Arthur Ross Gallery
Josephine Buccini
"At the start of my internship, I helped with publicity for our current show by compiling a list of local and national media outlets and community organizations. Later, I had the chance to learn by participating in strategy meetings with the gallery’s PR firm. I’ve also had the opportunity to help with different events. I welcomed guests to the gallery during the current exhibition’s opening reception, an event for the Africana Studies Institute Pre-Frosh Program, and a Tea and Tour for members…Engaging with students and promoting the gallery’s role on campus was a highlight for me, leading to my development of a student marketing plan." To read more about Josephine's experience (and see photos!), check out her story here.
ArtWell
Natalie Cheng
"Through this first project [creating an ‘ArtWell by the Numbers 2023-2024’ infographic], my second project--creating a cover for the “We The Poets” journal that will be handed out to ArtWell students this school year--went by much easier. By this point, I had found the balance between my creative style and ArtWell’s visual style. I applied my skills but also learned to use the strong points of my team and this resulted in me learning more about marketing, company standards, and collaboration in the end."
Aled Dillabough
"First, I researched and compiled information about the elected officials relevant where ArtWell operates. This included finding contact information for each of them as well as researching these officials’ values and histories: Which of them have been known to support education? The arts? Have they given to nonprofits? Have they supported nonprofits similar to ArtWell? My second main task was researching potential corporate sponsorships for ArtWell. This consisted of looking into similar nonprofits to ArtWell, especially located within Philadelphia, and seeing which corporations have sponsored them before… My last main task was writing articles for ArtWell’s blog on its website!"
Read more about Natalie and Aled's experiences in Penn Today.
BalletX
Jean Park
"For the first three weeks, there was a detailed list of things I had to complete that had to do with the operations and management of the organization. This included topics such as finance, board responsibilities, and donor relations…I was asked to improve existing programs and provide feedback which made my work feel valued…I was not only surrounded by dance and creativity, but I got to experiment with my own creativity. I got to take photos of their rehearsals for social media, help with marketing, and even assist during show week."
Mandy Zhang
"After the nonprofit management training, I was given the opportunity to work on two keystone projects, with my first one being marketing and merchandising. I worked closely with the marketing team and the digital media & design associate to evaluate the company’s current merchandising operations and come up with revisions and changes to implement for scaling opportunities. I found myself implementing the concepts I learned in my classes to this project. Additionally, BalletX’s summer series shows in July gave me the opportunity to assist in production and stage management at the Wilma Theater."
Read about the experience of 2023 BalletX intern, Ayesha Patel, in Penn Today.
Historic Germantown
Hadley DeGregoris
"The majority of my work consisted in interviewing the directors of various historical sites to assess how they mobilize the community through their sites’ greenspace. This work exposed me to many different personalities and perspectives, thus improving my ability to navigate professional conversations with a diverse swath of people."
Gretta Maguire
"I worked on 3 projects: interviewing sites about their green spaces and then writing reports and composing PowerPoint presentations, an economic valuation survey in which I interviewed sites and then calculated how much economic value the HG consortium is providing to the local community, and a research paper on the history and current state of parking issues and solutions in Germantown."
ICA
Lila Shermeta
"My supervisor in the Curatorial Affairs Department, Robert Chaney, always checked in to see how my work was going, and was attentive to my interests. When I asked if I could be in more meetings with the curators and artists, he invited me to a few more. I learned a lot from talking to him and the curators about their responsibilities and what their career path looked like. I worked with everyone in the Development department, and they, too, were attentive to my interests before giving me tasks. I also joined most of their meetings, and they would ask me my opinion sometimes which made me feel valued."
Kislak Center/University Archives
Sylvia Erdely
"At the Kislak Center I learned so much about the workings of an archive, including the best ways to handle rare and damaged historic items, how to navigate several library numbering and cataloging systems, and how to assist visiting researchers in their work. I have also developed stronger workplace skills such as being detail-oriented, communicative, and collaborative. I have deeply valued being a part of an organization that works to preserve, analyze, and make accessible important pieces of history." Read more about Sylvia's experiences here.
Kaitlynn Gilmore
"Both at the Kislak and the Archives, I’ve learned a lot, both in terms of practical knowledge (like working a scanner) and topic-specific knowledge (like what students have published at Penn over the past nearly 200 years). I realized that working in a library setting can lead you to pick up a lot of random knowledge, since you are working with various collections/topics and helping out researchers, who take every opportunity to tell us interns and staff about what they are studying. For instance, I’ve learned that the Kislak has a pretty large collection of papers on the Philadelphia arts scene (Marian Anderson, theaters, sheet music, etc.)."
Isaiah Weir
"I did general work at Kislak for ten weeks, sitting desks, helping researchers, fetching books, and doing a bit of research myself. By observing researchers, I got a bit of a view of the historical process, seeing how the texts we preserved formed a small part of a historians work, and how the sum of these parts could create a meaningful and truthful narrative."
National Constitution Center
William Reason
"The preparations for the Teacher Institutes have given me the opportunity to carefully reflect on constitutional law and on how it can be made accessible to grade school students. For instance, I created a model toolkit for a First Amendment lesson which teachers can refer to as they create their own lesson plans for students during the institute."
Serene Safvi
"Through my first few weeks, I sat in on Scholar Exchanges, which are Zoom calls with a member of the education team and an American history scholar. Additionally, I familiarized myself with the Constitution 101 curriculum, which is on their free and public website. I was also able to experience the informative and delightful theater performances and exhibits in the museum…Each day, I often found myself learning a new fact about fundamental early American history or about Supreme Court constitutional law."
