Coffee runs, paper copying, subservient work — all things that come to mind when we think of internships. My internship, though, was anything but this stereotype. I spent my 8-hour days behind the scenes in the museum sector of Turtle Bay Exploration Park in my hometown, Redding, Calif., doing real work and actually learning a thing or two.
I was working on a “Native Baskets of Northern California” — due to display sometime in February — show with my wonderful supervisor, the curator of collections and exhibits. A common day for me would be showing up at 8:00 am and chit-chatting with my supervisor for a few minutes before heading out to Collections, a sort of warehouse where the museum’s artifacts were stored. We would unload boxes upon boxes of gorgeously intricate Native American baskets and take turns photographing and documenting each and every one.
Around noon, we would head back to Turtle Bay and take a lunch break. I always brought one of those microwaveable Asian entrees that made the whole room smell like pad thai or teriyaki sauce. After the clock struck 1:00 p.m., it was time to get back to work. I usually spent the last half of the day editing photographs of baskets to make them suitable to either be put inside the future catalog or featured on a panel that would be displayed on the wall during the exhibition. This meant getting in all the nooks and crannies of the baskets with the eraser tool (which is harder than it sounds) and taking out the background. This would all have gone by quite quickly if it weren’t for the excruciatingly slow rate at which the ancient PC (from 2005!) would open the original photos and save the edits. And it seemed like just as the computer was speeding up its opening and saving processes, it was 5:00 p.m. already and time to head home.
Besides photographing and editing hundreds of pictures of baskets, I researched and wrote my own panel on the linguistics of Native Northern California, which was extremely interesting because Northern California has the most diverse language groups out of the entire United States! (But that’s just the inner anthropologist in me geeking out.)
I was also in charge of January’s Artifact of the Month. For this solo project, I choose a beautiful vintage electric mandolin, which I picked from the museum’s collection. I researched and wrote a panel about it that, which was displayed alongside the mandolin for the rest of the month.
It’s amazing how fast time ticks by when you work for someone who you really hit it off with. Yes, I only worked at Turtle Bay for the three short weeks of winter break, but it was over in the blink of an eye. I worked for 8 hours a day, nearly every day. Jumping into a full-time work schedule was extraordinarily daunting, since I never had a real job before.
But the hours flew by because not only did I genuinely enjoy the work, but I loved talking to my supervisor. She told me all about life before she was a curator; how she went on archaeological digs in England, recovering skeletons buried in an old cemetery. As an anthropology and geography major myself, her life fascinated me.
Not only did we have an interest in anthropology in common, but also an unyielding passion for Joss Whedon shows (“Firefly,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” etc.) and “Game of Thrones.” We could (and did, a few times) spend hours discussing Whedon’s brilliant plot lines and “Game of Thrones” characters — usually focusing on my favorite, the gorgeous Jon Snow.
My internship was an invaluable experience, and I am so grateful I had the opportunity. I learned so much in those three weeks and loved knowing the work I was doing actually helped create a real exhibition that hundreds of people would visit. If any of you are even remotely considering being an intern, I highly encourage you to explore your options, because I cannot express how beneficial an experience like this truly is.