Week 5 (June 23rd-27th, 2025)

Marali's Creation in Tinkercad of Jayson Eating cereal with Apple Juice

Things I learned…

• During the Freedom Summer Trail exploration, I was able to learn about the importance of Hattiesburg within the Civil Rights Movement. When thinking about the Civil Rights Movement, people often think of Birmingham as a city of great importance. Although that is true, Hattiesburg and the events of Freedom Summer are often a lesser-told story, but an essential one.

• On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to learn about different tools like Voyant and Gephi software that will be helping with the analysis of our topics through connections and word repetition. I think this will be useful in analyzing the events and the common themes in order to best prepare my research.

• A very important lecture we had this week was with the speaking lab. I thought that having an opportunity to talk to someone about public speaking and getting tips made me more confident in my abilities. I have given a fair number of presentations, but I am very aware I am not the best at it.

Things I accomplished…

• Throughout this week, I was able to finally finish reading all my letters. I do think this might be an ongoing journey because my topic is still in the process of being narrowed down. I have been pulling letters from tags outside of the conscription one to best construct my paper.

• A major accomplishment I had this week was that I was selected to interview for a Smithsonian internship for the Fall. I know this might fall outside of the direct scope of this project, but I do think this research opportunity allowed me to actually be successful moving to the next step. Now I am just hoping I actually get an offer after my interview.

• My final major accomplishment for this week is that we bonded a lot this week as a cohort. Before this week, we had some gaps in our group between like dynamics outside of the classroom room but this week things took a shift into a much more open dynamic. On Thursday, after the lecture, we all went to Laurel, which was very enjoyable.

My challenges…

• Although this is a factor that is just simply a part of Mississippi in the late Summer, the heat and sun during the Freedom Summer Walk made it difficult to focus. I learned so much I did not know before, but I think I would be able to pay more attention and gain more from it if it weren’t as blazing hot.

• Another challenge was that there were a lot of inconsistencies in the schedule, which made it difficult to plan. On Monday, we had a canceled lecture (which was perfectly fine because it meant we got out earlier), but then again, on Wednesday, we were told that the CV workshop was an hour later than when it was on the schedule. Again, on Thursday, our lecture was pushed up to 8:30 am at the last minute. All of these combined made it hard to plan when I was going to do work and personal activities (just running, it’s all I do, but it’s time of day dependent).

• Finally, a personal struggle I had this week was that I had a lot of difficulty focusing on my work. I am a little lost in my project topic, and I have still been trying to organize my thoughts. I have made progress, but when it comes to being able to explain it to people, I am still far off. When I can do that, I will feel confident.

My next steps:

         Continuing from last week, my next steps will be to work on my literature review. Although I have begun working on it, it will still require further refinement as I continue to analyze my research results and discuss them. In addition, approaching the holiday weekend will result in a front-loading of my work for next week.