Hello! My name is Emily (she/her/hers), and I am in my final semester here at Pitt! I am from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A fun fact about me is that at home, I have herded a few hundred cows when they escape their enclosure– a very Lancaster County experience! At Pitt, I am a part of the Honors College and am double majoring in Political Science and Psychology. I am pre-law and am planning on attending law school in the fall. This semester, I am an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for Dr. Andrew Lotz’s Myth, Propaganda, and the State analysis course. This course falls within the Political Science Department. Within the Political Science major, there are four subsections of study: American politics, political theory, international relations, and comparative politics. Coming into the major, I was certain I was going to choose American politics as my primary field as this is the area I was most interested in throughout my prior education. My freshman year, I took a unique Honors class with Dr. Lotz, one focused on Hamilton–both the political thinker and the musical–and was fascinated by everything we discussed relating to the theoretical foundations of the country. This convinced me that I wanted to take another political theory course with Dr. Lotz, so I signed up for the next one that fit into my schedule, and that class was Myth, Propaganda, and the State. During this class, I realized my ultimate interest in political theory as a field of primary study. The class combined extremely captivating material on states’ use of rhetoric with the opportunity to complete one of the largest research projects I have done at Pitt. This project was extremely daunting at the onset, but turned out to be something I was extremely passionate about and enjoyed formulating. After a successful completion of the term, Dr. Lotz and I coordinated my role as a UTA for the next offering of the class.

As a UTA, my main goal is to improve the learning experience of students in the course. In order to achieve this, I will be a participant in all class lectures, discussions, group-activity, and more. My role will be to provide meaningful contributions to material being discussed in class and advise students when needed on confusion and questions regarding reading materials. I will further play a very hands-on role in the brainstorming and creation of the course’s content analysis project. Later in the semester, I will teach a day of class to explain the long process of the upcoming project. In this, I will be creating an educational modeling resource to share with this class, and future sections of the course. Further, I will meet with half of the class’ students to cultivate their own completion of the final project. I will have frequent contact and communication with the students to help them find valuable resources, push them in their thinking of the implications of the project, and more. Through these roles, it is my goal to help to make this analysis course as interesting, manageable, and mentally challenging as possible for my peers, setting the foundation for future research if interested.

As it is my final semester at Pitt, I am excited to get to work with other students who are at many different points in their undergraduate journey. This course provides a great basis for getting more involved in political research; it helps students to apply content from introductory level political science classes to a more advanced level in an area of their choosing. In serving as a teaching assistant, I am very hopeful that I can be a helpful resource and advisor to other students who are looking to make the most of their time at Pitt. The CUTF will further benefit my own educational journey as it is enriching to my leadership and collaboration skills. I am hopeful to pursue a career involving an excess of legal research, with the ultimate goal of being able to advise and assist clients who are struggling within the Immigration system. The CUTF is helping me to develop these competencies and will definitely teach me more about myself as an advisor and teacher. I am excited to continue the rest of the semester in this role and see what I am able to bring to the course while learning more from the entire experience!