Week 1: Introduction

 

                Hello, my name is Hiram Davila. I am in my last semester at UCF, and I am extremely excited to be finishing up my degree. I will be graduating with a bachelor’s degree in History and a minor in Latin American Studies. This blog will be acting as my journal week-by-week as I intern with the RICHES Digital Archive’s team throughout this spring semester.

                To give a little bit more information about myself, I actually began my college career wanting to become a lawyer. I had graduated high school a year early and was looking to be a part of the 3+3 program. This was a program where a student could get their bachelor’s and law degree in 6 years. About halfway through my first year, however, I realized that I was not passionate enough for a career in law. On the flipside, I have had a passion for history since I was in 6^th grade. I decided to fully switch into just getting a history after starting my second semester, which was Spring 2020, the same semester quarantine started.

    During COVID, I transferred universities to the University of South Florida I lived about 15 minutes away from their campus. Before going to USF, I had not specific time period or region that I liked to focus on in history. I was always drawn into military history, but it was not something I felt truly connected with. While at USF, I had one class named “War and Society” that focused on the conquest of South America by the Spanish after the Reconquista. This class introduced me to the history of Latin America, and I have sense latched onto that as my main historical focus.

                I transferred back to UCF in the summer of 2021 and continued taking courses that related to Latin American History and furthered my education till the point I am at now, at the doorstep of graduation. I am very honored to have been selected as the intern for RICHES. I believe RICHES is an important project for the community. One of its main goals is to draw out the regional history of Florida and place it in a database for others to see. As a Floridian, I believe that its projects like these and that help us stay connected both to our past and to others around us. I hope from this experience I understand how regional history both is collected as well as how historians take that information and mold it so it may be easier for the public to understand. Finally, I hope to have a better understanding of how archives are maintained and how collections are formed. I know that my experience as an intern with RICHES will no doubt make me a better historian. I know that working with an archive will make me a better researcher for future projects that I hope to work on and I am excited to begin this adventure.