First day as an Intern

We were asked to show up at the employee entrance of the National Museum of American History (NMAH) at 10 am today. Although I live about four miles and 3 Metro stops from the NMAH, I decided to leave the apartment at 9am. Thanks to the Metro, it only takes about 30 minutes for me to travel from door to door, oh how I've missed living in the big city!




I met with four other interns at the waiting area and at 10 am, we were met by two other interns who are assigned at the NMAH Internship office. They gave us a brief overview what's expected from us as interns, the usual stuff: dress code, behaviour, rules, safety and security reminders etc.
We also found out from them that as interns, we have a number of fabulous benefits such as:

• free one admission per week to IMAX movies at any Smithsonian. Everything but Night at the Museum - awww! They do have a number of other interesting films to watch, so I know where I'm spending my weekends at!
• free one simulation ride per week. Since I'm paranoid to enjoy real thrill rides, these are perfect for me.
• 20% discount on any Smithsonian cafeterias and museum stores
• Occasional reduced or free admission to other non-Smithsonian museums

The Internship office also organizes enrichment trips, programs and dialogues with leading individuals from NMAH. With hundreds of summer interns at the Smithsonian, there are a number of Smithsonian-wide programs that allow opportunities for us to learn about the institution, Washington, DC and meet other interns.

After the brief orientation, we were sent off to get our official badges. Took about an hour of waiting before my turn to have my picture taken came. This was posted near the camera: "This is an ID photo, not a glamour shot!" Five minutes later, my badge was handed to me.

Afterwards, we were individually introduced to our supervisors. I finally met Tricia Edwards, the Education Specialist of the Lemelson Center, who I have been corresponding with since early this year. She introduced me to most of the Lemelson Staff then brought me down to the Spark!Lab for more introductions and for a brief tour of both the Spark!Lab and the Invention at Play exhibit.

She handed me a packet of materials about the Lemelson Center, a list of the staff (which would definitely come in handy considering how awful my memory for names and faces are!), and two research/evaluations: one about the Hands On Science Center (what Spark!Lab used to be) and the other about NMAH. Both documents were very helpful in providing me with a broader understanding of who their visitors are and what they want and need from the museum.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see that , Matt White (former Director of the Hands On Science Center), initiated one of the studies. Matt is a PhD. candidate in History of Science but became a classmate when he took the Introduction to Museology class offered by our program.

He gave me a valuable tip for applying at the Smithsonian, which I believe applies to whatever museum/institution you apply for. He told me that it would benefit me to:

1) identify which section of the museum I really want to be part of based on my interest

2) communicate with someone from that department to let them know of your interest in applying for an internship in their department.

You see, NMAH has a centralized intern application system, but due to the enormous number of applicants they get every summer, sometimes your application and skills do not get noticed. Thus when you have already made the personal connection with the department, assuming they want to accept you of course, they can watch out for your papers when it goes through the system. I am therefore very grateful to Matt for his wise counsel!

I really think I made a good choice in deciding to apply to the Lemelson Center. I have no doubts that this will be an excellent and fun learning experience!