First day of Russian History, Sept 2005, by Carly Fabrikant
From MemoryArchive
Who: Carly Fabrikant What: Russian History or Memory Wiki When: Sept 2005 Where: Washington, DC/ American University
I decided to take Russian History because I needed to take a nonwestern history to fulfill my minor requirement for history. I had never heard of Prof Poe before, everyone kept telling me he was excellent in Russian History and was like a big frat guy. Little did I know.haha.Anyway, so the first day of class, knowing the teacher had not even requested we buy any books for the class, I was skeptical. Prof Poe walks in, and gave us his introduction, and said he had an interesting idea. Something, innovative that could change the way people think. Sure, I thought, we can change the way people think. Well, this is where it all began. In two and half hours we had come up with different teams to do different things. We did not have a name yet, but we had a concept. The class even got to vote if we would rather learn Russian history, or go with this no innovative project that was layed out for us. We had no idea where it could take us, but we chose the project. I guess it was the right choice; we now have almost 300 memoirs. It might never get to be more than that, after classes end, but at least we know we tried to do something new. We did something no other history class had attempted at American University. We learned things about the Internet and websites we have never learned, and we learned how to connect with important people to get our name to be heard. Not only do we have memoirs but we also have t-shirts and stickers. Who knows what’s going to become of our website after finals, but I hope it will turn into something bigger, I hope that when I look back on the page in a couple months we have a 1000 memoirs, or the site isn't cancelled. Who knows.... but I guess that's what is so intriguing about what we did. What I do know is I have never done anything like this, and I will never forget what was supposed to be Russian History!
