Modern European History
Mahak is an 11th grade student, from the American International School. She is interested to work on a mentorship focusing religious thought, secularism, or church-state relations.
Mahak is in the top 10% of her class at school. Her primary academic interest is history and she has taken AP World History in school and recently won an award for her documentary for India’s National History Day. Mahak is a leader in her school’s Model United Nations and the community planning committee and she has won multiple awards for her writing.
Scope of the program
Learning objectives
- Initial phase: Focused on identifying a research topic based on the participant’s interest in European history.
- The first three weeks were dedicated to reviewing scholarly articles and book chapters, and engaged in rigorous analysis of historical perspectives on anticlericalism.
- The mentorship covered anticlericalism in 19th-century Europe, specifically within the context of Italian history—a subject of particular interest to the student.
- The process emphasized structured writing and critical synthesis of historical viewpoints.
What challenges did she face?
- Mahak was a bit hesitant when it comes to writing in her own thoughts. She needed to gather more initiative to write independently.
- At the end of the mentorship program, she did an outstanding job of locating relevant quotes for her paper and of writing text with little or no assistance.
How did our program help her?
- Mahak learnt to organize academic writing in history.
- She learnt about different styles of quoting and analyzing primary sources.
- She received tremendous guidance from her mentor when it comes to finding new resources for her paper. Her mentor is enthusiastically supportive and is ready to write a recommendation letter for her.
Matched professor:
The mentor is an associate professor and the director of graduate studies in the Department of History at UNC Chapel Hill. He is the author of the widely acclaimed book, Soviet and Muslim: The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia (Oxford University Press, 2017).
“Mahak is a brilliant student with a real aptitude for humanistic inquiry and for analyzing historical texts. She learns extremely quickly.“
Lecturer from UNC Chapel Hill
Excerpts from the student’s work
Excerpts from the student’s final research paper on the attitudes of nineteenth century Italian intellectuals toward religion
