A first-rate internship in the Second City : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

Abstract

One cold winter day several years ago, I rushed into Dr. Joanne Edmonds' office in the Honors College, panicking because it was the middle of my sophomore year and I had not yet declared a major. She sat me down and calmly began to pore over that year's course catalog with me. When she got to "History Option Two — Major With Internship," she said the magic word: "museum." At that moment, I knew for certain that I was going to be a history major. I did not know then what I know now: that public history ties into my natural attraction to teaching and learning, and that it is a way for me to reconcile the often insular academic community (which I love) to the rest of the world (which I love more). My coursework and my internship taught me that, and much more that I hope to transmit through my Honors Thesis, this Internship Portfolio.After briefly considering the idea of a public history internship abroad (which I eventually ruled out for financial and logistical reasons), I decided to concentrate my efforts on the Chicago area. I could live at home in the suburbs for free, and maybe even work in one of the museums I had frequented as a child. My electronic application to the Field Museum went ignored, and the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum's programming would not fulfill my historical requirements. At Dr. Michael Doyle's suggestion, I investigated the Chicago Historical Society, an institution with a good scholarly reputation, but one with which I was unfamiliar. I looked at the internship opportunities listed on their website and applied for three that sounded really interesting. (Those application materials are included here). After a phone interview with the Volunteer/Intern Coordinator, Marne Bariso, I was accepted as an intern in the Visitor Services department under her supervision.The timing of my internship at the end of my college career really made it the capstone of my time at Ball State, so I think it is only appropriate that my Internship Portfolio also serves as my Honors Thesis. Therefore, it contains all required documents for HIST 300.003: the Work Log, Reflective Journal, and Midterm and Final Reports. In addition, I have included the reports on activity cart usage and volunteer management that I researched and wrote for use in planning future educational programming at CHS. To help the reader understand some of the processes I went through to create these documents, I have added the questions I asked and some notes that I took during interviews. Because finding and evaluating new resources for gallery interpreters was such a big part of my internship experience, there is a sample reading in this portfolio. In general, I have tried to include any document to which I made specific reference in my Reflective Journal. Most of these were actually attached files in the electronic version of this Journal, so my classmates would better understand what I was writing about. Photos (hard copies and electronic) add some color to an otherwise visually bland project. Also included on disk is a short PowerPoint presentation that I put together for Dr. Doyle's workshop on BSU's Public History Internship Program at DePaul University.A final element in this portfolio that I think deserves special mention is my application for a full time job at CHS. A position opened up at about the same time that my internship was ending, and I think that my work during the summer was a major factor that led to me ultimately getting the job of School Programs Coordinator at the Chicago Historical Society. This internship was a perfect transition for me from school to a work environment, and would have been worthwhile even if I did not get the position, But I think the story would be incomplete if I did not mention how this experience led me to my first full time job. Comparing my applications for internship and job is just one way of looking at how much I grew and learned over the summer.