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When I first applied for this internship, I thought it was a pipe dream, it was almost too perfect of a position and opportunity that I wondered if I was kidding myself by applying. I'm eternally grateful that I did. I've been given the great chance to do great work, work that feels intensely meaningful to the world and our local area. I've also gotten to meet and interact with intelligent and passionate people who've kept encouraging me and my work, something else I'm very grateful for.
My reflection for this internship has been divided into the following sections: career exploration, "Exploration of career goals through the internship experience", integrated learning, "Connection, application, and/or synthesis of classroom learning as it relates to the internship experience", and professional communication, "The use of communication strategies and skills appropriate for settings, purposes, and audiences".
The work done at the Tidewater Queer History Project is needed now more than ever, as political and social forces aim to push the queer community back into the dark, historians and academics must stand up for the marginalized and fight tooth and nail for their stories to be preserved for all to enjoy for years to come.
Career Exploration
It’s easy to say what you want your career to be, especially if you don’t have that hands-on experience to support your dream. I was worried going into this internship that I wouldn’t like the work and would have to rethink my career plans, but the opposite happened. Through my work this semester, I’ve found that I want even more to go down the path I chose. I want to do work like this everyday if possible. What helped clarify all this for me was largely the everyday motions of the job. Everyday I worked I got to go down different rabbit holes of information, whether I was looking for a specific answer to a question or just finding what needed to be archived. Every minute of work has been engaged, thought provoking, and rewarding for my own heart and spirit. My views on my major have shifted slightly, while I’ll never regret choosing history, my experiences in this internship made me rethink my choice for a minor, and helped me make the decision to go for a double major instead.
I’m going to continue my studies at Old Dominion University. I've become very fond of this school and its community and all the opportunities available to me. I hope to graduate in the Winter of 2026 with a double major in history and English. Graduate school is definitely something I think about, but I believe it will be a while before I make a choice about going that route or not. I’m going to continue to look for other internship and work opportunities but also volunteer ones. I’m hoping to get involved with my local libraries and museums through volunteer experiences to help me better shape my vision for my future in the Tidewater area.
Integrated Learning
My experience in this internship has helped to cement my career goals; it has shown me a bit of what being an archivist is like and what work goes into it, which I now for sure know is the path I want to pursue. Working with a community-grown organization has been such a great opportunity, since there is not as much of a foundation and tradition to work off of like other projects, there’s been a lot of thought put into how to make it all work. I’ve gained a lot of confidence in myself and my work throughout this semester, I feel more equipped to engage with my peers and other professionals, and to put my ideas and thoughts out there even if they aren’t what is best.
During the semester, I worked alongside my supervisor, Professor Rhodes, all well as the two other interns working on the project during this time with me. While we never worked as a group on one task, we all worked together to push the project along, helping each other with ideas, feedback, and advice. Working as a team but not in a team was a very rewarding experience, one I haven’t had thus far in my academic and professional career.
As a humanities student, writing and research is integral to my success. The projects that I did during my internship ended up using more of my writing skills than expected. My past experiences in writing intensive humanities courses helped me be able to write short but informative articles for the QH Timeline. My English coursework has been mostly in the world of technical and professional writing, including using spreadsheets and other databases, this experience made my work in the VA Pilot Search Term Research, as well as the Donation Database much easier to accomplish than if I was going into it with no experience. I believe that learning these skills, writing, research, and technical document design, helped equip me to better handle these projects within the TQHP archives, setting me up for success from the beginning.
Professional Communication
The "Donations Database" was something that desperately needed some love and attention. There was a backlog of items donated to the TQHP that hadn’t been properly recorded, as the time and manpower just hadn’t been available. The archiving system was easy to learn because of my past experience working with spreadsheets and other technical documents. I learned these skills in my technical writing classes, leading to my success.
My entries for the TQHP Queer History Timeline needed lots of research in order to be written. My history classes, which always require research essays, helped give me a preexisting foundation of sources and methods to find sources to complete the articles. Due to this previous knowledge, I was able to jump right into brainstorming and writing, rather than dedicated lots of time to simply credible sources.
As the world grows darker and more uncertain for the queer community, I believe the past is the best source of inspiration. Looking back at what those who came before us survived, and the fact that their testaments still survive, do wonders to help those in modern times grasp the challenges we face. Working with the TQHP has not only given me personal hope, but given me the ability to give that hope to others. All parts of my work with the project have been unexplainably rewarding, but I would say that’s the best part.
Whenever I tell people about my internship, there’s something that almost everyone says, “I don’t know anything about the queer history in this area.” I would say I had similar feelings at the beginning, although I had worked with the Our Own newspaper in a previous class, it felt like I had only scratched the surface of what there was to know. Each project I worked on this semester helped to deepen my understanding and knowledge of the queer history that exists in the area around me, from Our Own to the Anita Bryant protests, to the multitude of individuals who donated their queer history to the project. Now when people say to me “I don’t know anything about the queer history around here”, I’m able to change that. I can tell them stories and show them pictures of what the Tidewater queer community has done and accomplished. That ability that I’ve gained over this internship is more valuable than I can say.
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