Week 15: Capstone

  Hello, my name is Hiram Davila. I am in my second year at UCF in the History Master's program, and I am extremely excited to share some information about my internship this semester. My current research interests regard the early modern Spanish Empire, particularly the Spanish Inquisition. This blog will be acting as my journal week-by-week as I intern with the city of Orlando and Greenwood Cemetery throughout the Fall 2024 semester.

    For my "final" week, I did not do much in regards to Greenwood. As I talked about in my first blogpost, my semester has been filled with different research projects and obligations. However, as a student, nothing this semester was as important than Capstoning and my Thesis Proposal Defense. I am lucking that both Sarah and Dr. Lyons, who is my supervisor at the Florida France Soldiers Stories Project, respected my wish to solely focus on finishing my thesis proposal as well as studying for my exams. 

    Since I am writing this way past this post's due date, I can say that I used my time wisely and I successfully defended my Thesis Proposal as well as my Capstone exams. Throughout the semester, I had a very tough time trying to juggle all of the projects I am a part of. Although many weeks I was late for my blogposts, I found my experiences this semester to be invaluable. 

    There were many days that I was struck with anxiety and could barely find the willpower to get out of bed, let alone to work on projects other than my thesis. At the end of every semester, I have a bad case of "imposter syndrome" and feel like it is pointless a lot of the times to do anything because no matter what I do, it will never be as good as someone else's work. This semester was hard because I felt like that all semester long. I always second guessed what I was writing, or found it had to even start writing. It got to the point that I had physical negative reactions when I started to try to work on some assignments. 

    While I was never able to completely overcome my anxiety and imposter syndrome until my defense, I was dragged to the finish line by a lot of people supporting me. My family, specifically my mother, was my number one supporter. After I told her my issues, she made sure to talk to me every day and ask me what I did to keep me accountable. I was also supported by professors like Dr. French and Dr. Walker. Although I never disclosed all my problems with them, their positivity helped me push past many of my more nonproductive days. Sarah has also been a tremendous help as well. Again, I never disclosed my problems with her, but she was understanding and was very flexible on working with what I was doing as well as checking up on me almost weekly to help maintain my focus on the project.

    This semester has taught me a lot about perseverance and the importance of having people around you that support you no matter what. This whole last section may be off the mark of what should be in an internship blog, but I am happy with how this semester turned out, even with many of the lows I experienced.

    While this blog and semester may be coming to an end, my work with Sarah is not finished. There are still some documents that I am finishing up for her, including another A/V Log and a transcript that I hope to finish over Winter break. Starting next semester, though, I will be fully invested into my own research, which I am excited to begin! Happy Holidays!