Jordan DeGelia 

Art history is a passion, I did not discover until taking the AP version of the course in high school. While I enjoyed it greatly, I was unsure of how to incorporate it into my life at the time and instead settled on other fields of study. In my first semester attending college, I was focused on politics, but art history remained on my course schedule. Transitioning into my sophomore year, I realized politics was no longer my goal. Rather than continue a path designed to take me to law school, I finalized my decision to major in art history and never looked back. What sold me on art history aside from my own interest was the professors, the on-campus art museum, and the support to study topics I was interested in. This culminated in my Senior Thesis which became a delightful and challenging passion project on the understudied Jewish-Ukrainian artist Nathan Altman. Beyond just writing my first major research work on an art history topic, it provides the future for my art history career. Should I pursue a further education or work in the field of art history, this document serves as my starting point. As it stands now, I seek to continue my research on Slavic and Russian art history, especially focusing Altman. Eventually, I would like to become a curator for an art collection or even a museum. For now, I am taking a break from art history to work in the native land of the artist I spent a year studying. In March 2021, I will travel to Ukraine to teach English to secondary students through the Peace Corps. Undoubtedly, my art history research will continue there. All the rest is yet to be settled, but it will certainly involve serving communities and researching art. 

Yezenia Ruiz