UAM Summer Internship Blog 2021: Greetings and Introductions
Sung Eun Cho - 11 June 2021
Introducing Sung Eun Cho - the 2021 University of Alberta Museums Summer Intern
Hi Everyone,
My name is Sung Eun Cho (both Sung-Eun are part of my Korean first name) and I am a Korean immigrant to Canada and a fourth year honors HADVC (History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture) student here at the University of Alberta. I am the 2021 Summer Intern for the University of Alberta Museums (UAM) and I am pleased to share my summer through the Summer Intern Blog series.
The UAM Summer Internship is created for senior U of A undergraduate students with interests in material culture, object-based research and learning, and/or careers in museum-related fields. Interns work side-by-side with UAM unit members to complete projects throughout the summer in all areas of museum practice.
For 2021, the internship has started entirely online as I began the internship with online orientation and training. We hope that the situation will get better and be able to be back on campus sometime during the summer. But, even if circumstances do not allow this to happen, I will have gained a very unique, online-oriented aspect of museum operations (i.e. there are many, to my surprise) by the end of the summer.
I applied for this internship hoping that the exposure to various museum fields will allow me to formulate a clearer direction for my studies after graduation. My primary interests lie with art conservation and collections management, and I like artworks done on paper (painting, prints, scrolls, etc.) and Buddhist art. But, I am open to any art that captures my eyes and my heart, especially ones that challenge or question the way I think or behave. I am curious to see whether my preferences and interests will have changed by the end of the internship.
For the next three months, I will be writing bi-weekly stories about how my summer is going, what kinds of projects I worked on, and the people I met and worked with to briefly introduce various roles within the University of Alberta Museums. I am quietly excited and a little bit nervous of what will come, but certainly happy and intrigued. I will dig into more details about these in my next and first official blog posting. Until then, stay safe :)