Internship offers pathway to careers in the museum field

Rising third-year Ethan Nemeth wasn’t sure which academic path he wanted to pursue when he came to Penn, but he discovered that he loved classical studies, which led him to an ancient history major.

Nemeth, who is also pursuing minors in anthropology and English, is curious about possible careers in the museum field, and he has learned about those possibilities as an intern this summer at the Penn Museum.

“Through this program you really do get a full understanding of all the different career options within the museum field, which is super useful for me,” says Nemeth, who is from Jackson, New Hampshire. “It’s a really, really cool internship program.”

Nemeth’s internship is through the Summer Humanities Internship Program (SHIP), which provides financial support by the College of Arts and Sciences, administered through the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. 

The Penn Museum has 17 paid interns this summer from colleges across the country, including undergraduate and graduate students and recent graduates. Nemeth, one of three interns from Penn, is the only one paid through SHIP; the others are paid by the Museum. The interns work in departments throughout the Museum; Nemeth works with the public engagement team.

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Every week, the interns meet in the Introduction to Museum Practice Program which features professionals from departments across the Museum talking about their work. The interns also have gone on tours of the Museum galleries and collections storage areas.

And each week they have gone on field trips to institutions throughout the city, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Barnes Foundation, Academy of Natural Sciences, Museum of the American Revolution, Fabric Workshop, and Paul Robeson House.

“They’re learning a holistic idea of what this museum does, and then through the field trips they are also learning how other museums handle similar topics,” says Jessica Lubniewski, the Penn Museum’s student engagement coordinator, who also manages the summer internship program.

“For the students, they get a very rigorous experience of working in a museum, like an introduction to museum studies program. And they get hands-on experience working in a museum, not easy grunt work, but work that people in departments would be doing themselves,” Lubniewski says. “They get this discrete experience in a museum department that is transferable to any museum they may want to work at in the future.”

In turn, the Museum staff have help getting projects completed and may get some new ideas. “Through these internships, we learn a lot about the collection. We get a lot of new perspectives,” Lubniewski says. “It is nice to have a young person come in and ask, ‘What if we thought about it this way?’”

So helpful has Nemeth been that he will continue his work with the events team during the academic year, 10 hours a week supported through work-study. “I’m very happy and very excited to be on staff in the fall,” he says. He also works with the Kite and Key Society through the work-study program, giving campus tours four hours a week. He is secretary of the planning and events committee of Penn Undergraduate Student Government, and is a member of the Penn Chavurah, a Jewish student social group.

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Nemeth has had several different roles at the Museum during the summer. He helped prepare for and worked at the inaugural Juneteenth Festival and Wawa Welcome America Day, both behind the scenes, such as taking care of presenters’ technology needs, and front of the house, like managing some of the children’s activities. He regularly helps set up and works at the Garden Jams concert series, coordinating the reserved tables, ushering the bands through the Museum, and checking in people at the door.

“He’s really knowledgeable and on point; whatever task we give him, he’s getting it done,” says Tena Thomason, the Museum’s associate director for public engagement.

As part of marketing the Museum’s Archaeology in Action series, which features virtual lectures by experts in the field, Nemeth has been compiling lists of potential interest groups and emailing them with information about the events. And he’s done a “Daily Dig” pop-up talk, 15 minutes on one object. “He did a great job at delivering the material within the galleries. He has a real curiosity about the Museum and a willingness to share what we have with the public,” Thomason says.

His first semester at Penn Nemeth took several humanities classes in different departments, including an Introduction to the Ancient Near East class taught by Joshua Jeffords that delved into Mesopotamia. “It was by far my favorite class that first semester,” Nemeth says. Second semester he took a class on ancient Rome with Cam Grey, and “it became clear that this is what my major was going to be.”  Several of his anthropology and history classes were held in the Penn Museum.

“I feel like I have more direction in a career path. Going into the summer, I liked what I studied, but I didn’t know what it could lead to down the road. At the Museum I’ve learned all these different jobs that I can do,” Nemeth says. “I’ve also learned what academic degrees are required for the different roles in a museum, and so it’s definitely giving me a better understanding of the career landscape for museums.”

Nemeth says he has most enjoyed working on projects involving the education team this summer, especially a trivia night for middle schoolers. “They were very excited to be there and engaged in the lesson and made me feel really good about the work that I was doing,” he says. “I think it’s kind of encouraging me to pursue education in the future, perhaps education within a museum.”

Lubniewski says it has been a positive experience working with Nemeth and the other summer interns. “It’s very nice to know that the future of museums is going to be in good hands,” she says.