Dear Arts, Humanities & Art History Majors,
The UC Washington Program (UCDC) is not for Political Science Majors only! There are MANY internships available to Arts and Humanities majors at world renowned institutions such as:
The National Gallery of Art, the Music Division of the Library of Congress, Phillips Collection, Folkways Records, Arena Stage, National Geographic, Folger Theater, Shakespeare Theater, National Portrait Gallery, Hirshhorn Museum, National Symphony, the Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Institution, and other DC-based arts institutions and arts advocacy organizations.
Get UC credit and take your financial aid with you!
Many of these internships are available year round. In addition, during select terms the UCDC program offers a curriculum specifically designed for Art and Humanities majors which features arts, music and theater courses to compliment the internship experience.
In Winter 2014, the following arts courses will be offered at UCDC: American Drama: Politics and Theater, The Moving Image, and a special Music Composition Seminar led by Pulitizer Prize winner and UCSD Professor Roger Reynolds. Admittance to the Music Composition Seminar is by special invitation only. In addition, Professor Reynolds will be teacing the Arts Core research seminar.
The Arts Core Seminar
The Arts Core research seminar is the heart of the curriculum for all participants. The Core seminar meets weekly, and addresses internship observations and experiences and attempts to collaboratively tease out common threads and shared concerns. Like UCDC interns in other fields, a major research project totaling 25 pages is required at the end of the term.
Among the larger goals of the program is to encourage Arts activism. Thus, the central theme of the seminar and the research paper consists in an evaluation of the Intern’s host institution: What does it say its purposes are? What does it actually do? How does it succeed (and why)? In what ways does it fail (and why)?
See samples of student work from the Arts Core research seminar Winter 2011, Spring 2012 and Spring 2013.
What Students are saying about this program:
“I was unaware that D.C. had a very rich art history and culture. I thought the city was focused on politics and politics only. I have never been to art galleries or viewed “professional” dance productions. … I now I feel … I owe it to myself … To further educate myself in art. This class … taught me that art is all around us. It is in architecture, music, films and in many other forms.”
"The Arts in Our Capital’” both satisfied and broadened my appreciation for different mediums of art. [I wanted] to better know the type of work that I would like to continue into a career, and graduate school. [It offered] valuable life/research experience that will make future jobs and graduate school a more realizable possibility.”
"Being a Fourth Year Music Major at the University of California, Riverside, I was fortunate to have been able to be a part of the UCDC Arts Quarter. I was a Fellowship and Marketing Intern with DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center, and thanks to the UCDC experience it allowed me to grow as an individual. ...As a Marketing Intern with DeVos I learned how to market and manage my Mariachi group. I am proud to say that my Mariachi group is now becoming well known on campus because of the marketing techniques I learned from the DeVos Institute. ... The UCDC Arts Quarter was a life changing experience that I would recommend to everyone especially Arts Majors."
"I participated in UCDC Spring quarter of 2013 and it was one of the best decisions I have made in my college career. Through my internships and the time spent in Washington DC, I gained valuable experiences that will stay with me for the rest of my life."
How to Apply
Students must first be admitted to the UCDC program for the Spring Quarter in order to be eligible for the internship program. Students at all UC campuses that are on the quarter system are eligible and should contact their respective campus UCDC offices for application details. Information and application deadlines for each campus's UCDC program can be found here.