2024 Summer Interns

August 1, 2024

This summer, the Yale Center for British Art hosted eight undergraduate interns, including Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels Scholar Interns and New Haven Promise Scholars. For eight weeks, the students worked on dedicated projects that supported various museum operations. They also attended regular enrichment sessions with interns from the Yale University Art Gallery and Yale School of Art to familiarize themselves with the museums, meet staff in various departments, and learn about different pathways to careers in the arts.

This year’s interns worked in Advancement and External Affairs, Archives, Collections Information Access, Information Technology, Reference Library and Photo Archive, Paintings and Sculpture, and Prints and Drawings.

Samantha Kopkowski, Bryn Mawr ’25, interned in the Advancement and External Affairs division, where she contributed social media content, assisted with Museum Shop inventory, and helped with preparations related to the public reopening of the museum this spring. She reflects on her experience below:

When my fellow summer interns and I were asked to make playlists for the YCBA’s Spotify channel, I immediately thought of Angel Olsen’s “Intern.” Indeed, the song ended up at the very top of my playlist, “Samantha’s Music For Interns (And Everybody Else).” I do love that song, but I obviously picked it with more than a bit of sarcastic humor in mind. After all, it’s an introspective, synth-heavy lullaby in which Olsen laments the type of banal work that makes “a fool of you” and the anonymity of being “just another intern with a resume.” I’m happy to report that this fatalistic view of summer internships couldn’t be further from my reality, or that of the seven other young people who shared a part of their summer with the YCBA.

Even a cursory glance at the playlists we made, which bounce from punk, to hip-hop, to electronica and back again, illustrates that unlike Olsen’s proverbial intern, we’ve maintained individuality beyond the content of our resumes. Likewise, here at the museum, we’ve all found ourselves in a unique niche. Some interns worked with departments that directly align with their majors. Mario Moreno, who studies information technology at Southern Connecticut State University, interned for the museum’s IT department this summer. Similarly, Ali Fadhil, a rising senior at the University of Connecticut (UCONN), applied his studies in data management to his work for Collections Information Access. Like myself, Camila Otero, a Yale College student, majors in art history. Her internship with Prints and Drawings was an exciting opportunity to get up close and personal with collection objects. 

Meanwhile, other interns have used their time at the museum to explore skills outside of their usual areas of interest. Recent Yale graduate Judith Chang studied psychology in undergrad, but she spent this summer testing out a new path in the Reference Library. Another psychology major, Tufts student Johanna Perez, who also studies studio art, interned with the YCBA Painting and Sculpture department for the third time this summer. Over three years the museum has continued to be a valuable space for Johanna to explore both her scientific and artistic sides.

Regardless of our backgrounds, in these roles, we’ve each gotten to explore, observe, and participate in the work that goes into making the YCBA what it is. For some of us, the work itself has been the main attraction: her hands-on archival work with the Archives department inspired Ashley Gaytan, a classics student at Yale, to pursue graduate studies in library science and a future career in archives or special collections. Reflecting on her experience this summer, Ashley says: “I've liked that I can be nosy and read [the little-known details] about what people [instrumental in the history of the museum] were up to before it was founded.” 

As a group, we’ve also learned as much, if not more from activities like attending enrichment sessions with our counterparts at the Yale University Art Gallery, getting to know our new coworkers at staff events, shadowing meetings, and doing a robust week of orientation sessions organized by the Education department. Paul Chum, an English major at UCONN who interned in the Archives with Ashley, found these experiences to be some of the most important of his time here. Paul explained: “Truthfully, what I'll remember most about this internship, and even this summer, was all the lovely people I got the opportunity to meet and build friendships with. My supervisors, all the staff here, the other interns. It often felt like I had been given the chance to walk on the moon, just being here with everyone for a few months.”

All this work and the knowledge that came with it wasn’t just for our benefit. It’s no secret that this is a transitional summer for the YCBA. As the museum undergoes a physical renovation, it is also looking ahead to its reopening and considering ways to engage new audiences. We might imagine that the museum is growing up this summer too, and I’m confident I can speak for all of us when I say that we loved having the opportunity to grow up with it.