What Makes an Internship?

       Perhaps one of the most important parts of the experiences during college isn’t at college at all; it’s at an internship off-campus. It is generally assumed that you will do at least one internship while at school – although the more ambitious among us seem to manage at least six or seven. What exactly these can entail varies widely. You could find yourself answering phone calls and sorting mail in a Congressional basement or planning a full season of concerts for a local venue. If you’re lucky you can scrape some credits out of it, but mostly it’s shameless résumé padding. And of course, just about everyone has very strong opinions about the value and ethicalness of what often amounts to unpaid labor (only the lucky few manage to find a paying gig).
       I am winding down my internship – my second this summer – with the Naval History and Heritage
Command (NHHC) next week. After a minor panic a few weeks before the semester ended, when it looked like I was facing the societally-unacceptable prospect of my second summer without an

The NHHC Seal is pretty imposing.

internship, I managed to piece together an intellectually interesting summer. The first half was spent as a research assistant to a professor. I helped him write a major article by reading and annotating old volumes of a major historical journal. (The head-shaking motion you’re making right now is the usual response to that comment, especially when I mention that I read 100 years of said journal.) After several weeks of this, I discovered I was still having fun. Over the course of explaining my choice of employment at least ten times a week, I realized that was a good sign. If I could enjoy doing the drudgework of history as well as the really exciting stuff, maybe I really did like history. The word vocation might have been thrown around, but I can’t confirm that. My work at the NHHC has been of a similar stock, if in an entirely realm. June was spent investigating twentieth-century church historiography. July and August, naval provisioning during the American Revolution and the abolition of prize money for American naval officers. For a military outfit, I’ve been given a wonderful amount of freedom to explore these topics – albeit so that I could do the grunt work which my boss doesn’t want to do.
       I’ve learned a number of things from my historical summer. First, I am not destined for a regular office job. I cannot wake up everyday at 6 a.m. and be functional. And I just can’t get caught sleeping by my boss one more time. Second, I actually enjoy history. Who’d have ever guessed that? And third, when given the option, I infinitely prefer getting paid to working for free.