About

In May of 2020 Jessica Braxton graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history and a minor in psychology. While attending UNCP Jessica received the Dean’s Scholarship award and the Duke Energy Scholarship. Jessica has done a lot while here at UNCP such as being in the Lead Fellows Organization for three years as a lead fellow, two of which she worked as a Leadership Takeout secretary. She also served as a peer mentor for the Leadership Living Learning Community for two years after being a member of the community in her freshman year. She also served as the secretary to the student organization Rise Together and as their self-defense coordinator. She was also a representative for the UNCP Friends of the Library Board. Finally, she was involved with Echo, the University Student Ministry group.  

Not only has Jessica participated in the organizations listed above but she completed a teaching internship at Lumberton High School in her very last semester here at UNCP and held an on-campus position as a Peer Mentor for the Leadership LLC. As for off-campus jobs Jessica had a few. While off campus Jessica was a martial arts teacher with Champions in Motion Martial Arts, she also worked as a data clerk for Premier Data LLC, and finally as a Team Time Leader/Skills leader for Winshape Camps for Communities. 

Jessica liked the fact that the Honors College gave students a support system that was designed to help students succeed. The honors college helped student not only with honors courses but with all of their classes when they needed it; they also helped students with directions for their projects, such as the senior project where it is required to have a deep connection and understanding of the research. Jessica also said that she really liked how fun the Honors College was. She liked the fact that the honors college did not solely focus on academics but that they were a group of people who had their own interests and activities that they liked doing, and that they all liked interacting with each other. 

The topic for Jessica’s project was “Teaching the Holocaust in Public Schools: Rationale, Difficulties, and Effective Methodologies.” The inspiration for this topic came while she was taking a class on the holocaust with Dr. Bruce Dehart. The content was interesting but as she became more interested in the topic, she realized she could not really remember a time where she was taught the important information in a secondary school setting and because of this she wanted to see if other people shared the same experience as she did when learning about the Holocaust. 

After graduation Jessica would like to work in a secondary school as a social studies teacher and eventually apply for graduate school. The advice Jessica would like to give to the current and future Honors College students is to “work hard and build relationships with the people around you. Often, if you build relationships with the right people, you will grow in your academics and get a lot more out of your honors experience.”