A road trip ignited Elijah Brinkley’s love of history. During a family vacation to visit the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Brinkley (’26 history) discovered unfamiliar Native American histories.
“I felt I should have known it, being from the Midwest,” Brinkley said. “This started me on a spree of what don’t I know and what should I know?”
The experience, and some formative high school teachers, cemented his passion for history.
This historian’s toolbox
Brinkley, a cadet in Iowa State’s Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), will carry this passion with him when he is commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Space Force next spring. Brinkley’s study of history has allowed him to develop critical thinking skills, crucial for managing new technologies that control the nation’s satellites.
“I think history has given me a lens into how to take something that seems very straightforward and solve it faster, make it better,” Brinkley said. “I think that mentality has helped me a lot in terms of developing critical thinking skills.”
Down to Earth
When his service in the U.S. Space Force is complete, Brinkley plans to become a history teacher.
“I would love to teach high school. That would be my first choice,” he said.
Brinkley gravitates toward teaching high school students because he wants to tackle heavier themes.
“There are topics you can start to get into in high school that I think are necessary for students to think about, to form their own opinions about, and have constructive dialogue about,” Brinkley said.
Brinkley’s history classes and mentors have been instrumental in supporting his career dreams – to both reach for the stars in the U.S. Space Force and to make history come alive for his future students.
His advice is to both current and future history majors is to “go all in,” and to talk with your professors.
“They’ve given me advice and pointed me to resources I didn’t know about,” Brinkley said. “I’ve loved all the faculty that I’ve ever encountered in the history department.”