Second Year Undergraduate, English Language and Literature, Remote Working Work Projects For my internship with Ditchley, I was asked to create a number of written pieces on various works of art for Ditchley's new "smartify" app. This will enable visitors to Ditchley to hold up their smartphone to different artworks and learn various details about them. Initially, we were taken on a tour of the Ditchley Estate and given an opportunity to see each artwork in the flesh and take notes. After this, my colleague and I did some preliminary reading and research on each of the different pieces of artwork and were assisted by our supervisor in collating a body of information. Over the next few weeks, we took to writing an excerpt on each painting, highlighting interesting contextual detail about the figures portrayed and about the history of the Ditchley Estate whilst simultaneously creating an engaging narrative for readers. Daily Life My internship with Ditchley included a number of in-person visits to the Estate but my work and meetings were mainly conducted remotely. For the first two weeks, I spent the majority of my time using SOLO to research and read about as many of the paintings as I could whilst jotting down missing information. Every week, my fellow intern and I had a zoom meeting with our supervisor where we shared our challenges. In addition to this, the other intern and I met a number of times in person and online to discuss issues we had encountered and to socialise. Because the hours of my internship were relatively flexible, I was able to take regular breaks and take enough time for reading, with targets at the end of the week as my motivation. Lasting Impressions I really enjoyed my internship with Ditchley. It introduced me to a lifelong friend in my cointern and granted me the freedom to conduct solo research on a medium (paintings etc.) which I had never explored before. What's more, I felt very grateful to have the opportunity to explore Ditchley and see how the organisation operates. One of my favourite parts of being part of the team was being able to watch the selection of talks and seminars that Ditchley ran in July.
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