2016 History I’m Dom and I’m a History finalist. I’ve loved my time at Balliol and have tried to ensure others have too through my work as head of the Peer Support team, and as Health and Welfare Officer. Inspired by a life-long enthusiasm for Western movies, I want to investigate the link between myths and reality in the modern American West. To do this I am planning to visit centres of Old Western myth, retracing Lewis & Clark’s route to the Pacific before travelling down the West Coast and exploring the Southwest. As a keen hiker I’m eager to explore the landscapes which have defined the myths of the West, like the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, Pacific Coast, and Southwest Desert, as well as understand the ways in which people live in, and relate to, these landscapes. I also want to investigate how myths of the West as a natural, cultural, and moral wilderness – and their often controversial historical consequences – have been remembered and reconciled with reality in the culture and imagination of modern America. .