Salome Jeronimo (BA, History, '12) will be starting a Master's degree in Public History and Archives at New York University this fall.
Jeronimo first became interested in history when she was in the Navy. Over the course of her studies as a History major at Mason, Salome discovered a love of research. "I found myself more interested in the archives than the paper I had to write! I was attracted to the skill involved in taking information in its raw form and finding a way to make it recognizable and available for researchers. After some research into the types of jobs that are available to me with a history degree, I decided to pursue a career in archives." Her advice to other students looking into graduate programs is to do their research, because she quickly realized that "to be competitive for the programs that I wanted to apply to, it was imperative that I obtain an internship." She secured an internship at the Alexandria Black History Museum, where she was responsible for archiving an entire collection of papers on her own. "I would recommend to students interested in archives [internships] to apply to smaller museums. They usually have less staff, and an intern is more likely to have responsibilities that may not be available in larger museums. I think that because I had so many responsibilities at the museum, it made me a more desirable applicant for graduate school."
Jeronimo's academic record at Mason, her extracurricular activities, and enthusiastic recommendations from museum staff and university faculty combined with her distinguished military service to make her a strong applicant to graduate school. Not only was she admitted to NYU's graduate program, but she also received an assistantship to work in NYU's Bobst Library Archives. "My program begins in less than a month, and I am so excited to get started and contribute to advances in the field of history!" We here at Mason's Department of History & Art History wish her well in that endeavor.
August 13, 2012