"...a great opportunity for me to gain valuable experience directly related to my career goals." - Jacob Dinkelaker

As part of the Gettysburg Semester, I had the opportunity to do many great things while I was living in Gettysburg. These “experiences” included the Friday battlefield trips, a visit to Mister Ed’s Elephant Museum (A Gettysburg institution since 1975), exploring all areas of the battlefield, and the best of all, interning at Gettysburg National Military Park in interpretation. Working in interpretation this fall was a change of pace from working in Museum Services, as I had previously done.

During the summer, I was fortunate to be able to work under Greg Goodell and Paul Shevchuk as a seasonal for Museum Services, a job that I was made aware of thanks to Cathy Bain and the Civil War Era Studies office at Gettysburg College. While working in the museum, one of my first projects was re-housing many of the artifacts that were previously on display in the old Gettysburg Visitor Center. These artifacts had been packed away for the move to the new Visitor center; it was part of my duties to unpack them, and help Paul Shevchuck assign them new locations in the collection storage. The other seasonals and I also started several other projects. We processed hundreds of photos from the 125^th Anniversary events to present day photos taken by maintenance personnel, documenting what they were working on. We assigned each picture a number continuing the record keeping done by previous employees, and housed the pictures in archival folders and boxes for protection. Another project we tackled was reorganizing the relic collection by discoverer.

Although I had a great time working in Museum Services, I realized that it was not something I wanted to pursue as a career. Working with so much of our country’s history, I found myself wanting to share it with the public, and share with people my passion for history. I was able to do that in the fall, switching departments at the park, when I began my internship in interpretation under Scott Hartwig, supervisory historian. I had several responsibilities as part of my internship. One of my primary duties was staffing the visitor center information desk. Here I answered visitor’s questions, and provided information on how to explore the park and see the sights. I also developed and presented two interpretive programs on different areas of the park. My first program was on the Soldier’s National Cemetery, and the soldiers buried there. I tried to focus my program on the memory of the soldiers, and preservation of the park itself. My second program was on Day 3, specifically on Pickett’s Charge. For my program, I started with Meade’s headquarters, and developed the program to talk about the charge and ended with the horrific results of the attack. My direct supervisor, Angie Atkinson, was a big help as a sounding board for ideas for my programs, in addition to being full of advice on all things concerning the National Park Service and employment with them.

I had a great time during my internship, working for the National Park Service in interpretation. I really enjoyed working at Gettysburg National Military Park, and it is something that I am pursuing as a career. My internship this fall was a great opportunity for me to gain valuable experience directly related to my career goals, one of which is to obtain a job as a park ranger. My internship was probably the most rewarding experience I had during the semester, and it has helped me immensely as I continue my journey learning not only about history and the civil war, but historical interpretation as well.