Arcadia Scotland

This fall we have had the pleasure of supporting two interns, Sarah and Maggie, who have thrown themselves into work at West Lothian Women's Aid and Historic Environment Scotland as a part of our INPR310 Semester Internship course.

With an interest in social work and counselling, Sarah had the opportunity to see and contribute to the functioning of West Lothian Women's Aid, a charity that provides refuge, support and advice to young women. Taking part in events, engaging in meetings, contributing to documentation and witnessing the hurdles that this sort of institution must face provided Sarah with practical experience and also contributed to her research for the course, which examined how the pros and cons of communal living in refuges.

Working in quite a different field, Maggie jumped into action at Historic Environment Scotland.  She worked closely on a 5-year community engagement initiative called Scotland's Urban Past, which aims to crowd-source photos, information and narratives related to places around Scotland in order to trace how the country has changed over time. By assisting with community events, working on the Scotland's Urban Past materials, taking on major portion of the project's social media, analysing data and helping to develop the project in myriad other ways, Maggie gained considerable knowledge and experience of working on heritage projects.  This experience fed into her research, which examined how crowd-sourcing is used in heritage industries and where it can be improved. 

While the term has gone far too quickly, our interns managed to pack a lot of hard work into their days.  We are very proud of both of our interns and wish them the best as they carry the knowledge they gained into future endeavors.