As the year comes to a close, The Footnote invited graduating MAGIC students to reflect on their academic and personal journeys at Georgetown. Hear from four of them below!

Having made it to the finish line, what advice would you give to incoming students?

Maddie Densmore: Everybody gets imposter syndrome at some point here. Don’t let it get to you; everyone grows so much during their time here!

Megan Huang: Don’t stress too much over the amount of reading that you’re assigned–read strategically and it becomes a lot more manageable. Also don’t be afraid to reach out to professors to meet outside of the department. Getting dinner with them at the end of semester is always a lot of fun. 

Tyler Isgar: Follow your curiosity. There’s a lot of room to go down different rabbit holes of research and different (and maybe unrelated) things will pique your interest! I think you’ll end up doing your best scholarship while following that impulse.

Kioni Shropshire-Maina: Seconding Tyler! Some of my favorite projects have been the ones where I was able to spend time researching something I was interested in non-academically or curious about.

What were some of your favorite classes at Georgetown?

Kioni Shropshire-Maina: I really enjoyed Prof. Chakravarti’s series of State, Society & Self and Theory from the Global South. Both classes were challenging and really pushed me to think critically. They also exposed me to all kinds of literature that I would’ve never touched on my own and helped me deepen my understanding of the texts I was familiar with.

Maddie Densmore: Magic: A Historian’s Problem with Father Collins was a favorite for me. I made such great friendships in that class and got to read so many fascinating books.

Tyler Isgar: Seconding Maddie. The Magic class was both an excellent dive into the “weird” parts of history, like what you do when your sources are talking about witches and demons, and engaging in some fields that are adjacent to history, like anthropology or theology.

Megan Huang: I really enjoyed both of the classes I took with Professor Higuchi, US as a World Power and Pacific Empires. Father Collins’s Magic: A Historian’s Problem was also a highlight. Across the board, we had really robust discussions and a lot of interesting readings, and I could show my learning well in the assignments. 

What are some of your biggest takeaways from graduate school and/or the program?

Maddie Densmore: These past two years were definitely a strange time to be a history student in DC, but I think they were the best demonstration of why history is so important to our society. I’m definitely walking away from the program with a renewed passion for it.

Megan Huang: I appreciate historiography a lot more now and the role it plays in the discipline. The MAGIC program and professors did a really great job about getting students to pay attention to it and how it affects scholarship, which was helpful when it came to thinking about my own research projects.

Tyler Isgar: I’ve become way more convinced theory is a super important part of writing history and I think that it’s the part that is definitely the most haphazardly used. Overall I think it’s important to know and use sparingly.

Kioni Shropshire-Maina: I think, honestly, that I’ve learned to take myself (and everything else) less seriously. Operating from a place of stress and nerves is pretty unsustainable and once I got comfortable taking time off when I needed to, working at a pace that works for me and asking the real questions that I had in class, things got a little easier. 

What are you looking forward to post-graduation?

Megan Huang: I’m hoping to spend more time on my hobbies again, getting out in DC more, and staying in touch with my friends from my cohort!

Maddie Densmore: I’ve made so many great friends in both my cohort and the program as a whole. I look forward to staying in DC (although I can’t say I’m looking forward to the humidity) and keeping in touch with them!

Tyler Isgar: Reading and writing for fun and not just for scholarship, spending time with friends and family, and preparing for trying for PhDs.

Kioni Shropshire-Maina: I’m looking forward to putting some space between myself and academia. It’ll be nice to not have homework for the first time in six years! But like everyone else, I’m also looking forward to reading for pleasure and hanging out with my GU friends somewhere outside of the History Department. 

The Footnote staff would like to recognize the contributions of the graduating MAGIC students to keeping this publication running, and to all graduating students who have been involved with The Footnote in any capacity during their time at Georgetown. Congratulations and best of luck to all of you!

Photo by Caio

Bios:

Maddie Densmore graduated from the University of Missouri in May 2023 with degrees in journalism and political science. Currently a second-year MA student in the Global, International, and Comparative History program, her research interests include eighteenth-century women’s political clubs and gender laws during the French Revolution. She loves reading, writing, indie and alt music, and her cat Marty. Maddie hopes to enter a career field combining journalism and her history research. 

Megan Huang is a second-year MA student in the Global, International, and Comparative History program. Her research is centered around the American Revolution, utilizing the history of emotions to examine how women used sentimental language for political expression. She graduated from the University of St Andrews with a degree in Modern History and enjoys reading, writing, and cross-stitching in her spare time. 

Tyler Isgar is a second-year MA student in the Global, Comparative, and International Studies program. His research interests include the treatment of religious and ethnic minorities in the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires in the Early Modern Period. Outside of his career, Tyler is interested in poetry, scary movies, and oversized novels.

Kioni Shropshire-Maina is a second-year MA student in the Global, Comparative, and International Studies program. Her capstone focuses on women’s resistance and British colonial policy in twentieth century Africa. She graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a degree in History and a double minor in Dance and Political Science. In her spare time, Kioni likes to dance, visit the ocean, and watch The X-Files.