I worked on a few different projects that utilized different aspects of my skillset. First, I used skills developed during RA and TA work to make suggestions for web technologies that could be used by the Swabian-Allemanic museums for digital storytelling. I was also given various tasks in website quality assurance testing for the new version of the m4p0 website, including evaluations based on accessibility protocols. The digital humanities web-dev experience and critical media lens from my year of CMS proved valuable in assisting with and evaluating both of these projects. I also took on a project that taught me valuable new skills. The project was a game based on “playable books” (Bewegungsbücher), produced in partnership with a contracted game development studio. Through this project I learned how to use the Unity software environment and deal with 2D and 3D game logic and assets.
The work culture was quite different from what I expected. Flexible hours (as long as you met the quota), fluid projects (you could freely distribute your workload between them), supportive but not micromanaging environment, no rigid hierarchy… I definitely appreciated the openness. I especially enjoyed the “field trips” to other locations and museums, including a trip to a park to measure the size/scale of a planned Humboldt Forum exhibition and a trip to the archives beneath the Berlinische Galerie, where I learned all about how archival science works in German institutions. Additionally, there are always people putting on creative and unique events and making/cultivating art and music in Berlin. That’s really inspiring, and I hope to participate in more of that sort of cultural work back in Cambridge/Boston.
My MISTI internship at museum4punkt0 was a very valuable experience: an opportunity to learn long-sought skills, to deal directly with major museums institutions, and to be a part of an open and collaborative German workplace. Now I return to MIT with new cultural perspectives, new ways of living and thinking, and applicable skills that I can use in my school projects and life after academia. It may have even shifted my overall career direction.
