On November 6th 2026, the UCI Art History department hosted its third Internship Touring Day! This event was created to expose students to unique internships in the Orange County area, and encourage them to gain professional experience and make the most of their time as an undergraduate at UCI.
The day started off in Humanities Gateway with some yummy breakfast and a presentation by Internship Director Ethan Robey on the Art History internship program and the SFIAH stipend. After the presentation, the group heard from a panel of past Art History interns including Art History 4+1 student Amelia Cabrales, undergraduate student Jui Wang, and undergraduate student Chiara Widjaja. The past interns talked about their internships at City of Irvine, OC Parks, Fullerton Museum Center, Grand Central Art Center, Art & Cake, and TKO Art, and shared their advice, favorite moments, and the best reasons to do internships as an undergraduate.
At 10:30am, the group boarded a van and headed to the newly established UCI Langson Orange County Museum of Art. At UCILOCMA, we met with the Academic & Public Programs Manager, the Assistant Curator, and the Senior Education Coordinator, who first walked us around one of the gallery spaces, and then took time to talk about internship opportunities at the museum. After, they discussed their career paths and how they got to where they are now, answering questions from students along the way.
After a lunch break, the group drove to the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in downtown Santa Ana. The gallery space is situated right in the middle of the flourishing local art scene and takes part in the Santa Ana Art Walk on the first Saturday of every month. The OCCCA Director greeted us and then one of the artists who works in the space gave us a tour and talked about internships in the gallery. A curator who was working on an exhibition that would open the next day talked to us about the art and what she was doing to prepare for the opening. On a whim, since we were close by, the group also swung by Grand Central Art Center. We hadn't scheduled an official tour, so we mostly explored the space, and Jui Wang, who was on the field trip and was a regular intern there, told us more about opportunities at GCAC.
Our final stop was Bowers Museum, a fairly large local museum in Santa Ana. We met with the Director of Collections/Senior Registrar for Collections & Exhibitions, the Director of Exhibitions, and the Registrar for Collections & Exhibitions. They first gave us a fantastic behind-the-scenes tour of the collections area where we saw lots of neat artifacts and learned about how they are stored. The team talked to us about how items come to them in different states so the preservation process for everything is varied. Afterwards, the team chatted with the group about their career paths, internship opportunities, and what makes working in museums so special. They had a few current interns there to say more about the day-to-day work of interning.
Overall, the group got the chance to make professional connections, learn about a few of the many Art History internships in the area, and get a sense of what they might be excited to try out in the future. If you're interested in attending a future Internship Touring Day or learning more about the department's program, please check out the Internship pages on our website and keep an eye on the department listserv. Don't hesitate to reach out to Ethan Robey (robeye@uci.edu) and Katie Desmond (kdesmond@uci.edu) with any questions!