Ella Sohn
"A huge reason for the positive experience was the planning and leadership of our supervisors, Sarah and Harry. They truly cared about making the internship meaningful for us and would consistently check in to ensure we were getting the experience we wanted. Both of them went above and beyond to make us feel welcome…and were intentional about explaining the thought process behind each decision, even ones that were above our heads as interns. As a result, I walked away from the internship with a solid “big-picture” sense of the NCC’s programs and goals."
Allie Whellan
"I learned a lot about all of the work that goes into planning an event for so many people, such as coordinating tours of the museum, ordering food, and putting together resources for the attendees. Perhaps my favorite part of the institutes was that us interns got to listen to the guest speakers that were there for the institutes. We heard from judges, professors, and journalists, and it was so interesting to hear their perspectives on different historical topics."
One Art
Jennah Bolden
"During my internship, I was in charge of creating the standard operating procedure for every aspect of the organization, as well as work during big events. During big events, I primarily focused on the membership booth, where I spoke with individuals visiting One Art and described to them everything they can be a part of, if they join the One Art membership…I expected to spend my summer doing something repetitive and tedious and my time at One Art was the opposite. Every day, there was something new to do and I was given a great amount of creative freedom."
Deepika Kannan
"I primarily worked on developing an app for One Art, as a membership portal for members. Aside from the technical aspect of this project, which entailed building a project entirely from scratch, I also worked a lot with members of the organization to discuss what needed to be included in our app. I spoke with many younger and older people who are members of the organization that would use our app for membership and calendar purposes. I translated their ideas into technical concepts that I could implement within my app."
Opera Philadelphia
Laura Janetta
"The team at Opera Philadelphia really let me be an active part of the team, asking for and trusting my opinions and perspectives. Towards the middle of the summer in a development meeting, I pitched an idea for a new initiative for our Young Friends program. The lead on the project immediately reached out to me saying that he liked my idea, and together we developed a plan to get the project in motion. He allowed me to take the lead on many aspects of the project, supporting me and trusting my abilities. We launched the program at the end of the summer, and it ended up being very successful and is something they will be continuing after my departure."
Penn Museum
Ethan Nemeth
"The job blew my expectations away. On top of my everyday work with my supervisor in the Public Programs department, there were two weekly sessions that gave me the insight I was looking for. The first was every Wednesday we would meet for our museum practice sessions. This was a two-hour lecture and Q&A given by someone working in the museum on what their job is, what their background is, how they got to the museum, and what their day-to-day looks like. The other session was on Thursday afternoons when the Museum internship cohort would take field trips around the museum to take tours and meet with the staff. These two sessions gave me insight into the Museum world and what it holds for careers." Read more about Ethan's experience at the Penn Museum in Penn Today.
Scribe Video Center
Alan Zhang
"Through the various interviews I conducted, I met many accomplished artists, directors, dancers, and actors in Philadelphia. In these conversations, I got to know a lot more about Philadelphia, how the arts community operates, and what growing up in this community was like in the 1960s and 70s. My journalist mentor, Joseph Blake, and I had lots of great conversations reflecting on a variety of topics from the increasing generational gaps to the housing difficulties in the West Philadelphia region. I learned a lot about the filmmaking world from my co-workers, and gotten plenty of advice on how to navigate the professional world as well."
Spiral Q
Taryn Flaherty
"In the beginning, we were mostly doing day-to-day operations. Spiral Q’s work mainly consists of arts and crafts tabling at different youth events, art builds for social justice and community organizations, after-school or school-affiliated programs, and preparing for their major parades of Blankenburg and Peoplehood…The archive project is still in its beginning stages, but I was able to work with my two supervisors, Angela and Liza, and my other interns in preparing the focus and specific questions to interview longterm partners of SpiralQ…. They are conducting oral interviews with previous partners in an effort to reflect on both Spiral Q’s history of solidarity and to highlight the partners’ histories."
University of Pennsylvania Art Collection
Joanna Raymond Ruiz
"With this internship, I’ve been allowed to not only do the inventory for all these [art] pieces but also supervise their transportation, meticulously inspect their condition and conservation and even learn how they are packed and stored. Additionally, I’ve researched some of these artworks and I’ve worked on the Art’s Collection social media presence."
University of Pennsylvania Press
Dylan Fritz
"I primarily worked between the acquisitions and marketing departments at Penn Press, the university’s academic publisher. In the acquisitions department, I worked with the acquisitions editors and editorial assistants to format manuscripts to send to production, sent out honorarium payments and gratis book copies, as well as reached out to peer reviewers to request reviews of manuscripts. I also assisted with looking at book proposals and sat in on meetings with the Faculty Editorial Board, who reviews and approves manuscripts before the Press proceeds with them. Within the marketing department, I sent marketing and publicity materials to authors (including our marketing guide and reviews of their published monographs), as well as assigned internal subject codes to books in our backlist." Read more about Dylan's experiences in Penn Today.
Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History
Eliana Goluboff-Schragger
"My work included writing membership cards and recording data for development, watching and making notes on public program videos and brainstorming public program ideas, and helping the education department plan the museum’s big July 4th family program. For education, I did primary source research for a curriculum that they are creating for teachers across the country and also created something related to what I learned in my internship to bring back to my Penn community. For public programs, I was assigned to plan a public program that the museum could host during the upcoming year. Experiencing the inner workings of how a museum is run up close was an incredible experience and I learned so much through my internship."
Emily Scolnick
"Working with the staff at The Weitzman was a great experience. It was clear every day how much each person involved cared about the work they were doing, and it was also enjoyable to see how well everyone worked together. As interns, we were able to fairly seamlessly integrate ourselves into the team, and by the end I felt almost as much a member of the staff as people who had been there for years."