Portfolio of an intern of the Journal of a plague year archive

Prior to interning the JOTPY internship I thought we would be doing a lot of submissions for the archive to build it and maybe online work to raise awareness of the archive. I had no real knowledge of public history and was going in not expecting it to be such an important part of the archive. Throughout the internship I developed many skills such as curating, how to write a blog, press release and mission statement, and how to build an individual archive collection. I realized my colloquial writing was weak during the internship since many of the projects involved reaching out directly to the general public and speaking plainly. I was once quite adept at this but being an undergrad and now a graduate student these skills had become quite rusty as I endeavored to perfect my academic writing.
I had to learn to work as a team in the internship and also reach out to regular non academics for submissions and these socially based experiences were uncomfortable for me since I am more of an introvert. However, throughout the internship I came to really value the camaraderie and community the interns built together. Before the internship I shied away from group projects as a necessary evil to be avoided at all costs however the internship showed me how much fun working with others could be and to value a great team. The internship also allowed me to network with other people including fellow interns, teachers and archive associates. The internship gave me real world experience of my historical skills introduced me to many new skills set that could pertain to future employment. Overall, it was a great experience that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

August 19, 2020

Alexis Walker

Alexis Walker

HST580

Arizona State University

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English Community & Community Organizations

English Education--Universities

English Home & Family Life

internship

military

graduate student

Military

08/19/2020

03/05/2021

04/02/2021

08/02/2022

09/24/2024