Honors Founding Western Civilizations was a course that really challenged me during my first semester at Longwood. The class focused on classroom discussion and had lots of readings that were supposed to be read on a daily basis with short essays due about once or twice a week. My professor for the class was a very harsh grader and sometimes it felt as if my best was just barely enough to get good grades. This class encouraged me to talk to my professors as that is the only way to really improve as you must ask about what you did wrong in order to correct it. Even though the class was a struggle at times, I managed to push myself and tell myself the next assignment will be better, and it was. With every assignment I improved to the point where I was finally achieving the grades I wanted.

My favorite part of the class were the discussions we did as they were very interesting. We looked at history from the standpoint of those who wrote it, so we often looked for bias as well as what might not have been historically accurate. These discussions filled the class with interest arguments as well as some intriguing insights as to whether or not our history is as correct as we believe it to be.

The artifact I chose for this class was a fictional time travel story I had to write using factual sources from reputable sources online or in the library. It was a very cool assignment as it gave the class lots of creative liberty, but it was hard as it had to be historically accurate with an argument trying to be made at the same time. I enjoyed the project as I got to create characters and a unique storyline, even including myself in the story, but I hit multiple roadblocks trying to weave all of my sources together. Ultimately, I managed to put together a story that I was proud of that utilized everything my professor had taught in class about analyzing history.