Maggie Schopp graduated cum laude after double majoring in history and Spanish. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

New University of Missouri–St. Louis graduate Maggie Schopp has spent the past two weeks touring museums and cultural sites at both ends of the state through the Missouri Round Robin in History.

The one-credit-hour “study away” summer intercession course, held in partnership with the University of Missouri–Kansas City, provided a perfect swan song to Schopp’s time at UMSL, bringing her to places such as the museum under The Gateway Arch, the Griot Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City and the Glore Psychiatric Museum in St. Joseph, some of which she might not have visited on her own.

The course – officially labeled HIST 2100 Careers in History – is also intended to connect students like Schopp with the professionals who work in those museums, giving them an opportunity to ask questions and network with potential future employers.

Schopp is still deciding what career path she’d like to take after graduating cum laude with a double major in history and Spanish. While she could pursue a job in a museum, she also might put her language skills to use, perhaps in the legal field working as an interpreter. But she’s glad to have more options after earning her bachelor’s degree.

“It’s a little stressful, but obviously I’m very excited to graduate,” Schopp said. “It’s been a long journey for me, and I’m happy to just start working full-time.”

Schopp’s walk across the commencement stage on May 17 at the Mark Twain Athletic Center came roughly nine years after she earned her diploma from Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri.

She at first took the traditional route to higher education, enrolling at DePaul University in Chicago, but she left school after her freshman year, unsure when she might return.

Schopp wound up relocating to St. Louis in 2018, and she had several different jobs, including one training the front desk staff at a local spa, over the next three years. She kept it in the back of her mind that she’d go back to school at some points and ultimately to start taking classes at UMSL in the fall of 2021.

“I want to say that I was really motivated to go back and get my degree,” Schopp said. “That wasn’t necessarily true at the time, but UMSL was an easy entry point. I wanted to at least get some credits out of the way and start building them up. I figured I would settle on something.”

Schopp thought developing her foreign language skills might pay off later on, and she’d always done well in her Spanish classes in high school. So, that seemed like a good place to begin her journey back into the classroom. She soon learned she really enjoyed it.

“I found the classes to be really interesting,” she said. “We talked about more than just Spanish language. There’s a lot of history and culture in the Spanish classes at UMSL.”

After about a year, Schopp decided to declare Spanish her major, and she wound up going on a pair of study abroad trips that enhanced her learning of the language.

The first one was last summer, when she traveled to Santiago de Compostela in Spain for a three-week program led by Associate Teaching Professor Amy D’Agrosa. She and her classmates spent two weeks taking a Spanish language and culture class at the University of Santiago de Compostela. On the final six days of the trip, they walked along the Camino de Santiago – a centuries-old pilgrim’s trail to the site where the apostle St. James is said to be buried in northeastern Spain.

“I felt like it was really important for me, just opening up my world and putting myself in a situation where it was a little outside of my comfort zone,” she said. “I hadn’t had a lot of immersion experience with Spanish since I started going back to school for it. The group we were with was like 10 of us and two professors. We were pretty tightknit. We did stuff together all the time, and I feel like it was a good bonding experience and really interesting as well. I learned a lot.”

She felt inspired to take another trip last winter to Costa Rica. Schopp spent three weeks during the intersession living with a host family in San Juan and took intensive Spanish classes at a language academy. She also had time to visit some of the country’s rich environmental sites, including Tortuguero National Park and Isla Tortuga, on a trip led by Associate Teaching Professor Tim Abeln.

“Each class was really small, so all day we got a lot of time with the professor and a lot of practice speaking,” she said. “We were in the capital city, and we had a lot of freedom to go around and explore. It was more of an immersion experience in the sense that we stayed with the host family. We would take the bus to school, and we would just go and get lunch off campus somewhere.”

The experiences have helped build her confidence conversing with native speakers and made her consider jobs where she might use those skills.

Schopp had finished her Spanish requirements last semester but stayed connected to the Department of Language and Cultural Studies by serving as a supplemental instructor for the introductory Spanish course taught by adjunct instructor Elizabeth Fonseca.

“Maggie took every opportunity to cultivate her curiosity and explore the diverse facets of the Spanish speaking world and its cultures by taking a variety of challenging courses and excelling in them, supporting our students and faculty in her role as supplemental instructor, volunteering in departmental events such as World Languages Day, and participating in study abroad experiences,” Teaching Professor Martha Caeiro said. “It has been wonderful to see Maggie grow as a Spanish major, and I am certain that she will be successful in any career path she chooses to follow.”

Even as she pursued her Spanish degree, Schopp took a number of courses in history, long a casual interest of hers. Last fall, she wound up adding history as a second major.

As with Language and Cultural Studies, Schopp has found supportive faculty members in the Department of History, beginning with Associate Professor and Chair Laura Westhoff, whom she had for a historical inquiry course that was a requirement for her major.

Though she wasn’t involved with the department as long, she still left a strong impression.

“Maggie stands out as an exceptional writer and strong analytical thinker about social issues past and present and for her commitment to justice and human rights,” Westhoff said.

Schopp credits Westhoff for helping her learn about career options that fit with her degree, and Westhoff believes the Missouri Round Robin provided to one more invaluable lesson.

“She connected her classroom study of history to the ways that museums and heritage sites interpret history,” Westhoff said. “The experience is both academic and career focused; participants learn about the variety of careers in historical and cultural institutions. Maggie has sought out additional one-on-one time with public historians and staff at every stop on the trip to explore possibilities and strategies for her next career steps.”