Our graduate interns, whether they found their internship through our matching program or on their own, take an academic internship course alongside the actual job. This course is an arranged learning experience in museum work appropriate to individual career goals focusing on an aspect of museum practice and working with a museum mentor in the place where they are interning. This takes the form of a research project, in which our graduate interns pick a question about a topic relating to their role at the institution where they intern at, and then answering that question with their own research in a paper for the class, and finally presenting that information as a poster.

One week ago, the spring semester internship course came to a close, with an in-person poster presentation session from our graduate interns! We are excited to return to in-person presentations after switching to an online format during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our graduate students shared a wide variety of research topics, including how to make historic house museums more accessible, what to do to preserve books and paper objects, exhibit evaluations, and more. Our students and guests were also treated to bagels and coffee, so make sure not to miss our next poster session in the fall to feed your stomach, and your curiosity!

MSTD A508: Museum Internship was taught by adjunct professor Cathy Hamaker this Spring semester. Thank you for all of your hard work Cathy!