This post is part of our Internship Spotlight series. For this installment, we spoke with Megan Lam (’26) about her internship experience at The Vestibule.
What organization did you intern with and what you do in your internship?
I am interning at The Vestibule as a gallery assistant. I help with installation, making catalogs, and sometimes reaching out to organizations for potential collaborations, donations, and sponsorships.
What learning goals did you have going into the internship?
I wanted to learn more about exhibition design and curation.
What did you end up learning from your internship? Did you fulfill your original learning goals? Were there any unexpected takeaways or learning moments?
My position in the gallery is a support character; I work with whatever needs help with, so I would say my internship does not focus specifically on my learning goals. However, my position does offer insights into them and also offers me a broader perspective of gallery operation, which allows me to learn about museums at all its administrative levels. Other than curation, my internship focuses a lot on helping with installations, and through the process, I get to see how the curator of the gallery works with artists, and it effectively reflects my original learning goal. I also enjoy being able to participate in different areas of gallery operation as I find it to be a valuable experience that a bigger institution cannot provide; in a bigger institution their internships often focus on one sole area and although they are valuable and educational in their own way, interns do not learn about or participate in any follow ups. They only participate in a part of the entire exhibition process. In contrast, my internship allows me to follow through on projects and see the necessary steps that have to be made outside of my area to make exhibitions happen. It is very helpful to learn that exhibition design is a tightly knit web of which no parts are allowed to fall behind another, and learning the importance of each step makes me become more responsible to the job I do and appreciate communication more.
What did you enjoy most about this internship?
I love the wide range of my job description; since my position is not specifically defined, I get to work on many different areas of exhibition, and it is really helpful as I am still navigating the museum field and where my interest ultimately lies.
Do you have any recommendations for students looking into internships now?
One thing I recommend is to express your learning goal clearly before committing to an internship, especially for a position that is vaguely titled like “gallery assistant”. My internship works well for me because I am still at the beginning stage of establishing my interest in the museum field and I love to learn all about it, but if there is something specific students want to focus on, it is best to let the host site know and make the internship experience more valuable.
What’s next?
I am looking forward to finding another internship that is specific to curation, as it is a field that I find myself most interested in still. However, I will be working the same internship in the spring quarter because I would like to follow through on a few projects that I have participated in. Our gallery is also participating in virtual fairs and panels in the future, which is something I am very interested in learning more about in my time with the gallery.