MuSe-ing at the Met: A Summer of Learning and Collaboration

«So what is it really like behind the scenes of one of the world's largest art museums?

For three weeks in July, I observed some of the daily routines of the summer MuSe interns here at the Met: forty-one college and graduate students hungry to gain insight into what it's really like to work at an encyclopedic art museum. Each intern is assigned a specific project and supervisor within one of the Met's departments, where he or she carries out the majority of their work. From curatorial and conservation departments to Digital Media and Information Systems & Technology, I was fortunate to be set free in the Met to explore these diverse areas of the Museum and interview the interns (while also being spoiled on a daily basis by an abundance of artistic jewels).»

Setting off with my ID around my neck, I was able to see behind the curtain of the Met, observing the ins and outs of each specialized department and hearing the personal stories of the interns themselves. What a thrill to have had exposure to the huge wealth of knowledge in the Museum; it was an exploration that could last not merely the span of a summer internship, but a lifetime.

I began my interviews in Museum Archives with intern Bailey Chui, who took me through her internship project. Bailey was working on reassembling and rehousing a series of some 260 scrapbooks that each contain newspaper clippings spanning the history of the Met, from 1870 to the present day. Guided by Managing Archivist James Moske, Bailey was able to gain some practical experience after completing her graduate degree in Archives and Records Management. Working in a small space stacked high with records, Bailey showed me documents from 1944 and explained to me the process of arranging, organizing, and filing them.

After completing several interviews with the MuSe interns, what intrigued me most of all was hearing about the different backgrounds of the interns and what brought them here. Many came from an academic background in art history, but that was not true of everyone, and there was a broad spectrum of experience. Ultimately all were united by their excitement to be working at the Met. The interns expressed a gratitude for the role they received in this internship program, claiming that it was unlike other internships, in that it is a unique opportunity and therefore hugely sought-after. David Kaufman, who worked with Concerts and Lectures, reflected that "one of the things I like is that they afford us an immense amount of intellectual respect and freedom."

I was particularly interested to hear from intern Bonnie Hodul, who worked closely with conservators in the Department of Photograph Conservation—a highly specialized area of museum work, and unfamiliar to many students like me. Bonnie's internship project involved research for the Met's cold-storage project. She explained how photographs need to be preserved in certain conditions, all with slightly different parameters of humidity and temperature. I was amazed by the amount of scientific examination of materials that is required to package these photographs. For Bonnie, this program is a platform, her first big step towards becoming a conservator.

At another end of the spectrum, I spoke to Carlos Kong, an intern from the Digital Media Department who was involved in the Museum's social media program. It was fascinating to see how social media can affect the museum experience, both in the galleries and beyond. Carlos told me how the Met's digital presence is regarded as a virtual fourth campus (the first three being the Main Building, The Cloisters museum and gardens, and, opening in March 2016, The Met Breuer). We discussed the balance of how much the digital world participates in aesthetic experiences, particularly for a global museum today.

In addition to their departmental training, MuSe interns were each involved in giving Highlights Tours or Gallery Talks for the public, in which they presented their independent research on their favorite art works from the Museum's vast collection. On top of all this, it was clear to me that a real excitement for many of the interns were the weekly Monday seminars, where they had the opportunity to participate in exhibition tours and hear from a number of Met staff. Discussions took place on the issues that face the Met, such as how the visitor experiences the Museum, or how we care for and preserve the collection. Intern Hannah Gribetz, who worked in the Education Department, claimed that it was the Monday seminars that allowed her to engage with all the different opportunities there are for working in a museum: "It's shocking how many different things you can do in one institution."

There is no doubt at all that the MuSe internship program is a hugely rewarding experience and one which was universally enjoyed by absolutely everyone with whom I spoke.

Learn more about internships for undergraduate and graduate students at the Met.

2015 MuSe Program interns pictured above—top, from left to right: Dongshan Zhang (Columbia University), Andrés Bustamante (Yale University), Carlos Kong (Cornell University), Michael Chen (University of California, Los Angeles), Dina Akhmadeeva (University of Oxford), David Kaufman (Brown University), Charlotte Wytema (Rijksuniversteit Groningen), Karlie Efinger (University of Montana), Bonnie Hodul (University of Rochester), Julia King (University of Toronto), Sasha Smith (University of Southern California), Kate Bishop (Fashion Institute of Technology), Charlotte Luttik (University of Utrecht), Katelyn Hobbs (University of Pennsylvania), Pilar Jefferson (Vassar College), Alec Aldrich (Vassar College), Elizabeth Glass (University of Kentucky), Frances Leslie (Bates College), Kate Justement (Auburn University), Rebecca Uliasz (SUNY Stony Brook University), Jennifer Harley (Appalachian State University), Bailey Chui (University of Toronto); bottom, from left to right: Arianna Stimpfl (Binghamton University, SUNY), Marian Casey (Courtauld Institute of Art), Kalyani Ramachandran (University of Oxford), Anna Huddle (Wagner College), Kayla Elam (University of Missouri—Columbia), Aaminah Cole (Maryland Institute College of Art), Alexandra McKeever (Smith College), Margalit Slovin (Ryerson University), Isabel Collazos (New York University), Cancy Chu (Reed College), Manon Gaudet (Carleton University), Hannah Gribetz (Brown University), Chloe Lovelace (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), Brooke Garcia (University of Memphis), Kayli Rideout (Davidson College), Virginia McBride (Kenyon College), Rohini Pandit (St. John's College), Sarah Montonchaikul (Southern Methodist University), Helina Gebremedhen (McGill University)