But speaking of students, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed our first meeting on Thursday night. Most of the independent research students in the Humanities were there, except for a few who are already on site at their destinations. I confess I wasn't looking forward to it---mainly because it was scheduled to snow on Thursday night and as a Floridian I have an absolute terror of driving in snow---but once we got rolling I began to thoroughly enjoy just being around the young people and listening to them talk about their projects. All of the folks are scientists (even the ones doing Humanities work!) so there's a different vibe. I'd be hard pressed to explain it, but science types ask questions differently to history types. They will get at each other about experimental design far more rapidly than a history student will dive into another student about 'what library did you use?' It's the nature of the discipline, I suppose. And one thing that I've learned over the past two years, ever since I was involved in community of scholars, is that scientists work together, while so many people in the humanities work alone. History especially tends to be a very lonesome discipline. Now please understand, I'm not saying that one is better than the other (don't you dare gloat, biologists!) but I am saying it still amazes me how very differently our fields operate.
And I am thoroughly amazed by how smart and sharp our students are. After three weeks of break, I think I needed to be back around our Wofford young people. It was a brisk, refreshing experience. I'm really looking forward to reading their blogs and keeping up with all the events of their lives and projects.
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