This interview has been collected and condensed by Kelly Lin-Kremer.

Class of 2022, History

Did you know you wanted to do history when you first got to Princeton, or was that something that evolved?

Like half the university, I came in thinking I was going to do Economics, and that didn't go over as well as I would have liked. I wasn't enjoying it much, found it quite difficult, but I knew I enjoyed writing papers and researching things. In high school, I had always enjoyed United States history and European history, and so history seemed like a good route. 

Professor Rosina Lozano was my freshman faculty adviser (and later advised one of my junior papers and my senior thesis). I remember asking her my freshman year, Can I go the history route? We talked about the things that history can do for you and what type of work you'd be doing and the flexibility with the major.

Once I committed to history, I really found a love for it. The professors are really unique, and I appreciated how flexible it was, since there’s no set track of courses you have to take. It was awesome to take courses about things that maybe you started out knowing a little bit about and you wanted to study in more depth. I think that flexibility is an underrated aspect of the major.

What were some of the most memorable courses you took? 

In my freshman year, I took Professor Lozano’s course called Becoming Latino in the United States¹ (HIS 306). It was a very small class of about 10 people, and she's a very well-read, detailed researcher and really well-spoken. Latinos in the US have such a deep-rooted history, but it's something that I was never really taught. It explored how race connected with society, but also the impact different Latin American groups had in the US, and what that means for them now. It was fascinating, and it opened my eyes to a lot of things.

Another excellent course I took was English Constitutional History with Professor William Jordan. I took it over Zoom because of COVID, and I think it would have been even more stupendous in person. It looked at the English law system and how that impacted the US as well, like why we have twelve jurors. It talked about legal rights, property rights, and the different kings and royal families of the English monarchy. I was really fortunate that I could take such a wide range of courses with my History degree.

What was your thesis about?

My thesis was about the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the Camden Amboy Railroad Company in New Jersey. It looked at how the definition of a monopoly changed over time, and the impact the railroad and canal had on the tri-state area. I bounced around a couple of topics with Professor Lozano, and I landed on that one because I'm from New Jersey, and I did a paper in high school on railroads. 

Railroads and canals were such a key part of economic business in the nineteenth century. It was interesting to see how the railroad industry and other transportation mechanisms started off serving the community and then decades later became corrupt and capitalistic.

Professor Lozano was wonderful throughout my thesis. She gave me feedback every few weeks when I'd send her pages.

Something that Princeton has to offer that's really awesome when it comes to history and the humanities is the research databases and special and rare book collections. I was able to go to Firestone Library and look at manuscripts from the 1800s. To see those primary source documents right in front of you, even though it's very hard to read their cursive handwriting, it was pretty cool to be immersed in that and then use that to craft your argument and perspective. 

How did history affect your trajectory through life in a surprising way or make you think about life in a different way? 

During COVID, the University set up Zoom calls to connect undergrads with alums from their “grandparent class,” which in my case was the Class of 1972. An alum from one of those calls said something I’ll never forget. He said, One thing that I always admired about history was that everything we're looking at has already happened, and it has ripple effects and repeated variations, and we're seeing those aftereffects come to fruition every day. Oftentimes people will say it is important to learn history so we don't repeat it. But everything we're seeing is little undulations and variations, and that’s history. It’s a rabbit hole of thousands of years, and it's pretty unique to study it because it gives you more context about how to look at the future and how to deal with things in the present.

The other surprising thing is how flexible a history degree is from Princeton. I was worried when I switched to history, like, would I be limiting myself? Professor Lozano reassured me that these degrees are very flexible. It teaches you good research and critical thinking skills, which are very transferable skills for any career you want to do and also important for just living a good life. People really cherish their humanities and being a lifelong thinker and learner, and those things will always help you connect with people.

What are you doing currently? 

I graduated in 2022, and I'm a track and field athlete from Princeton. I'm currently at the University of South Carolina at their Darla Moore School of Business pursuing my MBA in finance and I'm still competing in the NCAA level. That’s been another interesting thing, combining my prior history concentration with quantitative financial studies, because I already have the research background and understand how to connect to data and people, and now I’m applying that to something that's inherently more quantitative. It's given me the best of both worlds.

What's something that you're passionate about currently?

I had a nasty pectoralis injury last year from track. I had to get a complicated surgery in June last year, so I actually took the fall semester off to rehab at home. I'm a guy that works out six to seven days a week, and then for six plus months, I couldn’t do any of that. So I was trying to figure out other things I could do to stay busy, and I landed on Russian literature. I’m trying to be a better reader.

I got into some Dostoyevsky and Gogol and some other Russian books. When you’re at Princeton, they give you such good literature to read, and then when you leave, life gets busy. You forget that you can read. It’s a skill you have to develop, but I think it’s important to be a well-read person. It’s fascinating to learn about stories and people. It’s a cool, interesting hobby, and books are a great way to connect with other people.

What do you want your life to look like five years from now? 

I'm going to graduate in May 2025. I will finish my athletic career in the NCAA in June. My plans are to go into the finance world, but I don’t know exactly what area of finance I want to be in. I won't know for a few more months. but I work really well with people, and I think I connect to people of all ages, and I think doing something that's client-facing and that allows you to work with somebody is a very rewarding career and life. 

I'm also going to continue being a high-level track athlete. I was fortunate enough to make the Olympic trials this year, and I'm looking to build upon that in the next couple of years and try to throw as far as I can to be a professional, but I will be working on the side and pursuing my career at the highest level. 

Overall, I want to pursue a strong career where I feel motivated to wake up every day, and I feel happy to do the work that I'm doing, while also pushing my athletic abilities and connecting with people, staying in touch with my Princeton networks, and trying to be a lifelong intellectual. I think that's what Princeton taught me the most. It's continuing to elevate yourself and surround yourself with people that will push you and lead to awesome conversations.

Is there any advice that you would give to history majors or people thinking about majoring in history? 

I think the one thing you should weigh is, are you a curious person, and are you somebody that is okay pursuing things that are not necessarily on a track? Because at the end of day, as I said before, that is the best part of the humanities, and specifically the history major. You get to explore European history, American history, different racial groups, religion, everything. At the end of the day, that is going to make you a well-rounded individual. 

A lot of the history courses are small seminars, and that can be hard to find in college, where there are some classes with 450 people. It is awesome to be in a course where you get to know your peers and your professor. I still stay in touch with Professor Lozano, and I think it’s really cool to be able to actually know your professors.

Also, don't be scared of all the junior papers and the thesis, because if I can get it done, anybody can get it done.

The best part about Princeton is the day-to-day conversations, and the humanities facilitate those conversations in the classroom. I'm somebody who just loves to talk about random historical ideas or controversial opinions. I got to experience that every day in the classroom because we talked about such unique things.

I really loved doing history because I got to write a junior paper on World War One, and another one on Mexican Americans in Texas. Then I wrote a thesis on railroads and canals in New Jersey. That is all over the place! It was challenging but also enjoyable, and the professors were free anytime I asked. It wasn’t a competitive or brutal environment to be in, and it was very intellectual and positive. I have nothing but great things to say about being a history major.

¹  When Licata took this course in 2019, it was called Latino History.