For students pursuing careers in the arts and culture sector, hands-on experience can be an important first step, whether that’s working at a museum, assisting an artist or exploring the publishing world. But creative organizations often have limited funding for internships, making these opportunities difficult to access.
This summer, Pomona students received funding from the College to explore careers across creative landscapes. Through the Pomona College Internship Program (PCIP), close to 100 students in total received stipends that opened doors to career paths that might otherwise be out of reach.
Balancing Artistic Creativity with Career Logistics
Thomas Aguilar ’27, an art major, landed a studio art assistantship with Los Angeles-based ceramic artist Reniel Del Rosario. After seeing Del Rosario’s experimental ceramic work several times in classes and on social media, Aguilar invited Del Rosario to give a talk through Pomona’s Studio Art Department.
“I thought, ‘Okay, maybe this is the universe telling me something,’” Aguilar says.
Rather than simply observing the artist at work, Aguilar became part of the studio’s daily operations. The internship provided exposure to both the creative and logistical sides of an artist’s career, from producing work to installing it and maintaining professional relationships.
“I maybe had this fantastical vision of just making work all the time,” Aguilar says. “So much of it is actually emails and having lunch with people and making sure you’re putting yourself out there and making connections.”
The position was close to full time, four to five days a week, and required commuting between locations throughout the Los Angeles area. Aguilar described the internship as one of the most meaningful experiences he’s had while at Pomona.
“Pomona giving me the funding shows that they believed in me and they believed in my work ethic,” he says. “It was great to have that support—to be able to pursue this and not have to worry about the nitty gritty of finances and just let myself learn.”
Bringing Museum Exhibitions to Life
Jasmin Aviles Trujillo ’29 took on a little bit of everything during her internship at the Elmhurst Art Museum, a small contemporary art museum near Chicago. Aviles Trujillo was able to explore her academic interests of art history and Chicana/o-Latina/o studies as an exhibitions and collections intern.
Her first few weeks focused heavily on exhibition installation and preparator work. She used lifts, hung artwork from walls and ceilings, worked with monitors, painted walls and helped prepare exhibitions. She later spent significant time working with the museum’s collection database, documenting the locations of objects and identifying discrepancies as the museum prepared its collection for public access. She also helped with the museum’s summer camp and worked alongside an artist in residence, where she learned more about the process of working with clay.
“I learned just how much I enjoyed hands-on work,” she says. “I was happiest when I was getting to install everything. Those first two or three weeks were so much fun to me.”
The hands-on experience also came with opportunities to build relationships with people working across different areas of the museum, which reaffirmed her pursuit of a career in Latin American art.
“One of the most valuable things that I gained from this were the connections to a lot of different people in different fields,” she says. “I feel like I have a lot more clarity about where I want to take my career and where I want to go.”
Discovering the Business Side of Books
Sanja Greenawalt ’28, an English major from New York, stepped into the world of book publishing as an intern at The Book Group, a full-service all-women literacy agency. The internship was designed as an introduction to the publishing business.
Greenawalt participated in structured learning sessions with literary agents, completed assignments and learned about different careers within publishing.
Greenawalt also worked directly with an agent as a reader.
“I really got to have a firsthand look at the business,” she says. “I was shocked by how much my liberal arts education and values came into play.”
Greenawalt says her Pomona education and time working at Pomona’s Center for Speaking, Writing, and the Image (CSWIM) translated directly into professional skills she used during her internship, including communication, collaboration, critical thinking and textual analysis.
The internship gave her a better understanding of the industry while also reinforcing her interest in finding a career that brings together literature, creativity, analysis and practical business skills.
“It was the most fulfilling kind of summer work experience I’ve had yet,” she says, “and I’m already planning for next summer to do something else in the publishing world.”
Making New Connections in a Familiar Place
A Philadelphia native, Lishele Liyuwork ’29 returned home to intern at The Colored Girls Museum, a cultural center primarily featuring work by Black artists, particularly Black women.
Liyuwork’s connection to the museum began years before her internship. During middle school, she participated in a program with the museum through Philly Young Playwrights.
As an intern, she took on a wide range of responsibilities. One of her primary projects was archiving the museum’s art collection and creating more structure around information that had largely been kept informally. She also contributed to social media, helped with events and represented the museum at the BlackStar Film Festival, which the museum sponsored.
One of the most impactful parts of the internship, she says, was meeting people throughout Philadelphia’s museum and arts community and seeing the many ways people build careers in the field. She was particularly struck by the fact that some of the artists she encountered do not have formal arts training. This broadened her understanding of what a career in museums and the arts can look like.
“It’s opened my mind to the things I can do and the career paths I can take,” Liyuwork says. “Be open to any opportunity, even if it’s not necessarily what you studied. It can still be beneficial for me and lead me to the path that I need to be on.”