Four history majors—Anisa Sinclair ’22, sophomore Joseph D’Andrea, junior Anujot Kaur and junior Beth Ceriello—gained valuable experience through their summer internships, including at Fintech in Action, the Cradle of Aviation Museum, Connecticut's Mystic Seaport Museum and an elementary school.
Micah Oelze, PhD, assistant professor of Latin American history in the College of Arts and Sciences, said that all four students had “amazing internships” in diverse fields, adding that “history is a highly employable degree. We, the faculty, are working to make sure our students get internships in their fields right away.”
Anisa Sinclair ’22
Greenwood Project, Chicago, Illinois, and Fintech In Action for PEAK6, New York, New York
“Though I have a background in history,” Sinclair said, “the Greenwood Project recognized the value in my diverse skill set, and I attended their four-week intensive training as an intern.” While there, she made connections with professionals and also “further refined skills I had developed as a history major, such as research.”
After that stint, she added, she worked as an intern under the executive director at Fintech In Action, “where I applied the skills I learned and developed at the Greenwood Project. The experience was extremely valuable and taught me to keep an open mind when it comes to my career, no matter the industry.”
Joseph D’Andrea
Sophomore
Cradle of Aviation Museum, Garden City, New York
D’Andrea was selected by Adelphi’s competitive Jaggar Community Fellows Program, “which meant that I was able to intern at a nonprofit organization of my choice, here in New York. As a history major in the Scholar Teacher Education Program (STEP) at Adelphi,” he said, “I was drawn to the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City. Choosing to become a part of the education team there was as ideal of a choice as I could have made.”
Over the course of 10 weeks, this internship offered D’Andrea numerous opportunities, “in fields that I felt comfortable coming into, as well as placing responsibilities on me in which I would learn skills that I never saw myself previously delving into.” He said, “I got the most out of this internship with new skills—ranging from preparing a lesson plan for high school students in the form of a tour, to learning the ins and outs of a computer graphics program in order to create my own 10-minute-long, history-based show for the museum’s planetarium, and to coding and constructing drones and their remotes to be used for several camp groups.”
Anujot Kaur
Junior
Mellon Foundation at Connecticut’s Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut
As a fellow for the Mellon Foundation, Kaur was part of the collaborative project “Reimagining New England Histories: Historical Injustice, Sovereignty and Freedom.” She explained, “For this project, I worked on recovering and incorporating the narratives of African, African American and Indigenous voices back into New England maritime history.”
Kaur also worked at the Tomaquag Indigenous Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island, “where I participated in archival and collections work. I completed a comprehensive collections inventory of the institution’s belongings, which included object handling, records management, policy implementation and the accessioning/deaccessioning processes.”
During her “amazing summer,” Kaur said, “I was able to bring more diverse narratives to colonial institutions and beyond, and also connect with incredible historians and educators who serve as my inspirations.”
Beth Ceriello
Junior
Gribbin Elementary School, Glen Cove, New York
Ceriello described her internship as “a positive and rewarding experience in preparation for my future career. I landed a part-time job [in March 2022] as a floating teacher monitor at the elementary school in the town I grew up in. Since then, I have balanced work along with continuing my education at Adelphi. At the elementary school, I get to work in several different types of classrooms, ranging from kindergarten to second grade, self-contained to regular. ”
She said she sees “the ins and outs of how a classroom is run,” while also helping the teachers with the curriculum.
“One of the first teachers I worked with told me something that will resonate with me for the rest of my life: that even though my goal is adolescent education, working in an elementary school can show where a student comes from. Ultimately, it does not even feel like a job since I love what I do. Getting to see these kids prosper along with learning new things is so rewarding.”
She concluded, “Even though it is part of my job to help these kids learn, they are teaching me so much,” as are her coworkers with their encouragement.