History - Student Spotlight

James Costa
Double Major: History and Italian

"Since declaring a history major in the spring of my freshman year, I have certainly come to appreciate my decision. The history major has allowed me to perform the analysis, investigation, and presentation of the past that is so essential to my work as a college student. Paired with my second major in Italian language, the history major has allowed me to take the skills that I learned from the faculty of historians at Fairfield all the way to Italy for my junior year. While in Florence for spring 2005, I was engaged in an extensive research project that forced me to examine archives in both Italian and English in order to complete my exploration into the lives of some of the most famous names in Renaissance Italy. My studies in Italy, as well as all of the other work that I have done here for my history major, have provided me with experiences that will be vital to my development as a historian in graduate school and beyond."