I think Kristen's time learning to be a journalist, helped expand her mind on her own past. She says on page 90, she was embarrassingly uninformed on the story of her hometown when talking with her professor. She also states Watkins instructed her to fact check even her most basic assumptions.Kristen became involved in journalism, and started to deal with issues, such as race, that she was oblivious to in Prince Edward County. All of these situations imply that Kristen career choice enlighten her to many problems in her own life and gave her the skills and motivation to search for the truth of her hometown.