By Matt Dooley Staff writer
Susquehanna students have numerous chances to participate in internships thanks to the Career Development Center. Senior Rachel Baer was one of those fortunate students; she landed an internship in Mount Vernon.
Baer completed an internship at the Fred W. Smith National Library in Mount Vernon. The internship focused on the study of George Washington.
As a history major with a museum studies minor, Baer has gained a passion for history.
“I actually for a long time was interested in creative writing, which is why I started first looking at Susquehanna,” Baer said. “But when I was in high school I had some really enthusiastic history teachers who made me really interested in the subject. So I decided to change my course of study and came to Susquehanna to study history, and I have been really happy with that since I came here…. Museum Studies was [also] something I was interested in. So I took the opportunity to add the minor and take the courses.”
Baer had help finding and securing the internship in Mount Vernon.
“[Before, taking on this internship] I had two internships in [museum studies], and I was interested in finding another one. So the history department and Career Development Center both told me about this opportunity which was really great,” she said.
Baer’s time at the Mount Vernon Library had her mainly working in the archives. “I was creating something called a ‘finding aid’ for the collection I was working on. So basically you are inputting information about the specific parts of the collection of documents in an online program,” she said.
“The idea is that when it is done the form will be posted to the library’s website so that anyone anywhere can look at this form and know what kind of documents are in the library,” Baer continued. “I was also collecting inventory on the collection because it hadn’t been worked on for a while. We wanted to make sure that the paper records we had about what was in the collection were accurate.”
Baer had experience working in archives prior to the internship. She worked in Susquehanna’s archives in the library on campus.
Baer added: “At Mount Vernon we had different archivists. I specifically worked with the special collections librarian, so she was usually dealing with the most important collections that we had, often related to original documents about George Washington and his family— the pride of the collection.”
According to Allie Grill, assistant director of career development, “[The Career Development Center] can partner with students so they are able to successfully find the right experiences, people and resources to set them up for success in their next phase of life.”