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Watch video Fall 2020 MNHS Internships on YouTube

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Alix Cogan: My name is Alix Cogan. For this semester I’ve been working with the Oliver Kelley Farm as their research intern. The role that I was supposed to play this semester with this internship was basically to find primary and secondary sources as well as to kind of accumulate what the site already had into a understandable and easily accessible spreadsheet to kind of work with for future research. I learned how what I’m going to do translates to the wider public. How can make all this stuff into a (unintelligible) that’s easily accessible for people so they can get the historical accuracy but also the interest without being overwhelmed.

Lilly Geraghty: My name is Lilly and I worked on the lithic comparative collection. The Minnesota Historical Society has a large lithic raw material collection and it’s used by archaeologists and university students but, unfortunately, it’s only available for use in person.

So one of the main goals of this project is we want the comparative collection to be widely available. We’re working on moving it online. Spent many, many hours learning tricks about Excel and making these small and sometimes tedious but very important edits. But it wasn’t all just Excel work. We also had this great field trip where we went all over Southern Minnesota.

McKenzie Sweno: My name is McKenzie Sweno. I was one of the archaeology collections interns this semester. One of the things that I did was I edited photos for the archaeology comparative collection. I also got used to using Bridge and Photoshop to edit photos. I’ve learned how to navigate and use the EMU CMS database. I learned how to identify and date different historic bottle types. Understanding the procedures for repository agreements and collections management will definitely help me prepare for a career in CRM work.

Russell Star-Lack: My name is Russell and this semester I was the development intern. I come from a background in academic and formal history and a lot of the research skills I developed doing that work translated over very smoothly into doing developmental research. You know, that’s where the attention to detail, really, just using all the resources that you can to find information on various people. In that way, development is a form of outreach and connection-building, and relationship-building and also just (unintelligible) the practice of empathy is really considered to be the art of development.

Molly Landaeta: I am Molly. I was the design intern and I worked underneath the MNHS Press staff. So I’ve made a lot of marketing materials for the press. I’ve done some research. I’ve been to many meetings and done lots of interviews. A lot of my research was to find illustrators whose style seemed to complement the authors’ work and also finding illustrators who were representative of the work that is being published. I learned a lot about marketing and communications for nonprofits and overall a lot about how I can use my design and editorial work and talents to support the other things I’m passionate about.

Temay Broadway: I was the multimedia intern here at MNHS. I worked on four major projects during my time here and I learned so many different skills within digital media and content creation. Going into this multimedia internship, I didn’t really know a lot about what it means to be part of a multimedia team within an organization so I felt like I learned a lot. I was able to learn so much about the process of creating digital programming and the steps involved to make a digital program happen. Multimedia isn’t just editing videos, but it’s a form of storytelling.

It’s developing narratives through audio, video and other interactive formats to convey people’s stories and experiences.

Hannah Frey: My name is Hannah Frey and and the volunteers and interns logistics development intern. What I’ve learned during this internship is the process about writing reports, conducting meetings, more about the hiring and interview process and editing and revisions. With COVID I have found that sometimes the organization style that I had was not suited for virtual and this was a great experience that helped me create a new, more resilient and versatile organization style. This experience has made me more appreciative of all that back end that goes on.

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