To amplify connections and respond to the ongoing interruption of in-person internships and study projects for undergraduate and graduate students due to pandemic, APOYOnline renewed its Internship Program created in 2020 in virtual format. APOYOnline continued to amplify connections and promote professional development through our Internship Program to serve undergraduate and graduate students, as well as emerging professionals.
Due to limited resources, APOYOnline was unable to pay the 2020-2021 interns. In 2022, the Mellon Foundation Grant supported the APOYOnline Internship Program for up to 4 interns until 2023. As a result, in 2022 APOYOnline focused its efforts to develop a comprehensive internship program. The general goal of the internship program is to provide interns to work on projects that are fostering community engagement, regional collaborations as well as strengthen APOYOnline’s organizational capacity. The paid internship was implemented in 2023.
APOYOnline Interns
2023
Cynthia Ajuzie is a Nigerian American writer who grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. After obtaining a BA in Literary Prose from the University of Virginia, Cynthia taught high school English for three years in Houston, Texas within an underserved community. She is currently an MFA candidate at Rutgers University-Newark and her most recent publication can be found in the literary magazine, Quarter After Eight and Brittle Paper. In composing a comprehensive story that documents APOYOnline’s history and currentstate, she was able to sift through documents, analyze charts, and examine pictures that commemorate the organization’s milestones. In doing so, she familiarized herself with what it means to essentially go through an archive and collect key information, which will help her in her historical writing endeavors.
Sarah is an emerging professional, Bachelor of Arts with a Major in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage from the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She is currently a student in the graduate program in Preservation and Management of the Cultural Heritage of Science and Health at Oswaldo Cruz House/Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (COC/Fiocruz – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Her current research deals with the challenges of conserving outdoor cultural assets. With support from the Mellon Foundation, she is involved in the 150-hour project related to the trilingual Webpage Content and Revamping, coordinated by the APOYOnline Branding Team.
2021
Through a continued collaboration with the University of Maryland College of Information Studies (UMD iSchool) we welcomed Sarah Hesler for a 120-hours internship. Sarah did preliminary research in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) in the cultural heritage field. This research was primarily done in the form of a literature review of sources focusing on what is referred to as “empathy in museums” and, more specifically, how museums have started to repair the relationship between the museum and indigenous communities. She created a preliminary finding-aid of educational institutes in cultural heritage, with emphasis in the American continent, Portugal and Spain and assisted in some administrative work such as survey design, course evaluation and data analysis.
Testimonial
Sarah Hesler (USA), 2021 APOYOnline intern: “Participating in APOYOnline as an intern was a tremendous experience that fostered my skills in research, survey-writing, and data analysis. I spent my final semester of graduate school working with APOYOnline. My internship experience doubled as my field study for my graduate program, which means that, along with the incredible skills and experience I gained, I also received credit for a required graduate course. The skills I gained through my internship made me a more desirable candidate for jobs and contributed to me receiving a job offer before I graduated with my Master’s degree. I have used these skills for a variety of projects in my new position, and I’m certain that I will continue to use them throughout my career. My internship with APOYOnline served as an extremely valuable experience that helped to jumpstart my career, and I hope to continue working with APOYOnline in the future!” Email from 11/11/2021
2020