Internships always present challenges. The inherent tensions between the needs of students and museums and the ethics of unpaid labor are but two of the issues that consume us. When the pandemic put museum internships on hold and left students who had secured positions stuck in limbo, we thought we were facing an insurmountable challenge. We wondered whether we’d need to eliminate the internship requirement from our graduate museum studies program for the foreseeable future.

Yet to our surprise, we saw some remarkable internships take place this past year—virtual experiences that revealed that an effective internship can occur no matter the modis operandi.

The pandemic, acting as a catalyst in a highly charged time, forced us, our students, and our internship sites to reinvent and refocus. The results were well-structured interactions that offered students chances to learn and practice new skills, participate in workforce communities, and contribute meaningful work. We know these elements are critical to successful internships, but we did not expect to see them so intentionally and visibly built into virtual experiences.

As we move back to onsite and in-person internships we hope to retain the intentionality of purpose and clarity of focus of the virtual experiences, and offer the following advice.

Find the Balance Between Structure and Flexibility

Defining objectives, outlining goals, and articulating expectations will help interns understand what they need to do, but establishing a structure provides a clear path of how to do it. The virtual internships all incorporated regularly scheduled online meetings between site supervisor and intern. After a postponed start and unplanned shift to a fully remote internship at a natural history museum, museum education student Eric had weekly Zoom meetings with his site supervisor and was also able to participate in department meetings remotely. He noted that his site supervisor went out of her way to introduce him virtually to other staff members. The structured meetings took away the guesswork (“what does my site supervisor want me to do?” “What is my intern up to?”) and fostered trust and familiarity.

Similarly, museum education student Sayyara was able to be the proverbial “fly-on-the-wall” in meetings at a children’s museum, understanding that the invitation to attend virtual meetings was a privilege, not a given of her internship status—an invitation that might not have been possible in an in-person environment with competing schedules, changing timelines, and formal organizational structures.

While structured meetings with museum staff anchored students to their internship sites, the independent nature of remote internships meant that they could set their own schedules. Hannah, an art history and museum studies student, appreciated the flexibility that her remote internship offered; “While it was required to work 8 hours/week …I was allowed to set my own days and schedule according to my other commitments.” She noted that she could “see this internship having a remote component into the future.” And why not? Just as we have discovered that we can work from home, we now see that interns can also do some of their work from afar.

Invest in Personal Relationships to Facilitate Connections

The power of a relationship to make or break an internship experience is real. An internship can go from ordinary to remarkable when a supervisor takes time to show an intern the ropes, provides extra attention to the intern’s learning objectives, and makes the intern feel part of the organization. Natalie, a student of art history and museum studies, noted that she and her supervisor “…spent a good deal of time reflecting on the teaching experience, which was useful for me… [She] also looped me into her communications with the classroom teachers we were working with, which made me feel like less of an intern and more like a co-teacher.”

In the eyes of the intern, demonstrated respect and trust from the mentor confirms, above all else, a sense of value. “I was treated like part of the staff, given the same opportunities as other educators, and developed working relationships with every staff member and volunteer that I had the opportunity to work with,” said museum education student Amanda, who had a hybrid internship. “[My supervisor] was incredibly supportive of my goals, valued my thoughts and ideas, and trusted my abilities to work independently.” Rachel, a history and museum studies student, echoed these sentiments; “I have been treated with respect and encouragement by my site supervisor and his colleagues. Thus far, I have gone through an entire interpretive planning process for a unique exhibit space, and have been able to not only observe, but contribute to this process.”

Harness Interns’ Expertise and Acknowledge Their Contributions

The altered state of the world increased the workload for many museum professionals as they tackled the “new normal” of getting things done. In this climate, interns, lucky enough to have positions, wondered if they could make a difference. Interns often get neglected when work gets busy, their projects sidelined, and it seemed likely that this could be the case for internships during the pandemic. However, the easiest way to make sure they are set up to make a difference is to give them projects that use their skills and knowledge. This past year students transformed former academic assignments into online educational programs for their sites, introduced multi-media platforms to engage with audiences, and used their research expertise to find new, inclusive narratives for museum exhibitions and programs. Acknowledgement of their work cements an intern’s sense of self-worth and value, summed up by history and museum studies student Margot, “The practicum has been satisfying because I feel like I am doing valuable work for the organization and that I am learning important skills.”

Tap into Interns’ Creativity and Energy

Emerging professionals are often bursting with ideas and energy, and now—more than ever before—are eager to help museums remake themselves. Understanding that it was going to be hard to get 3rd graders to engage with artwork over Zoom from the isolation of their own homes, Natalie developed lively interactive online experiences that used movement, poetry and music to inspire the students. She wrote, “I used to be a big skeptic when it came to virtual learning (and maybe I still am), but this experience transformed my understanding of online learning and convinced me that it can indeed be done well, and I can even enjoy it.”

Challenge Interns

Many students come into the Tufts museum studies program with substantial museum experience. While they hope their internships will enable them to use and build upon existing skills and knowledge, they also hunger for new challenges. Alexandra, a history and museum studies student, was tasked with giving an online talk to museum staff members. She reflected, “public speaking is something that makes me nervous, but I like the challenge that it presents as well, and for this particular project especially it seems a fitting culmination of my work.” Julia, also a history and museum studies student, was invited to publish her internship research project in the organization’s magazine. She wrote, “I learned that I’m really excited about museum publishing! I was able to learn about the ways that working on a publication within a museum can be challenging and important, and I loved writing my article for the magazine. I also learned that keeping on track with independent research projects offsite can be challenging, but ultimately really rewarding when they come together and when I have that final product.”

The purpose of an internship is to provide a beneficial experience for both intern and host site. While this year forced a revaluation of what an internship looks like, what remained was the opportunity for remarkable experiences, many of which would not have been possible without a flexible approach and shift in expectations. As we return to “normal,” let’s keep this mindful approach and not slide back into complacency and habit.

Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash