Linnea West (AB ’06, MA ’15) interned at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia as an undergraduate majoring in English, working on museum publications. It was during that process that she figured out what she wanted to do with her life, and her experiential learning at the museum gave her the skills to make it happen. West received a Fulbright Scholarship to research contemporary Hungarian art and national identity at the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest in 2012–13 before being hired to coordinate the Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives Program at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She recently moved to Philadelphia, to become manager of adult public programs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
On this Georgia Giving Week, the museum is asking for your support to create more success stories like Linnea’s. This annual fundraising program is calling on all UGA alumni to support academic programs like the ones here at the museum. Make sure you select “Georgia Museum of Art Fund” on the payment page. So what do we do for students? Linnea can tell you in her own words:
Access to early professional experience in a specialized career track like museum work is rare, and the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia has offered that to class after class of students, including myself. I interned at the museum in 2004 and 2005 while I was a sophomore and junior at the University of Georgia. That early experience has been pivotal to my career since then in publishing and museums.
As an intern in the publications department at the museum, I gained valuable practice as a proofreader and had the opportunity to write press releases. I later used those press releases as writing samples when I graduated and was applying for my first job. At the time, I was earning a bachelor’s degree in English and wanted to work in book publishing. Indeed, after graduation I moved to New York and got first an internship and subsequently a job editing books. Being able to cite professional office experience and having writing samples to back it up was crucial to landing a job in New York City.
I was slowly able to shift my career from working on business books to art books as I gained experience. While I did not realize that I missed museum work per se, I knew I wanted to be closer to art. Eventually this led me to quit my job as the marketing manager at a small, independent publisher to pursue a Fulbright scholarship and graduate work in art history. Three years of research and study enabled me to make the career switch, in 2016, to working in museums. I joined the staff of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, managing a global art history research program. Recently I took on a new role organizing public programs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
In these roles, I have had the privilege of hiring and supervising interns myself. Each time I do, I am reminded of how substantially opportunities like internships can shift a young person’s worldview and understanding of how she or he might fit into the working world. My early experience at the Georgia Museum of Art helped me better imagine the kind of work I wanted to be doing. Internships in museums pull back the curtain on a niche career path. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had at the Georgia Museum of Art early on, and it is a place I am always sure to revisit when I am in Athens.
Authored by:
Hillary Brown
