I seem to be in a bit of a motivation slump at the moment. Part of it might be the weather (my computer telling me it’s over 100 degrees outside doesn’t exactly spur me into frenzied action), but I suspect most of it is contributed to a bit of mental exhaustion.
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I had to catch a pre-7:00am bus to get to my internship by 7:45. After three hours at NASM, I embarked on my daily 30 minute walk to the GWU campus for work, and then commenced an eight hour workday, leaving campus around 7:30 at night. Once a week I had class, and twice a week I had to commute home by metro and bus, walking in the door of my apartment around 9:00 at night. Perhaps twice a week my fiancé and I would make it to the gym, and then get home with enough time to eat a quick dinner, talk for a few minutes, and fall into bed.
The previous semester, I had juggled a very similar schedule in order to take two studio interior design classes, both of which were held during the day, rather than at night.
Now, I absolutely think that the crazy schedule was worth it—I loved my interior design classes and learned so much that will be extremely useful in my career, and my internship experience was everything that I had hoped for.
But regardless of the worth of it all, I reached the last day of my internship and the last class of the first summer session breathing a sigh of relief to finally have a bit of a break. For at least one week I would have a normal 8:30 – 5:00 day, have time to go to the gym before dark, time to make and eat dinner with my fiancé, and time to enjoy some free time.
That was a week and four days ago and I am no closer to finding a second internship than I was in March. I don’t think it is for a lack of trying since I have been persistent in my emails with a design firm in Fairfax that say they want to meet with me, but that haven’t replied to my many emails telling them my availability. I know that in the very near future I will have to start the search over again and I know the day is fast approaching where I will have to go back to a crazy schedule if I even have a hope of finishing my degree by December.
As of right now I have my old list of internship possibilities and contacts on my desk, I have a small network of professionals at Air and Space whom I can call on for recommendations and referrals, and number 2 on my To-Do list is “Find and internship”.
But all I want to do right now is breath…
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Landing my first internship
After failing to land an internship during my first summer in DC, I was determined that I would have one secured before the end of the fall semester.
As some background, I am on a 2 year, 2 semester plan in my program, facilitated by the need to work while in school, and because of this I won’t be able to finish my degree until December 2010. I had originally thought that I could somehow finish up my course work by the end of summer 2010, then stop working and be able to focus on two back to back full time internships or two simultaneous part time internships. However, with my fiancé also a full time graduate student and a post-graduation job not a guarantee, I realized that it was necessary for me to keep working and to try to find a way to do an internship while still fitting in my 40 hours a week for work.
An internship for my program requires 260 hours of time and because of my work schedule there was no way that I would be able to put in more than 12 hours a week at an internship. When I did the math, it broke down to about 6 months per placement—which meant that I would have to start an internship by January, then go directly into another internship in July in order to finish by December. With this in mind I started searching.
Well, in actuality, I didn’t search as much as contact. I used one of the few museum professional contacts I had made the previous year—an exhibit designer at the National Air and Space Museum who had been my professor for my very first class at GW. Having been part of a small group of students who took on an extra design project for our student exhibit, I had spent my Sunday evenings at the museum and had felt like I had made a good connection with our professor. At the very least, I thought she would remember me in her sea of students.
In October I emailed her, inquiring if the exhibits department would need an intern starting in January. I contacted her early because I didn’t want to get beat out by any of the students that she had in class that semester. I got lucky and that one connection was all that I needed. She remembered me and told me they would need an intern. Then as icing on the cake, she informed me that they had just hired a Museum Studies graduate and it turned out to be Ashley, who I had taken classes with and had gotten to know fairly well the past year.
I was really excited to be working with Ashley. Not only could we relate over GW stories, but I also had a tremendous respect for her design talent. I think I got really lucky being paired with someone who understood exactly where I was coming from and where I wanted to end up after school, and who understood exactly how to tailor my internship experience to make sure that I learned the skills and got the insight that would really help me in the future.
And so, on January 4, with a massive head cold, I caught the 6:56am bus from my apartment and arrived at NASM excited for what was to come.
As some background, I am on a 2 year, 2 semester plan in my program, facilitated by the need to work while in school, and because of this I won’t be able to finish my degree until December 2010. I had originally thought that I could somehow finish up my course work by the end of summer 2010, then stop working and be able to focus on two back to back full time internships or two simultaneous part time internships. However, with my fiancé also a full time graduate student and a post-graduation job not a guarantee, I realized that it was necessary for me to keep working and to try to find a way to do an internship while still fitting in my 40 hours a week for work.
