Internships | Engaging Places

A collage of images showing students in museums.

Most students search for internships by looking for a museum.
Instead they should be looking for a mentor.

In the Museum Studies Program at George Washington University, I advise about 40 students every year, which includes a required internship. Students are excited to get into the field, so they want to obtain their internship as quickly as possible. However, in the process, they often overlook the most important aspect.

An internship doesn’t train you — a supervisor does. And in today’s museum workforce, those are no longer automatically the same thing. Many organizations, especially small historical societies and local museums, operate with very lean staffing and competing demands. A capable staff member may be handling exhibits, collections, programs, and fundraising at the same time. That doesn’t make them unprofessional. But it may mean they lack the time, structure, or disciplinary depth to train a graduate-level emerging professional.

You can have a legitimate museum and still receive a volunteer experience instead of a professional one. The difference is supervision.

Reframe the Goal

The internship is not just a graduation requirement. It is your first professional apprenticeship—a chance to build competencies and networks, not just accumulate hours. Focus on what you need to learn and how it supports your career goals. Think of it as work experience with training wheels. Consider how this step leads to the next one.

The Supervisor Test

Continue reading →

This fall, the Museum Studies Program at George Washington University is joining forces again with the History and Art History Departments to offer a Museums+ Internship Fair. Now in its second year, the fair connects undergraduate and graduate students with a wide range of museum and history internship opportunities in the DC area. For a couple of hours on a Friday afternoon, students will gather in the atrium of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design to meet representatives from dozens of institutions—including the National Gallery of Art, Hillwood Estate, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Supreme Court of the United States, White House Historical Association, and many more. The goal is simple: to help students discover just how much they can do with their degrees and to broaden their horizons by meeting professionals working across the museum and history fields.

As we’ve been preparing for the fair, I began to wonder—what if museums and historic sites flipped the concept and hosted a similar program for their own communities? Instead of being a service for students alone, imagine it as a public program, designed to connect local residents, businesses, and organizations with the museum itself.

Benefits to the Community

For many people working in business, technology, or traditional jobs, the idea of contributing their skills to a nonprofit or museum has never crossed their minds. They may not recognize that their expertise—whether in marketing, finance, customer service, or carpentry—has enormous value to cultural organizations. By connecting residents with organizations and ideas outside their usual circles, museums can help expand horizons and build confidence.