Alumni Voices

Jordyn McTavish graduated with a BA in History from Florida State University in spring of 2022.
She just completed her first year at FSU’s College of Law. In this interview, McTavish shares how she prepared for law school and what sets law school apart from undergrad. Her thoughts on having been a History major in undergrad: "Law is a good option for History students. And History is a good option for students wanting to do law. History prepared me very well for law school."

While he was completing his PhD in History, Justin Vos joined the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability which is the non-partisan research office of the Florida legislature. In this interview, Vos describes his work responsibilities: conducting research, analyzing data, and writing reports on a variety of topics. Vos explains that historians "are trained to ask 'why' which is a valuable question that can get lost when just reporting data and numbers. Historians can look beyond the numbers to ask what the data is telling us. Historians are storytellers. They can help take numbers and turn them into a story with meaning."

In this interview, Taylor Tobias shares his experiences transitioning from graduate school to working as an assistant professor of History at Castleton University in Vermont. Tobias comments: "While not all parts of the move have been easy (Vermont’s bone-chilling, seven stages of winter have certainly been a hurdle for someone who has lived his whole life in Florida), I’ve nonetheless been surprised at how many of the new challenges at my job engage skills I learned at FSU."

Olivia Lanaghan double majored from Florida State University in History and Communication in the fall of 2021. For law school, she decided on Stetson University College of Law. In this interview, Lanaghan shares how she prepared for law school and what sets law school apart from undergrad.

In this interview, Hope Evans discusses her experiences as a summer camp assistant and museum educator at the John G. Riley Center/ Museum of African American History and Culture. Recently, Evans started a new position at the Riley Center as curator and education director.

Dr. Abe Gibson recently created the project "Honest Abe," in which he examines the impact that artificial intelligence could have on the historical record and the historical profession. He was especially curious about the sudden rise of deepfakes, generative AI, and other synthetic media. In this interview, Gibson talks about his aims in setting up the website.

FSU alumnus Weston Nunn relates how his graduate training in History was an excellent preparation for his job as grant writer for the foundation of a regional hospital system.

FSU History alumna Denise Spivey reflects on her career. " Since I was a teenager, I have known I wanted to teach. When I took an amazing Classics course as an undergraduate, I realized I wanted to teach at the college level. Today I am a tenured History professor at Tallahassee Community College, the result of a somewhat unconventional but strangely direct path."

FSU alumna Angel Purganan talks about her experiences teaching English in Korea with the EPIK program.

An interview with Richard Siegler (PhD 2022) who is the two-time world champion of Warhammer 40K. Richard completed his dissertation with Dr. Rafe Blaufarb in French revolutionary history, and is now part of an esports company called Art of War.