Arcadia University Bulletin

By Jenna Reim

Friis

Think internships are overrated? Think again. Researching the photographer who has taken photos of more than 25,000 firefighters in the wake of 9/11 and helping get her work to the Smithsonian Institute was part of an eye-opening internship for Christine Friis ’12.

Getting an internship taught her a lot about the working world and gave her the tools to prepare for life after college, as well.

At Arcadia, Friis is a History major and a Creative Writing minor. She enjoys working with the student body and has become involved with many activities on campus. She works as an event planner for the Community Service Office and as a Resident Assistant (RA).

This past summer, she secured an internship at the Smithsonian Institute in the Archives Center with the help of Dr. Peter Siskind, Assistant Professor of History. Friis credits her classes as preparation for her internship.

“My classes have honed my knowledge of history and have helped me define the genre that I like to study and focus on,” she says. “Knowing that, I have been able to zero in on classes that both fascinate me and will push me as a historian. The classes taught me how to research and learn in a way which was crucial at the internship.”

Gaining real-world experience is crucial for any undergraduate not only to build a resume but to also give one the opportunity to decide if he or she enjoys the work involved.  When asked if she felt that the internship helped her reach her career goals.

“This internship was an eye opener for me. It was the first experience I had found in the history world outside of a major at a university. Interning at the Smithsonian will definitely help me pursue my career because it has given me experience which I hadn’t had before. Whether I end up in archives, in a broader field of public history or if I end up outside of the history field, this internship has changed my career goals. Ultimately, I want to combine the event planning skills I’ve learned at Arcadia with the knowledge of history that I’ve attained from Arcadia and the Smithsonian.”

Friis also learned a lot about the real world. For sure it’s nothing like college life. “People in the professional world have niches that they want to pursue which they have the ability to work on,” she says. “I was able to learn that there is red tape to cut through, as there is with every job on the planet, but that the red tape is worth working at if it means you get to work on the project you love. The experience at the Smithsonian taught me that the professional world is the next step. The work is different and there’s no homework. The commute in rush hour is terrible. But it’s all worth it because if you find something that makes you happy, then it’s not a chore to sit in rush hour, to rip the back of a skirt or to walk on the National Mall in 100 degree weather.”

Internships provide students with not just unique opportunities to experience corporate America, but also with the reward of knowing their work will always matter. Friis shared an experience that resonated with her. Her research led her to find Laura Yanes. Yanes is a photographer who started the National Firefighter Archive in July of 2001 with a photograph of a firefighter in New York. After Sept. 11, 2001, she began taking photographs of firefighters around the city. She successfully photographed more than 7,000 firefighters in New York alone. She now travels around the country and has photographed nearly 25,000 firefighters.

“The most rewarding thing about my internship came when I reached out to her, interviewed her about the collection and was able to bring her to the museum to meet with curators and collections managers,” says Friis. “The look on her face while she was discussing her archives at the NMAH was priceless. Laura told me a story that an intern received the first manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and fought for her boss to take on J.K. Rowling as a client, that if it hadn’t been for that agent the books would have never been published. Laura told me that I was that intern for her and her cause, that I would forever be connected with the project because of the opportunities she got because of my research.”

Jenna Reim is a graduate student in the Master of Arts in English program.