>
>> >I know this is long, but has anyone heard of low-paid or unpaid internships
>> >leading to bigger and better things/ For example, a friend of mine suffered
>> >low wages for a summer internship on a battleship, and now he's a curator
at
>> >a maritime museum in Maine. Aren't contacts part of the point of an
>> >internship?


While I did not start at my current institution as an intern I did start
as a volunteer in the Archives and I eventually became Archival
Assistant, Functions Coordinator, Office Assistant, Assistant Curator,
and now Director of Education.  Through an earlier internship at the
Baltimore City Archives I got no less than 3 temporary (FT and PT) gigs
in the history field while still and undergraduate.  Unpaid interns at
our site have gone onto registrar, curatorial, exhibit design, PR, here
and at other institutions.  One is currently Assistant Director of this
place.  Over half of the memebrs of the Educators Roundtable of the
Baltimore HIstory Alliance (21 Bmore museums, from the large to the one
person opertations) started as interns at their sight.   On my part time
staff I have five people who were once interns either here or at other
institutions and all of them are currently in school, except for one who
just got accepted in the the GW internship program.

We currently host only unpaid interns (two current interns have TA-ships
fomr their school so technically you might say they aregetting paid, or
at least are not paying for the internship) but we offer to work with
them on a schedule that includes internship work and part time docent
work which does pay.  We do offer paid internships when we get a grant
that had one or more put into the budget, but as these grants get
smaller, interns are the first budget item to go.  I would love to offer
a stipend to potential interns, but this can't be a priority when we are
fighting for funds to pay the salaries of registrars and curators.
Training interns is a secondary or even tertiary mission for most museums


Yes unpaid internships are a temporary burden on all of our wallets, yes
working your way up through the ranks is hard work and goes "only to the
go-getters" as someone on this thread said earlier,  but we all knew this
going into the profession didn't we?  Did you really believe the
admissions counselors hype when you signed into your program?  Didn't you
research the profession before you got into it.  I am not saying this is
the best way to run professional training, I too would like to have had a
paid internship, and I would like to offer them now to others.

To listen to my more veteran colleaques, there are more paid internships
now than ever before in the Museum profession.   I don't know if this is
true or not, but I do know that entry level positions  are drying up and
becoming more competitive (just pay attetnion to this list, the topic
comes up about every month so).  Given that, a daunting internship and/or
training process may not be such a bad idea. (If a very unpopular one)

Matthew A. White
Director of Education
Baltimore Museum of Industry
1415 Key Highway
Baltimore, MD 21230
(410)727-4808
[log in to unmask]