Looking back on this internship as a whole, I am exceedingly glad that I submitted an application for it on a whim, just over a year ago. When I was helping interview one of the candidates for next year’s internship, they asked me what one good thing I didn’t expect was, and after a moment of thought, I concluded that the thing that surprised me the most was the number of personal relationships I got to form with the library staff. I think there are many people who could teach the subject matter that I got to learn in this internship, but not nearly as many who could do so in such a kind, attentive, and personalized way. Elements like the addition of the Special Collections pop up exhibit were especially meaningful to me, because I know they weren’t originally included in the syllabus and were instead added especially because of my interests. I would highly encourage any subsequent interns to voice interests like that, because there is a great deal of attention paid to making the internship beneficial for the intern. But also, go with the flow, because getting to shadow and talk to many of the people I had never spoken with before was one of the most fun and rewarding parts. I can’t think of anything big that needs changing, except perhaps for the Career Center aspects to be a little more clearly defined from the beginning — but it all worked out in the end anyway!
Spring Blog Post 3
on