggest a new packet for finalizing for this purpose as well. I have made some edits on the packet, and the project manager has helped to include the French translations on the packets as well. 

In addition to this work, our presentation of the source packet project in this semester's HIS3600 course requires us to update the previous slideshow that we presented last semester. I have taken some time to edit the slideshow to reflect some changes and additions we wanted to make after getting our bearings of the project last semester. Since the project was brand new last semester, we learned a lot by seeing how the students engaged with the project, and we are adjusting as necessary. This includes adding instructions on how to research effectively, and slightly tweaking certain aspects as needed. 

On Wednesday, we had our first meeting of the semester, where we discussed the projects in each class and what will be expected of each of us in the following weeks. Surprise...more packet editing!! We each claimed five student packets that were completed last semester to edit and polish for Dr. Lyons' EUH3451 class to use in their podcast project. We need about 16 packets total, and we already have two finished packets from last semester. This is our first assignment and it needs to be completed around the second week of February. 

Also, we are presenting at the Florida Conference of Historians on January 24, so we will be preparing for our roundtable in the coming week. More on that in my next post! 

See you next week!