An internship for my program requires 260 hours of time and because of my work schedule there was no way that I would be able to put in more than 12 hours a week at an internship. When I did the math, it broke down to about 6 months per placement—which meant that I would have to start an internship by January, then go directly into another internship in July in order to finish by December. With this in mind I started searching.
Well, in actuality, I didn’t search as much as contact. I used one of the few museum professional contacts I had made the previous year—an exhibit designer at the National Air and Space Museum who had been my professor for my very first class at GW. Having been part of a small group of students who took on an extra design project for our student exhibit, I had spent my Sunday evenings at the museum and had felt like I had made a good connection with our professor. At the very least, I thought she would remember me in her sea of students.
In October I emailed her, inquiring if the exhibits department would need an intern starting in January. I contacted her early because I didn’t want to get beat out by any of the students that she had in class that semester. I got lucky and that one connection was all that I needed. She remembered me and told me they would need an intern. Then as icing on the cake, she informed me that they had just hired a Museum Studies graduate and it turned out to be Ashley, who I had taken classes with and had gotten to know fairly well the past year.
I was really excited to be working with Ashley. Not only could we relate over GW stories, but I also had a tremendous respect for her design talent. I think I got really lucky being paired with someone who understood exactly where I was coming from and where I wanted to end up after school, and who understood exactly how to tailor my internship experience to make sure that I learned the skills and got the insight that would really help me in the future.
And so, on January 4, with a massive head cold, I caught the 6:56am bus from my apartment and arrived at NASM excited for what was to come.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Networking
I hear it all the time in the Career Center—one of the surest ways to find a job is to network.
According to dictionary.com, a network
Used as a verb in a professional context, networking
Networking is so successful because it puts a face to a person’s qualifications; if I came up to you at a cocktail party and we connected over our shared interest in museum technology, and then you told me that your museum is looking for a new web editor and that I should apply, then BINGO, I have made myself and my resume more visible in your selection process because someone at the museum can say that they remembered talking to me.
Of course, more often than not, a job suggestion will not fall into your lap with every professional conversation you have, but the point of networking is to get your name out there to the people in your field who you might end up working with in the future. The more contacts you have, the more likely you are to hear through the grapevine that a particular company or organization is hiring. If you can go further in your initial meeting and exchange business cards, then you have an at-the-ready contact that you can reference anytime you need to in the future.
Now, I have to admit that networking is not my strength. I am shy and introverted and am drained after an hour or so of small talk in a crowd that I’m not familiar with. I tend to shy away from social situations where I don’t know people and I have a hard time promoting myself and my accomplishments because of a fear that the other person won’t be interested in hearing what I have to say.
However, just because I’m not comfortable with standard networking, it doesn’t mean that I can’t still successfully network. Instead of signing up for networking events, I try to accept invitations to events where I know at least one or two people. In these situations, at least I have the comfort of one person to talk to, and I am more comfortable and confident meeting new people if there is someone else around to share the conversation burden. I also try to foster a good relationship with any professional that I do have a reason to come in contact with—for example, a professor or a guest speaker that I feel at ease talking with because I am able to get to know them more gradually in a group setting.
In fact, the latter technique is exactly how I managed to land my first internship at the National Air and Space Museum.
Up next: How I finially landed my first internship
According to dictionary.com, a network
is an association of individuals having a common interest, formed to provide mutual assistance, helpful information, or the like
Used as a verb in a professional context, networking
is used to cultivate people who can be helpful to one professionally, esp. in finding employment or moving to a higher position
Networking is so successful because it puts a face to a person’s qualifications; if I came up to you at a cocktail party and we connected over our shared interest in museum technology, and then you told me that your museum is looking for a new web editor and that I should apply, then BINGO, I have made myself and my resume more visible in your selection process because someone at the museum can say that they remembered talking to me.
Of course, more often than not, a job suggestion will not fall into your lap with every professional conversation you have, but the point of networking is to get your name out there to the people in your field who you might end up working with in the future. The more contacts you have, the more likely you are to hear through the grapevine that a particular company or organization is hiring. If you can go further in your initial meeting and exchange business cards, then you have an at-the-ready contact that you can reference anytime you need to in the future.
Now, I have to admit that networking is not my strength. I am shy and introverted and am drained after an hour or so of small talk in a crowd that I’m not familiar with. I tend to shy away from social situations where I don’t know people and I have a hard time promoting myself and my accomplishments because of a fear that the other person won’t be interested in hearing what I have to say.
