Virtual Internship Stories: Deborah Ornelas

Introduce yourself! Tell us your name, grade, where you’re from and where you are doing your internship.
My name is Deborah, I’m a rising sophomore in CC, double majoring in art history and financial economics. I was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, and my internship is in Santiago.

Tell us a bit about your internship. What are some of your daily responsibilities?
I have been interning at the Catholic University in Chile, in their research center for Latin American Social Policy Research. I’m assisting one of the professors on a research project about the art market of the female abstract expressionists. The professor is trying to study that from a financial viewpoint, but my job is to compile all of the background and biographical info for all of the artists. It’s part time, but it depends on the week how much I work. The professor is very flexible, as long as I have the finished product by the end of the summer. Sometimes it’s ten hours a week, sometimes it's twenty, sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less, it just depends.

What I was asked to do over this summer was compile a qualitative report on 12 of the most important female abstract expressionists, so I basically have to compile all the books and publications about the artists, or at least the most important ones. So usually I compile all the information available and then sort through them to find what is most important and relevant to understand what factors influenced their success or failure in the art market. So after I have all the info, I select whatever is most important and write up a report, and then write a short biography, the put together an “artistic curriculum” so their most important exhibits, the main galleries that showed their work, and biographies about them etc. Then I proofread all of that, make sure it’s in order, then move onto the next artist. 

Why did you choose this internship?
I looked at the excel sheet that was published and highlighted which ones seemed of interest, and came across this one that was the intersection of my two majors, so applied, had a short interview and got it! It was very clear that this one was kind of the perfect fit.

What are some of the pros and cons of a virtual internship?
One of the pros is the flexibility, and I don’t know if that is the same for everyone, but for me, I have a lot of flexibility on when, where, and how to do my work. I really enjoyed that, so that's one of the main pros. And one of the cons, since it was a research internship, it would’ve been very helpful to have physical access to libraries. A lot of the stuff is online, but especially with art history, a lot of things were not available online, so I had to make it work with what was. Another pro was being able to bond with a professor from the same region as me - in our check-in calls we would spend the first 5-10 minutes just talking about Latin American politics.

What advice would you give other virtual interns?
Something that is really important being virtual, you have a lot of flexibility, but that comes with a price, so get organized. Really set goals for each day and make a schedule for what you want to get done, because that's definitely something I struggled with - time management gets a lot harder when everything is virtual, so that's my big tip. 

What have you been loving in quarantine? Do you have any book, music, movie or TV show recs?
For books, since I’ve spent all summer reading for research so I haven't been reading a lot outside of that but, for movies I’ve been watching my old favorites with my siblings and mom. Last week I watched this French movie called France. It's really good. I really like it. I’ve also been rewatching Gilmore Girls with my sister, because we love it. And I’ve been listening to a lot of music in Spanish, exploring indie music, but in Spanish which has been cool.

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
I would probably go to Cuba.

What three things would you bring to a desert island?
Hmm.. good question. I would bring pen, paper, and probably a book. My favorite book, a poetry book.