Before their off terms, Dartmouth students of all majors scramble to secure internships. By and large, pre-med students look for research or shadowing positions, government majors seek out policy-related internships and economics majors scrounge for opportunities in finance.
But what do students who study the arts look for when searching for a job? While the obvious answer is an internship simply related to “art,” the reality is that the job market offers an array of different creative opportunities.
Margaret Bone ’24, a studio arts major, worked in her hometown of Nashville, Tenn. with a local artist, Mary Stengel Bentley, a multidisciplinary artist known for her mural work. As she experimented with different mediums and techniques, Bone said she learned practical tips from her mentor about working as an artist, which boosted her confidence.
“I knew that I wanted to be making art and painting, but I’d never done that structurally outside of class,” Bone said. “So I asked [Bentley] how she organized her studio time as a practicing artist — things like that were helpful so I could get outside of my own head.”
While Bone developed as an artist, Connor Federico-Grome ’27 worked as a sales and marketing intern for Boston Common Magazine, a subset of the national magazine Modern Luxury. During his internship, Federico-Grome focused on expanding the magazine’s reader base by building connections with local businesses.
“I was doing a lot of work setting up relationships with different hotels and cafes in the Boston area to get magazines distributed to those places,” he said. “They would display those copies at their locations for customers and patrons to read.”
Film major Annabel Everett ’25 spent her summer with the Pittsburgh Film Office, a nonprofit that supports movie, television and commercial media productions in southwestern Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Film Office focuses on providing information on the region and encouraging local government and businesses to support production, according to its website. As a video production intern, Everett edited segments that had been filmed during the organization’s workshops and promoted educational material. Everett also produced self-directed projects through the Pittsburgh Film Office — which provided resources to complete the projects while also allowing creative freedom.
Everett said she wrote, casted and directed a short comedic film starring local actors. The purpose of the film was to promote economic development, explaining the “specific statistical benefits” of encouraging local film production, she said.
“They wanted my help for a sketch … that would draw people in by showcasing more of the cinematic potential in the city,” Everett said.
Bone, Everett and Federico-Grome each explored more creative roles while working in different parts of the arts industry.
Creative internships can also be an opportunity to explore different aspects of the arts. While she had previously been commissioned for work by clients who gave her a “list of things they are interested in,” Bone said she took it upon herself to create art as a “sustained investigation” because she wanted to spend time creating through a different lens.
“[Commissions are] still very creative, but it’s not creating art for myself that I’m personally motivated by,” she said. “Meeting with [Bentley] was super helpful because she answered those questions of that balance of creating for yourself and creating for others.”
The independent nature of creative work has its advantages and challenges, but Everett said she enjoyed the more open-ended nature of her internship.
“With creative internships, it tends to be a little bit more self-motivated, and you can add your own ideas and thoughts into the process,” she explained. “They want your perspective — you are hired for the job so that you can contribute creatively.”
Bone, meanwhile, said the lack of deadlines made her feel as if “the world was [her] oyster” because she had time to create pieces that she was proud of. On the other hand, she noted that it was “hard to create an efficient workflow” and find a suitable work-life balance.
“When you’re being creative on your own and on your own time, it's very hard to think of it as work,” Bone said. “I could get down on myself if I [did not finish a painting], [and even though] I could spend a ton of time and finish it, that may not be the most sustainable practice.”
Federico-Grome agreed that the creative independence of his marketing and sales role was “daunting” for his first few projects, especially when it came to creating graphics that aligned with the luxury magazine’s brand — though his “creative eye” was “definitely helpful.”
“I didn’t have a really good sense of the brand’s aesthetic yet,” he said. “I would look through old copies of the magazine to better understand how different spreads were set up and organized and their branding and marketing.”
The interdisciplinary and self-driven nature of arts internships means lessons learned over a summer can be applied to a broad range of endeavors back on campus, including those that may seem less creative, Everett said.
“Every class forces you to be that self motivated worker and student,” she said. “I would take classes here that were very much out of my wheelhouse, like a STEM class, and I would have the urge to add something creative into it — like starting some essay for a philosophy class with a more narrative style. Dartmouth allows for that creative flexibility, even within less creative fields or classes.”
