Today I met with Dr. Lindsay, the chair of the history department at UNC, to discuss what I can do with a history degree and what life as a professor is like. We first talked about what exactly historians are good at and why they are so sought after in any sector of the workforce. Next we talked about how she got interested in history in college which was not her first major. Originally she wanted to become a diplomat- which required her to major in international studies and political science- but she did not want to work for the Reagan administration so she switched gears and focused on African History. I also have an interest in statistics so part of using this WEP is to find a way to mix history and statistics. Dr. Lindsay explained to me that a lot of what historians do is analyze and look at large amounts of data which is similar to statisticians. She also focused on the subfield of history that helps to analyze older data sets and numbers to find trends and relations throughout history. We got a little side tracked and talked about why she became interested in West African history which she explained through her interest in Nigerian pop music and her trip there. She showed me the most popular Nigerian artist, Fela Kuti, who was imprisoned for his political advocacy in Nigeria. She told me great story about how when she lived in Nigeria there were only about 200 white people in the country so she felt like a racial minority and how this changed her viewpoint once she came back to the US. I learned a lot from Dr. Lindsay about what a history professor does and I look forward to listening to some of Fela Kuti’s music.