This Museum internship experience is designed to give humanities doctoral students an understanding of the range of potential museum careers. It will also provide an invaluable, hands-on work experience at the NCMNS. Interns will be based in the museum’s Community Engagement section. Their work will help connect visitors with the museum’s history and foster appreciation of the museum’s varied collections. Interns will play a key role in helping to create audience interest and satisfaction and ultimately audience relationships; which are essential in building the museum’s brand, building and maintaining a broad membership base, and cultivating sponsors and donations.
The Versatile Humanists internship will provide opportunities for hands-on work experience, and offer the opportunity to produce independent work
- Hands-on work experience
Versatile Humanists interns will work with the Head, History of Science Research Lab & Curator of Special Collections for 14 weeks at 16 hours/week. The intern will work with the curator to find a special collections-based research project to pursue. As research work progresses, the intern will also work with members of the Community Engagement section to develop complimentary exhibit hall cart programs that will serve as a way to share their research with general museum visitors.
- Independent work
By the end of the internship, two pieces of more-or-less independent work will be required:
A) The first will be a written overview of the intern’s experience at the museum. This may appear as an article in the museum’s membership publication, North Carolina Naturalist, or as part of a museum-hosted blog.
B) The second assignment will be an original research paper, a finding aid, a collection description, or some other work product related to the intern’s museum experience. The details of this assignment will be arranged with the intern on a case-by-case basis.
Supervisor:
Paul D. Brinkman, Head, History of Science Research Lab & Curator of Special Collections, NCMNS and Adjunct Associate Professor, History Department, NCSU