However, just because I’m not comfortable with standard networking, it doesn’t mean that I can’t still successfully network. Instead of signing up for networking events, I try to accept invitations to events where I know at least one or two people. In these situations, at least I have the comfort of one person to talk to, and I am more comfortable and confident meeting new people if there is someone else around to share the conversation burden. I also try to foster a good relationship with any professional that I do have a reason to come in contact with—for example, a professor or a guest speaker that I feel at ease talking with because I am able to get to know them more gradually in a group setting.
In fact, the latter technique is exactly how I managed to land my first internship at the National Air and Space Museum.
Up next: How I finially landed my first internship
Monday, June 28, 2010
Finding an Internship
Now that we're aquainted, let's talk internships!
Finding an internship can be a challenge—especially in DC in the summer, especially when competing with students coming from all over the country, especially when everyone in my program (museum studies) is searching for an internship too. If I multiply these factors by my own personal expectations, the field gets narrower. If I add in the fact that I have very little experience in my field outside of my class work, I start to wonder if anyone would even be interested in having me as an intern. In addition, as a full time GWU employee, I have to wonder if anyone will be willing to work with my crazy schedule.
Luckily, my first internship has been a great experience, but it was a little nerve-wracking getting there.
The Museum Studies program requires two internships of 260 hours, which equals 6 credits towards my degree. When I met with our internship coordinator she told me that I should look for two different organizations to intern for (for example, if I did my first internship at a Smithsonian museum, I should look for my second at a non-Smithsonian location). She also told me that I should try to secure my dream internship as my second experience, because if they liked my work and had any positions open I would be in a much better place for hire after graduation. Then she gave me a list of museums and organization in the DC area who had worked with our students in the past.
With these tips in mind, I started my internship search last spring, trying to determine if there would be a way to marry my work and class schedule with time to do an internship for that coming summer. I started by systematically looking up each organization on my list to determine if I would enjoy interning there. I found a few that sounded like a good fit for either my undergraduate academic interests in biology and history or my future career goals and I zoned in on my ‘dream’ placement to keep in mind for my second internship. I sent out emails to the contacts for my top choices and wound up with three interviews: one with the design department at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), one with the Exhibits department at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and one with the Exhibits department at the National Geographic Museum.
In the end, I like to say that those first contacts and subsequent meetings were a learning opportunity for me; I had to face two of my biggest concerns, my limited schedule and my own expectations, right off the bat and I realized that trying to navigate the design world with little knowledge of what to expect was challenging.
For the NIH, the largest hurdle was the commute—it took me almost an hour and a half to get there from my apartment in Alexandria—and it would not have been practical to make that kind of commute fit in with my work schedule. On top of that, the exhibits department had a very small budget and minimal part time staff. In some instances, a small staff and budget can be a great opportunity for an intern to be really involved and see their work really come to fruition. In other cases, it can be a bit of a scattered working environment. With my only exhibit design experience coming from my class work, I felt like I really needed more guidance than they could give. Strike One.
Next I met with the National Geographic Museum. They were interviewing for two interns who could share a work space. Unfortunately they wanted someone who was available to work 9:00am – 5:00pm two days a week, plus a half day. Coupled with my internal disappointment at the small number of exhibits actually present in the museum, this opportunity was not going to work out either. Strike Two.
Lastly, I met with the head designer at the NMNH. While my schedule didn’t seem like an issue, they didn’t have the design opportunities that I was looking for. Each Smithsonian operates differently and some contract out their design work, while some have an exhibits department in-house. NMNH contracted out and I didn’t have the skills for the kind of design work that they did do in-house. They offered me a more development/research based opportunity working with an exhibit’s online component, but at that point in my studies, I really felt like I needed the more design-focused experience for my long term career goals. It would have been a great opportunity, but with limited time to in my life to focus on my internships, I needed to make sure that each one was a perfect fit for my career path. Strike Three.
During the process of interviewing, I realized that I was actually fairly unprepared. My resume had been tailored to finding my job at GW and while I had tweaked it to reflect my design experience, I realized that I didn’t have enough experience to look exceptional and the experience I did have was not highlighted correctly. I also did not have a portfolio since I had never had a design job or internship before. It was clear that I had a lot of work to do before I tried to interview again.
It seems that an internship that summer just wasn’t meant to be.
Next post: The importance of networking.
Finding an internship can be a challenge—especially in DC in the summer, especially when competing with students coming from all over the country, especially when everyone in my program (museum studies) is searching for an internship too. If I multiply these factors by my own personal expectations, the field gets narrower. If I add in the fact that I have very little experience in my field outside of my class work, I start to wonder if anyone would even be interested in having me as an intern. In addition, as a full time GWU employee, I have to wonder if anyone will be willing to work with my crazy schedule.
Luckily, my first internship has been a great experience, but it was a little nerve-wracking getting there.
