SUMMER 2014 INTERNS

Brittney

Biddle

Why did you choose to study Communications?

It’s a long story. I always believe that you should do something that you enjoy. And people always asked me as a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up? I would say I just want to have fun. As a result I chose things that I really like in college.

Sam

Callanta

What have you learned during your time at The Ringling?

I think it is a great environment, working at a museum, working at a theater at a museum. It is a different experience than working at a theater that is just a theater or a theater that is a part of a community college. You are a part of a history here because you are a part of a museum that has circus and the show is about circus. It is a more cohesive experience. You can walk out at lunch and see the Circus Museum or the Ca’d’zan. It’s a great environment.

Angelica

Bradley

What have you learned during your experience here?

Well I have to say that I love it here. It has been awesome. I grew up coming here so I already loved it, but it has been great to go behind the scenes, see how it has been run and what goes into that. This is the fifth museum that I have worked in so it is fun to see how The Ringling operates because it has so many different components: a circus museum, an art museum and a historic house. You basically never get three different aspects on one campus. It is fun to see how they mesh, and at times how they contrast.

Laura Hampton

What have you worked on during your internship here?

I have been working primarily with the first executive director of The Ringling, Chick Everett Austin’s book collection. He had books that were a part of the early library. I have been doing condition reports to add to files of every book, and there are about 80 of them in the collection. The collection tells us where is head was at during his time at The Ringling. The work I am doing will make this collection more accessible, and help the public to learn about the first director’s vision for the library.

Amanda Barreto

What are some of your takeaways from your experience at The Ringling?

What I realized about The Ringling is that I have never worked at a place where literally everyone is so happy to be here. The number of volunteers here is incredible. These people choose to put in so many hours. There is one man who has put in more than 14,000 hours, and he is still going. The people who are working here want to be here, and I have never been in a place like that.

Rachel

Turner

What have been some of your responsibilities at The Ringling?

We are opening up an Asian wing, so I have been researching some of the objects in the collection to help decide what will be displayed there. I have also been working on label texts and a little bit with the traveling exhibition “Royal Taste,” which will warm up the opening of the Asian wing. Just some background researching.

Laura Libert

What are some of your takeaways from this internship?

Beyond learning the basic computer skills, I think that The Ringling’s internship program is excellent because of the ability to experience all of the different aspects of the museum. We have been able to go behind the scenes of every single department, and to see how they work together to make the Ringling as seamless as possible. That actually has been really interesting. Working with the actual objects has been exhilarating because I really have not done that at all.