Wednesday, September 7, 2011

First Day at the Art Institute

I have a FABULOUS internship this semester as a programs assistant in the education department. Mainly I'm working with Interpretive Exhibits and Family Programs. I had no idea what to expect since I've only ever worked in a small museum where the education department has no more than three people.

The first thing I did was tag along with an SAIC MAT group that was taking a tour of the teacher resource center. I had no idea you can not only create your own collections online, but you can find any resource they have in the library on their website. All you have to do is come to the teacher resource center once, register, and then you can use it from anywhere! The collection consist of lesson plans, books from the museum, and art dvds. More info is on www.artic.edu under the education > teacher section.

I then did A LOT of research on the illustrator and author being featured in the upcoming Ryan Education Center exhibit. His name is Steven Jenkins and he creates these beautiful animals by cutting unique paper from all around the world and putting it together to make life-like but lyrical animals. In his books, he reveals interesting facts about animals: did you know the giant squid is the longest sea or land creature in the world?? My boss, Mary, told me I'd be helping her matte, frame, and hang the show as well as write the lease agreement. So exciting!

Lastly for the day, I got to take a tour of all the offices including the vault... dumm duum duummm. The entire place is like an underground village with different passages and heavy security. I felt incredibly special walking through that space.

I work again tomorrow and I'm looking forward to my next assignment. PROGRAMS ASSISTANT REPORTING FOR DUTY.

Till next time,

Meredith

3 comments:

  1. Hey Meredith, I wanted to chat with you about your internship yesterday, but I didn't have time before I had to rush off to catch my train back to the south side. Did you get the position through the co-op office?

    Sarah, shornung@gmail.com

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  2. I did. I went there early August after I took COOP's brief orientation online. After briefly discussing what I was interested in, the COOP counselor gave me a list of 12 or so possible internships that I could contact if I was interested. I then contacted my top 5 and heard back from two. Once I sent them my resume, I had interviews and luckily, the art institute had an opening!

    The only bad thing about COOP is that you have to pay for it... but it's nice that I'm using it to start my fieldwork and I get payed through work study. I also applied to the Children's museum without COOP's help and got an interview so there are other ways to get an internship.COOP is very helpful though and they really help you focus on your goals for the internship.

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  3. glad to hear you're enjoying a museum internship, meredith! we'll have to ask you for additional insights when we hit up the museum for class next week! :)

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