Week 1: Introduction

    Hello everyone! My name is Michael Cole, and I am a senior with the University of Central Florida working to earn my bachelor's degree in History. Ever since I was a kid, I have always loved learning about history, whether it was United States history, world history, or even familial history. However, this love for learning was always brought out the most during visits to museums. I loved to look at every artifact on display and to read the plaques to learn about what these items were and how historical people used them. As I got older, this interest only grew as I learned more about how history influences the present day and as I watched peers' interest in history wane. 

    So, when it became time for me to determine my future career path, a role in public history seemed to be the perfect fit. Not only would be able to work with a wide range of historical materials, but I would be able to educate the people in my community on why history matters to all of us and why it is so fascinating. That is why I am so excited to begin interning with The Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse and Museum next week. 

    It is my hope that while working with the talented museum staff, I will be able to learn about how museums operate on a day-to-day basis and how they take care of their collections of artifacts and properties. I want to develop skills in collection management, exhibit curation and site management. Most importantly though, I want to learn about how these museums make learning history fun and engaging, so that I can carry that same enthusiasm with me into my future career. Here in this blog, I will catalog my work done with museum and will go into detail about what I am learning from my mentors and what projects they tasked me with completing. I hope that this blog will encourage anyone else thinking about internships in the public history and museum fields to pursue them and to get involved with their local museums. In any case,  I look forward to getting started and hope that you all enjoy my blog posts going forward with this project

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