College of Science

Science Illustrator Emily Kearney-Williams works at her desk at the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center office in Anchorage, Alaska.

Emily Kearney-Williams ('17) illustrates at her desk during an internship with the Smithsonian Institution's Arctic Studies Center in Anchorage, AK.

 

After students finish their academic year of course work, they gain additional experience by completing a minimum of ten weeks as an intern with a museum, aquarium, university, zoological or botanical institution, magazine, newspaper, or graphic arts studio. This gives program graduates an important edge over science illustrators who lack such experience and a successful internship, documented by a letter from a pleased field supervisor, is important to a student's early career.

These internships provide students with the opportunity to practice and refine the illustration techniques they have learned in class and to develop the kind of independence, perseverance, and interpersonal skills needed to complete substantial projects in a real-world setting. Internships provide a crucial dimension of the program, for they make possible the firsthand experience of fast-paced professional life that a serious student of science illustration needs in balance with the careful attention to craft emphasized in the program.

View a complete list of institutions that have hosted Science Illustration interns below: