Though my summer internship gave me a lot of interesting experience and insight into the work that goes on in academia, one thing it did not bring me was credits, as I would have to pay for a summer term to get those. I was hoping, however, that if I did a good job with my research internship over the summer, I would get offered a position with the Center for American Literary Studies (CALS) here at Penn State, of which Hester Blum was the director at the time. Luckily, this worked out perfectly for me, and I became the undergraduate intern for CALS last year when I came back for the school year.
My internship with CALS last year pretty much amounted to completing one big project per semester. Fall semester, I researched the other English departments in the Big Ten, looking specifically for those researching and teaching in American lit to compare with our program and boost funding. Spring semester was a busy time for CALS, as the C-19 conference (a conference about 19th century American literature) was coming in May. To contribute to this, I compiled the conference program detailing the events of the weekend to make the conference run more smoothly. I really enjoyed my time with CALS this past year and working with Hester from summer to spring. I kept my internship with CALS for this school year as well, and the new director Sean Goudie and I have already gotten started on some new projects for this year, which I look forward to continuing as the year progresses. One such project is working with the Centre County Libraries on their Centre County Reads program, to which I am very excited to contribute.