Don't settle for an ordinary internship

T.J. Fisher

T.J. Fisher was featured in the Washington Post Magazine's column First Person Singular detailing his work at Glen Echo Park's carousel. We caught up with T.J. and asked him to go in depth about finding his internship and how the experience has shaped his future career.

One of the things I’ve heard most often since coming to college is that my resume needs great internships or jobs.  I worry that the focus seems often to be on collecting these experiences like baseball cards and not truly appreciating them.  I realize that in the current economic climate we should be grateful for the opportunities we can find, but so much more can be learned from an internship or job in something an individual loves to do than in the typical work many students do. 

This summer I spent my third season at Glen Echo Park, an arts education park that was once the Washington, D.C. area’s largest amusement park.  My primary responsibilities were maintaining and operating Glen Echo’s hand-carved wooden carousel from 1921 and accompanying band organ from 1926.

I’ve learned many different techniques for keeping all the original machinery running smoothly and looking like new.  I speak to visitors and design brochures and exhibits to tell the story of its history.  I’ve even taught myself to arrange new paper rolls of music—think, player piano rolls—so the band organ can play more songs.

T.J. had to develop a meticulous eye which has taught him to pay attention to details.

As a history and theater major with a museum studies minor, the opportunity to work at Glen Echo is particularly valuable for developing the skills I need both in future advanced coursework and in the workplace.  Even if I decided no longer to be involved in history or museum studies, I have developed communication and other skills which will be useful to me no matter what line of work I choose.

I came to work at Glen Echo through persistence and networking: I met the people already working there and others in the field and continued inquiring until there was a position available to me.  Anyone looking for a great internship or job should be able to find one this way.  Being a SigEp has helped me do well as my chapter brothers are involved in similar pursuits and have always been supportive and glad to be a sounding board for ideas I later used at Glen Echo.

Our Fraternity really is different.  Why shouldn’t our internships and jobs be too?  The old aphorism that we’ll never work another day if we do what we love is perhaps a bit extreme, but we could certainly learn and enjoy more by more judicious selection of our work experiences.