Humanities
Meet Brittney Powers
Content Editor (College Intern)
Brittney Powers, Content Editor, is one of our leading college interns training under our English Department. Originally from South San Francisco, California, United States, Brittney loves exploring creative writing and reading novels such as Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Currently, Brittney is learning to sharpen her writing, editing, formatting and publishing skills. With her goal to uphold her stellar grade point average (GPA), Brittney’s career goals include becoming an entrepreneur and writing her own book.
While majoring in Liberal Studies, Brittney understands the value of earning a well-rounded education in order to build stronger communities. For example, Brittney is very passionate about pressing social justice issues, especially women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights. Her fight for social justice stems from her work to see equality for all, not just for those who fit into societal norms or those who have been oppressed. Furthermore, while Brittney volunteers by making and distributing lunches for the homeless, she participates in beach and park cleanups. This compassion is what drives Brittney to build, and further protect, her local communities.
What is most impressive about Brittney is her high level of accountability. When she makes mistakes during training, she quickly takes ownership, then takes initiative to problem-solve. This demonstrates maturity and leadership among her fellow interns. This is why she is tasked with leading more and more projects. One of Brittney’s biggest suggestions to younger students is to control emotion, which is a necessary lifelong skill that fosters maturity, focus and professionalism. Sometimes academic and professional assignments may be complex, stressful, or even frustrating. However, Brittney encourages younger students to uphold a positive attitude and collective demeanor at all times. This is why Brittney is a wonderful team player and a rising project manager.
Humanities covers a wonderful variety of subjects, including culture, history, law, politics, language, literature, visual arts and philosophy. Learning to have a fair and open-minded approach to this complex subject material will only further English writing and critical thinking skills. Gathering evidence, such as facts, statistics, and primary and secondary sources, is crucial. Students must learn to think outside the box, to be creative with ideas and to offer bold theses and hypotheses.
Studying Human Society and Culture
Understanding how human beings interact with one another depends on studying cultures. Gathering demographic data is not enough. Students must question why societies make certain decisions, or why cultures value particular traditions or beliefs. Students must set aside bias in order to analyze equitably. Too often students may rush to judgement without being fully aware of the whole picture or mitigating circumstances. Thus, students must learn how to treat each other with respect, understanding and compassion.
Developing Powerful Research Projects
Humanities subject material is much more than simply rote memorization of names and dates. Students must learn to research and take effective notes. We help students sharpen research skills by teaching them how to plan, organize and execute sound research projects. Creating projects like everyone else will neither accelerate student growth nor spark ingenuity. Our faculty teaches students to be leaders in the classroom and to brainstorm original ideas that will truly elevate critical thinking skills.
Learning Effective Note-Taking Strategies
To ensure students truly grasp complex passages, our faculty teaches students to take effective notes by identifying unknown words, locating key words or phrases that are crucial to reading comprehension, and identifying subtle areas that require in-depth inferences. Our note-taking strategies teach students how to locate key parts of passages quickly while maximizing time management.
Mastering Sharp Time Management
Unfortunately, the reality is many students often struggle with time management, effectively organizing schedules and executing assignments without procrastination. Assignment quality is often not as high when students rush. This is why our faculty helps students plan assignments out well in advance, ensures students stick to milestones and drafts, and pushes to keep an open dialogue.
foundation for English Literature
A strong Humanities foundation is crucial for future English literature subjects and ambitious writing assignments. Students must learn how to engage in a variety of challenging perspectives, anticipate counterarguments or weaknesses within personal arguments, differentiate the subtleties between literal and figurative meanings, offer insightful inferences and strengthen vocabulary.