The vocational value of an internship

English major Julianna Schaus decided to apply for an internship to explore her interest in library science. This experience proved to be exactly what she needed to decide whether or not she should pursue this area of interest.

Over J-Term I decided to do an internship at the Virginia Wesleyan College Library. This internship was good for me in a lot of ways. Library science is a field I’ve been interested in for quite a long time now, and taking this internship meant that I got useful insight to this potential career path as well as an introduction to valuable skills needed for librarians. While there, I had the privilege of working with librarians on projects involving circulation, processing, collection development, book display creation, and a host of other subjects. Through working on these projects, I realized that I could truly see myself working in the library field in the future.

I’m especially glad that I got to have this experience as an intern and not just a volunteer. Since I could do it through PLU, I was able to get credit hours for my experience and have the internship be a part of my transcript. More importantly, throughout my experience I was encouraged to think critically about my daily experiences in the internship and to connect these experiences with what librarians have published in scholarly journals. Not only was this useful in honing my research skills, but making these connections really enhanced my understanding of the job as a whole. For some of my longer ongoing projects involving book displays and collection development, I was able to use what I found in the articles I researched to inform my decisions.

Having this internship truly was a wonderful experience for me, and I am so thankful for the role PLU played in creating this incredible opportunity.