The Museum Studies program requires two internships of 260 hours, which equals 6 credits towards my degree. When I met with our internship coordinator she told me that I should look for two different organizations to intern for (for example, if I did my first internship at a Smithsonian museum, I should look for my second at a non-Smithsonian location). She also told me that I should try to secure my dream internship as my second experience, because if they liked my work and had any positions open I would be in a much better place for hire after graduation. Then she gave me a list of museums and organization in the DC area who had worked with our students in the past.
With these tips in mind, I started my internship search last spring, trying to determine if there would be a way to marry my work and class schedule with time to do an internship for that coming summer. I started by systematically looking up each organization on my list to determine if I would enjoy interning there. I found a few that sounded like a good fit for either my undergraduate academic interests in biology and history or my future career goals and I zoned in on my ‘dream’ placement to keep in mind for my second internship. I sent out emails to the contacts for my top choices and wound up with three interviews: one with the design department at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), one with the Exhibits department at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and one with the Exhibits department at the National Geographic Museum.
In the end, I like to say that those first contacts and subsequent meetings were a learning opportunity for me; I had to face two of my biggest concerns, my limited schedule and my own expectations, right off the bat and I realized that trying to navigate the design world with little knowledge of what to expect was challenging.
For the NIH, the largest hurdle was the commute—it took me almost an hour and a half to get there from my apartment in Alexandria—and it would not have been practical to make that kind of commute fit in with my work schedule. On top of that, the exhibits department had a very small budget and minimal part time staff. In some instances, a small staff and budget can be a great opportunity for an intern to be really involved and see their work really come to fruition. In other cases, it can be a bit of a scattered working environment. With my only exhibit design experience coming from my class work, I felt like I really needed more guidance than they could give. Strike One.
Next I met with the National Geographic Museum. They were interviewing for two interns who could share a work space. Unfortunately they wanted someone who was available to work 9:00am – 5:00pm two days a week, plus a half day. Coupled with my internal disappointment at the small number of exhibits actually present in the museum, this opportunity was not going to work out either. Strike Two.
Lastly, I met with the head designer at the NMNH. While my schedule didn’t seem like an issue, they didn’t have the design opportunities that I was looking for. Each Smithsonian operates differently and some contract out their design work, while some have an exhibits department in-house. NMNH contracted out and I didn’t have the skills for the kind of design work that they did do in-house. They offered me a more development/research based opportunity working with an exhibit’s online component, but at that point in my studies, I really felt like I needed the more design-focused experience for my long term career goals. It would have been a great opportunity, but with limited time to in my life to focus on my internships, I needed to make sure that each one was a perfect fit for my career path. Strike Three.
During the process of interviewing, I realized that I was actually fairly unprepared. My resume had been tailored to finding my job at GW and while I had tweaked it to reflect my design experience, I realized that I didn’t have enough experience to look exceptional and the experience I did have was not highlighted correctly. I also did not have a portfolio since I had never had a design job or internship before. It was clear that I had a lot of work to do before I tried to interview again.
It seems that an internship that summer just wasn’t meant to be.
Next post: The importance of networking.
Who? What? Why?
Just to start us off, here is a little bit about me and why I decided to start this blog:
About me:
I am a second year graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University, working on my M.A. in Museum Studies with a concentration in Exhibition Development and Design. I am also a full time GW employee, working in the GW Career Center in the Career Learning and Experiences Department. I am a native of Virginia, though I’m new to the Washington DC area.
Purpose:
The purpose of this blog is to provide a student perspective on the internship process and internship experience. Internships are a big part of GWU and they are an even bigger part of Washington DC culture. Each year thousands of students descend on Washington for the opportunity to work alongside congressmen, intern with non-profits, and pursue opportunities with private companies. This blog will discuss my own internship experience, and hopefully provide insightful tips into navigating the complex world of being an intern, a student, and a staff member, as well as keeping a perspective on my personal life.
About me:
I am a second year graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University, working on my M.A. in Museum Studies with a concentration in Exhibition Development and Design. I am also a full time GW employee, working in the GW Career Center in the Career Learning and Experiences Department. I am a native of Virginia, though I’m new to the Washington DC area.
Purpose:
The purpose of this blog is to provide a student perspective on the internship process and internship experience. Internships are a big part of GWU and they are an even bigger part of Washington DC culture. Each year thousands of students descend on Washington for the opportunity to work alongside congressmen, intern with non-profits, and pursue opportunities with private companies. This blog will discuss my own internship experience, and hopefully provide insightful tips into navigating the complex world of being an intern, a student, and a staff member, as well as keeping a perspective on my personal life.
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