Looking Back on my Experience

 

A picture of my taken before the internship started. This was requested by the internship supervisors for their records.
 At the start of my internship, I was very nervous. This wasn’t just my first time working in a professional archival setting, it was also my first time in Denton and living on campus. So, I was in a very new environment during and outside of the internship. I had a lot of new things to learn and new day-to-day practices to get used to. However, it didn’t take long for me to grow more comfortable in the Special Collections department. Especially, as I started to work more with the collection.
What I wanted from this internship was primarily to get a better idea of what it would be like to work in an actual archive. I think from the first week the team of supervisors leading us did a great job giving us, the other interns and I, a general overview of what the UNT Archives were like. Some of the highlights for me were the different tours we got to take of different departments in the program: The main offices in the Willis Library, the preservation and main storage center, and the Texas fashion collection. Getting to see these different departments up close, really helped me understand a more holistic view of the archives department. I also really appreciated there was always someone who we could ask for help while working on our archives. From the start of surveying my collection I had concerns about preservation, about de-accessioning, and digitizing material, so having more experienced supervisors nearby really helped me work through my collection.
    I feel like during the internship I got to see many different jobs and tasks within an actual archive. Such as the previously mentioned preservation, storage room, and fashion collection but further we got glimpses of digitization, media outreach, back-end data management, etc. I can see myself possibly working in some of these more specific fields in the future, including as a processing archivist. That is what I spent the bulk of my time in the internship on, naturally. I really value the experience I gained working in an Archive space and the overall accession process.
Our interview with Morgan Gieringer in the second to last week of the internship was very informative. I found her answers really insightful. She had a lot of interesting insights into the archiving field and some fun anecdotes from her work experience. Her advise about the mistakes new workers can make and how to find a job in the future has affected the way I’m moving forward with my career. I have a better idea of what types of jobs I will look for in the future and what to expect from them.
    One of the highlights of the internship for me was the last day where the other interns and I gave presentations on our collections. I really liked being able to see how far everyone had come with their work and the interesting materials they had found in their collections. Same with the different displays we got to make. I think the time I spent building my display and presentation allowed me to look at the collection from a different angle to find what would work best in this specific context.
    Overall, my internship at the UNT Special Collection Archives gave me lot of valuable work experiences and taught me a lot about working in a professional setting. I feel a lot more confident about working in an archive and about job hunting in the future.

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