Molly Meredith had an ethnography internship during Fall 2024.
Briefly explain what you did and the result of your internship.
In this internship I learned more about how to plan and conduct a research ethnography! I learned new skills along the way that touched the entire process, from planning to field research to data analysis to data presentation. It was incredibly usefel, fun, and provided a great learning environment.
What did you learn in your internship that you were not expecting to learn?
Learning how to use Otterai and MAXQDA for data analysis was so useful and they are definitely tools that I will be using in the future! The people I worked with were so great and I consider them to be my good friends, not just people I had to work with!
How have your future plans changed because of what you learned from your internship experience?
Hopefully I can continue with this internship and get more experience with qualitative research. It's really opened my eyes to the possibilities of my future with an anthropology degree.
Please share how your experience led to personal inspiration or insightful revelation.
This was one of my first real life engagements with Ethnography and it made me so excited to continue on this path. I'm a junior in the anthropology program and am still uncertain about what I will do for work, but this gave me so much hope that there are useful and practical ways to apply what I've been learning. Working at the MTC was fantastic because the people I worked with were so kind and it was a very uplifting experience. It strengthened my testimony of the importance of missionary work becuase I understand all of the unique personalities and creativty that go into making it work! I feel that I am one step closer to pursuing the life that God has intended for me.
Would you recommend this internship to other students?
100% yes, I could not recommend it more. The skills and experience that you gain are so essential and you work with the best people ever. It has opened so many doors for me and I'm so grateful that I did it!