Phi Alpha Theta

The purpose for my trip was to attend the Biennial Phi Alpha Theta conference. This is the history honors society that I am the president of at USC. I decided in the summer that I was going to attend the conference as a delegate as a way to get information on how to improve my chapter, make some contacts, and to get an idea of what we need to do to get involved next time. I figured that I would have to pay for the conference myself, but then a couple of things happened that ended up helping out a lot. First, my Public History program offers a travel grant award for a small but helpful amount and my mentor offered to let me use this conference as part of that. Then, I found out the conference had a delegate package that would reimburse some of the cost of travel for attending all the delegate meetings. The best part however, was that the History department completed a strategic plan during the fall and mentioned that they needed to support our organization to help it grow. So I wrote a proposal letter for assistance, and was happily surprised when the department head agreed to fund a sizable amount of my trip.
The conference was great in itself and would have been worth it even if I had to have paid for it all myself. Various students gave papers on a plethora of topics throughout the event, and so there was always at least one session that was of interest. The delegate sessions I attended included a long term planning committee where we made suggestions about what the organization should do to improve. We came up with many great ideas and they were well received by the National officers.
During the student papers I was struck by how little colleges teach you about presenting properly. Most of these students were undergraduates, but not always. All were instructed to read from their paper since they had been preapproved for content. This did not mean, however, that they should bury their faces in their paper as they often did. They also did not have an argument most of the time, which considering the point of the paper should be to prove a point, doesn't make sense to me.
The conference was at a resort in the middle of a nature preserve so the view was gorgeous. The hotel was also nicely decorated and had lots of great places to sit and chat in front of a fire. We had fantastic food, but the desserts were the best part. Unfortunately, they must have used MSG in their food because each time I ate at the conference instead of my friend's house I was ill for hours afterward. The desserts were worth it though.