Humanities Insights: Interning at the Smithsonian #7

Through my internship with the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives Education Department so far, there’s been so many insights and concepts I’ve gained additional experience with.

I think one of the first things worth mentioning is that each of my four projects thus far have been complimentary to their corresponding trunks but they are on a wide variety of humanities topics. While I’m primarily a history researcher, I’ve specifically done work on American Women’s History, Latin American History and Culture, Information Literacy, and now Art History with SLA. Each of these projects is adding to the project diversity of my portfolio, and showing that while my specialization is in history, I have the capabilities to work with many different forms of humanities and humanities education.

In addition to topic diversity, each of my projects uses technology in different ways in order to disseminate information. I recently finished the draft of my information literacy project (just needs a few tweaks based on feedback), which utilized the Smithsonian’s proprietary software “Learning Labs,” and not only that, I took the theme of needing to critically think about whether a source is telling facts or fiction (the trunk looks at fiction books written in the 19th century to appear like non-fiction), and I created a complimentary program that engages with those critical thinking skills, guiding students through critically analyzing an AI written essay to understand intellectual property and the pitfalls of AI. I think this is my proudest of the three completed projects so far since it is not only a fun and interesting topic for students, but it also engages with recent debates in DH about the uses for generative AI in digital humanities.

I’ve also really enjoyed gaining additional insights and practice about making K-12 materials. While I’ve made K-12 educational materials before my internship, and even before starting this program, I feel each project is bringing me closer to having a well-rounded skill-set for K-12 education.

I think one of the questions that comes up, is how best to market to people that I have these skill-sets. Graduation is looming closer and closer each day and so I’ve felt a pull towards trying to make sure that I’ll have a job once student loan payments start up for me. I feel so confident about my skills and how I can be a help to so many different humanities fields and educational institutions, but I’m worried that they might not see me the same way. There’s been a lot of fluctuations of me knowing that I have so much knowledge and competancies in my field, while also feeling discouraged that so far not many companies seem to feel the same way about me yet.

Nevertheless, I must stay vigilant and try my best to both finish my last classes on a high note, as well as prepare as much as I can for my future, wherever that may take me.